She thought illogically that he would never be any good as a Father Christmas unless he had a charisma transplant.
‘I’m doing the same as you, it would seem, walking by the lake,’ she said calmly, ‘only I’m not skulking about amongst the trees. I was just about to go back when the lights came on.’
‘I don’t know the place as well as you,’ he told her, ‘and thought I could take a short cut from one side of the lake to the other, but didn’t get it quite right. I must say that you are the last person I was expecting to see out here. I would have thought Friday night would be party night.’
‘It usually is in some form or other. My friends were surprised to hear that I was giving it a miss.’
‘And why are you?’ he asked, thinking that he must be insane, wanting to know the workings of her mind.
‘I didn’t want to risk meeting up with you again,’ she said with a hollow laugh, ‘but maybe it would have been wiser if I’d stayed in. Look at us here by the deserted lake, not a soul in sight, just the two of us. When I left the practice tonight it was with the thought that I wouldn’t be seeing anything of you for two whole days, but I was wrong.’
She was hugging her top coat more tightly around her, shivering in the night air, and he said, ‘Come on. I’ll buy you a hot drink at the hotel and then, unwelcome as my presence might be, will see you safely home.’ As she was about to refuse, he added, ‘Don’t argue!’
They drank their coffees largely in silence and Julianne didn’t think she could feel more uncomfortable in Aaron’s presence until he asked quite suddenly, ‘How is it that you’ve never married?’
‘That is soon answered,’ she replied. ‘The man I was attracted to didn’t love me and I’ve never felt like that about anyone since.’
‘It would seem to be that we do have one thing in common, then,’ he said sombrely, and looked at his watch.
She saw him and said, ‘Do you want us to make tracks?’
He shook his head and as if his thoughts were elsewhere said absently, ‘Whenever you’re ready will do.’
‘I’m ready now,’ she replied, with a sudden urge to be back where she belonged, away from this strange encounter that was the last thing she’d been expecting when she’d left the apartment earlier.
Once they were outside the bakery Julianne said, ‘Thanks for the coffee, Aaron. I had no intention of breaking into your evening, just the opposite, in fact.’
‘Don’t fret about it,’ he told her. ‘It was just a one-off,’ and even as he spoke he was turning in his tracks and with a wave of the hand was gone.
Unlocking the door, she began to climb the stairs and for the rest of the evening sat by the fire, wishing she hadn’t had her boots on when a band had begun playing for dancing in the hotel. It would have given her the chance to test just how deep his aversion to her was.
In the days when he’d been courting Nadine and the two of them had gone out leaving her alone in the flat, she had used to pretend that she was dancing in his arms and would float around the place dreamily, but only she knew that.
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