A Yorkshire Christmas Read Online Free PDF Page A

opened the front door to Noah Bradford.
    He looked exactly the same, wearing a battered wax jacket and jeans, his eyes widening slightly as he took in the sight of her.
    Claire knew she must look a mess. She could feel dried drool on her cheek, and her hair had dried as she’d slept, and was now sticking out in about sixteen different directions. And she was wearing a bathrobe.
    “Sorry, sorry,” she hurried to explain, fighting a flush that threatened to cover her from head to toe. “I fell asleep.”
    “I gathered that,” Noah answered, his tone so dry that Claire surprised herself by smiling.
    And then Noah surprised her by noticing and smiling back, his eyes crinkling as his mouth kicked up at the corner and Claire felt a jolt of awareness like a blast of heat she hadn’t expected, warming her all the way through.
    Oh, no. She could not go there. Would not. Not when she was so hurting and unhappy, her heart still aching from far too many bitter and shaming memories.
    “Let me just get dressed,” she mumbled and headed upstairs.
    Back in Ruth’s bedroom, she yanked on a pair of fresh jeans and another cashmere sweater, pushed her feet into sneakers, and then grabbed her bag still filled with unmarked final exams. She dumped them out on the bed, wincing at the confetti of bluebooks, with the neat cursive all the girls at Stirling were required to master, that fluttered down on the unmade bed. Turning away from the mess, she hurried downstairs.
    Noah had come inside the cottage’s little slate-tiled foyer and stood there, his face expressionless, his hands tucked deep inside the pockets of his jacket. His expression didn’t change as he caught sight of her, but Claire still felt something, some kind of discomfort or awkwardness. Then she caught sight of herself in the little hall mirror and let out a shaky laugh. She’d forgotten to brush her hair, and it looked like a complete bird’s nest.
    Quickly she combed her fingers through it and then grabbed an elastic band from her bag and pulled her hair into a haphazard ponytail. “Sorry for the wait,” she said, and Noah just shrugged her apology aside before heading back outside.
    It had stopped snowing while she’d been sleeping, and the world was pristine and white, the air crisp and cold. It was only about three o’clock in the afternoon, but already the sky was turning a pale violet at its edges, like a bruise, and long shadows lay across the snowy fields.
    “It gets dark early,” Claire said, the words immediately sounding inane, and Noah just nodded. She felt keyed up and a little exposed; he’d seen her in her bathrobe, after all. Small talk, she hoped, might help, might make sense of this strange, surreal situation. “Are you from around here?” she asked.
    “Yes.”
    It was, Claire decided, a rather abrupt answer. As she’d suspected before, Noah Bradford was not inclined to pleasantries. Well, fine. She hadn’t come to Yorkshire to make friends.
    She turned and stared out the window; they had driven down the narrow road from Holly Cottage and were now coming into the village proper, which looked to be no more than a narrow street of terraced houses and barn conversions, a tiny post office shop in the middle, with a bow window and blackened beams. Noah drove out the other side of the village and then in silence for several miles until they arrived at civilization: a sign announcing the Historic Market Town of Ripon, the spire of a cathedral in the distance, and on the outskirts, a few big-box stores including a large supermarket called Sainsbury’s.
    Once more murmuring her thanks, Claire slipped out of the Land Rover as soon as Noah had parked the car. There was something unsettling and weirdly intimate about food shopping with a man, almost as if they were a couple, which of course they were not.
    She pushed the cart through the aisles with Noah trailing after her, hands shoved in his pockets, as she took in the unfamiliar food