TWO – Temporary Accommodation

They bicker petulantly all the way to the room. Which is, in fact, quite a long way, involving a cramped lift and innumerable identical, windowless and utterly unremarkable corridors. But Grace eventually wins hands down with a final stinging, "Trust me, Boyd, lying awake all night listening to you snoring your damned head off is the very last thing I want to be doing. Just stop bloody moaning, for God's sake."

There are several a long moments of heavy and sulky silence followed by an affronted growl of, "I don't snore."

Grace doesn't stop walking. "Yes, you do."

Boyd's response is indignant. "Oh? And how the bloody hell would you know?"

As they reach the correct door, she counters, "Because even with both office doors closed I used to be able to hear you 'resting your eyes'."

She thinks he will rise to the deliberate provocation. He usually does, even when he's not tired and irritable. But to her surprise he just gives her a tired and unexpectedly disarming grin before using the provided key-card to unlock the hotel room's door. With exaggerated courtesy, he says, "After you, Doctor Foley."

The bland, cream-coloured room could be a lot worse, Grace thinks immediately. For a start, it genuinely is a twin room, not, as she had secretly started to fear, a double. Very definitely two separate single beds, with a wide and nicely significant gap between them. Two beds, two uncomfortable-looking wooden chairs, a long, built-in Formica counter with a large unframed mirror screwed to the wall above it, a cut-price television, a basic but serviceable-looking couch, and a couple of other useful utilitarian odds and ends. Plus, she notes, an empty hanging space, and a narrow door to the clean but somewhat cramped internal bathroom. Plain, functional, and every bit as cheap and cheerful as Boyd darkly predicted. But warm and dry.

"Lovely," he says with grim distaste as he follows her in. "I think I'd be more comfortable sleeping in the car."

"Don't let me stop you."

"Trust me, if it wasn't so damned cold out there, I'd seriously consider it."

Grace takes off her coat and hangs it up. Over her shoulder, she queries, "So… would you like to waste time squabbling over who has which bed, or shall we actually try to behave like sensible adults for two minutes…?"

-oOo-

"This is a bit surreal, isn't it?" she asks a while later. It's largely a rhetorical question. She's given up trying to watch the late news. The picture on the small television screen keeps freezing, jumping and pixelating, presumably due to the heavy snow that's still falling relentlessly outside.

"That's one way of looking at it," Boyd mutters. He's standing by the window, glaring out at the night through a narrow gap in the curtains. "It's getting worse out there, you know."

Grace hesitates, staring contemplatively at the back of his head, then mentally squares her shoulders and plunges in with, "Boyd…?"

He looks round at her, expression faintly quizzical. "What?"

"I realise that you're not at all happy about this, but in this weather trying to get back to London tonight would have been stupidly dangerous."

"Yeah, I know."

"Well, do you think we could declare a truce, then?"

Boyd abandons his vigil and raises his eyebrows at her. "A truce? We're not at war, are we?"

"No, but you're behaving like – "

"A bear with a sore head?" he suggests. He sighs as he drops down onto the small couch next to her. It creaks ominously under the additional weight. "Oh, come on, Grace. How long have we known each other? Yeah, I'm royally pissed off, but you know damned well it doesn't mean a thing. Look at us. We're stuck in a fucking blizzard in some crap hotel right in the middle of bloody nowhere…"

Somewhat mournfully, Grace says, "Well, at least you have a change of clothes."

A rueful shake of the head. "No, I have an oily old sweatshirt that's apparently been festering in the back of my car for months, and whatever's lurking in my sports bag."

"You're still way ahead of me."

"Ah," he responds with a knowing grin, "but you have the entire contents of your handbag at your disposal. And don't try to kid me that you haven't got everything up to and including the kitchen sink stashed away in there."

Despite herself, Grace chuckles. He's not far off the mark. There are all sorts of curious and useful things hidden away in her overly-large bag. Sadly, however, the contents don't actually include any of the traditional necessities for an unanticipated night away from home. Dwelling unhappily on the lack, she then glowers at the leather holdall carelessly abandoned by the foot of one of the beds. "I bet you've even got a toothbrush in there."

Boyd grins. Exasperatingly. "What can I say, Grace? I was a Boy Scout."

It's too good an opportunity to miss, given that she knows that the tiny cluster of amenities on the other side of the frozen parking area will almost certainly include a few standard motorway shops and franchised cafes; a small island of over-priced civilisation in the bleak, snowy wasteland. She smiles in what she hopes is a winsome manner. "Then you'll know all about helping old ladies, won't you?"

