Hannah’s throat began to ache. So he wasn’t spending today with Loren but it sounded as if he was leaving tomorrow.
After a couple of minutes they turned into Little Lane and Hannah hesitated. As if he’d been expecting it, Nico caught her hand and towed her in through the gate to Honeybun Cottage. With quick movements he thrust open the door and ushered her inside, shrugging off his coat and hanging it up.
When she just stood there, thinking unhappily that he must be expecting her to burst into tears to have given her such privacy, he unzipped her coat and slid it down her arms as if she were Maria, and hung that up too.
She looked at him.
His face was set in hard, uncompromising lines. ‘Nan Heather gave me some idea of what my dear ex-mother-in-law saw fit to tell you,’ he said grimly. ‘Was that why you went off on your own?’
She swallowed, rubbing her arms, although the kitchen was warm and cosy. ‘I wanted to make it easy for you and the girls,’ she said.
‘Bullshit,’ he snapped. He thrust his fingers through his hair. ‘You disappeared and ignored every call and text.’
‘My phone’s on Do Not Disturb,’ Hannah admitted. ‘I thought I’d leave my messages until after the family Christmas.’
Nico took her hand and towed her to the sofa in the sitting room, pulling her down and fixing her with a level gaze. ‘Hannah,’ he said with quiet emphasis. ‘Vivvi had no right to say what she did. But you had no right to refuse me a hearing. Nor, when we arrived at your parents’ house today, look as if you’d like to cut my heart out and spit on it.’
Ruffled, Hannah interrupted. ‘But I understand your responsibilities. I don’t blame you for getting back with Loren—’
‘So you get to listen now.’ He talked over her, as if his patience hung by a thread. When she didn’t try to interrupt again, he uncoiled. ‘So Vivvi spun you an emotional story about Loren asking me to get together again for the sake of the girls?’
Miserably, she nodded. ‘And I can see why you’d—’
He placed his finger to her lips. ‘Well, I said no.’
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Nico saw astonishment make an O of Hannah’s lovely mouth.
He angled himself to face her. ‘Sorry if I’m snappy but I’ve had several long, anxious days. The relief of receiving a text from Rob last night to say you were back dissolved my bones. It’s like when one of the kids runs across the road without looking. Once you know they’re safe, relief turns to anger.’ The frank amazement in her eyes didn’t do anything to dampen his negative emotions. It had been a hideous time knowing Hannah had unquestioningly given up on him.
He strove for his usual calm. ‘I’ve been so scared, Hannah.’ Her expression softened, even if it was still wary. He continued, ‘Loren and Vivvi completely blindsided me by suggesting we should get back together. It sounded so plausible. I felt trapped. Horrified. Maria clung to me. It was like being buried in emotions and responsibilities and I was scrambling round for rational arguments. Rational thought, even.’
Hannah sat still and pale. He remembered how beautiful she’d looked when the snappy cold of Sweden had painted roses in her cheeks. She said, ‘You couldn’t call or text? Give me a clue?’
His smile flickered briefly. ‘Maria washed my phone. It died without a fight.’
Her mouth made a smaller O this time. He wanted to lean forward and kiss it. But it was too soon. She’d built up a wall of doubt and hurt and he didn’t want to put rejection between them too. ‘I bought a new phone on Sunday and I’ve been trying to make contact ever since. Nan told me about your … absence.’ He’d been going to say ‘crazy trip’ but that would put her on the defensive.
‘On Saturday night I asked Loren and Vivvi for time. I said it was so I could think but actually I just had to get them the hell out while I got my ducks in a row. I wanted to talk to you about my intentions.’ A dart of pain hit his chest. ‘But you removed that possibility. I was able to talk my plan through with my parents and Maria’s social worker but it was you I wanted.’
She moistened her lips. ‘What plan?’
Her hand lay on the sofa between them and he picked it up. Instead of replying, he sighed. ‘Talking to an addict’s difficult. They try and draw you into their world view. They’re plausible and persuasive. They get you questioning things you never ought to. Loren found rehab too hard and saw me looking after her as easy. She thought I’d enable her to avoid the professional help she needs. It’s tough to make someone like her accountable when she acts as if I’ve made her promises I’m trying to go back on.’ He remembered the agonised conversation that had taken place in the kitchen while the girls sat in the sitting room, mercifully entranced by Frozen II.
