Chapter 54
Thea hadn’t really registered the snowfall before she left the house: it had just been a few flakes before dinner, but it was turning into something a little more beautiful and dramatic as she shut the front door.
It seemed that Mollie Wakefield had been right about the long-range weather forecast. She’d chucked on a hoodie and a pair of trainers, reasoning that it was just a short journey to Nick’s place, so she wouldn’t need to wrap up.
Hopefully, what she had to say to Nick wouldn’t take too long.
Now she’d made up her mind, she couldn’t back out. She didn’t want to wait another minute.
‘Mum, Dad, wish me luck.’ She hadn’t ‘spoken’ to them for a while, she realised, not since Nick had taken on a more significant role in her life, but she felt as though she needed their ghostly reassurance now.
She’d idealised her parents’ marriage over the years, and when her own relationship with Ed had ended, she’d blamed herself for not being able to sustain something as powerful as her parents had.
With age had come experience, and she realised that all relationships faced challenges, but she’d never stopped hoping that one day, she’d find something as strong.
‘Nick Saint, you’d better be home,’ she muttered as the snow began to get heavier.
Snow in Somerset wasn’t common, but when it came it had a tendency to blanket the county.
She switched her wiper blades up a notch and shivered.
The Volvo’s heating system left a lot to be desired, and she regretted the decision to leave her coat and gloves behind.
Slowing down was probably the wrong move, though. The car, once so reliable, had been getting more and more temperamental as it aged, and with a final arthritic splutter, the engine died.
‘Shit!’ Thea thumped her steering wheel as the car coasted to a halt.
She was, irritatingly, halfway between the centre of Lower Brambleton and the long, winding lane that led to Nick’s cottage on the edge of the land Saints’ Farm owned.
Manoeuvring the car into the verge as closely as she could, she cut the engine. Now what?
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake!’ Thea felt the urge to scream aloud when she realised, in her haste, she’d also left her phone on the living room table.
Great. There was only one thing for it. Thrusting open the car door, thankful as she did so that there was no oncoming traffic, she slammed it shut and started the freezing walk to Nick’s place.
At least, she thought, it would give her time to think about what exactly she was going to say to him when she got there.