Page 3 of Winter Magic on Railway Lane

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Ethan Connolly rubbed the sore spot on the top of his head and squinted up at Libby in the semi-darkness from his prone position on the floor.

‘I know you hate me, Libby,’ he said, wincing as his fingers touched the tender skin. ‘But could you refrain from actual physical violence in the future?’

As he slowly stood back up again, he drew his phone back up to light up Libby, who was still scowling at him. Libby was not normally a person to apologise even when she was in the wrong and it looked like she wasn’t going to start now.

‘What are you doing in here?’ she snapped at him instead. ‘Why are you creeping around the old school in the middle of the night?’

‘What I do in the privacy of my own home is entirely my business,’ he replied, feeling around on the top of his head once more. Luckily, he could find no bump nor, as he brought his fingers out in front of him, could he see any blood.

‘Your home?’ repeated Libby in a shocked tone.

‘As of two days ago,’ he told her.

To be fair, he was almost as surprised as Libby at the thought of him buying a property in sleepy Cranfield. It had been his home village since he was born, but he had no love for it. Not anymore.

However, the apartment above the station where he had grown up was now a love nest for his older brother Ryan and his girlfriend Katy. Ethan loved them both, but three was most definitely a crowd, and with no spare bedrooms in the nearby cottage on Railway Lane where their dad and grandad lived, Ethan wanted his own accommodation when he came to visit.

Over the summer, he had found out that the old school was up for sale after the previous owner had run out of money for the renovations and so Ethan had proceeded with the purchase.

He had kept this quiet from his family in case the purchase didn’t go through. He didn’t want to get their hopes up. Nor their expectations that he would be living in Cranfield full time, because that was never ever going to happen, as far as he was concerned.

The school, thankfully, turned out to be in a relatively decent state. The previous owner had fitted a high quality kitchen and bathroom, as well as new oak floors. The only immediate problems had been the need for a new front door as the existing one wouldn’t shut properly and the electrics, which had shorted out on him half an hour ago when he had got up, unable to sleep.

He had switched on the torch on his phone whilst he had repaired the fuse, when he had suddenly heard movement nearby. Fearing a break-in, before he had time to react, he had been whacked on the head and rather than finding a thief, he had come across Libby instead.

‘So, are you carrying some sort of roof slate around with you now?’ asked Ethan as he felt around for the overhead light switch to find out if his repair of the fuse had been successful.‘Hoping to diversify into the building trade or just trying out a new form of self-defence?’

He finally found the switch and flicked it on.

After the initial bright glare blinded him temporarily, his eyes quickly adjusted to the overhead light. Still standing in front of him was Libby in her glamorous flight attendant’s uniform. That amazing long pale blonde hair was scraped back into a bun, although some silvery strands had escaped. She was just as beautiful as ever, even after presumably yet another long-haul flight.

‘It was the first thing I could grab,’ said Libby, looking downcast. ‘It’s a pastry slab. I only bought it yesterday.’

His eyes automatically moved down to look at what was lying broken on the floor before he once more rubbed the top of his head, which was still throbbing. So that was what she had hit him with!

‘Well, it certainly packs a punch,’ said Ethan, still wincing. ‘What were you doing barging in here like that?’

‘I told you. I thought you were a burglar.’

‘What on earth would I be stealing?’ he said, gesturing around with his arm.

Apart from a couple of suitcases that he had brought with him the previous afternoon and the camp bed that he had set up, the place was completely empty. Certainly nothing to induce him to think of it as a home yet. Would he ever think of it like that? Probably not. After the sale of his flat in Hong Kong, buying the school was an investment and it was highly likely that he would sell it on before too long. After all, he had never wanted to stay around in his home village since the age of sixteen.

A few yards away, the railway station in Cranfield had been the actual family home since his older brother Ryan had been born thirty-four years ago. But it had been in the Connolly family for many decades before then. His great-grandfather, hisgrandad and his dad all had the railways in their blood and had loved working on the trains and at the station. His grandad Eddie had been the stationmaster before passing on the rented apartment and the job to his son Bob.

Growing up in a close-knit community such as Cranfield, the brothers had enjoyed the freedom of the countryside and the excitement of the station bustling with people from the nearby villages using the short train line into the town of Aldwych ten miles away. But then the small branch line had been closed, along with many others around the country, due to government cuts. Their dad had reeled from the shock and had found himself lost without his beloved trains to look after. Cranfield, the village, had also closed down without the station in use.

However, things were finally beginning to turn around in the village’s favour. After years of neglect, the previous winter, chef Ryan, with the help of newly arrived Katy, had turned the old station into a successful coffee shop by day and Italian restaurant by evening, as well as providing takeaway pizzas to local customers. The station had begun to be filled with people once more. Meanwhile, Ryan and Katy had made a happy home for themselves upstairs in the family apartment.

The brothers were only three years apart and yet worlds apart in their attitudes towards pretty much everything. Ethan deliberately didn’t like to treat anything seriously, whereas Ryan had a more steady, methodical approach.

They were even different in looks. Ethan had blonde hair and was blue-eyed, like his mum, whereas Ryan was dark-haired, after their dad.

There was only one way in which the brothers were alike. And that had been both of their inclinations to run away as far as they could instead of watching the collapse of their parents’ marriage year by year.

Ethan had known it was coming and yet his dad had been blissfully unaware that his wife’s sniping and nagging was a consequence of her deep unhappiness in their marriage. Ethan had always presumed that their mum must have loved their dad once but any affection for him seemed to fade year on year.