He sighs again. "This is going to involve me going back out into the cold, isn't it?"

-oOo-

In the event, Boyd is gone for well over half an hour, and when he finally returns he is wet, cold, and extremely bad-tempered. But he is also carrying a small plastic carrier bag which he unceremoniously dumps in her lap. "You owe me big time for this, Grace, just remember that. It's evil out there, and it's starting to look like a bloody refugee camp. There are unhappy parents and screaming kids everywhere, and there's hardly anything I'd classify as remotely fit for human consumption to eat. And I'm sure the fucking bastards are profiteering."

Contemplatively, she says, "I wonder how far it is to the local shops…"

Boyd shakes his head. "No. Forget it. I'm not going out there again. You can just damn well make do with what you've got."

"My father used to say things like that when he took us camping as kids," Grace murmurs, and the distant memory causes her mouth to quirk in a slight, fond smile.

He grimaces. "Oh God, please don't tell me I'm in for a whole night of 'back in the good old days' nostalgia…"

Smirking back, she says, "There are a lot of hours between now and the morning, you know, Boyd."

"And I'm going to sleep through most of them. I'm going to bed."

Despite the distraction of the tantalising and highly inappropriate images that momentarily chase through her mind, Grace can't help challenging, "Go on then."

Boyd's reply is an immediate and haughty, "You really think I'm stripping off in front of you? Think again, Grace. I can quite happily live without the subsequent piss-taking for the rest of my bloody life."

Deliberately raising her eyebrows at him, she says, "I'd never have pegged you as the shy type."

With a truly exceptional amount of grim dignity, he retreats to the bathroom, taking his small holdall with him. And it's only once he's gone that Grace starts to really think properly about the stark practicalities of her own situation. Sleeping in her clothes is not an attractive proposition. Sleeping… not in her clothes… is also not an attractive proposition. Not whilst sharing a room. With him. She's still trying to decide which of the two alternatives is worse when Boyd reappears. He doesn't look at her, doesn't say a word, simply hangs up his sober grey suit next to her coat, and pads barefoot past her to the bed nearest the window with the determined air of a man who is not going to make eye-contact under any circumstances. Though in reality there's very little unfamiliar flesh exposed to her amused scrutiny. Aside from his bare legs – and much to her chagrin Grace can't quite help noticing that those long legs are surprisingly muscular. She blinks; inwardly chastises herself for her folly.

It appears that Boyd is intending to sleep in his shirt and undershorts. Which will certainly ruin the haphazard plan she's been tentatively formulating. Before he can actually get into his chosen bed, she tries a diffident, "Boyd…?"

The reply is a preoccupied, "Hmm?"

Abnormally self-conscious, and thoroughly despising herself for it, Grace mumbles, "Um… do you think I could…?"

He looks round at her with an uncharacteristic amount of patient courtesy. And for once she's incredibly pleased at just how sharp he is, just how quick he can be at picking up on things not voiced. Sounding fatalistic he says, "You quite literally want the shirt off my damned back now, I suppose?"

She allows a small, embarrassed smile. "Please."

"Thought so," Boyd says, already unfastening buttons.

-oOo-

Inevitably, the moment they are both settled and the lights are off, the bone-crushing weariness drops away and is replaced by a far-too-awake restlessness. Grace lies motionless, staring up into the darkness as she listens to the impatient can't-quite-get-comfortable noises coming from the other bed; noises that sound far too loud in the quiet, oddly muffled stillness that has fallen due to the snow. She's tempted to complain, but silently grits her teeth instead. Boyd did, after all, go back out into the snow for her, and she is, after all, wearing his shirt. Which is definitely a mixed blessing, given that every time she moves it's the tantalising scent of his expensive cologne that gently wafts over her. Not just of his cologne, either, but she's doing her best not to think about that. Nor about how warm the shirt still was from the heat of his body when she first slipped it on.

There was a time, she grudgingly admits to herself, when she simply wouldn't have been able to cope with tonight's strange and unexpected situation. A time when she would certainly have viewed the snow and ice, and the treacherous road conditions as an infinitely safer proposition than spending a single night alone in a small hotel room with Peter Boyd. But, she tells herself, an awful lot of water has passed beneath that particular bridge since that time. It's still hardly the best of situations, admittedly, but Grace thinks she can cope with it. Though she really doesn't want to think about the mischievous and extensive interrogation they will undoubtedly be subjected to by Eve and Stella when they do finally make it back to London.

