Page 115 of Christmas at Sturcombe Bay
She paused to ruffle his ears and drop a kiss on his nose, for which she got a long pink tongue lapping up her cheek. Then she strolled over to the window and pulled back the curtains.
“Oh, my goodness!”
“What is it?” Alex, stark naked with his hair adorably ruffled from sleep, appeared in the doorway behind her.
“It’s been snowing!”
Wrapping his arms around her from behind, he peered over her shoulder out of the window. “You call that snow? At home we don’t even think it’s worth mentioning until it’s ten feet deep.”
“That’s because you live practically in the Arctic Circle. But we never get snow here. Well, it snows quite a lot up on Dartmoor, but not down here on the coast.” She gazed out ofthe window at the street below, blanketed in pure white. “It’s so beautiful.”
He nuzzled into her neck. “Wait till you have to go out and walk in it.”
She laughed, turning her head to kiss the stubble along his jaw. “It’s a good job the last of the Turkey-and-Tinsel groups left yesterday. They might not have been able to get away if the roads are bad.”
“They’ll have had the gritter lorries out overnight, and the main roads should be fine.”
Shelley glanced down at Tyler. The big dog had come over to lift his paws up onto the windowsill and look out. “What do you make of that, Sweetie?” she asked him.
He turned his head to look up at them as if puzzled to know what was so interesting. Alex scritched the dog’s favourite spot behind his ear. “You’re going to find out in a bit, buddy. Come on, let’s get some breakfast and then we can walk him over to the hotel.”
They were in no hurry, though. With the last Turkey-and-Tinsel group gone, there were no more guests in the hotel. It was closing down for Christmas, and after that the renovations would start in earnest.
It was almost eleven o’clock by the time they were ready to set out. They both put on two pairs of socks and bundled themselves up in hats and scarves and gloves against the cold.
The sun was pale and distant in a cloudless blue sky. The bare branches of the trees were outlined in white, the hedges and gardens quiet beneath a blanket of snow that seemed to muffle every sound.
Predictably, Tyler took a fair amount of coaxing to step out into this cold, white, wet stuff. He sniffed at it suspiciously, tapped it with one large paw, and drew back. “Come on, you big coward,” Alex urged. “It won’t hurt you.”
The big dog looked doubtful, but his trust in Alex was enough to convince him to try it. After a few tentative steps he decided that it was safe after all, and pranced along happily beside them, looking inordinately proud of himself.
Alex laughed, dropping his arm around Shelley’s shoulders and hugging her close. She smiled up at him, feeling a deep warmth inside her, even though it was so cold that she could see her breath in white puffs.
Three days, and four wonderful nights. Not very long . . . But it felt . . . right. She wasn’t going to think about how long it might last. Just take one day at a time.
The snow was actually only about five or six inches deep. Someone had already been out to sweep a path along the pavement, and the gritter lorry had been down Church Road.
But the hotel car park was still a pure, pristine white, smooth as sugar icing and glistening in the pale winter sunshine. That was until Alex let Tyler off his lead.
The dog suddenly decided that this snow stuff was great fun, and began to race around in circles, kicking up showers of white that sparkled in the sunlight as he barked joyously.
“He’s having a good time!”
Shelley turned at the sound of laughter. The Ellises were strolling down the lane — Liam and Cassie, Luke and Julia, with Robyn and Ben racing ahead, all bundled up in woolly scarves and bobble hats.
“Especially considering how long it took us to persuade him to come out in it,” Alex responded cheerfully. “How are the horses?”
“They’re fine — they’re not bothered by the snow. We brought them in last night when we got the weather warning, but we turned most of them out to the paddock this morning.”
Robyn was bouncing up and down excitedly. “Mummy, can we make a snowman?” she pleaded.
“Another one?” Cassie smiled down at her. “You made two in Suomu.”
“Yes, but we had to leave those behind. Now we can make one here.”
“Did you have a good time visiting Santa?” Shelley asked her.
“We had anamazingtime!” The child’s eyes were wide. “We went for a ride in a real reindeer sleigh.”
