I left Charlie to it, it was getting cold with the door open, and I still had work to do on the book. I closed the door behind him, made myself a coffee as he messed about in the increasing snowfall, and I went back to my laptop.

Five minutes later he was standing in front of the fire shivering. “You should probably charge your laptop and phone. I’ve just plugged my tablet in, but if the power goes, you’ll want to keep working right?” I nodded and made a move to plug in my MacBook as he suggested.

I watched him warming himself and tried not to think about how close we had come earlier to doing something more. I had wanted it, I had needed him to close the distance between us. I wanted it. Instead, he had made an excuse to head off and not make a move. I was disappointed, I understood it, but I was still disappointed. Something was brewing, and I wanted to know what was going to happen. Once he had warmed enough, he headed back out into the snow and over to the farmhouse.

I sat there looking out at the snow, listening to the wind howl around the roof of the cottage and pondering the future of my characters. I emailed my first five chapters to my editor while I had the chance, I needed her feedback to see if I was along the right lines.

Aside from the occasional crackle from the fire, and the tapping of my fingers on the keys there was no other sounds from inside the cottage. Outside the wind whipped around and the snow fell more and more, blanketing everything. Drifting in the blustering winds, swirling and dancing around in the fading light.

It was early evening and almost complete darkness when I finally got restless. My stomach growled, and I decided that it was time for food.

I closed my laptop and let it finish charging. There wasn’t anything else I was willing to do that day. My brain was distracted, and I wasn’t sure I was writing anything that would be of any use to anyone. I sat in the quiet, staring out into the darkening surroundings, and the never-ending snowfall and wind.

Just as I was about to head into the kitchen my mobile phone rang. I glanced at the screen, it was my editor. Shit.

“Hello?” She couldn’t be done with those chapters already, could she?

“Babe! How are you? Listen, just calling about the chapters that you sent through.”

“Yeah?” I readied myself for the impending disaster, I honestly didn’t think that she was going to like them.

“They were amazing! Just what we were looking for. I hope everything is going well for the rest of it?”

“It is.” I agreed, I bit my lip holding back my sigh of relief.

“Listen, I don’t want to keep you back from getting it finished. I just wanted to make sure that you knew that it’s all good, and to keep going. Okay, babe?”

I nodded and agreed with an ‘uh-huh’, and when she was gone, I let out a long sigh. I had been worried sick that she was going to tell me that she hated it. I was worried that I would have to start again and do it another way again. I really didn’t think that I had it in me for that.

When I got into the kitchen, the lights flickered. Shit. A moment later Finn was at the door. “Are you okay?” He asked as he came into the kitchen, closing the door quickly behind him, the snow attempting to get in through the entrance.

“I’m very good. Relieved in fact. I have just had my editor on the phone, she loved the chapters I sent her over. The direction the book is heading in is good, she’s liking the character changes and all that. So, I’m delighted right now.”

“I’m pleased for you.” He smiled at me. “Jude is cooking, and he wanted to know if you wanted to join us?”

I thought about it. Someone else cooking for me was a far better idea than me trying to sort something out for myself. I nodded. “I would love to. Let me just grab my coat and boots.”

Over in the farmhouse, Jude was busy in the kitchen, and the smell wafting around was terrific. We were all sat around the same table that we had had lunch at, but this time, there were candles on the table, ready for the lights to die.

“Oh wow, this looks fantastic,” I admitted when Jude put a plate down in front of me. “I didn’t know you could cook like this!”

He shrugged with a small smile. “A man has to have some skills.” There was a slight smirk, and I felt the undertone to his words. My mind wandered instantly to what other skills this man could possibly have, and I’m sure that I was blushing when in an instant we were both distracted by the lights flickering.

“Shit, I think that’s the power trying to tell us something,” Charlie said, setting his fork on his plate and lighting the candles on the centrepiece of the table. No sooner had he lifted his fork when the lights flickered again.

“The power really is going to go out then.” I thought out loud.

Finn looked up at the light hanging from the ceiling. “It’s looking very like it.”

I set my fork down and headed for the bathroom with a ‘back in a sec’. Of course, it was then that it happened. A slight flicker of the lights again and then darkness. “Crap,” I exclaimed to the black around me.

“You okay in there?” I heard from Charlie call out from the other side of the door after a minute or so.

“I’m fine, I’ll be out in a second!” Talk about embarrassing!

“I’m going to leave you a candle outside here on the table okay?” He asked, and I could see the faint glow under the door.

“Thank you,” I called out, and held my breath, waiting to see if I could hear him moving away from the bathroom door. Once convinced he was no longer lurking outside, I allowed myself to finish, washed my hands and opened the door. Charlie was nowhere to be seen, but the candle that he had talked about was sitting right where he said it would be.

I went back down the hallway and into the kitchen, setting the candle back on the table with the others. “Thank you for that.” I smiled at Charlie as I sat down and resuming eating the delicious meal that Jude had prepared for us all.

There was definitely something about sitting with someone that you were getting more and more annoyingly attracted to eating a meal by candlelight, worse if there were three of them that you were drawn to. It was more than a little bit romantic. We sat there once again, in this awkward silence that seemed to taunt us every chance it got. It seemed to sit there between us, reminding us of all the things that we couldn’t manage to say to each other, and how much potential there was between us all, and how much was very clearly being left unsaid.