Pink-cheeked from the cold and a sense of well-earned triumph, the children rushed inside to lay out the tablecloth they’d painted, and then it was time for Ian’s labour of love: a deliciously salted roast ham; mashed potatoes; fries; a crisp salad straight from the greenhouse; roasted parsnips with a honey glaze; a handful of perfect, fluffy Yorkshire puddings; homemade candy canes; and two gooey, dome-shaped cakes with chocolate, sea salt, and, in the one that was only for the adults, a lot of brandy.

After all this, a food coma was inevitable, so the rest of the afternoon was spent watching snowy, wintry movies about lost sticks, penguins who befriended lonely boys, and other sweet, soppy stories. Then there were leftovers for dinner, board games late into the evening, and at last, when the girls were pretty much falling asleep on the sofa, bedtime.

Mika and the other adults stayed up a little longer, drinking far too much apple cider and eating an awful lot of boozy pudding, and when it got to the point that it looked like Jamie might go to bed before the others did, Mika decided it was time to take matters into her own hands.

“Can we talk?” she said to him, and made a swift exit from the room before he had an opportunity to refuse.

The instant Mika left the room, Ian was drunkenly, unapologetically ecstatic. He was about to say so when he encountered a steely, grey-eyed glare, at which point he decided it might be best to wait until Jamie had followed Mika out of the room before crowing.

Their trip up north should have led to something, but Ian still hadn’t recovered from the disappointment of Mika and Jamie coming home and proceeding to say nary a word to each other. It was downright obnoxious of them.

So when Jamie followed Mika out a moment later, Ian had every intention of trailing after them and eavesdropping from a decorous distance, but Ken and Lucie, those long-suffering bastions of good sense, would not let him. Ken even went so far as to threaten to make Ian sleep on the sofa if he persisted (when he knew that Ian’s back needed the perfectly springy memory foam of their bed!).

It was with a distinctly sulky air, therefore, that Ian sat back down to finish his glass of cider, resigning himself to the agonies of ignorance until the morning.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Jamie was only a step behind Mika as she walked out into the garden, to the back gate, past the sunflowers, and out on the dunes. He followed, about to protest that it was almost pitch-black out here and one of them would break an ankle, but then she waved a hand in the air and a thousand soft, glowing, firefly-like lights lit the way.