Page 71 of The Trouble With Love

I raised an eyebrow. ‘Okay. So you don’t know what oblique means, but you’re prepared to bandy words like auspicious about?’

Megan hid her face in Rufus. ‘What can I say? Patchy education.’

‘Obviously. But you might be onto something. Midwinter, yes. We really ought to put on a bit of a show for that, shouldn’t we?’ I pulled my jacket back on. ‘I can feel a plan coming on.’

‘What sort of plan? Remember your last one, when that man thought we were blokes in drag? Anyway. I’m off out with Rufus. We’ve got a play date with a greyhound.’

‘Same one, or are you putting it about in the hound department?’

‘Same one. Cute owner, fast dog, keeps us both busy.’

I left her brushing Rufus. She clearly wanted to make a good impression, because she was giving the dog a centre-parting, like a werewolf Little Lord Fauntleroy. I toyed with the idea of going back to my place, which was beginning to look a bit uninhabited, but settled for popping in to pick up some clean clothes and the post, and heading back to the Old Lodge.

Kai was in the living room, on his laptop. He’d got a pencil clamped between his teeth and his fingers were travelling at near warp speed over the keys.

‘You have discovered the delete button, haven’t you?’ I pointed to the pencil. ‘You really don’t need a rubber.’

‘Ha. Gave up smoking last year. Still get the cravings when I write. Working on my story about the lads in Barndale Woods.’ He rattled away at the keyboard a bit more. ‘I’ve had a whisper that they’re moving on. Probably something to do with you . . .’ He shot me a quick look over the pencil. ‘Locking you in that shed wasn’t the smartest thing to do. They think they’ve got you intimidated over the witching thing, but they don’t know if you’ll stay quiet forever. So . . . getting away, good move, as far as they’re concerned. Bearing in mind that they think dealing drugs is a pretty clever way to make a living, so . . .’ A shrug and he chewed the pencil end, staring at the screen. ‘I’m going to have to be quick. Do something to drive them out into the open . . . If I could find where they’ve got the stuff it would be a start, but . . . there’s no cohesion, no narrative. Bugger. Anyway.’ He looked up at me, eyes gleaming. ‘Not your problem. How was Vivienne?’

‘She wants me to do a charm.’ I flopped onto the sofa, and then had a moment of good feeling that I was at home enough here to flop.

‘Intriguing. Tell me.’

I rested my head on the sofa arm and told him. He spat the pencil onto the chair, he was laughing so much, and, when he heard that the whole spell thing had been made up, I seriously feared for his internal organs. Since meeting Eve he’d come down a little and lost some of the darkness that had surrounded him, even though he was still protesting a bit about the whole ‘spending Christmas’ thing. Kai was nicer relaxed, less edgy and easier to live with. Not that I was living with him, you understand, oh no, we were feeling our way into this relationship, creeping forward incrementally and trying to adjust to having someone who cared.

‘I’m wondering what you’re going to come up with for this charm,’ Kai calmed down enough to be able to speak, and took up the pencil again. ‘Are you going to make it obscure, or is it going to be a bit more down-home simplicity? I hear it’s amazing what you can do with two boiled eggs and a feather.’

‘It’s amazing what you can do with a feather.’

His eyes were suddenly hot. ‘What can I say, I’m a talented guy.’

‘Ain’t that the truth.’ We looked at one another for a few moments. He was tapping the pencil between his fingers, playing it along his thigh. ‘And stop doing that. We’ve both got work to do.’

He tipped his head on one side. ‘You worried we’re going to use up all the sexual mojo we’ve got going on?’

I shrugged.

‘Hey, Holly, it doesn’t wear off you know. We make love. It’s never been that for me before, never.’

‘But we don’t know, do we?’ I burst out, jumping to my feet with a suddenness that made my ears sing. ‘Neither of us has ever managed to sustain anything that’s lasted longer than face paint! How do we know that we’re not going to get sick of the whole thing in a couple of weeks, and then you’ll sod off back to Hurgleflurgle-stan and I’ll . . .’

‘You’ll what?’ He stood up, carefully balancing the laptop on the chair. ‘What, Holly?’ A fingertip traced my cheekbone, tipped my chin so that I had to look him in the eye.

‘I’ll be left alone,’ I whispered. The hair on my neck was prickling at the way he looked at me. His eyes were sincere but guarded, as though he was shielding himself against my words. ‘Nick’s gone . . . If you go, what’s left? I used to think I liked being alone but . . .’

‘You liked being alone, or it was easier?’

I had a quick flash of memory. The attempts I’d made when I was younger to reconcile dating with Nick’s unpredictable demands, the so-called ‘boyfriend’ who’d insulted him, the men who’d come and then gone again when they’d realised that I was always going to put my brother first. Always had to put him first. ‘Oh, none of it was easy,’ I half-whispered. ‘None of it.’

‘Holly,’ my name was an outbreath. A sigh. ‘Talk to me.’

Fury whiplashed me, an anger I rarely let myself feel these days, and absolutely never let out. I bit my lip until it bled in an attempt to trap the words behind my tongue. ‘Nothing to say.’

‘It’s hurting you to keep it all inside. Please. You’re safe, I won’t get hurt like Nicholas, I won’t run. Just tell me, all those things you won’t even let yourself think.’

His hair smelled of gooseberries and his eyes had softened in colour to a kind of creamy amber with vast, dark centres that I couldn’t stop myself staring into. ‘You need to let yourself feel, Holly. Before you can really let me in, you need to let the anger out.’ His hand moved, traced down the back of my neck and rested on my shoulder. ‘Make room for other emotions.’

Something about the gesture made the rage flick its tail again and this time I let it. Leaned in to the solid warmth of the big Welshman and felt the heat rise. ‘He . . . he was fine when we were kids!’

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