Peter awoke to the smell bacon cooking and the sound of fresh coffee percolating. There were better ways to wake up, he imagined, but this had to be up there too. In the broad light of day, finding his discarded clothes was a fair bit easier so he dressed briskly and made his way downstairs to find Assumpta tending to her eggs over the Aga.

Peter snaked an arm around her waist and kissed her on the nape. "You're making me breakfast?"

"Because you think you've earned it" she replied, wryly.

"I don't think anyone's made me breakfast before" he took a seat at the table, beautifully set with cloth napkins and Denby china. "Well, apart from my mother."

"Don't go mixing us up there – you can take out your own bloody laundry." Assumpta placed a full Irish breakfast in front of Peter and took the seat beside him. He noticed with regret that she wasn't eating with him.

"Not a fan of breakfast?"

"I have to open up" she added regretfully. "Saturday may be your day off but it's my busiest."

The curate took a mouthful of white pudding and reached over the table to take her hand. "Breakfast, brains and beauty – how did I get so lucky?"

The publican smiled, wickedly. "Not forgetting blow jobs, of course," she whispered, picking up and eating a streak of crispy bacon from his plate.

Peter spluttered his coffee, his embarrassment self-evident. "Blatant too, I see."

They sat in a comfortable silence as the curate finished off the rest of his breakfast, Assumpta watching him in-between mouthfuls of tea. "So, did I pass?" she asked him eventually, clarifying it with "Will there be a second date?"

"If they're a patch on this one, you can have a hundred."

Assumpta stood up smiling, "I'll take that" she told him, making her way to open up the bar.

Peter sat back on his chair, balancing precariously on its hind legs – a habit he'd developed since school when he was mulling something over. A hundred dates… with the luck they'd been having, a tenth of that number would be out of the question. So where did that leave them? Peter hadn't the foggiest. All he knew for certain was that they needed as much time as they could muster as a couple – free from interruption and secrecy. They needed time to be alone or this thing that they were trying so ardently to foster was already dead in the water.

Now, as circumstance had clearly demonstrated, this could never be while they resided in the village. But what if they got away for a bit? Peter made a mental check of his diary. Nothing pressing was happening until the latter half of next week. Even tomorrow's Mass had been cancelled owing to the asbestos problem at his Church.

He was a free agent, so to speak.

Suddenly the kernel of an idea began to form in the curate's head – they could go away for a few days. Not a million miles away but enough, to a place where no one knew them; a sanctuary of sorts. Peter conjured up images of lazy breakfasts in bed and long walks with the paper. He fantasised about what it would be like to go to bed with and wake up to Assumpta Fitzgerald every day. His mind couldn't help but covet the possibility of more nights, like last night, spent exploring the curves and crevices of her naked body; of having her do things to his body that still, strictly speaking, he couldn't quite understand.

He was determined to make this happen.

Stepping though to the, thankfully, empty bar Peter corned the publican by the cellar.

"We have a week – maybe two" he began in earnest.

"Before?" she returned, a little uncertain.

"Before our false starts and missed opportunities begin to take hold." Peter took her hand between his, irritated that this conversation also ran the risk of being interrupted. "I can't chaperone another date with you and Donny."

"Peter," she smiled broadly. "That is not going to happen."

"Well, I can't pretend to be nothing of any consequence while I'm around you. I can't enter a room with you in it and not immediately want to kiss you or to talk to you, or hold your hand..."

On cue, he took her hand and began to study it as he looped fingers around fingers, forgetting where his began and hers ended.

"Then what do you suggest?"

He took a breath in attempt to keep his voice level as he asked her "I'd like to go away with you. Today – or tonight. As soon as you can manage. I want to be alone with you, somewhere else – somewhere new. Somewhere we've never been before."

"Somewhere that doesn't know our story" she added, after a beat.

Peter shot a relieved smile her way. She understood. "I want to go back to basics – to harness that feeling I had when I first said that I loved you, when I pledged to be all in, and to run with it and see where it goes."