Hannah’s eyes were huge with remembered pain. ‘Her mother told me you’d agreed that you all belonged together.’ Her voice shook.
He kissed her hand, furious with Vivvi all over again. ‘Loren and Vivvi share some traits, I guess. Vivvi’s under stress and her instinct was to try and unload it. It’s a human frailty. But I agreed to nothing. I told Loren I wouldn’t be emotionally blackmailed into taking her over like another dependant.’ He was calming now at having Hannah near him again and listening. ‘I had to keep repeating I didn’t cause the situation and it wasn’t up to me to fix it. Refusing to be manipulated by an addict isn’t always easy but sometimes it’s for the best.’
‘Then she’s not going to accept your decision easily.’ Worry rang in her voice, though she shifted closer.
He slid an arm around her, his heart quivering at feeling her against him. ‘I’m afraid that’s a possibility. It’s a bit like me and bulimia. By purging, I could eat what I wanted and not get fat. Loren thinks that sharing my life would mean she could do what she wanted and I’d see she was OK.’ He withdrew enough to look into her face. ‘I told her what you said about being in a troubled aircraft and having to get your own oxygen flowing before you could help others. And I told them, “I can help others. But Hannah’s my oxygen. I can’t do it without her.”’
A tear eased from her eye. ‘But where does that leave Maria?’
His heart flipped. ‘That’s the plan I wanted to talk over. I’ve offered to take Maria permanently. Initially, it’ll be considered long-term foster care. After a year I may be able to make it more official and assume parental responsibility. It means Josie and Maria won’t be separated. They’ll be able to see their mum but live with me.’
A frown puckered her forehead. ‘So in the first year Loren could change her mind?’
‘Yes,’ he admitted baldly.
‘In which case, what?’ Her aqua eyes were like sea glass.
‘A huge amount of hassle and upset, I suspect.’ Despite his earlier resolve, he dipped down and pressed a small kiss to her mouth. It felt warm. Tender. Right. ‘When I took Josie at the end of the marriage it wasn’t spite and it wasn’t financial. It was because Loren finds it hard to be a good parent. Maybe I put too much down to postnatal depression after Josie was born but she relied on alcohol and, who knows? She may have been misusing other stuff even then. The woman I divorced was not the woman I married. She’s lost the ability to put others first and will continue to abuse the support of others till she gets proper help. That might include another attempt to use Maria as a weapon.’
He paused to ease Hannah onto his lap so he could bury his face in her neck and breathe her in. ‘You’re probably thinking there might be a rocky road ahead. You’re right. You’re probably thinking I’m offering you a situation where I’ve already got two people to put ahead of you, and that’s a crap bargain. I’ll be unhappy if you say no but being unhappy is acceptable. It’s being unhappy and not trying to find a way out that’s not.’
Hannah sat unresponsive in his embrace. He leaned his forehead on her shoulder. ‘Sorry,’ he said miserably.
She stirred, tilting his face up so she could look at him. ‘Nico,’ she said slowly. ‘You haven’t said what you’re offering.’ But the
re was a glimmer of light in her eyes that hadn’t been there before. It looked like something good, like hope. Or love.
‘Oh!’ He laughed shakily. ‘Me. My heart. My two kids. My crazy, shit-filled life. Everything I have. Everything I want. Every Christmas until I die. You’re my oxygen and I love you. When you shut me out …’ He closed his eyes for an instant and shuddered, dreading that she might shut him out again, but permanently. He wouldn’t blame her but it would be hell.
Then a tiny kiss landed on his cheek. Another on his temple. His eyes sprang open, relief flooding through him. He’d thought he might never feel her mouth on him again.
‘I love you, too. I’m sorry I didn’t stick around to hear your side of the story.’ Tears slid down her cheeks even while she smiled. ‘Because I love your two kids and your crazy, shit-filled life.’
‘Are you quite sure about the kids?’ he said resignedly, spotting something over her shoulder. ‘Because Josie’s peeping in the window.’
