I had to laugh at Ellie’s reaction to the snow, but I understood it mostly; she was a city girl, and this kind of thing almost never happened in the city. Warnings got issued, and things never appeared, but here that threat was genuine.

I had checked the latest on my tablet earlier, the reports were bad. If things got as bad as they were expecting, phones and power would go down, roads would close, and we really would be completely cut off here.

I had given some serious thought to whether or not I wanted to tell Ellie that it would just be more sensible to head back to a hotel in Glasgow or something for the duration of the storm. But then I thought about being stuck out here in the middle of nowhere with her with nothing else to occupy us, and I couldn’t resist waiting to figure out how that would go. I am a selfish bastard. I knew that we wouldn’t be at any real risk of life. The cottage was well looked after, and the farmhouse was almost there too, we had enough supplies in food, and in the fuel for the fire, I had no doubts that while we would be suffering a little with the lack of heat and power, we were perfectly safe.

I wanted to know what would happen between us. I could see it happening one of two ways, either we killed each other, or whatever the hell was going on between us would finally come to fruition.

When I made my decision to stay and not say anything about leaving, I sent Finn out to make sure that we had the kinds of things that we might need. He got matches, candles, a lot of dishwasher salt to use to clear some snow. He bought some extra food, some milk, anything that he could think of that we might need. He even managed to pick up a wind-up radio, that way we would at least be able to have something other than silence.

The wind was really picking up when I started to split logs and stack them by the back door. I filled the buckets that lived by the fire, one with coal and one with logs. I made sure that everything was ready.

By the time I was just about satisfied with the size of the log pile I had, the snow had started. Big thick flakes floating around in the wind hid almost everything from sight beyond the end of the garden. Within twenty minutes everything was covered with at least an inch of white. I stood watching the snow fall by the back door of the cottage when it opened, and Ellie appeared beside me. “Wow, it’s really coming down isn’t it?”

I smiled. “It is, isn’t it. It’s pretty now, but it’ll be a pain in the ass by tonight.”

She laughed and touched my arm as she did. It was a friendly, innocent gesture, but I felt my skin burning from her touch even through my coat and jumper. “Do you think we’ll be okay out here? I mean, if it gets as bad as everyone seems to think it will?”

I turned to look at her, placed my hands on her shoulders and looked at her carefully. “You are completely safe here. I wouldn’t let anything happen to you. Ever.” I held her gaze. She needed to know that she was always safe with me. She stared back, and for a moment there was a moment between us again. I held her there, fighting everything in me to stop myself from pulling her against me and hugging her, kissing her forehead and holding her tight.

I watched her breathing quicken, and I knew that if I didn’t move at that very minute something was going to happen. Fear got the better of me, and instead of looking to kiss her, I let my hands drop from her arms, and I looked at the snow. “Damn, I left the salt in the back of the truck. I need to run and get it and bring it in.” I hadn’t. The salt was all in the barn where I needed it. But if I didn’t get away from her at that moment, I wouldn’t be able to. I wasn’t ready for that just yet.