Late Saturday evening, Grady arrived home to a dark, deserted Mistletoe Cottage. He hadn’t heard from Laurel since their text exchange on Friday evening and he entered his workshop half expecting to find the board destined to be the Christmas scene as bare and untouched as when he’d left it. Instead, he found it chocked in place with wooden wedges, a collection of paints and cleaned brushes tucked behind.

Over white primer, the ghost of a scene had appeared. A hazy sun glowed from the top left of a winter-blue sky and the light and shade of craggy mountains had been indicated with a broad brush. The right foreground was blank, ready for Tess’s Santa and sleigh, and, front left, a hazy rendition of light and shade revealed itself as a lake, as Grady looked at it.

He checked around the workshop and kitchen but found no note or used coffee mug. He checked the key safe and found his key neatly replaced. Laurel had come here, laid the foundation for a winter wonderland, and left.

Unexpectedly, his eyes burned.

He was overtired, he thought. He’d had a long day. Needing to keep clear of the village he’d driven into Norfolk and almost got lost on the salt marshes.

He trudged upstairs, heartsick both that he’d have to ask Laurel about Mac … and that she’d never felt she could tell him the truth.

Chapter Twelve

December arrived on Wednesday morning with a frost as hard and beautiful as crushed diamonds.

The studio windows were edged with ferns of ice outside. Even with the heaters on full, Laurel was barely warm enough – although that might have something to do with her being dressed in only thin, stretchy, thermal base layers she’d once worn beneath ski gear.

A video frame was frozen on her computer screen. She, Daisy and Rea had videoed themselves learning street dance from TikTok – bouncing, leaping and laughing themselves breathless as they fought to master the lightning-fast steps – and Laurel had scrubbed through the footage and selected the perfect image as a reference for a sketch for her everyday woman dancing in the snow. She’d been caught mid-bounce, one leg lifted so that the kneecap was at hip level, one arm thrust up and the other down. On canvas, Everyday Woman would wear a flirty short skirt over leggings, Doc Martens and a cold-shoulder jumper, but right now Laurel was working on the anatomy beneath the clothes and had carried the full-length mirror down from her room.