With boots and the rest of the paraphernalia dispatched, and a hurriedly typed text sent by Gull, Tania led the way up to the living area. The usually panoramic view from the picture window was obliterated by the falling snow, already easily a foot deep on the balcony and railings. Tania peered out, hands on hips. Madeleine’s snowman had completely disappeared under a new mound; it resembled a snow hump, now, rather than an identifiable creation. She huffed a laugh, then asked Gull if he wanted a hot drink.
‘I’d love a tea,’ he said.
‘If you want milk, it’s in the fridge,’ she said, pulling two mugs from a cupboard and dumping her mobile on the work surface.
He slid the carton of milk beside the mugs, then fixed his attention on the boiling water, watching it intently as it rolled and broiled in the clear kettle. Putting his elbows on the counter-top, he bent down to get a better look.
Tania viewed him out of the corner of her eye. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I just figured it’s the closest I’m going to get to anything resembling a hot tub today,’ he said, his focus on the kettle unwavering. ‘I thought I’d make the most of it.’
She grinned and back-handed him on his shoulder. He wasn’t wrong, the hot tub was buried under its own mound of snow.
‘Ow.’ He turned, rubbing at his arm.
‘Big baby,’ she said, reaching up to replace his fingers with her own, massaging at his shoulder through the stretchy fleece microfibre of his top. Aware his focus now rested on her, she concentrated on the sensation of the tautness of his frame beneath the mobile fabric, her fingers circling and teasing until they came to rest on the half-length zipper beneath his chin. Bringing up her other hand to hold the edge of the fabric, Tania eased the zip down, little by little. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed, the pulse from a blood vessel twitching the skin just above the edge of the collarbone she had uncovered. She allowed herself a glance up at his face, the arch in his eyebrows framing the heaviness of his eyelids. They must be weighed down by those incredible eyelashes, she assumed.
A million miles away, the kettle finished its boil and switched itself off.
Gull reached around her waist, slipping his fingers between the waistband of her ski trousers and the fabric of her thermal top and gilet. This time, he didn’t stop there. He didn’t stop until he’d separated the fabrics sufficiently to touch her skin, his fingers finding the dip where the muscles of her back sloped into her spine. His touch was as intense as an electric shock and she couldn’t control a shiver.
‘Are you cold?’ he asked.
They both knew the answer, but she shook her head anyway. He spread his fingers out across the skin of her back and she shivered again, grinning as he pulled her close and his lips found hers.
Chapter 28
‘For heaven’s sake, just hurry up and choose, will you?’ The frustration was clear in Rose’s voice. It was fair enough; they’d already been in this shop for at least twenty minutes.
It was just that Madeleine couldn’t decide between the silver and the purple key ring. Aware that she didn’t know Tania well enough to make even an educated guess as to which she’d prefer, she was also determined to get her something for tomorrow. Items purchased for Rose and Clara already nestled in her rucksack.
Frankly, Madeleine hoped the biggest present Tania would be opening on Christmas Day would be Gull. Without being inappropriate, he was the kind of gift that you could unwrap time and again– the gift that keeps on giving, and all that.
She didn’t want to be a fly on the wall in the lodge, she wasn’t into that kind of voyeurism, but she wished she could be a fly on the wall in so far as she was desperate to know what was going on with the two of them. Only a fool wouldn’t be able to see they were crazy about one another.
She might have joked about the hot tub in L’Avalanche at lunchtime, but with the weather as bad as it had become, she thought it unlikely to become Tania and Gull’s destination of choice. A light dusting of snow was one thing, if anything it added to the whole experience. But a constant blanketing with the stuff wasn’t likely to do anything much for either the heat of the water, or the heat between the two of them.
However, there was more than one way to skin a cat.
Fleetingly, she wondered where that expression had even come from. Why would anyone want to skin a cat? Madeleine didn’t particularly like cats, in her opinion they were so busy being aloof that they missed out on all the fun, but she didn’t feel the need to go and skin one.
It would make a good opening shot, though, for the scene now running through her head. Not the filming of anyone skinning a cat– it wasn’t that kind of a flick– but having a cat wander elegantly along the wraparound porch outside Tania’s room would be good. The camera could zoom inside, teasing the viewer with a peek at twisted sheets, a glimpse of skin, slick with sweat, a flick of perfectly blow-dried hair, a moan of ecstasy. Oh, yes, she had all the best Hollywood clichés at her fingertips.
‘Madeleine, we’re going to leave you here,’ Rose said, the undertone of impatience cutting through the moment.
Frowning at the key rings in turn, she slid the purple one back onto the display. Paying for the silver one, she could sense Rose’s continued impatience while the woman behind the till slowed her speech sufficiently for her to grasp that she was asking if it was a gift.Un cadeau de Noël?She nodded enthusiastically and, once it was wrapped in tissue paper, then sealed into a beautiful little gift bag, she left the shop.
‘Why do people say, “there’s more than one way to skin a cat”?’ she said as they headed along another of Près du Ciel centre’s labyrinthian corridors.
‘I don’t think they do, do they?’ Rose said, dodging around a queue outside a pancake shop. Madeleine glanced inside. The place was tiny, barely more than a fridge and a frying pan, but the brisk trade and endless queue– and the mouth-watering aroma wafting in her direction– spoke volumes for the quality of its produce.
‘It’s definitely a saying,’ Madeleine said. ‘But I don’t get why people want to skin cats. And why would they need different methods?’
‘I don’t think it’s anything to do with cats,’ Clara said. ‘I think it’s something to do with catfish, with how to prepare them for cooking.’
‘Is it?’ Madeleine wondered how Clara had that kind of odd information at her fingertips. ‘OK, that makes sense, I suppose.’
‘What doesn’t make sense is why on earth we’re talking about a random saying that I’ve never even heard of,’ Rose said.
