Nick nodded, still watching her cautiously, and led her into the ensuite where he turned on the shower. There was still hot water, by some kind of minor miracle, and soon the little tiled room was filled with steam. The two of them shed their clothing and stepped into the shower together, taking it in turns to scrub each other clean. It wasn’t sexual, not really. This was cautious and gentle, a study in care for each other. He cleaned each cut and scrape on her, and she did the same for him. And finally, she stood with him, arms around his body, his around her, and the water cascaded over them both.
They took their time drying each other, and finally, fell into the bed together, swaddling themselves in the blankets, bodies wound together. It was warm and animal, and perfect. All Alex could have wanted right now. It wasn’t like before. Not this contented embrace, his arms so strong and gentle around her, their legs tangled together.
In the morning – well,laterin the morning – they would have to talk and make plans. They would have to assess the damage to the house and the estate. But more than that, they would have to try to untangle their experiences and see if there was some kind of way forward, knowing what they knew. And they would need to address reality itself and whether that had changed.
But right now, Alex didn’t care. Couldn’t care.
Bone-deep weariness swept through her and she pressed her face into Nick’s chest, felt his heartbeat beneath his skin, listened to the rise and fall of his chest and let his warmth wrap itself around her. He still smelled of the woods, of cedar, and cloves, and something else she couldn’t place. The wild, perhaps. Or just Nick.
‘Alex?’ he whispered.
‘Yes.’
‘I was lost. I was part of the wild. I wasn’t human anymore.’
It sounded so normal. Perhaps it was to him. At the same time it sounded like a dream that dispersed on waking like morning mist.
‘But you came back.’
‘You brought me back. Your love. Our love.’
‘You came when I called, when I needed you most. You came back to me.’
His lips pressed a kiss to the top of her head, the hair still damp. ‘I’ll always come when you call, Alex,a chuisle mo chroí.’
She smiled at the lyrical sound of the Irish. She loved the way he spoke it, like music remembered from long ago. ‘You said that before. What does it mean?’
He took her hand gently and pressed it to his bare chest. She could feel his heart beneath his ribs, the rhythm steady, strong, and so very alive. ‘It means that you are the beat of my heart, Alex. And always will be.’
Sleep took her effortlessly, safe in his arms.
‘Oh no, Granny!’ Maeve’s voice rang out through the house, appalled. ‘Look at the mess!’
The sound brought both Nick and Alex to wakefulness as if they’d just been hit with an electric shock. They were together in bed, naked, and any second now?—
‘We’ve got to get dressed,’ Alex hissed and Nick stared at her helplessly. His clothes from last night were still a wet and muddy mess on the floor. So were hers. But at least her other clothes were all here to hand. Anything clean he owned was in his own room, down the corridor. ‘Run,’ she said. ‘I’ll hold them off.’
He wound a sheet around himself and made for the door, a very hesitant Greek god indeed. Alex threw on fresh clothes, and made her way to the stairs as quickly as she could to intercept their visitors.
Patricia looked up from the hallway, her hand very firmly holding Maeve back.
‘Well, you certainly had a night of it,’ the older woman said and then winced as her own words registered. She carried on in a rush, determined not to dwell on what had very definitely happened but couldn’t be admitted right now. ‘Thestorm, I mean. Are you all right? No one was hurt?’
The storm. Of course, the storm. And the damage to the house.
Nothing else. She couldn’t possibly know about anything else.
Except she had probably heard the doors and the running footsteps because Dr Patricia Neary was no fool.
‘We’re fine,’ Nick called, emerging from his own room wearing a t-shirt and jeans as if nothing had happened at all and he had been there all night, sleeping soundly. He hadn’t managed shoes, Alex noticed. Patricia did not look fooled for an instant. ‘The storm took out the power, and we’ve taken some damage but we’re both okay. Best stay out of the study though.’
Patricia fixed her knowing gaze on him now and nodded. ‘I saw. It must have hit much harder here than in the village. We should call Jimmy Óg and his brothers, get them to have a look.’
The talk turned to the builders and insurance, and how they were going to make safe the building, while Nick lifted Maeve in his arms and held her close.
Maeve chattered on about what had happened in the village, about losing power and the tree branch coming down and blocking the road, and how they couldn’t get an answer from his phone. But Granny had said it would all be all right, because her daddy wouldn’t let anything bad happen, and now it was.
Nick listened to her, holding her close, while Alex and Patricia made tea, and found a cache of his biscuits in one of the tins.