The curate hesitated with the next bit. "I want to sleep with you – well, not sleep but the other thing. I want that so much – so, so much. You have to believe that. But I think you know, that's a big thing for me. Huge. And it's not the vows – although they're a reason. It's just very, very important that this is right, that the occasion calls for it. Ugh." Peter crumbled. Even to him, his words weren't making sense anymore. "All I mean is… I need your understanding."

Assumpta was rendered speechless at everything she'd just heard. He'd poured his heart out and all she could do was stand, slack-jawed before him.

"Do I have it?"

As if on cue, it was Assumpta's turn to speak. "Always" she managed as sincerely as she could. Of course she'd give him time if that was what was needed, but it still didn't help her to know where she stood.

Peter exhaled, relieved. "And the trip… you'll come away with me?"

This was easier to answer. Would she, Assumpta Fitzgerald, abandon her weekend of domestic servitude to a roomful of ungrateful Bible-bashers and tourists? "Try to stop me."

Peter beamed from ear to ear. It was exactly what he wanted to hear.

…

It was past midnight before they set off on the open road for their little holiday. Although it all felt particularly cloak and dagger, their timing was down to circumstance above anything else. Assumpta needed to wait for last orders before she could evict everyone and add a sign to the door advising the village that Fitzgerald's would be closed until Wednesday for line cleaning.

"Line cleaning? What's that when it's at home?" Peter looked particularly suave on the driver's side of the Javelin, dressed in a navy fisherman's jumper and jeans.

"Cleaning all of the beer lines to the pumps – you wouldn't believe what gets in there."

"Not just beer?" he asked, without really wanting an answer.

"You don't want to know."

"I believe you," he relented. "What I do want to know," Peter added immediately after "is where I'm supposed to be taking you?"

Assumpta studied the map laid out in front of her. "So far, that's tough to know…" The publican folded it awkwardly to focus on their immediate area. "You see, we should head to somewhere close – I'm dying to get to bed" she announced with a yawn.

"I'm dying to get you into bed," he replied with smirk.

"…but this is County Wicklow and we've ties to almost every village and town that's here."

"Popular people."

"Dublin?" she volunteered weakly.

"I don't know…" replied the curate. "I might lose you to a wine bar or some such."

"Tsk – don't start that again." Their inside joke made the couple smile weakly, mostly out of relief. Their painful past, filled with futile longing and uncertainty was somewhere that they'd never have to go again – it wasn't on their road map.

"I like Dublin," he offered eventually.

"Plenty of seedy hotels for unmarried folk," Assumpta agreed with a wry smile.

Something burnt a hole in the curate's breast pocket as she said this. He took a steady sigh of relief when she changed the subject.

"Ah, like this one. Just off the M50."

"A services, Assumpta? Really?"

The publican smirked sarcastically, "Know anywhere else which would admit guests at this ungodly hour?" she paused, not really waiting for an answer. "Look, it's not a services. Independently run and not a petrol pump in sight – see?"

Assumpta showed him the advert next to the muddle of lines delineating the M50 Orbital. Meadows Retreat. It sounded like a rehabilitation centre. "Look, it's not far." she added. "In under an hour we'll be pillaging their Honesty Bar and eating complimentary macadamias to our heart's content."

"I think you've some high expectations for this place." Peter envisaged torn wallpaper and a Norman Bates-esque host. But still, it was close and they'd never heard of it before which – more importantly – meant the owners would have never heard of them.

Seclusion. Privacy… Peter gulped in giddy anticipation about what would come from it. "I'm in." he told her, with a little too much conviction in his voice.

...

A/N - Sappy, yes but fear not, there'll be lemons ahead (and more dragons - obvie). I'm trying to stay a chapter ahead so I can continue with these daily updates. I feel I need to apologise for neglecting to finish my last fic - for three long years! Suffice to say, this one won't fall into the same trap. I have an ending mapped out. For now though, let me know what you think? Reviews are adored!