Ivy Lane: Winter: by Cathy Bramley

something gardening-related like everyone else’s presents, so he’d left it in the shed. I hoped it wasn’t a new spade or fork; I was more than happy with the ones Alf had given to me, the ones Celia had used for so many years. It could be anything, knowing Charlie. I smiled wryly to myself, after what he’d revealed about himself tonight, nothing would shock me any more.
    But what I would really love, I thought, as I turned off the road in front of Gemma’s plot and onto the snow-topped grassy path towards my own, although I doubted it would occur to a man to buy them, was some solar-powered fairy lights. Then I could decorate the outside of my shed and have Christmas sparkle all year round.
    Now that would be really lovely . . . oh! My thoughts tailed off into oblivion as the shed came into view. There was light coming from inside.
    At first, I frowned in confusion and then I clapped my hands with delight. Well, I take that back Charlie! How amazing, he obviously had bought me lights and what’s more he had even strung them up and switched them on.
    What a lovely surprise!
    I picked up my pace and hurried towards the shed only to freeze a second later as a figure appeared at the window. I stood, dazed, my heart in my mouth, hardly daring to believe what my eyes were telling me. Even though his face was in shadow, I would recognize him anywhere.
    The shed door opened and I held my breath as the world according to Tilly Parker tilted on its axis and everything – everything – changed. There in the doorway, illuminated by the golden glow from within, was the man who had wrapped himself irreversibly around my heart.
    ‘Aidan?’ I whispered, my feet riveted to the spot. My shoes had sunk down into the snow and I was vaguely aware of the cold biting into my toes. But the spark of hope that flickered back to life in my heart sent a rush of warmth around my body, more than making up for the cold.
    Aidan’s handsome face broke into a smile and he held his arms out to me. ‘Merry Christmas, Tilly.’
    I hesitated, just for a second, aware on some cosmic level that this moment was one of such importance that it shouldn’t be rushed. I gazed at his silhouette framed in the doorway, at the ice crystals on the grass, which sparkled and danced in the moonlight, a carpet of diamonds, perfectly mirroring the stars above. It would only take me a few steps to reach him, but it was possibly the start of a whole new journey.
    And then I was laughing and yelling ‘Merry Christmas’ and running straight into those warm strong arms and he was laughing too as he gathered me up and spun me round until I squealed for him to put me down.
    My mind was full of questions that were tripping over each other to get to the front of the queue, but for now it was enough that I was in his arms, that the brown eyes that gazed back at me were full of an emotion that I didn’t dare put a name to. Because none of this made any sense.
    I’ve missed you, Aidan.
    ‘I am so happy to see you.’ He buried his face in my hair and hugged me tight, his voice husky and low.
    ‘What are you doing here?’ I asked, leaning away from him so that I could read his expression.
    ‘Well, at this precise moment, turning to a block of ice.’ He grinned. ‘But speaking in more general terms, I’m your Secret Santa gift, apparently. Come on inside.’
    Still holding me tight, he shuffled backwards until we were inside and then closed the door behind me.
    My eyes roamed the shed in disbelief. The light wasn’t coming from fairy lights at all, but candles, dotted around the shelves and on the table. And despite being surrounded by gardening tools and stacks of empty plant pots and half-full bags of compost, there was something intimate and romantic about the setting. In fact, the shed was exactly as I had planned for it to look for my rendezvous with Aidan at Hallowe’en, before Charlie sabotaged my plans.
    And now, in a scene that could have come straight from