Away With the Fairies (The Swallow Barn Cottage Series, Book 2)

Step In

After their breakfast he moved into the lounge - and she hesitated for a few minutes and then joined him. She'd been right, it would be the best spot to paint. She unfolded her easel on the coffee table she'd dragged to the window, sat on a chair from the kitchen, and pinned a sheet of paper to it.

She forgot about him - back on the sofa, in his headphones, and with a book in his hands - ten seconds in. The height with this table suit her perfectly, and the crisp morning light gave just the right amount of visible texture to the paper. She kept picking up her phone to look at the references, but it was just a sketch for now, so she let herself be free and frolic.

After a while, she started humming - and realised she needed her usual background noise. She mostly had some familiar films playing on her Mac at home, or had her music in her headphones. She looked behind her. He had his eyes closed, and the book was open on his chest. There was no way he was sleeping, though - not with Sex Pistols' Anarchy in the U.K. blaring in his headphones so loudly that she could hear the bass from her seat. Although, wouldn't he have learnt to sleep through bombings and air raids in the army?

He's so much more... beautiful than his brother, she suddenly thought. Not in terms of an objective attractiveness, or sex appeal - the other Holyoake had plenty of both, and perhaps was a more appealing male by the modern standards. It's just that the man in front of her had sharper, heavier features, hardened, and in a way more distinct. The line of his lips had bitterness hiding in it. That's why when it softens, or he smirks, it's so much more powerful. John Holyoake smiled a lot, laughed, and there were crow's feet near the corners of his eyes. What would Axe Holyoake's smile even look like?! she thought in bewilderment.

His eyes slowly opened, and he met her gaze. Fiona gave him an uncertain smile, still lost in her thoughts, and then she blurted out, "Can I please sketch you? I always ask for permission, you see."

He didn't move, just watched her, and she laughed.

"You can't hear me, daft me," she said. "It's already Pretty Vacant in your head right now. I mean the title of the song," she continued blabbering, liberated by his inability to hear her. "I can hear Matlock's riff. I doubt your head is vacant at all. You're probably brewing a storm there. There must be so much happening in it at the same time, and that's why you're so quiet."

He pushed the headphones off, and she could hear Lydon's infamous 'vace-uuuuuunt!' in them.

"You have my permission to sketch me," he deadpanned, and Fiona gasped.

Oh no.

"You can read lips!" she squeaked.

"It's very loud in a helicopter," he answered nonchalantly.

Fiona made an - entirely fake - disgruntled noise and got up. She dragged her chair around the table, and turned the easel one eighty, so she could face him.

"Just don't move... much," she said, her pencil already moving on a clean sheet of paper. She looked up and saw his left eyebrow jump up. She giggled. "Right. Well, then just stay as unmoving as you normally are."

He pulled the headphones back on and closed his eyes. Yep, he's definitely hiding a smirk.

She worked for about an hour, so engaged that she didn't even need any white noise - and then some loud ring rolled through the cottage. She assumed it was a doorbell, and she paused.

Let's test a theory, heh, Fiona?

She pinned him with an intense stare and waved her hands in the air. His eyes flew open right away. Now, which one of you has magic?!