Hannah broke away, laughing, crying, wiping her eyes. ‘I guess we shouldn’t have let Mum promise her she could have presents when we got back.’
‘They’re here, Rob!’ Josie hollered. ‘But they’re cuddling again.’ She made it sound as if she’d caught them shoplifting.
Nico caught the sound of Leesa’s laugh and Rob saying, ‘Josie! You should know better than to run off. We’re supposed to be going to Nan’s for her blood pressure pills, not taking a diversion to spy on people.’
‘I wanted to know where Dad was,’ Josie complained, but her voice began to recede.
‘I must teach my daughter that glass isn’t soundproof.’ Nico slid his hand off Hannah’s behind, ‘and remind myself that glass is transparent.’ He groaned, feeling the need to be honest even though his arms had fastened around her as if they’d never let her go. ‘An adult relationship conducted with children around is tricky. You get ready for a date night and they throw up over you. You’re cuddling and they join in. You’re in the middle of the hottest sex of your life and they wake up with a screaming nightmare.’
Hannah’s eyes had grown enormous as she digested this litany. Then she smoothed her hair and twitched her top straight with an air of determination. ‘I have a lot to learn then, don’t I?’
When they strolled back through the sleepy Christmas village, Hannah felt as if she were floating at least two inches above a pavement beginning to twinkle with frost. Nico’s hand was hot around hers and her nerves were jumping, her blood dancing in her veins.
She giggled. ‘I feel like I’ve stepped through a magic portal to happiness yet my family are probably having an after-lunch nap.’
His eyes glowed into hers. ‘I can say with certainty that no one in the household will be sleeping until the girls get their presents.’
They reached the door to the house she’d known all her life and Hannah opened it.
‘They’re here!’ an eight-year-old squealed.
‘Dey here!’ squeaked her two-year-old echo.
The girls galumphed into the hall, Josie going into reverse to let them in and nearly flattening Maria. ‘Dad! You’ve been ages and—’ She paused and flushed, probably deciding not to remonstrate with him about the kissing in case Rob had been right and she shouldn’t have been peeping. ‘And everyone’s dying to open their presents.’
‘Everyone?’ he queried mildly.
‘P’esents, Mydad. P’esents, ’Annah,’ Maria affirmed, jumping on the spot, wearing one pink slipper and one drunken sock.
Nico relented. ‘OK. I’ll get ours from our car boot and you can help give them out.’
‘P’esents!’ Maria squealed.
Hannah watched the girls run off as she took off her coat and boots. Voices drifted to her: Jeremy asking about whisky, Mo telling him she’d put it on a high shelf because there were children in the house. Nan saying she’d sooner have sherry. Her ordinary family’s normal Christmas she’d depended on to cheer her up, rumbling gently on.
Joining them, she found Josie and Maria sitting on the carpet near the Christmas tree. ‘Your mum said we’d get our presents if we waited nicely,’ Josie said guilelessly.
‘My mum’s always right,’ Hannah assured her, as Nico walked in, hair tousled as if the wind had run its hands through it.
Taking pity on the two excited girls, Hannah gave them her gifts: matching jumpers with unicorns on, books and DVDs about princesses. They grabbed and unwrapped with seamless efficiency, Josie yelling thanks, Maria yelling because Josie did. The rest of the family, used to absorbing whoever Mo invited at Christmas, even at what had to have been short notice, had managed small gifts – colouring things, stickers, puzzles and games for the girls, beer and shower gel for Nico.
Hannah’s gift to him was an experience day he could build up out of various sporting activities from swinging through trees on ropes to hill biking. To facilitate it, she’d created a voucher for One babysitting day from Hannah.
‘Wow,’ he breathed, flicking through the brochure of what looked to her to be brutal activities with glowing eyes.
‘What? Without us?’ Josie demanded indignantly.
Hannah hugged her. ‘You, me and Maria will do something fun of our own.’ Josie looked mollified and Hannah congratulated herself on developing her child management skills.
Then Nico pressed a small, rectangular parcel on her. ‘God jul,’ he murmured. ‘Something from Stockholm.’
‘What is it?’ demanded Josie, crawling closer to investigate.
