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They walked back to the cottage quickly, not speaking. Once inside, Hal stoked up the fire, Angel poured them both a drink, and they took them into the living room and sat on the sofa.
They sipped their whisky, watching each other.
“So there’s only one real question,” he said eventually. “Do you want to see me again?”
She gave him an exasperated look. “Hal...”
“I’m serious.”
“Of course I do! But it’s not as easy as that.”
“Forget about Rebecca,” he began to say, but she held up a hand, interrupting him.
“It’s not just her.” She began to tick items off on her fingers. “We’re six hours’ drive apart. Cardiff Airport is an hour away from Chepstow. Newcastle is an hour away from Holy Island. Flights aren’t cheap. You have the kids every other weekend. You have a full-time job. Do you really think a long-distance relationship would work?”
“No,” he said. “So, come and stay with me.”
She stared at him as her heart skipped a beat. “What?”
“Stay with me. Let’s say... for a month. See how it goes. If it doesn’t work out, you go back to your apartment in Chepstow and keep looking for a job down there. But if it does...”
“Are you serious?”
“Completely.”
“You’ve known me a week,” she pointed out.
“Ten whole days of bliss.”
Her lips twitched. “You can’t mean it. We might drive each other nuts.”
“And if we do, we’ve lost nothing. If we don’t...” He let the sentence hang.
She didn’t say anything. Her head was spinning. She couldn’t possibly say yes. Could she?
He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, the glass dangling from his fingers. “I know it would mean being apart from your family. And it must look as if I always make all the demands, after making Rebecca give up her job. I’d understand if you ran a mile. I’d move down to Chepstow if it wasn’t for the kids.”
“No,” she said, leaning forward too, “no, no. I would never expect you to do that. That’s not why I’m hesitating. I can’t believe you’ve suggested it.”
“You honestly didn’t think I was going to try to see you again?” he said softly.
“Before this evening? Maybe. But after what happened tonight?” She frowned. “I know it’s upset you, but we can’t just ignore what Rebecca said. We need to talk about the implications of us getting together. If she were to try to take the kids away, even if she wasn’t successful in the long run... I’d hate it if you ever regretted hooking up with me.”
He stared at his glass, his jaw set. “She has no right to make such demands on me, especially after what she’s done. I take your point that it’s not just the eventual outcome that could cause problems. But I will not let her blackmail me into giving you up. My past life and my present one are completely separate, and I want to keep them that way.”
His eyes blazed. “I love my kids more than anything, but I’m not going to let Rebecca force me to be unhappy for their sakes. We only have one chance at life, Angel, and I’m not going to spend it being her puppet.”
“So you don’t think you should get back with her if she’s willing to try again? For the kids?”
“As you pointed out to me, it will just mean a miserable household, and that can’t be good for them. There are other lessons for them to learn here, about not giving in to bullies, and about believing in and fighting for the things you love.”
He leaned forward and put his drink on the table, then took her free hand in his. “This isn’t about anything else except me and you. So I go back to the original question. Do you want to see me again?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“So what do you think of my idea?”
Her lips slowly curved up. “It could work.”
They looked into each other’s eyes for a long time, both smiling.
“I’m five years older than you,” she said.
“Don’t care,” he replied.
“I suffer from depression.”
“We’ll deal with that together. I’m not going to back away because life can be a struggle for you, Angel. It’ll take more than that to frighten me off.”
“I can’t have children,” she said.
He shrugged. “I have two. You can share mine if you want.” She pressed her fingers to her lips, and he smiled. “Look,” he said, “we can talk about that. If you want kids of your own, if you want to try IVF again, or adopt, we can discuss all that.”
She shook her head. “I don’t, at the moment, anyway. I’d be happy to play a part in your kids’ lives though. Would it matter to you if you didn’t have any more children?”
“No. Jamie and Brenna are amazing, but two are more than enough.” He crossed his eyes, then grinned when she laughed. “It’s time to change our stars,” he said. “I’m going to look for another job, closer to home hopefully, where I won’t have to kowtow to Charles anymore. That will give them less leverage over me too.”
“Actually,” she said, “I have an idea about that.”
His eyebrows rose. “Oh?”
She chewed her bottom lip for a moment. “Well, I’ve been thinking about setting up as a freelance archaeologist. Writing for magazines and online sites. Couldn’t you do the same? But offering your illustration and design skills?”
He frowned, and she could see the ideas whizzing around in his head. “I suppose.”
“We could do it separately. Or... we could do it together.” She’d been thinking about this all week, and she couldn’t keep her enthusiasm in any longer. “We could set up a business. We’d approach councils and even offer our services to English Heritage and the National Trust—I’m sure it would be cheaper for them to hire us on an ad hoc basis than to employ you full time. You already have a reputation in the business, which helps. I took a whole unit on tourism at university. We could draw up proposals for improving historical tourist attractions. If we point out how they can make more money, they’ll be interested, I guarantee it. We’d suggest proposals that would include new display boards and online guides to sites. We would offer to survey historic buildings and take photos, and then I could research the history and write the text while you draw up all the illustrations.”
