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They pulled left through an overgrown hedgerow and into a courtyard. Liam parked next to the farmhouse and turned off the engine. ‘All my life,’ he said, jumping out of the vehicle and making his way around the other side to help Sophie out. ‘I grew up here, helping Dad on the farm and running riot in the fields with the animals.’ His eyes brightened at the nostalgia, and he smiled. She realised she was staring.
Opening the passenger door, Liam held his hand out for Sophie. She took it and a wave of warmth rushed through her like they were conducting electricity. He helped her down to the ground and let her hand drop. She found herself looking at his lips and realised her own were slightly parted, too.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
He swallowed, then stepped back and held out his arm to indicate that she should lead the way.
‘Have you always lived round here?’ Liam asked. ‘You don’t seem the Cotswold market town type.’
‘What on earth do you mean?’ she asked, pretending to be shocked.
Liam laughed. ‘Well, you don’t look like you’ve ever been to a farm before for a start,’ he said, looking down at her entirely unsuitable choice of footwear. Heeled suede boots weren’t the best decision she’d ever made in her life. But then, after all the faffing and worrying, she’d not really had time to think rationally about her footwear before she’d left. She made a mental note to throttle Kate when she saw her next.
‘No, I guess not,’ she said. ‘I moved from London last year. I was a city girl at heart, but now I love living here. It was definitely the right thing to do, moving to the countryside.’
‘What was it that made you move?’ Liam asked as they walked towards the farmhouse.
Sophie hesitated. ‘My job.’ She added, ‘Mainly.’
‘Come on in.’ He held the front door open for her.
Sophie stepped past him and silently inhaled a breath of his aftershave. His hand brushed hers. An image of Jordan flashed into her head, changing the fluttering in her stomach into a feeling of nausea. What was she doing? She needed to stop this. It was a rehearsal, and that was all, she reminded herself. The Christmas concert was in a couple of weeks, and Sophie was getting nervous. She had the final flyers to get printed and distributed, fundraising pressure, and now she had to learn a solo, by heart, in about a fortnight. She didn’t have time for anything else. She spent a moment steeling her resolve and telling herself to focus on the task at hand. And to stop fantasising unhealthily about Liam Hawthorn.
The house was empty and completely devoid of anything to do with Christmas. With a log burner and a voluptuous sofa in the living space, it still felt homely, but Sophie felt sad that Christmas hadn’t arrived there yet. She imagined how beautiful it could look with all the festive trimmings. She remembered Cassie had said that they hadn’t really decorated since her mother died.
Liam looked around the empty room and seemed to be embarrassed. ‘I’ve not got around to decorating yet.’ He unwrapped his scarf and discarded it, along with his gloves, on the back of the sofa. ‘Tea?’
‘Yes, please.’ Sophie added her own jacket to where Liam had laid his. She followed him into the kitchen, which centred around a hefty oak dining table and a dark green Aga, wondering whether to say anything else about the lack of Christmas decorations. She felt like she had an unfair advantage, having been told the reason by Cassie only the other day.
‘Actually,’ Liam said, filling the kettle with water, ‘I was thinking about putting the decorations up tomorrow.’
‘Oh?’ That was new.
‘Yes, well, I’ve been a bit of a Scrooge since Emily passed and Christmas hasn’t really been that high on my list of priorities.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Sophie said, instantly feeling stupid about her pathetic attempt at sympathy. He must have heard it a million times.
‘It’s fine. It was a long time ago. This year I feel like things have changed a bit and, you know, might be getting back to normal.’ He ran a hand through his dark curls. ‘Sorry, you don’t want to hear all this.’
‘It’s fine, honestly,’ Sophie said.
Liam avoided eye contact by fussing with the kettle and mugs. Sophie watched him move around the kitchen while he talked a bit about the house and his childhood. He was nipped in at the waist but broad across his shoulders: the kind of man who could carry you out of a burning building.
‘Here.’
Sophie smiled as Liam brought two mugs over to the kitchen table and they sat sipping them quietly for a moment. She realised she’d not been listening to him while she thought about him rescuing her from a fire.
‘Shall we go and set up at the piano?’
Sophie nodded, and they went back through the living room to a door that opened into a music room on the other side. There were floor-to-ceiling windows and the winter sun shone through them, glinting off the shiny grand piano that stood in the centre of the room.
‘Wow,’ Sophie said, stepping into the room and feeling as though she shouldn’t touch anything. The space was full of different instruments. Guitars hung from the three walls that weren’t windows and a cello or double bass – Sophie didn’t know which – stood upright in one corner. All of them looked terribly expensive.
‘It was my grandfather’s,’ Liam explained.
Sophie turned, taking in the room, and dropped her gaze to the great expanse of a grand piano that filled the centre of the space.
‘Is that where you got your musical talents from?’ she asked.
