A Yorkshire Christmas (3 page)

Claire’s gaze moved around the room, from the scarred, pine table piled high with newspapers, paperwork, and dirty dishes. Mugs of half-drunk tea or coffee littered nearly every surface. Clothes, none looking too clean, hung over the railing of the Aga, and more were heaped on the floor, next to a jumble of muddy boots.

Noah had turned from the stove and now caught sight of Claire staring at all the mess. He lifted one shoulder in a shrug of apology.

“Sorry. The place is a tip.”

“A… tip?”

His mouth curved in a way that made things pop low in Claire’s belly. “Sorry, a mess. You’re American.” She nodded, although it hadn’t been a question.

“From New York.”

“City?” he clarified, and she nodded. She couldn’t tell if she was imagining it, but it almost seemed as if Noah Bradford didn’t like that fact. His mouth tightened and he nodded towards her feet. “I’ll get you those socks. You can hang up your wet things on the stove. Just shove my kit onto the floor. It’s all dirty.”

He disappeared through another doorway and gingerly Claire moved through the room, towards the welcoming heat of the Aga.

She pushed Noah’s things aside, not quite willing to toss them onto the floor as he’d suggested, and hung up her coat, scarf, and gloves. The heat rolled out from the huge cooking range, making the room cozily warm, despite all the mess. Part of her itched to dump a few dishes into the sink, tidy the papers into neat piles.

Stupid, stupid impulse. She might be borderline OCD but she didn’t need to try to fix someone else’s life, not even a little bit. She knew where that went, and it was nowhere good.

She could hear Noah returning, the steady tread of his feet, and she turned from the Aga as he came through the door. He’d changed into dry clothes and held a pair of thick, wool socks in his hands. He tossed them to her from across the room, and Claire caught them instinctively.

“Put those on. You can’t have wet feet.”

Obediently, she took off her soaking socks and hung them up on the railing before putting on the thick ones Noah had tossed her. They didn’t go exactly well with skinny jeans, but they were warm and dry, if a little itchy.

The kettle started to shrill and Noah moved past her, his arm brushing her shoulder as he reached across her for the kettle. Hurriedly, Claire backed up a few steps, out of the way. The whole experience felt incredibly surreal.

“So what’s an American, and a New Yorker at that, doing in Yorkshire?” Noah asked as he plunked two tea bags in chipped, ceramic mugs and poured boiling water on top.

“Having Christmas by myself.”

He arched an eyebrow, and too late Claire realized how pathetic it sounded.

“I mean,” she explained awkwardly, “that’s what I want. A quiet Christmas, with nobody around.” Now she sounded like Scrooge.

“Sounds good to me.” He stared at her rather broodingly, seeming disinclined to ask any more questions, which suited Claire fine. She wasn’t inclined to explain why she wanted to be four thousand miles away from family, eating a Christmas dinner for one, probably a pizza.

Noah tossed the tea bags into the sink, where they landed with a wet thud. He poured milk into the mugs and then reached for a chipped sugar bowl, arching an eyebrow in Claire’s direction as he hefted the spoon.

“Yes, please,” she said, thinking she could use a sugar hit, and he dumped two heaping teaspoonfuls of granules into each of their mugs and stirred. Wow. That was a lot of sugar.

He handed her a mug, wrapping one lean, brown hand around his own as he braced a hip against the sink. Claire felt an impulse to make small talk, which she resisted. Noah Bradford clearly wasn’t one for pleasantries, and she was feeling too tired and overwhelmed to do more than sip the syrupy-sweet tea.

“So your car,” Noah said after a moment. “It’s stuck on the high road?”

“The road from the highway, yes,” Claire answered. “I skidded and plowed right into a snow bank.”

Noah glanced out the kitchen window, the icy rain still sheeting down. “There’s no point getting it out until this all stops,” he said with a nod to the rain. “And the roads are gritted. But we’ll fetch your stuff.”

