"I will do, pet, ok. . . Yeah, I'm sure it'll be clearer in the morning, they'll get the ploughs out. . . Will do. Love you too." Robbie ended the call to his daughter and turned to see Laura in the doorway of the kitchen. He smiled at her. She smiled back before looking him up and down with a slightly derisive look on her face.

"Robbie, please get out of that wet shirt" she pointed to his jeans "And those are wet through - and your socks!" She exclaimed. Robbie looked down at his feet. They were wet from his unsuitable footwear and the bottom of his jeans were soaking wet from the snow.

"Go and get changed, have a shower and get warm." Laura chided with a smile

Robbie started to protest and suggested she used the shower first.

"Doctor's orders" Laura said, cutting him off and holding up her index finger to assert her insistence further

"Ok, ok" he said smiling at her his hands held aloft in mock surrender.

"I'll see what I can rustle up for supper from the food delivery that Sarah mentioned." She said, smiling back with a sparkle in her eyes that he always loved to see.

With a smile still on his face he went upstairs and found the bathroom, taking his bag in with him. He realised he felt effortlessly relaxed with Laura given the situation. Their years of working together had clearly set a dynamic between them that extended into a more familiar and intimate way as the situation had dictated. There was something very cosy and comfortable about knowing that Laura was downstairs getting a meal for them both while she also fussed over him getting out of his wet clothes.

The shower was wondrously hot and just what Robbie needed for his aching muscles. He had tensed up whilst driving inn the snow and ice and could feel he had pulled a muscle in his shoulder. The hot shower helped and ten minutes later he was refreshed, warm and in a fresh set of clean and dry clothes. He went downstairs and took his bag back down with him, poking his head briefly into the bedroom beforehand. It looked comfy and inviting but Robbie had already decided that he would sleep on the sofa bed. His muscles ached but he couldn't and wouldn't expect Laura to not have the comfy bed and he also knew that he might meet some resistance from her when he suggested the sleeping arrangements. He smiled again, thinking about her kindness that was always there for him, sometimes reserved just for him in certain work situations, especially when he was having a bad day. He frowned to himself; he felt bad that he had brought Laura here, although unwittingly, when she was supposed to be at her brother's and ultimately with her family.

Closing the bedroom door Robbie hulked his bag back downstairs and put it in the hallway. Hopefully, he thought, neither he nor Laura would need to unpack fully and they would be back on the road the next day as soon as an assistance vehicle could get access. He headed into the kitchen and was met with a delicious aroma and the sound of a cork popping out of a bottle.

"How does pizza suit you?" Laura said with a smile as he made his way over to her as she opened a bottle of red wine.

"You can't go wrong with pizza" he said with a grin

"Well, that's good, because the guests that cancelled their stay here clearly ordered enough food to keep them going over the festive period. We could have had a banquet but a pizza seemed fair enough and quick for the circumstances"

Robbie nodded in agreement

"Why don't you light the stove while I get these on some plates?" she said nodding her head towards the oven where the pizzas were cooking.

"Yes Ma'am" Robbie teased with another smile that made Laura chuckle as he headed into the living room. She too felt the comfortable ease that had descended between them in what seemed such a normal domestic setting, far removed from their usual work environment. She poured a glass of wine for them both and took it through to the living room where Robbie had started to build the fire in the stove. She put the glass down for him on the table and he turned to smile at her, realising he was letting his gaze linger a little longer than he would normally allow. She simply smiled back, and the warmth and length of his smile didn't go unnoticed and she returned it equally before she went back into the kitchen.

Robbie finished setting the fire and struck a match. He reached into the stove with it and watched as the firelighters caught. The firelighters caught instantly and flames flicked and licked at the kindling, growing in strength by the second. Robbie watched them for a few moments before closing the doors of the stove, leaving a slight gap to draw in some air to feed the fire. He stood up, feeling his knees crack and pop along with the snap and crackle of the fire as the kindling caught alight. He watched the flames for a few more minutes before closing the stove doors shut. Satisfied that the fire was drawing, he headed over to the window that looked out onto the back of the cottage.

Peering outside Robbie was alarmed to see it had started to snow again, and by the looks of it, it was coming down thick and fast. He frowned, this didn't bode well and he felt a twinge of unease as he watched the flakes fly at the window. If it carried on like this then getting Laura en route to catch her plane to New York looked like a mammoth task. Robbie closed the curtains of the windows and then went over to the other window at the opposite side of the room that looked out to the front of the cottage. The tracks of Dan's tractor had disappeared save for a slight smudgy ghost of a track that was rapidly vanishing under the swirling snow. Robbie glanced out to the left and could just make out the lights of the farm through the blizzard. He frowned again at the ferocity of the weather and as he peered into the darkness he saw a figure, a man, walking between two stone gateposts of the distant field. Robbie shivered and thought about what a hard and bleak life farming was in the winter months and that it was no wonder that Dan and his wife were a little brusque in their manner if they had no option other than to traipse about in such bad weather to look after their livestock. Robbie presumed the figure had to be Dan, out to tend to his sheep perhaps, although there were no sheep about in the fields and Dan had told them that all their animals were safely under shelter in pens or sheds.

Robbie frowned again; and when he looked out once more, he saw that the figure had gone and all that was visible was a blizzard of tiny and innumerable snowflakes.