Nichs frowned down at her. “Care?”


    “Nichs, would you mind giving me some time to freshen up?” she asked as she looked up at him.  “Thisst couple of days, traveling up to Texas and then getting stranded in the snow, has been quite hard.”


    Hard? That wasn’t quite the description that Nichs would have used concerning thest two days. But perhaps to Caroline, forced by circumstances into such close proximity with him, that was exactly what it had been. Perhaps he shouldn’t have brought her to Texas with him at all.


    “Fine,” he bit out. “There’s only the one small bathroom, I’m afraid.”


    “I’m sure I’ll manage, Nichs,” she concluded.


    He nodded. “It’s just down the hallway on the right. Come downstairs when you’re ready.” He gave another nod before leaving.


    Caroline sat down abruptly on the single bed as she heard him returning down stairs, not sure she would ever be ‘ready’ to face him again, let alone the searching gaze of his aunt.


    But as she looked about the bedroom that had once been his, she didn’t think she would be able to remain up here for too long, either.


    The walls were mainly covered in posters. Not of the scantily-d females she might have expected from the teenager he had been when he’d visited here; instead there were dozens of posters on ser. The yers. The fixtures. The stadiums.


    The single bookcase beside the bed held a much-read collection of paperbacks. His taste was eclectic as it ranged from the ssics to murder-mysteries, and of course ser. Even the duvet cover on the bed Caroline sat on was styled in the colors of some ser team!


    Everywhere Caroline looked she was surrounded by the evidence of Nichs living here, by his presence. And this was the bedroom she was expected to sleep in tonight!


    ______


    “Come in and sit by the range where it’s warm” Mae Harrison invited as Caroline hesitated in the kitchen doorway.


    The kitchen was cozy and warm, and filled with the smell of food cooking as Mae fried onions in a pan on top of the range. A wooden rocking-chair was ced to one side, obviously one that the elderlydy often used herself, the cushions old and faded.


    The homeliness of the cottage was such a contrast to the apartment Frank Connelly asionally used at the top of Happy Valley Park. The taste there ran torge,fortable furniture in the sitting room, and a streamlined kitchen in ck and yellow with all the modern electrical-conveniences at his disposal.


    “The floor is original,” the elderlydy announced proudly as she saw Caroline’s admiring gaze on the pale-stone floor and mellowed-oak cupboards. “Once when Nichs called, he was talking about installing a newfangled gas Aga too.” Mae wrinkled her nose scathingly. “But, as I told him, I’ve had this old wood-burning range for over  years and I know its foibles as well as it knows mine!”


    Caroline smiled. “Is there anything I can do to help?” she offered politely.


    “Just sit yourself down,” the older woman assured her briskly. “I’m making Nichs’ favorite-cottage pie,” she confided as she saw Caroline’s interest in what she was doing.


    “I didn’t know that.”N?velDrama.Org exclusive content.


    “Oh yes,” Mae confirmed affectionately. “Of course, he probably eats all that fancy food, but whenever hees here it’s a cottage pie he always asks for. I’ll never tell him so, of course, but he’s a goodd,” she added warmly. “Wild and angry with the world sometimes, of course.” She frowned. “But what teenager wouldn’t be when the mother he adored had just died? His father couldn’t handle him sometimes… And I can’t me him much… He was mourning his wife too. He loved her dearly,”


    Caroline murmured something appropriate, not sure she wanted to hear any of this. Afterst night, it was much easier for her to think of Nichs only as the rich and sessful man who used and discarded women, rather than to be told how wonderful he was by the elderly aunt who had helped to bring him up.


    “Nichs is strong willed and a little stubborn, and although he may have left home, he has never forgotten his roots,” snorted Mae.


    “Singing my praises again, Aunt Mae?” Nichs mocked as he opened the kitchen door and allowed a st of cold air to st into the room with him. He was carrying a stack of wood across the room and dropped it into the basket beside the range before straightening.”I hope you haven’t been regaling Caroline with any of the deeds of my misspent youth?” he added teasingly.


    He hadn’t expected Caroline toe downstairs before he returned from chopping the wood, and wondered now exactly what Aunt Mae had been talking about in his absence. If it was anything like the twenty questions about Caroline that his aunt had given him a short time ago, then he felt sorry for her!


    “You may have had your issues,” his aunt retorted sternly. “But not while you were here. I would never have allowed it while you were under my roof!”


    “That’s true,” Nichs drawled. “She was worse than Sherlock Holmes,” he confided in Caroline dryly. “Knew what I’d done before I’d even done it. I tried one cigarette-one,” he emphasized. “When I was sixteen. And as soon as I walked back in the door she sat me down in that rocking chair you’re sitting in now and gave me a lecture on the perils of the dreaded weed. With graphic details, I might add.”


    “Yes,” His aunt nodded unrepentantly. “Now, take Caroline into the sitting room and offer her a ss of sherry before supper so that I can get on with my cooking.”


    Caroline frowned slightly. “I hope I haven’t been too much of a nuisance.”


    “You haven’t been a nuisance at all,” Mae assured her briskly. “I simply can’t abide having a man in my kitchen.”


    Nichs chuckled softly as he opened the door for Caroline to precede him into the adjoining sitting-room. “So how’s it going?” he asked her.


    Caroline took the ss he handed her, taking a sip of the sherry before answering him, grateful for the feel of the warming liquid inside her.


    “I really wish you hadn’t brought me here, Nichs,” She looked ufortable.


    “Why not?” Nichs rasped irritably as he moved away from her to stand beside the fire. “I realize the cottage isn’t quite what you’re used to by way of amodation, but-”


    “That ispletely unfair, Nichs!” Caroline protested indignantly. “The cottage is charming. As is your aunt.”