“Thank you—”

He drained his mug and set it, unsurprisingly, on the countertop, along with half a dozen others that had been left and forgotten. Claire took another sip of hers; she’d barely touched it, but Noah seemed ready to go.

The Border collie stirred from his place by the Aga as Noah reached for his waxed jacket and shrugged it on. Claire put her tea down and started putting her still-damp things back on.

A few moments later they were back outside with the wind blowing the rain into their eyes. Claire followed Noah over to a battered Land Rover; he opened the passenger door and she climbed in, breathing in the scent of dog and sheep and man, not an unpleasant combination of aromas.

Noah got in the driver seat and slammed the door before wiping the water from his eyes. “Not pretty out there,” he said, and Claire murmured an agreement.

Then he started the car and drove away from the farm, down a long, curving, snow-covered lane.

‡

N
oah slid a
sideways glance at Claire Lindell and suppressed the flare of curiosity he felt about this woman, a fish out of water in a Yorkshire farming village. She wore jeans and a sweater, but even he could tell they were both expensive. Her long, dark hair framed a pale, oval face with large gray eyes and a surprisingly full mouth. When she’d taken off all her wet things he’d felt a kick of attraction low in his belly that had taken him by surprise. That was the last thing he needed, especially for a woman whose boots looked to cost more than his council tax.

He focused back on the road, the snow and rain flying right into the windshield as he turned onto the narrow road that connected Ledstow to the highway. After about five minutes of careful driving, he saw a car with its front buried in the hedge, the rest of it already covered in freshly fallen snow.

“Did you lock it?” he asked, and Claire blinked at him, as startled as a rabbit caught in the headlight of his Rover.

“Yes—”

He held out his hand. “I’ll get your things and put them in here,” he explained and he could tell she was a little wary of his offer. Maybe they did things differently in America.

“Okay,” she said after a moment, and fished her keys from the pocket of her parka. “Thank you,” she added, an afterthought, and he nodded and then stepped outside into the storm. No need to get cozy with Claire Lindell.

He unlocked the car and grabbed her handbag, a canvas hold-all that looked like it was full of papers. Her suitcase was Gucci, and even he recognized that name. So his suspicions had been on the money, literally. She was rich. A rich, city girl.

And he steered clear of rich city girls.

He dumped the bags in the back of the Land Rover and got back in the driver’s seat. Claire was shivering, even though he’d left the engine running and the heat on. Her jeans, he realized, were soaked. Should he have offered to lend her some clothes, back at his place? That seemed a little familiar, and he sensed that just driving her to her car had been pushing boundaries with this woman. Although she’d been perfectly polite, she exuded a kind of brittle formality; her shoulders were set stiffly, her posture perfect. Maybe she was worried he was some kind of serial killer, or maybe she was just prissy.

Either way, she’d be out of his life in ten minutes.

“Holly Cottage,” he said, and turned the Rover around, back towards Ledstow.

They drove in silence, the only sound the crunch of the tires on snow. Against his better judgment, Noah snuck another glance at his passenger. She was beautiful, in a quiet, poised sort of way. She held herself very still and erect, and yet there was something vulnerable and even sad about the curve of her cheek, the sweep of her lashes.

Noah grimaced at his fanciful thoughts. His brother David used to tease him about the red squirrels and baby sparrows he’d nursed back to health as a kid on the farm. He’d been a sucker for a sad face, and that was what had got him in so much trouble. He didn’t want to know Claire Lindell’s story, sad or not, and yet as he turned down the road that led to Holly Cottage he asked,

“So, what brought you to Ledstow?”

A hesitation; he felt it. She didn’t want to tell him anything? Fine. He didn’t want to know.

“My godmother owns Holly Cottage,” she finally said, and he heard how crisp and cultured her voice sounded.

“Ruth Carrington is your godmother?”

She glanced at him, gray eyes wide. “You know her?”

“Ledstow is a small place.”

“Of course.”

