“By the way, where are we actually going?” she asked.
“It’s a surprise,” he replied.
It had begun to snow again half-heartedly but the wind was biting, and it sharpened the snowflakes so that they scratched at her cheeks. She was glad for a sensation other than the butterflies in her stomach. Ryan opened the passenger door for her.
She glanced inside and her heart gave a yip. “You cleaned,” she said, smiling.
He shrugged and grinned sheepishly. “I figured I’d make an effort.”
She was about to get in when she suddenly stopped.
“What is it?” he asked.
She stood for a moment, rocking back on her heels while she deliberated, and then she reached up on her tiptoes, resting her hands against his chest, and gently pressed her lips to his. She pulled away just a little, checking his reaction, and this time he didn’t recoil. He smiled as he lifted his hands to gently cup her face and kissed her back. Starsexploded behind her eyes. She could feel every part of her body come alive, the atoms that made her dancing and whirling in pinpricks of perfect light. She moved her hands and coiled her arms around him, pulling him closer to her and melting against him. He responded in kind, dropping his hands from her face and snaking his arms under her coat and up her back, firm hands splayed out against her spine and then closed around fistfuls of her top; the heat of him through the flimsy material felt so delicious she let out a moan of pleasure that made his kisses come harder.
“Fred”—her name was a graveled whisper on his breath—“I’ve been wanting to kiss you since Krampus Night.”
I’ve been wanting to kiss you since forever, she thought. She grazed her nails through his hair and down the nape of his neck, and this time it was Ryan who groaned with desire.
“What you do to me…” he breathed.
His words were like tongues of fire, and she gripped him tighter, pressing herself against him, two decades of feelings finally allowed to rip free and be sated.
The sound of a cat yowling and the ferocious rustling of plants broke through their haze of passion, and when a familiar “I’m the happiest Christmas tree, ho-ho-ho, hee-hee-hee, look how pretty they dressed me, oh lucky, lucky me” started up, Ryan smiled against her mouth and said, “Please tell me that’s not one of your aunts singing.”
Fred sniggered. “That bloody tree. I’m going to put it in the Aga.” They were still wrapped around each other, as though bracing for a storm. “We should probably set off now.”
“Now that we’ve got the first kiss out of the way, youmean. You always were impatient,” Ryan said, his eyes twinkling.
“I was nervous, and I didn’t want to not be fully present during our date because I was worrying about after.”
He kissed her forehead, and she could feel the vibrations of his chuckle rumble through his chest. “Are your nerves satisfied now?”
“Very. Thank you. Let our evening commence.”
At the bottom of the drive, Ryan turned the car right and they headed away from the town and down toward the coast, pulling up near the edge of the golf course to park.
“We’re not burying another time capsule, are we?” Fred asked. She had a feeling her carefully put together outfit was going to be wasted on wherever he was leading her. There were no restaurants down here and the food shacks closed at four in the winter months.
“Not this evening. But I wouldn’t rule it out for the future.” He grinned at her and leaned in to steal another kiss, less urgent than before but still lingering enough to make her thighs go tingly. Then he pulled on his knitted beanie with head torch attachment, and changed into Wellington boots.
“You’d better pop these on,” he said, handing her a pair of smaller boots.
“So, where are we going?” she asked, replacing her nice boots with Wellies.
“You’ll see.” Ryan snapped on the torch, and held out his hand for her to take.
They followed the beam of light along a rough-hewnpath that cut through the golf course until they reached the beach. The sea was calm, the silver moon hung low on the horizon, its pale reflection rippling on the surface of the water. The snow still fell in fits and starts, and Fred was glad she had chosen her practical hooded coat. They tramped downward to the shore over loose pebbled ridges formed by the relentless pull-and-push embrace of the ocean during high tide, their boots sinking and sliding, the sandpaper scratch of stone on stone like the rasping breaths of a kraken. Roosting seabirds shouted at them from their nooks burrowed into the cliffs.
There was a dark lump ahead, and when Ryan’s head torch picked it out she saw it was a small fishing boat bobbing at the edge of the shore, below a low arching cliff.
“Is that Benj’s boat?” she asked.
“It is.”
“Are we fishing?”
“No.”
