And it was… nice.
A little too nice, actually.
And I couldn’t help but wonder if I was making a terrible decision staying here.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
A shiver cascaded through my entire body, and my teeth chattered as I reached out for my phone in the darkness.
Two-forty-five in the morning.
Why was it so damn cold?
It was absolutely freezing in this bedroom. Had one of the old windows accidentally opened? Was that the reason for this?
I crawled out from under the covers and pulled my leggings and t-shirt back on. I’d decided to sleep in my underwear since I didn’t want to sleep in my clothes, and it’d been all lush and hot when I’d gone to bed a couple of hours ago.
Now, it was literally like sleeping outside.
I pulled the covers off the bed and wrapped them around myself, moving on tiptoe to check the windows.
They were all closed. The fireplace was blocked in, so it wasn’t that which meant—
The radiator. It was ice cold.
Had the boiler died?
Oh, no. I bet the pipes had frozen. The temperature had plummeted overnight with even more snow forecast, and I could see through the window that it was coming down thick and fast.
This was not good.
I pulled my sweater on and re-wrapped myself in the blankets, using my phone torch to help me navigate my way around. I checked a few other radiators upstairs and the one in the downstairs hallway before I walked into the living room, but they were all cold. Nicholas had been as good as his word and slept on the sofa, and the living room was a damn sight warmer than the rest of the house.
He was lying on his back with one arm thrown over the top of his head, and it was so much warmer in here that he had one leg sticking out from the covers. He looked so peaceful, and I hated to wake him, but if it was just the boiler and not the pipes freezing, we would be able to handle this.
“Nicholas,” I said, turning off my phone torch. “Nicholas.”
He shifted, but he didn’t wake up.
I edged closer to him and leaned over, nudging his arm. “Nicholas.”
Nothing.
Oh, my God.
He slept like the dead.
Of course he did. He was a man.
Why was I surprised?
“Nicholas!” I said, this time giving him a good hard shove in the arm.
“What—who—” He jolted awake, sitting up and blinking at me. His eyes were glazed with sleep that took a solid minute to clear, and recognition slowly dawned on him. “Quinn. What’s wrong?”
“I think the heating is out,” I replied, shivering. “It’s freezing upstairs and none of the radiators are working.”
“Oh, shit.” He tossed the covers off himself and I looked away when I saw he was wearing nothing but a pair of black sweatpants.
Not that it was a horrible view, but ahem.
Excuse me, you know?
He grabbed a t-shirt and pulled it over his head, then reached behind the sofa to test the radiator. “Did you check more than one?”
I nodded. “About five. They’re all off.”
“Fuck it.” He ran his hand through his hair. “The boiler is about fifteen years old, and I was going to get someone to service it and give me a quote for a new one, but I forgot. I bet it’s died in this cold.”
“It’s snowing hard out there.”
He crossed to the window and peered out. “Shit. Um, we might need someone to come clear the road.”
I stilled. “Is it that bad?”
Slowly, he nodded. “Quinn, I don’t know if we can get out tomorrow morning. If this doesn’t stop, I’m gonna bet we’re stuck unless someone can bring a tractor down here.”
I dragged my duvet cape across the living room to the window and peered out. The snow had drifted up around our trucks, effectively blocking them in, and whatever area of the driveway that had been gray slush earlier was now a thick, thick blanket of white that was at least two feet high.
There had been a point last night where I thought staying over was a disaster.
I was, in fact, correct.
“Oh, this is bad,” I whispered. “Nicholas, if we can’t get out, we can’t open the grotto!”
He slowly turned to face me. “It’s fine. There’s nothing we can do now, but we’ve got shovels and I think there’s a snowblower in the shed. If it works, we might be able to dig at least one of the trucks out.”
I shivered again and tightened my grip on the covers. “But if this keeps up…”
“What are the chances of your family being able to get a tractor down here?”
“It depends. We got a secondhand digger last year to put in a new pond for the ducks, but I don’t know if they can get it out.” I chewed the skin at the side of my thumb. “I guess it depends how well they salted the courtyard outside the barn where they all are.”