The Baby Surprise: Juggling Briefcase & Baby

Lex’s hand on her spine.

Lex. The sag of the bed as he climbed in beside her. Knowing that he was there, near enough for her to simply reach over and…

Romy jerked upright, realising belatedly that she was alone in the four-poster. From the cot in the corner came a cooing. Freya, it seemed, was also awake, but where was Lex?

The thought had barely crossed her mind before the door was shouldered open and Lex came in carrying two mugs. He was looking positively relaxed in his suit trousers with a shirt open at the collar and the sleeves rolled above his wrists, but he still managed to exude a forcefulness that seemed to suck some of the oxygen out of the room, and Romy found herself sucking in a breath.

‘Good morning,’ she said, feeling ridiculously shy.

‘Good morning.’ Lex offered her one of the mugs. ‘There doesn’t seem to be anyone around, so I helped myself to some tea. I thought you might like some.’

‘Thank you.’ Romy pulled herself further up the pillows and took a sip of the tea. It was black and sweet, just as she liked it. She lifted her eyes to Lex. ‘You remember how I take my tea!’

His gaze slid away from hers. ‘I’ve got a good memory.’

Romy wished her own memory weren’t quite so good. It might have made it easier to lie next to him all night.

But now it was morning, and Freya was singing happily to herself. Romy threw off the cover, only just remembering to secure her sarong in time, and went over to the cot.

‘Hello, my gorgeous girl. How are you this morning?’

It was impossible to feel awkward or cross or anything but joyful when Freya smiled like that. Romy picked her up and cuddled her, loving her warm, sweet smell and compact body, and Freya bumped her head into her mother’s neck and grabbed fistfuls of her hair as she babbled with pleasure.

Lex looked away from their glowing faces. ‘How did you sleep?’ he asked after a moment.

‘Fine,’ said Romy, and then wondered why she was lying. ‘Actually, if I hadn’t just woken up, I could have sworn I didn’t sleep a wink,’ she confessed.

She had been too conscious of Lex, of the lean, muscled length of his body on the other side of the bed.

After so long, it had been hard to believe that he was actually there, close enough to touch, but utterly untouchable. How many times over those years had she found herself remembering that week? Remembering the feel of his body, how solid and safe he had felt, remembering how sure his hands had been, how warm his mouth, marvelling at the passion he kept bottled up beneath the austere surface.

‘I didn’t sleep much either,’ Lex admitted.

‘Looks like we’ll both have to catch up tonight,’ said Romy lightly.

‘I’ve got a nasty feeling we’ll be spending another night here.’ He pulled back the curtains. ‘It’s stopped snowing, but I doubt we’ll be going anywhere today.’

She looked at him in dismay. ‘We’re snowed in?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

Carrying Freya, Romy went to join him by the window, and caught her breath at the scene.

Outside, it was a monochrome world. Bare black trees, rimed in white. A black loch. Over everything else, a blanket of white that blurred the features of the landscape, so that it all looked oddly blank and two dimensional. Above that, a sky washed of colour, except for the faintest hint of pink staining the horizon. It was going to be a beautiful day.

But not for travelling. There were no roads visible, not even a track.

‘Ah,’ said Romy.

‘Quite.’ Lex’s voice was as crisp as the snow piled high on the window sill.

Romy took Freya over to the bed and let her clamber around on the pillows while she drank her tea. ‘What shall we do?’

‘There’s not much we can do. It looks as if we’re stuck.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Summer should be in the office soon. I’ll ring her in a few minutes. She’ll have to reschedule tomorrow’s appointments, and she can let Acquisitions know why you’re not in.’

‘And meanwhile, we’ll have to be engaged another day?’ said Romy, who thought there were more important issues to be dealt with than Lex’s meetings.

‘Yes,’ said Lex after a beat. ‘One more day. Do you think you can manage that?’

She looked back at him over the rim of her mug, her eyes dark and cautious. ‘I’ll have to, won’t I?’

Lex fully intended to spend the day working as normal. He had the technology. Between his iPhone and his laptop, there was plenty he could do. But breakfast turned into an extended affair, with Romy chatting easily to Willie while Freya ate porridge with her fingers, and then, when Freya had a nap, Romy was determined to go outside and enjoy the snow.

‘There’s masses of old boots and coats in the utility room,’ said Willie when Lex pointed out that she had nothing suitable to wear. ‘Help yourself.’

Lex thought he might slope off to a quiet room and get on with some work then, but Romy was unimpressed. ‘You’re supposed to be madly in love with me,’ she said when he suggested it. ‘What’s Willie going to think if you let me wander off into the snow on my own while you huddle over your laptop?’

Which was how Lex came to be wearing a pair of old wellies and a faded oilskin jacket over a jumper he’d borrowed from Willie, who’d raised his brows when Lex had appeared at breakfast in a suit and tie.

Romy had never seen him in anything so shabby before, and she laughed that deep, husky laugh of hers at his expression. She was swathed in a similar jacket that had to be about six sizes too big for her, and the boots were nearly as big. A woolly hat was pulled down over her ears and a scarlet scarf wrapped jauntily around her throat. Her eyes were dark and bright. She looked, Lex thought, rather like a robin.

‘I don’t know what you think we’re going to do out there,’ he said grouchily as he pulled on a pair of gloves. ‘The snow’s far too deep to walk anywhere.’

‘It’ll be fun,’ said Romy, opening the door to a glittering world. ‘Just look how beautiful it is!’

Lex had been right about the snow making walking difficult. It came almost up to Romy’s knees, but she refused to give up and insisted on trudging down to the lochside.

It was so cold that her teeth ached with every breath, but she was conscious of exhilaration bubbling along her veins. The light was dazzling. Every twig, every leaf bending under the weight of a pristine mound of snow, seemed to jump out at her, and when they turned to look back at Duncardie it rose out of the snow like something out of a fairy tale, with its battlements and turrets and the backdrop of the mountains.

‘It looks like a stage set, doesn’t it?’ said Romy. ‘You could almost believe a princess was sleeping in one of those towers. Perhaps we’ve stumbled into a magical kingdom without realising it!’ She sniffed happily at the crystalline air. ‘There’s something unreal about today.’

‘That would certainly explain why we’re freezing our butts off out here when we could be warm and dry inside,’ said Lex, slapping the arms of his waxed jacket for warmth.

‘Come on, Lex, you’ve got to admit it’s beautiful.’ Romy turned and headed along the edge of the loch. It was hard going. She had to lift her feet high and stamp down through the snow, and she was soon puffing, but at least the exercise kept her warm.

‘It looked beautiful from inside,’ Lex grumbled, but he fell into step beside her.

‘Look, there’s Willie,’ Romy said, spotting the portly figure watching them from one of the windows. She waved, and Willie waved back.

‘I notice he’s staying tucked up nice and warm. He’s got more sense. Probably there shaking his head at crazy Sassenachs. ‘

Romy rolled her eyes and pushed him. ‘Oh, stop being such a crosspatch! I know you hate being unlashed from the office, but it’ll do you good to get outside like this. You’re getting some exercise, breathing in all this clean air…’

‘Getting frostbite,’ Lex put in.

‘Can you put a hand on your heart and tell me that no part of you finds this exciting?’

Lex stopped and, surprised, she stopped too. She was smiling. Her skin glowed, and her eyes were brilliant. The light was so crisp that he could see her in heart-stopping detail—the few strands of hair escaping from beneath the hat, her brows, the crooked front tooth—and he felt something shift and crumple inside him.