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“No. Because I made you drive in this. But admit it—spending Christmas in an airport hotel would have been grim.”

“But easier for Santa to land,” he said. “All those runways illuminated by fairy lights.”

“You mean runway lights.”

“Do reindeer know the difference? Rudolph, you are cleared to land.”

He made her smile.

“I love you, even though you have a dent in your head.” She reached out and touched it gently, relieved that it had stopped bleeding and seemed superficial.

“I love you, too, even though you’re indirectly responsible for the dent in my head.”

“You’re not mad with me?” Guilt and regret simmered inside her. “It’s my fault we’re in this mess.”

He shrugged. “I could have said no.”

“You did say no.”

“I could have been more forceful.” He lowered his head and gave her a brief kiss. “I know how much you want to spend Christmas with your parents. We’ll do everything we can, I promise, and that starts with sorting out the car.” Matt walked towards the door, holding his phone aloft as he tried to find a signal.

Brooke wondered what they’d do if everything wasn’t enough.

The girls were excited about Christmas. They’d talked about nothing else since November. She couldn’t let them down. And she knew that it shouldn’t matter this much. Before she’d had children she’d worked in advertising, and her job had been to persuade people to buy something they probably didn’t want and almost certainly didn’t need. She knew that the “perfect Christmas” didn’t exist, except in the minds of retailers trying to sell more decorations, bigger and more expensive toys and extra-large trees. They worked on the principle that the bigger the spend and the brighter the sparkle, the happier the Christmas.

But despite knowing all that, she still wanted Christmas to match the image in her head.

Leaving him to hunt for a signal, she walked back into the kitchen, determined to put on a brave face. Hopefully, Matt would produce a miracle.

But when he returned a few minutes later, he was shaking his head. “Nothing.”

“Nothing?” Brooke’s spirits plummeted. “No tow truck?”

“No signal.”

“But Matt, there has to be a signal!”

“Why? Because we want it so badly? Life doesn’t work that way, Brooke.”

“But why is there no signal?”

“I don’t know. I’m not a meteorologist. The storm must have affected the cell towers or something. And we are in a dip here. We’ll try again in an hour. Maybe it’s a blip. Our luck has to change soon.”

“Let’s hope so. If there’s no signal, I can’t call my parents.” She felt guilty as she imagined her mother worrying, but underneath the thick layer of guilt was a seam of relief that she wasn’t going to have to speak to her yet.

It felt like a reprieve.

Fortunately, Elsie was now absorbed by her hot chocolate and had stopped talking.

Brooke relaxed slightly.

She drank the rest of her tea and closed her eyes. Everything was fine. They were alive. They were warm. They were together. That was all that mattered. And there was a good chance they might still make it to her parents’ for Christmas. There was time. Sure, the forecast was bad, but forecasters had been wrong before.

The wind rattled the windows. Brooke winced (maybe they weren’t wrong) and curled her hands around the mug, warming them.

What a night. What a terrible night. Matt was right. They never should have been travelling in this.

A great Christmas this was turning out to be. And only then did it occur to her that there wasn’t a single hint of Christmas in this house. At least, not the part she’d seen so far. There was no wreath on the door, or fairy lights strung under the eaves. No Christmas tree in the hallway, or greenery winding its way up the banisters. The kitchen, although cosy, showed no hint of the season.