A Christmas Night to Remember

‘They’re entitled to their opinion.’ He bent his head and kissed her once, hard. ‘Get dressed in warm clothes. Unless…’ he paused as something occurred to him ‘…you’re too tired?’

He meant unless her legs were paining her, Melody thought. And they were, a little, but not half so much as they had in the hospital, when she’d had nothing to think about but how she felt. A feeling of recklessness took hold. ‘No, I’m not tired.’

‘Come on then. We’ll build our very own Frosty for posterity.’

‘I hate to remind you, but it’ll melt within days.’

‘Ah, but the memory won’t,’ he said, as they left the sitting room for their respective bedrooms. ‘And I for one happen to believe that all snowmen come alive the moment they’re alone. He’ll make the most of his short sojourn here.’

‘You’re crazy,’ she said, laughing. This was all very un-Zeke-like. ‘Absolutely crazy. Do you know that?’

‘No, just grateful.’ His voice was suddenly serious. ‘A few months back they were telling me to prepare myself for the worst on that first night they got you into hospital. That kind of experience has a way of making you sort out what’s important in life and what’s not. You think everything is under control, that you have the future mapped out in nice neat compartments, and then you realise it can change in a moment of time. We’re so fragile, us human beings. We break easily.’

‘Especially in an altercation with a lorry,’ Melody put in dryly, not wanting to continue along that route. ‘There is something to be said for the olden days, when it was just horses and carts and Shanks’s pony. A wheel over your foot wouldn’t have been so bad.’

‘I guess.’ He smiled, the glint of laugher back in his eyes. ‘Although I got kicked by a horse as a child and it’s less than pleasant. I was black and blue for weeks.’

There were so many things she didn’t know about him. Why it was suddenly so important that she hadn’t known about the boyhood incident Melody didn’t know, but it was. She turned, opening her bedroom door, and once inside the room dressed quickly in several layers.

The hotel staff would think they’d taken leave of their senses, she thought, as she finally pulled on her thick coat and a woolly hat and scarf. But this beat the many nights in hospital when she’d watched each long hour creep by while the rest of the world slept. Everything was so black in the early hours when you were wide awake and hurting, so hopeless and daunting.

Perhaps she had thought too much? She nodded mentally to the notion. But how could you turn your mind off when sleep wouldn’t come? She had refused sleeping pills; she had been on enough medication in the initial days following the accident to last her a lifetime. So drugged up she remembered nothing.

So stop thinking now. Again she nodded mentally. What had that little Irish nurse with the bubbly personality used to say to her? Oh, yes. ‘Go with the flow.’ And if the flow tonight was behaving like a pair of kids, so be it.

Zeke was waiting for her when she left her room, and once in the lift he dropped a feather-light kiss on her nose. ‘You look about ten years old in that hat.’ He flicked the bobbles with one finger. ‘All bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.’

She smiled. Zeke just looked drop-dead gorgeous. ‘And is that good or bad?’ she asked lightly, openly fishing for compliments.

‘Oh, good—definitely good. I was half expecting you to change your mind about the snowman, to be honest.’ He smiled. ‘You’re always such a stickler for not rocking the boat and playing safe. I didn’t think you’d dare face the hotel staff.’

Was she? She stared at him. Probably. Another ghost from her childhood she’d brought with her into adulthood. Her grandmother had definitely been of the old brigade who believed children should be seen and not heard. Part of what had attracted her to Zeke in the beginning was his absolute refusal to accept boundaries, both from outside and within. ‘Life isn’t a bowl of cherries in spite of what the old song said,’ he had told her once. ‘It’s what you make it, and to win you have to take life by the throat sometimes and force it into submission. Rolling over and playing dead gets you nowhere.’

She hadn’t known if she agreed with him at the time, but tonight she knew she did. Keeping her voice light, she said, ‘It’s not exactly on a par with climbing Mount Everest or journeying down the Amazon, is it? Building a snowman!’

‘It’s all relative,’ he declared firmly. ‘One man—or woman’s—snowman is another person’s Mount Everest.’

The lift doors opened into Reception and he took her hand as they walked across to the desk where the night staff, a porter and a receptionist, were sitting. They looked up in surprise. ‘Can I help you, sir?’ the receptionist asked politely, professional to the core.

Zeke smiled sweetly. ‘We want to build a snowman,’ he said blandly. ‘In your courtyard. I trust that’s okay?’

The receptionist blinked, but recovered almost immediately. She knew who Zeke James was, and it had caused quite a buzz that he was staying at their hotel with his poor wife who had nearly died in that awful accident three months ago. The manager had made it quite clear that whatever Mr and Mrs James wanted, they got. ‘Certainly, sir,’ she purred smoothly. ‘Michael will unlock the door to the courtyard for you. Is there anything you need to—’ her pause was infinitesimal ‘—build your snowman?’

Zeke considered for a moment. ‘A hat and scarf would be great. And perhaps a carrot and something for his eyes? You know the sort of thing. Oh, and something that’d do for buttons.’

The receptionist nodded efficiently, and Melody had to bite her lip to stop herself laughing. This was going to be such a good story for the girl among the other staff. The eccentric millionaire to the hilt. She could bring this one out at dinner parties for years to come.

When the said Michael escorted them into the courtyard, which was three or four inches deep in snow, it had stopped snowing. The night was bitterly cold, but crisp and exhilarating, and although the odd window or two which overlooked the courtyard in the hotel glowed dimly, most of them were in darkness. ‘I’ll go and sort out those items you wanted, sir,’ the porter said, obviously tickled pink by the proceedings. ‘Lost property should provide the hat and scarf. In these days of political correctness I’d better ask—is the intended snowman male or female? I wouldn’t like to presume the gender.’

Zeke smiled. ‘I think we’ll build one of each. How’s that?’

‘Right you are, sir. Very wise, if I may say so.’

As the man bustled away, Melody caught Zeke’s eye. ‘They think we’re oddballs. You know that, don’t you?’

His smile widened, his voice serene. ‘I prefer idiosyncratic myself—and why shouldn’t we make the most of it? We’ve had plenty of winters where it’s been damp and wet and miserable in this country. This is—’ he paused, staring up into the dark sky above them and then at the white crystallized tree the courtyard contained, made beautiful by its blanket of glistening snow ‘—special. A night in a million, don’t you think?’

He was right. It was. The whole night was special. Special and poignant and unbearably precious. Melody pulled her gloves farther over her wrists. ‘Let’s get building,’ she suggested matter-of-factly, praying he hadn’t noticed the tears pricking at the back of her eyes. ‘Our offspring are waiting to be born.’