"That was a lovely dinner, Patrick, thank you," Shelagh said as they left the restaurant. She'd been pleasantly surprised when her fiancé showed up at the boarding house and asked her to dinner, and even more surprised by his choice of restaurant, a discrete little West End café, not too posh, but definitely more elegant than their usual fare.
Here, away from the gossips of Poplar, they could be just another engaged couple, and Shelagh slipped her hand into the crook of Patrick's arm without hesitation, leaning into him for warmth.
Patrick laid his other hand over hers. "I'm only sorry we haven't been able to do more of this. Dinner with a nosy eleven-year-old in attendance is not exactly a romantic evening. You deserve to be courted properly."
Shelagh shook her head. "You're busy with patients, and it wouldn't be fair to Timothy to leave him on his own so often. Besides, I'm always glad for any time I get to spend with you." Her mind drifted briefly toward the births they'd attended together. His presence always seemed to lend her strength, even before she realized she loved him.
"Me too," Patrick said. "But I don't think Timothy would complain very much about a few more fish and chips suppers."
Shelagh laughed. "Perhaps you're right." She smiled up at him, her cheeks rosy with the cold. "Two weeks, Patrick."
Patrick echoed her giddy grin. Two weeks seemed like an age, but then she would be his, and he hers. "Two weeks, my love."
They reached the car and Patrick reluctantly let go of her arm to fiddle with the keys and unlock the door.
"Wait," Shelagh said, placing a hand on his arm.
"What is it?" He couldn't read her face in the dim evening light and for a moment, he thought she'd seen one of the nurses or someone else they knew from Poplar. But then a slow grin blossomed across her face and she turned her gaze to the sky.
"Do you see that? It's snowing."
Patrick glanced up and frowned. "You're right. I should get you home before it gets too bad."
"Patrick, it's snowing! It's the first snow of the year." She giggled, and for a moment, Patrick could see the little girl she might have once been.
"You like the snow?" He personally hated it. It meant more accidents from slips on the ice, and it made driving to births in the middle of the night nearly impossible. He couldn't even imagine how the nuns made it on their bicycles.
"Just the first snow,' she said with a shy shrug. "I have since I was little. I always want snow at Christmas."
Patrick took in the blush on her cheeks, her wide grin and the crystal flakes catching on her hair. She looked like a Christmas angel, and he thought, perhaps snow wasn't so bad. He dropped a kiss on her gloved fingers.
"Snow for every Christmas it is then."