The gift was wrapped in gold paper with a red ribbon rosette. A red box lay inside and when Hannah opened it she found a necklace with two hearts in amber, secured together by two tiny golden clasped hands. She looked at him with glowing eyes, seeing past the prettiness to a message of two hearts secured by two small children.
Josie, however, dismissed it with small-girl scorn. ‘Soppy, Dad.’ Then, brightening, ‘But it definitely means Hannah’s your girlfriend if you bought her hearts, so yay!’
Hannah’s face heated to the tips of her ears. ‘Apparently, I needn’t make any announcement so long as Josie’s around so – yay!’ She looked at her parents, hoping they didn’t mind.
Mo beamed. ‘Your face made the announcement for you when you walked in, lovey. You look like one big happy.’
Her dad lifted his whisky glass to her in a toast and repeated, ‘Yay!’
Nan did the same with her sherry glass and soon the whole family was showering Hannah with their laughter and approval.
Nico waded through the discarded Christmas wrapping to scoop her up and settle her in his lap. He fastened the necklace behind her neck then opened his arms so Josie and Maria could scramble into the hug too. ‘I have everything I could wish for.’
Josie nodded wisely. ‘Good job it was you who got the Christmas pudding sixpence.’
It was nearly midnight.
In Nico’s bedroom at Honeybun Cottage a bottle of champagne rested in a cooler. One of Hannah’s gifts had been scented candles and their sinuously moving flames added a glow to the room and a sultry fragrance to the air. A chair had been wedged under the doorknob in case of intruding children.
Hannah lay in Nico’s arms, boneless after the last hour of lovemaking. He traced the shape of her new amber necklace, which was all she wore.
She snuggled into his rangy body. ‘This has been the best Christmas.’
He murmured an agreement, his breath hot on her skin. ‘I was scared it was going to be the worst. But every Christmas from now on is going to be just as special. The anniversary of when you told me you loved me.’
She kissed the corner of his mouth. ‘It’s our love-iversary.’
‘Tomorrow we get a taste of the future,’ he said seriously, the planes of his face gilded by the candlelight. ‘The girls are going to Loren at Vivvi and Redfern’s house for Boxing Day. Josie and Maria might be worried I’m not coming back for them or want to stay longer than arranged. Loren might be having a bad day. Vivvi might boss every
one about. But it’s also an opportunity. You and I can find somewhere open for lunch or walk by the canal. It’s not the most exciting Boxing Day date but at least we’ll spend time alone.’ His voice became apologetic. ‘I can’t leave the girls two or three hours away in Reading and come flying back here to spend the day in bed, much as I’d love to.’
An idea hit Hannah with a tingle. ‘We could borrow The Bus!’
He snorted a laugh. ‘Seriously?’ Then: ‘Hell, yes, let’s borrow The Bus. It’s a mobile bedroom, for goodness’ sake. The best Boxing Day date venue ever. We can take a picnic.’
He rolled onto his back, snuggling her half on top of him so her hair spread over them both and they fitted together all the way down. ‘Hannah Anna Goodbody, we’re going to be great together.’
And, as she watched him slide gently into sleep, she felt her ideas of going it alone fade away. Her old relationships had just been her trying to find the real thing and not a warning never to rely on a man. With this man, she’d never find ‘together’ a bad place to be.
Acknowledgements
When I pondered settings for this wintry book my friend Pia Fenton, who is also author Christina Courtenay, suggested that one of them be Sweden. As well as masterminding the research trip she was my tour guide, historian, translator and host. Thank you so much, Pia! She lined up her friends and relatives to help and the only thing I had to do was organise a hotel in Stockholm for three days. I booked the wrong one.
I’m also enormously grateful to:
Pia’s mother, Birgitta Tapper, who hosted me in her lovely home in Småland, provided delicious Swedish food and taught me about ice hockey. She took us to see Swedish Hockey League team HV71 play in Jönköping, a wonderful evening that left me in awe of the lightning-quick, skilful sport and its players.
Lars and Chicki Jonsson provided delicious fika (coffee and cake break) while they talked about teenage ice hockey. They, Pia and Gunbritt Lager shared their memories of growing up in Sweden.
Christmas Wishes: From the Sunday Times bestselling and award-winning author of romance fiction comes a feel-good cosy Christmas read Page 32
