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      She would make a bad enemy, Tilly realised when she saw the look in her eyes.

      Silas didn’t seem too concerned, though. Ignoring Cissie-Rose’s obvious hostility to his suggestion, he continued calmly. ‘I don’t want to linger in town, Cissie-Rose. The weather forecast they gave out on the way over didn’t sound very good.’

      ‘Oh. I see. Well, okay, then.’

      It was obvious that Cissie-Rose did not think it was anything like okay at all, Tilly realised, feeling uncomfortable as she saw the furious look the other woman was giving her.

      ‘Look, why don’t we meet back here in, say, a couple of hours?’Silas suggested. ‘Here’s a spare key for the car in case you get back before us. That way you won’t have to stand around waiting in the cold. And I’ll give you my mobile number just in case you need it. Ready, Tee?’

      Tilly disengaged herself from the boys and hurried towards him, hating herself for being so grateful both for the supporting arm he slid round her and the warmth of the smile he gave her.

      ‘It’s okay. You can let go of me,’ she told him slightly breathlessly five minutes later. ‘Cissie-Rose can’t see us now.’

      ‘You are my fiancé; we’re passionately in love. We’re hardly going to walk feet apart from one another, are we? And you never know—we could bump into Cissie-Rose anywhere. It is only a small town. Besides,’ Silas told her softly, ‘I don’t want to let go of you.’

      Was it necessary for him to go to these lengths? He had established himself now as Tilly’s fiancé. And after last night…After last night, what? It was because of last night that he had been left with this ache that had somehow taken on a life force of its own. This ache that right now…

      What was Silas thinking? Tilly wondered. What was making him look so distant and yet at the same time, now that he had turned his head to look at her, so hungry for her?

      When he reached for her Tilly didn’t even try to resist. He turned her around to face him in the shelter of an overhanging building, where no one could see them, and then pressed her back against the wall, covering her body with the warmth of his own.

      He whispered into the softness of her parting lips, ‘I know there are any number of reasons why I shouldn’t be doing this, but right now I don’t want to know about them. Right now, right here, what I want, all I want, is you, Tilly.’

      Why was he doing this when he didn’t have to? Why ask himself questions that he couldn’t answer? Silas answered himself as he gave in to the need that had been aching through him since last night and bent his head to kiss Tilly.

      This wasn’t a sensible thing for her to be doing, Tilly warned herself. But suddenly being sensible wasn’t what she wanted. What she wanted was…What she wanted was Silas, she admitted. And she stopped thinking and worrying and judging, and simply gave herself over to feeling, as they clung together, kissing like two desire-drugged teenagers, oblivious to everything and everyone else.

      What followed should have been an anticlimax. Instead it was the start of the most wonderful few hours Tilly had ever had.

      The small town was picture-perfect, with its honey-coloured stone houses covered in pristine snow—which, thankfully, had been swept off the streets. Silas insisted on keeping her arm tucked through his. And when at one point he simply stopped walking and looked at her, she could feel her cheeks turning pink in response to the look in his eyes.

      ‘Don’t do that,’ she protested.

      ‘Don’t do what?’

      ‘Look at me like that.’

      ‘You mean like I want to kiss you again?’

      ‘This is crazy,’ Tilly said, shaking her head.

      ‘Isn’t that what people are supposed to say when they start to fall in love?’

      Silas could see the shock in her eyes. He could feel that same shock running through his own body. What the hell was he doing, dragging love into the situation? He felt as though he had suddenly become two people whose behaviour was totally alien to each other—one of whom was saying that he never played emotional games with women, that he despised men who did, so why the hell was he using a word like “love”, while the other demanded to know who had said anything about playing games? It was as though he was at war with himself. He tried to shake off the feeling that they had somehow strayed into a maze and come up against a blank wall.

      ‘There’s a coffee shop over there. Shall we go in and have a drink?’ Anything to try and get himself back to normal.

      Tilly nodded her head in relief. Now that she was free of the spell the intimacy of Silas’s sexuality seemed to cast over her, she was shakily aware of how vulnerable she was. Things were moving far too fast for her. She wasn’t used to this kind of situation. And somehow she couldn’t quite get her head round accepting that Silas could actually mean what he was saying. It was too much too soon. But she wanted him. She couldn’t deny that.

      She drank the coffee Silas ordered for them both, and tried to focus on the people hurrying up and down the street outside the window rather than on Silas, as she secretly wanted to do. In fact right now what she wanted more than anything else was just to be able to look at him, to absorb every tiny physical detail while she tried to come to terms with what was happening.

      Silas watched her. He felt as though he could almost read her thoughts. She didn’t know whether to believe he was being honest with her. He could sense it in every small action she made. She wanted him; he knew that. But he could see that she was dubious about accepting the immediacy of the situation.

      They had both finished their coffee. Silas stood up. ‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ he said, nodding his head in the direction of a pharmacy on the other side of the street.

      Tilly didn’t catch on immediately, but when she saw the green cross over the building her face burned, and she made an incoherent sound of assent, using Silas’s absence to go to the ladies’ room to comb her hair and replace the lipstick he had kissed off earlier. By the time she emerged, Silas had returned and was waiting for her.

      ‘I think I’d better buy your mother a small Christmas gift, but I’m going to need you to advise me,’ he said, steering her in the direction of a small gift shop with a mouthwatering window display. To Tilly’s relief he didn’t say a word about his visit to the pharmacy.

      The gift shop proved to be a treasure trove of the unusual and the enticing, and Tilly found presents for each of the children. It was only when the small ornamental jewellery box Silas had bought for her mother was being giftwrapped that Tilly looked at her watch and realised that it was almost two hours since they had left the car park.

      ‘We ought to be heading back,’ she warned Silas.

      ‘Yes, I know. Not that I’m particularly looking forward to the return trip with Cissie-Rose. She can sit in the back this time—car sickness or not,’ he told Tilly, before adding in a warmer tone, ‘I thought you handled the boys very well, by the way. You obviously like children.’

      ‘Yes. And it’s just as well, really. My father remarried and has a second younger family, and all my mother’s exes have children—most of whom also have children of their own now.’

      ‘The ramifications of the modern extended family can be quite complicated,’ Silas observed as he took the package from the shop assistant.

      As they stepped out in the street, Tilly gave a small gasp of delight. ‘It’s snowing!’ she exclaimed.

      ‘Martin warned me that heavy snow had been forecast.’

      This time it was Tilly who automatically slipped her arm through his as they headed for the car park.

      A clock was just striking the hour when they reached it, making their way through the parked vehicles to where Silas had left the four-wheel drive.

      But

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