Page 59 of Christmas at the Borrow a Bookshop

Chapter Twenty-Three

By Candlelight at the Borrow-A-Bookshop

‘Bath?’ Magnús said, staring at Alex taking off her sodden slippers on the shop doormat.

‘What?’ She dragged her tired body upright, shaking raindrops from her coat.

‘I said, I should make you a hot bath.’

Alex pushed her hair from her face, bewildered. ‘Should we talk about what happened?’

‘Did you almost leave, then come back here in a hurry, even in the storm?’

‘Uh, well, that’s the long and the short of it, yes.’ She shrugged. ‘I came back because I wasn’t finished spending time with you.’

‘I see,’ he said, eyes growing softer by the second.

‘Can I please stay?’

‘OK.’

‘OK? That’s it? You don’t mind?’

Magnús didn’t mind one bit, but when he realised how much Alex was shivering he found that all he minded was getting her warm again. ‘Quick,’ he told her, ‘bathroom,’ and by the light from his phone he bounded up the spiral staircase to run the hot tap until the last drop of warm water was gone. Alex dragged herself after him, exhausted and elated all at once.

Someone, no doubt Jowan, had had the foresight to furnish the bookshop with enough Price’s white candles to last an entire winter without electricity. Magnús clustered them five at a time in coffee mugs, lit them with long cook’s matches and set them all around the foot of the bath as well as on every table in the bookshop so the whole place glowed a soft orange.

Alex had waited until he’d gone downstairs before undressing and lowering herself into the steaming bath and she listened as he swept out the fire and set it again with kindling. She heard him striking matches and the eventual crackles of the hearth coming to life, then there was the sound of running water in the tiny kitchen at the back of the shop and, a few minutes later, the whistling sound of an old-fashioned kettle boiling on a gas ring.

When he came back upstairs he knocked at the bathroom door. ‘I’ve made hot chocolate. I’ll leave yours here for you.’

Alex laughed at the sight of his hand reaching round the door and Magnús trying to set the mug down on the sink without looking. This shyness between them was new. She supposed running through the rain to be with him again had taken their relationship – could she even call it that? – to a new emotional level, and it was awkward trying to figure out what that meant, especially as they only had another week together.

She had no idea Magnús was bursting with words he wanted to say to her, but was holding off, not wanting to overwhelm her after whatever it was that had happened between her and her family this morning.

‘Just come in,’ she told him.

‘Should I?’ he said, still behind the door.

‘Come on!’

Candlelight and a deep bath was a totally different thing compared to last night by the fire. It had been magical of course, but somehow this all felt much more intimate.

The glow of the flames hid the pink in Magnús’s cheeks. He glanced at Alex, her hair washed and sleek over her shoulders, the ends fanning out across the surface of the water.

‘You can get in,’ she told him.

‘Hm?’ He tried to look casual and not at all alarmed at the suggestion.

‘The electricity’s gone for the whole village, it looks like. Who knows when we’ll next have hot water? Get in. I won’t look.’ To encourage him, she slapped a hand over her eyes above a wicked grin.

His shyness was all the reminder she needed that she didn’t yet know him all that well, in spite of everything that had happened. They needed to go back to baby steps again, feeling their way around each other, and that included sharing the things she’d been reluctant to share before.

She knew Magnús was grinning too as he threw his clothes to the floor and clambered into the tub, because she peeped through the gap in her fingers. The glimpse of his broad shoulders and flexing delts as he lowered himself into the water made her want to bite her lip and turn her eyes bashfully to the ceiling. His skin glistened in the candlelight as he scooped water into his hands and rubbed it over his face, making his lashes spike and turning Alex’s insides soft and wanting. All the while, the rain pattered icily in near horizontal sheets at the steamy bathroom window.

‘It’s a bit of a squeeze,’ she told him, lifting her hand from her eyes at the sensation of their bare skin touching and their long limbs tangling underwater.

Something in Magnús’s demeanour told her he had to get words out of the way before he could truly relax in here with her.

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