That Tender Feeling by Dorothy Vernon Page A

bare skin. His other hand clasped hers and was crushed between their bodies. The back of his hand rested on her breast, again just slightly to the side of where her dress ended, so that his knuckles burned like a branding iron on her sensitized flesh. She never, never, never wanted the music to end. She wanted to stay forever in his arms, held so cherishingly close.
    They stayed until the delicious end, not leaving until the early hours of December the twenty-fourth. Christmas Eve morning was just two hours old, and feathers of snow touched their faces as, arms linked round waists, they walked to the car.
    â€˜I hope it comes down thick and fast and everywhere is covered by snow in the morning,’ Ros declared.
    â€˜Not too densely covered, I hope. There are things to be done. Holly to be collected and a tree to be brought in.’
    â€˜I got the trimmings when I went shopping for the food,’ Ros volunteered happily.
    They entered Holly Cottage, and their feet pointed of one accord to the kitchen. Ros abandoned her wrap and tipped milk into a saucepan, to be heated on the stove for a hot bedtime drink. Cliff leaned against the counter and watched her. The strange brooding look on his face did not fit in with the atmosphere of the evening. Inevitably, the milk boiled over.
    They cleaned up the mess together and decided not to bother with a bedtime drink. Cliff put his hands up to her hair, and two deft flicks brought its brightness tumbling over his fingers. Was that why she’d worn it in that style, not to ‘cool’ the look of her dress but to tempt Cliff to remove the restraining pins, as he had once before?
    He cupped her face in his hands, and he kissed her not urgently on the lips, although his expression was still strange. Then he turned her round and bade her a firm good night.
    She went up to her room, not altogether knowing why she had been sent away, yet knowing that it was right for him not to rush things between them. The pace, at first, had been too hectic, but now it was right for it to slow down and take its own course.
    If only she knew the reason for this funny little pain under her heart. She had the oddest feeling that the price she was going to be asked to pay for her happiness would be too cruel to bear. It was uncanny how she knew that it was soon to be partnered by a sorrow that would drag her down into depths of misery and torment that, in her wildest fears, she had never thought to experience.

CHAPTER SIX
    The next morning, Ros’s eyes opened to a dazzling brightness, and she knew that her wish had been granted. She flew to the window and saw that it had snowed through the night. Not only was the landscape a different color, but it was also a different shape. White trees took on odd dimensions. The sun had come out as though marking its approval, and the blue-white glare of the rolling hills sparkled in the grip of a million dancing sunbeams.
    As she surveyed the frosty, bejeweled scene, a white wonderland, her gloom of the previous day completely disappeared. It was a day to lift one’s face up to in bright optimism. Every moment was too precious to squander on despondent fears that lurked in, and were the product of, some dark and obscure pocket of the imagination and had no substance.
    She pulled on trousers and a thick sweater, knowing that with those tucked under her sheepskin coat, she would be cozy and warm when they went out after breakfast in search of a tree and boughs of evergreen. It was unthinkable not to have holly in Holly Cottage at Christmas. And . . . perhaps . . . mistletoe.
    Similarly muffled to his chin, Cliff had started on the breakfast. Despite his opinion of her cooking, he made no demur when she waded in to help. When the washing up was done, they put on coats and scarfs, and Ros dug out a woolly cap with a pompon that matched her scarf, and out they went.
    They didn’t hang about but marched at a brisk pace. Cliff, who had been on many a