“We could advertise in some of the major magazines,” he said.
“Of course. Something else I’ve thought about is doing podcasts. We’re both good communicators. I think we could come up with a fun and entertaining way to promote history and archaeology. We could even send in a resume to the History channel or some of the other networks who make history and archaeology programs.”
“You’re serious,” he said.
“Of course I’m serious. The sky really is the limit.”
“But is it possible to make a living from it?”
“I think so. We’d have hardly any overheads because we could work from home. Your spare room is already halfway to being a study—we could turn it into a proper office.” She squeezed his hand. “I know you have obligations, so we would take it slowly. Like you said, we could give it a month and see whether we both want to carry on. I could do most of the setup, and you’d have to do whatever work you could in the evenings or at weekends. Then, after the divorce is through and you’ve sold your house, you won’t have to pay the mortgage anymore. I know you’ll still be paying child support, but there’s no mortgage on this house, no rent. You could wait until you feel ready to make the jump, and by then hopefully we’d have a base to start with.”
“You’ve given this a lot of thought,” he said.
“I have. I’ve seen a great course on marketing and promotion that I think I’m going to take, and another on social media. We would run a Facebook page and a Twitter account, retweet interesting history facts, and link to our podcasts and online stuff. You’d be surprised at how fast word would spread.”
“I’d like to get the younger generations more interested in our history,” he said. “At the moment, it’s not cool to be into history, and I’d love to change that. I did consider going into teaching at one point.”
“Well, we could also do short podcasts for kids that teachers could play in their classrooms. Or collaborate with schools in organizing trips to historical sites. I don’t know, maybe I’m getting carried away...”
“I do cartoons sometimes,” he admitted, somewhat reluctantly.
Her eyebrows rose. “Really?”
“I don’t tell many people about them, but yeah, I make up fun stories about the Norman Conquest and the Black Death, kind of like Gary Larkin. They’ve always been just for me, but I suppose I could put those online.”
“That would be brilliant! What about an online magazine?”
They continued talking, coming up with ideas, some outrageous that made them laugh and discount immediately, others that made them both stare at each other in delight. Hal fetched a piece of paper and a pen, and Angel started jotting some of them down. Soon the paper was covered with notes, and they were both beginning to get excited.
It was only then that Angel glanced at her phone and realized with surprise that it was only ten minutes until midnight. “Jesus,” she said. “Where did the time go? It’s nearly next year!”
He took the pen and pad of paper from her and threw it onto the table, then pulled her toward him, leaning back so she half lay on top of him.
“What do you think?” she asked, breathless with hope.
“I think it sounds amazing.” He tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. “I’m willing to give it a go, anyway.”
She nodded and kissed his nose. “Okay.”
“Now.” He ran his hands down her back. “Do you remember what I said I wanted to do at midnight?”
Angel laughed. “You mean make love for a whole year?”
“Sounds perfect to me.”
She looked down at him, into his bright blue eyes. “I’m so glad I met you,” she whispered.
He stroked the back of his fingers against her cheek. “Me too.”
“I think we should call ourselves the Viking and the Shield Maiden online.”
“Absolutely.” He slid a hand into her hair. Then he pulled her head down to kiss her.
Angel let him, overwhelmed with emotion. He wanted her to come and live with him. She’d thought maybe he’d suggest her renting a place nearby or something, but she hadn’t thought he’d want her to be as much a part of his life as that.
It wouldn’t be easy; she knew that already. They’d have his kids there for half the time, and even though they’d seemed to like her, she wasn’t sure how they’d react when they realized he wouldn’t be getting back together with their mother. And no doubt Rebecca would do her utmost to make his life a misery. It was going to be tough.
But he was right—that was nothing to do with the two of them. They wanted to be together, and everything else would work around that.
It was getting difficult to concentrate, because Hal’s hands were roaming over her body, smoothing down her back, cupping her breasts, and as he brushed his thumbs over her nipples and rocked his hips against her, sensual shivers spiraled through her, making her moan against his lips.
“Take off your clothes,” he murmured.
She removed her sweater, then her bra, climbed off him and took off her jeans and panties, and finally settled back astride him. He’d stripped off his sweater and T-shirt and unzipped his jeans, and she pulled down his boxers to release his eager erection. After rolling on a condom, she shifted to let him enter her.
“Aaahhh.” She lowered down to kiss him, letting herself adjust as he pushed up his hips to bury himself inside her.
“I’m so glad you said yes,” he murmured, tightening his fingers on her hips. “I’d miss this so much. I know it’s only been a week, but I think I’m in love with you.”
She blinked back tears and touched her nose to his. She was crazy about this man, from his stubbly beard and firm body to his generous nature and teasing sense of humor. “I’m in love with you too.”
He groaned and pulled her head down to kiss her, and there was no further need for words. Their bodies took over, and desire threaded ribbons between them, drawing them ever closer until they both came, while the clock ticked into the New Year.
