‘You do? I don’t want to hurt you. It’s not that I’m ashamed of you or anything like that. I also worry howViolet will react and there’s no point upsetting her with this yet.’
‘No, that’s true.’
‘And there’s Zara to think of too,’ she reminded him. ‘I’m not sure how I tell her that we’re together. You’re her uncle, I wonder if she’ll find that weird.’
‘Or maybe she’ll love it.’
Alex smiled. Zara probably would actually but she still didn’t want to have that conversation with her daughter yet. Not when she couldn’t even describe what she and Quinn had to herself, let alone to other people.
They reached the crest of the hill and kept walking until they were out of sight from Zara and anyone else down there.
She reached up and slid her arms around Quinn’s shoulders. ‘Are you OK with this?’
‘Yes of course, I’m happy with whatever part of you you want to give me. I don’t like hiding it and sneaking around as if we’re doing something wrong, but I do understand why you want to keep it quiet.’
Alex nodded. ‘This is all so new between us and I don’t want it damaged by other people when we’re still trying to figure it out ourselves. But I want you to know how important this is to me. You mean the world to me and this is something special.’
‘For me too. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pressure you into something more.’
‘It’s OK, I understand the need to shout it from the rooftops, believe me. No one is more happy about thisthan me. I’ve been wanting this for years. Just give me time.’
‘I will.’
She reached up to kiss him and everything about the kiss told her this was the man she was meant to be with but the more she fell in love with him, the scarier it became.
She pulled back. ‘Let’s get the snowballs ready for our attack.’
They spent a few moments gathering the snowballs, then Quinn sat down in the sleigh.
‘Come on, sit in my lap.’
Alex smiled, as she sat down. ‘Don’t get any ideas.’
‘I get lots of ideas about you. Some of them I’m going to try out on you tonight.’
She felt a shiver of delight run through her at that thought.
‘I just hope it won’t be as bad as last time.’ She felt his smile as he kissed her neck. ‘Right, where can we put the snowballs? I can carry some in my lap.’
‘We can load a few down the sides too.’
They spent a few moments loading as many as they could around the edge of the sleigh and in her lap on top of her coat.
‘Right, are you ready?’ Quinn asked.
‘Yes, just hold onto me. I don’t want a video of me falling out at high speed making its way round social media.’
‘I’ll always hold you.’
He pushed off and the sledge moved forward a littlebefore it teetered over the edge and then took off down the hill. Quinn wrapped his arms around her, holding her close against his chest, and the sledge very quickly picked up speed.
‘Christ, that is fast,’ Alex said as the hills and trees whizzed past.
‘Er, yeah it is,’ Quinn said, uncertainty in his voice, which is not exactly what anyone wants to hear when they are on a vehicle speeding a hundred miles an hour with no way to steer it or stop it.
Within seconds they reached the bottom of the hill where Alex spotted Zara and Harley waiting with arms full of snowballs. She grabbed one of her snowballs and threw it wildly, but it went nowhere near them. However, one of their snowballs hit her square in the face and then they were past them, still hurtling at what felt like hundreds of miles an hour towards the frozen lake.
‘Shit,’ Quinn said. ‘We have to bail.’