“Holly Cottage abuts Ayesgill Farm,” he explained. “I’ve had a few sheep wandering into her garden.”

Her eyes widened a fraction more, and she clearly had no response.

“Don’t worry,” Noah hastened to assure her. “They’re going to stay in the barn as long as this snow keeps up.”

“Is this… normal? This much snow?”

He shrugged. “This is Yorkshire.”

They didn’t speak again until he’d pulled to a stop in front of Holly Cottage; it was a small place, made of golden Yorkshire stone, with a bay window and a peaked roof. Claire stared at it without expression, and Noah wondered if the place wasn’t grand enough for the likes of her.

Not a charitable or fair thought, but he wondered all the same.

“I’ll just get the key,” she murmured and Noah opened the door to the Land Rover.

“There’s one under the flower pot,” he said and she swung a startled gaze towards him. He shrugged again. “Ruth has me watch over the place when she’s not around. She didn’t tell me you were coming, though.”

“It was last minute,” Claire said.

Noah felt another flicker of curiosity. Claire Lindell looked like the kind of woman whose Christmas plans would be settled in July; maybe a cruise to the Caribbean or a weekend in Paris. Expensive holidays, spas and five-star hotels and restaurants. Not a poky cottage in an even pokier village in the middle of Yorkshire, all on her own.

What had happened to make Claire take off into isolation at the last minute?

He wouldn’t ask.

He took the key from under the flowerpot and opened the front door to the cottage. Claire followed behind him, clutching her bag to her chest.

“I can show you how to put the heat on if you like,” he offered, because the cottage was freezing and he doubted there was any hot water.

“Thank you,” she murmured and Noah moved through the sitting room with its inglenook fireplace to the tiny kitchen in the back, everything cozy and neat as Ruth liked, with a view of his own sheep fields stretching to a snowy horizon.

Quickly, he went through the basics of the heating system, switching on the hot water immersion heater. “You can have a bath in an hour or so,” he told her, “but the shower is electric and runs anytime.”

A slight blush pinkened her cheeks and an image, unbidden and definitely unwanted, popped into his head of Claire Lindell in the bath, all that creamy skin on show, with nothing covering her but a few strategically placed bubbles.

Good Lord
. Noah passed a hand over his face, embarrassed by how quickly the image had come into his head, and how much it had affected him. Clearly his social life was lacking; he couldn’t even remember the last time he’d been with a woman. Over a year ago, at least; he’d had a few unmemorable one-night stands when he’d gone on business to York or Newcastle. He’d never wanted to get involved with someone from Ledstow, even if there had been the opportunity. Never wanted to have his past dragged out like so much battered baggage, a hell of a lot different from Claire’s Gucci suitcases.

“So you’re good?” he asked Claire and she nodded jerkily.

“Is there a shop in the village?”

“A post office that sells a few basics, milk and bread mainly,” Noah answered. He realized that without the use of her car, Claire Lindell was essentially stranded with no food. Just in case, he checked Ruth’s fridge, but efficient as ever, she’d cleared it out in preparation for Claire’s arrival. “You need food,” he said, a statement, and she gave a kind of helpless shrug.

“I can run you into Ripon, to the supermarket,” he offered, and he couldn’t tell if the swirl of feeling in his gut was anticipation or dread. He’d wanted to rid himself of Claire Lindell, with her sad eyes and expensive clothes, but he also had an idiotic urge to help her, maybe even make her smile. As if that was going to happen. “It’s about fifteen minutes,” he added, and watched as she nibbled her lip, clearly uncertain about whether to accept his request. Was she worried he was going to make a move? Or was his battered Land Rover smelling of sheep not good enough for her?

With a slight edge to his voice he continued, “Or you can live on toast and beans. It works for me.”

She stared at him for a moment, startled and clearly trying to judge his mood, and Noah realized that he’d sounded a little pissy.

Because he didn’t like rich girls with sad eyes who couldn’t decide if he was good enough for them. And there was his baggage, dragging behind him, weighing him down.