been a long day.’ She shut her own laptop and stood up beside him, gathering up their glasses with her free hand. Then, while she put the dog out, he put his computer back in the study and went back to the kitchen, looking broodingly out over the garden at the snowman staring back at him with slightly crooked Brussels sprout eyes, and he wondered if his feelings could extend to a relationship.
Not sex, not just another casual, meaningless affair, a way to scratch an itch, to blank out the emptiness of his life, but a relationship.
With Amelia.
She was calling Rufus, patting her leg and encouraging him away from a particularly fascinating smell, and then the door shut and he heard the key turn and she came through to the breakfast room and stopped.
‘Oh! I thought you’d gone upstairs.’
‘No. I was waiting for you,’ he said, and something flickered in her eyes, an acknowledgement of what he might have said.
He led her to the landing by his bedroom and turned to her, staring wordlessly down at her for the longest moment. It was crazy. He didn’t know her, he wasn’t ready, he was only now starting to sift through the raft of feelings left behind by losing his family—but he wanted her, her and her family, and he didn’t know how to deal with that.
Sex he could handle. This—this was something else entirely. He lifted his right hand and cradled her cheek. ‘Thank you for today,’ he said softly, and her eyes widened and she shook her head.
‘No—thank you, Jake. You’ve been amazing—so kind I don’t know how to start. It could have all been unimaginably awful, and instead—it’s been the best Christmas I can remember. And it’s all down to you. So thank you, for everything you’ve done, for me, for the children, even for Rufus. You’re a star, Jake Forrester—a good man.’
And, going up on tiptoe, she pressed a soft, tentative kiss to his lips.
The kiss lingered for a second, and then her heels sank back to the floor, taking her away from him, and he took a step back and let her go with reluctance.
There was time, he told himself as he got ready for bed. There was no hurry—and maybe this was better not hurried, but given time to grow and develop over time.
He opened the bedside drawer and took out his painkillers, and the photo caught his eye. He lifted it out and stared at them. They seemed like strangers now, distant memories, part of his past. He’d never forget them, but they were gone, and maybe he was ready to move on.
He opened his suitcase and pulled out the broken remains of the watch, and put it with the photograph in a box full of Rachel’s things in the top of his wardrobe.
Time to move on, he told himself.
With Amelia?
‘ISN’T it time we bathed the dog? We’ve been talking about it for days, and we still haven’t got round to it.’
She looked up at Jake and bit her lip to stop the smile. ‘He is pretty smelly, isn’t he?’
‘You could say that. And right now he’s wet and mucky from the snow, so it seems like a good time. And he’s got all night to dry by the fire.’
‘I’ll get my shampoo and conditioner and run the water in the sink,’ she said, getting to her feet from the hearthrug and running up to her bathroom, then coming back to the utility room—because even she drew the line at bathing the dog in the kitchen sink—and a moment later Jake appeared with the dog at his heels and an armful of towels from the cupboard in the boiler room.
‘Here—old towels. I tend to use them for swimming, but I’m sure the dog won’t object.’
They were better than her best ones, she thought, but she didn’t comment, just thanked him, picked Rufus up and stood him in the water and ladled it over him with a plastic jug she’d found in the cupboard under the sink.
‘He’s very good,’ Jake said, leaning against the worktop and watching her bath him. ‘Not that that surprises me. Did you have time to look at any of that stuff I gave you, by the way?’
‘Yes. It doesn’t look too bad. Do you want me to have a go?’
‘Could you?’
‘Sure. I’ll do it while Rufus dries, if you like.’ She lathered him from end to end, drenched him in conditioner to get the tangles out, then rinsed him again even more thoroughly and lifted the plug out and squeezed the water off him and then bundled him up in the towels and carried him back to the fire.
‘Have you got a comb?’
‘I’ll brush him,’ she said, and gently teased the tangles out while he stood and shivered.
‘Is he cold?’
‘No, he just hates it. He’s a wuss and he doesn’t like being brushed. He’ll get over it.’
‘Is she being mean to you, sweetheart?’ he crooned, and Rufus wafted his skinny little tail, looking pleadingly at his hero for rescue.
‘Forget it, big-eyes, you’re getting brushed,’ she said firmly, but she kissed him to take the sting out of it. It was over in a moment, and then he shook wildly and ran round the room, scrubbing his face on the rug and making them laugh.
‘Right, those documents,’ she said. ‘Shall I do it on my computer?’
‘It’s probably easier.’
So she sat at the table, and he sat in the chair by the fire, and Rufus settled down on a towel and let Jake brush him gently until he was dry, and she thought how nice it was, how cosy—and she couldn’t imagine what she was doing getting herself sucked into La-La Land like this.
So she forced herself to concentrate, and after a while she sat back and blew out her cheeks.
‘OK, I’ve done it.’
‘What, the first one?’
‘No, all three.’
‘Really?’
He sat next to her, produced the translations he’d already apparently had done and scanned the two side by side, and then sat back and met her eyes.
‘They’re excellent. Better. Better English—cleaner, clearer. So—do you want the job?’
She laughed a little breathlessly. ‘Do I—I don’t know. That depends on what you pay, and how.’ And how much contact I’ll have to have with you, and whether it’s going to do my head in trying to be sensible—
‘Word count, normally. I’m not sure what we pay without looking, but I’m sure it’s fair, and if you don’t agree with it, I’ll match what you’ve been getting. That’s on top of a retainer, of course. I can check for you. I’ll have a look through the accounts. We can go over to the office tomorrow—in fact, do you think the kids would