Don't think about it. Don't think about any of it. That's unquestionably the safest course of action.

There's a disgruntled mutter from her right, and the unmistakable sound of a pillow being angrily punched into submission. Unable to remain silent any longer, she finally grumbles, "Do you have to fidget quite so much?"

More aggressive pillow-thumping noises. Then a sulky growl of, "Can't sleep."

She sighs – loudly and pointedly. "I've always said that you need to learn some relaxation techniques, Boyd."

The answer is unintelligible, but it doesn't sound at all polite.

Finally, though, near-silence falls. If she listens hard, Grace can just hear him breathing, slow and rhythmic, and despite everything the reassuring sound eventually lulls her into a quiet doze. She isn't aware of it, but just minutes later she is soundly asleep.

-oOo-

The next morning she wakes gently enough, but as she becomes fully aware it takes Grace a moment to identify the strange, barely audible noise emanating from her right. When she recognises it for what it is she smiles to herself. It's a distinctive but inconsequential noise; a very masculine noise, one that she hasn't heard for a long, long time – the quiet, bristly sound of morning stubble being slowly and reflectively scratched. She turns over cautiously, pausing to make quite sure none of the buttons on the borrowed white shirt have worked themselves loose overnight.

On the bed on the other side of the welcome divide between them, an only partially-covered Boyd is lying on his back, gazing up at the ceiling, seemingly deeply lost in thought. And, yes, Grace notes, one hand is idly rubbing at the visible silvery stubble that's already starting to merge with his neat goatee beard. There's a considerable amount of bare shoulder and chest on display, but Grace studiously ignores any rogue thoughts that mischievously attempt to head in that particular direction. Clearing her throat, she inquires, "Sleep well?"

She waits for him to lie, to grumpily inform her he's been lying awake all night – despite the incontrovertible evidence of gentle snoring every time she stirred – but he looks over at her, offers a slight grin and replies, "Like the dead."

"What time is it?"

He checks his watch. "Just past seven."

She nods, says with some satisfaction, "We should be able to make it back to London by lunchtime, then."

Not moving, he agrees, "Let's hope so. I have a meeting with the Clarke woman from the CPS at three."

Grace chuckles, amused by his undisguised antipathy. Christine Clarke is abrasive and formidable, and it's widely suspected that she has rather more than a purely professional interest in Boyd. Innocently, she says, "Christine? She likes you, you know."

Boyd's reply is dry. "I know she does. Rather too much for comfort."

Fascinated by the unexpected response, Grace quirks an intrigued eyebrow at him. "Really?"

Boyd glances across at her again. "Really. Whenever our paths cross I always get the impression she's looking at me and imagining me stripped, hogtied, and served up as the main course."

The vision conjured by his words is both entertaining and startling. Her chuckle becomes an unrestrained laugh. "And you're far too meek and mild to be able to defend yourself from her, of course."

Boyd scowls. "She frightens the bloody life out of me, Grace. It's like being sexually harassed by an over-amorous bulldog."

"She's sexually harassing you?" She really can't suppress further laughter. "Oh, God… I'd pay good money to see that."

"I bet you would, too," he says, but his tone is mild. He levers himself up into a sitting position and runs a hand through his tousled silver hair. Against all her wishes, Grace does not miss the way that surprisingly well-defined muscles move smoothly under pale skin. It's very definitely time they were giving serious thought to getting out of this cramped, intimate room, she thinks. For the sake of her sanity, if nothing else. Evidently blissfully unaware of the nature of her thoughts, Boyd slowly gets out of bed and stretches, flexing his back and shoulders before padding over to the window. The moment he opens the curtains even a crack, a very cold, very bright light floods the room.

"Still snowing," he reports, laconic as ever.

Not at all what Grace wants to hear. Frowning, she asks, "How bad does it look?"

Boyd glances over his shoulder at her. "Put it this way, it's as still as the grave, and all I can see in every direction is snow."

"Will we make it out of here this morning?"

He shrugs noncommittally. "We might, but it won't help if the roads are closed – which, by the look of it, they almost certainly are."

Grace groans. "Please don't tell me we're stranded here…"

"All right," Boyd says, staring out of the window, "I won't."

-oOo-

Continued...