‘All right,’ she agreed, ‘just a little tree.’ So after lunch they trooped back, leaving the exhausted little Rufus snoozing by the fire, and Amelia and Edward loaded themselves up with branches and they set off, Kitty dragging Thomas in the stroller backwards all the way from the woods to the house.
‘There!’ Edward said in satisfaction, dropping his pile of branches by the back door. ‘Now we can make our tree!’
The only thing that kept him going on that hellish journey was the thought of home.
The blissful comfort of his favourite old leather sofa, a bottle of fifteen-year-old single malt and—equally importantly—the painkillers in his flight bag.
Getting upstairs to bed would be beyond him at this point. His knee was killing him—not like last time, when he’d done the ligaments in his other leg, but badly enough to mean that staying would have been pointless, even if he hadn’t broken his wrist. And now all he could think about was lying down, and the sooner the better. He’d been stupid to travel so soon; his body was black and blue from end to end, but somehow, with Christmas what felt like seconds away and everyone down in the village getting so damned excited about it, leaving had become imperative now that he could no longer ski to outrun his demons.
Not that he ever really managed to outrun them, although he always gave it a damn good try, but this time he’d come too close to losing everything, and deep down he’d realised that maybe it was time to stop running, time to go home and just get on with life—and at least here he could find plenty to occupy himself.
He heard the car tyres crunch on gravel and cracked open his eyes. Home. Thank God for that. Lights blazed in the dusk, triggered by the taxi pulling up at the door, and handing over what was probably an excessive amount of money, he got out of the car with a grunt of pain and walked slowly to the door.
And stopped.
There was a car on the drive, not one he recognised, and there were lights on inside.
One in the attic, and one on the landing.
‘Where d’you want these, guv?’ the taxi driver asked, and he glanced down at the cases.
‘Just in here would be good,’ he said, opening the door and sniffing. Woodsmoke. And there was light coming from the breakfast room, and the sound of—laughter? A child’s laughter?
Pain squeezed his chest. Dear God, no. Not today, of all days, when he just needed to crawl into a corner and forget—
‘There you go then, guv. Have a good Christmas.’
‘And you,’ he said, closing the door quietly behind the man and staring numbly towards the breakfast room. What the hell was going on? It must be Kate—no one else had a key, and the place was like Fort Knox. She must have dropped in with Megan and a friend to check on the house—but it didn’t sound as if they were checking anything. It sounded as if they were having fun.
Oh, Lord, please, not today…
He limped over to the door and pushed it gently open, and then stood transfixed.
Chaos. Complete, utter chaos.
Two children were sitting on the floor by the fire in a welter of greenery, carefully tying berries to some rather battered branches that looked as if they had come off the conifer hedge at the back of the country club, but it was the woman standing on the table who held his attention.
Tall, slender, with rather wild fair hair escaping from a ponytail and jeans that had definitely seen better days, she was reaching up and twisting another of the branches into the heavy iron hoop over the refectory table, festooning the light fitting with a makeshift attempt at a Christmas decoration which did nothing to improve it.
He’d never seen her before. He would have recognised her, he was sure, if he had. So who the hell—?
His mouth tightened, but then she bent over, giving him an unrestricted view of her neat, shapely bottom as the old jeans pulled across it, and he felt a sudden, unwelcome and utterly unexpected tug of need.
‘It’s such a shame Jake isn’t going to be here, because we’re making it so pretty,’ the little girl was saying.
‘Why does he go away?’ the boy asked.
‘I don’t know,’ the woman replied, her voice soft and melodious. ‘I can’t imagine.’
‘Didn’t Kate say?’
Kate. Of course, she’d be at the bottom of this, he thought, and he could have wrung her neck for her abysmal timing.
Well, if he had two good hands…which at the moment, of course, he didn’t.
‘He goes skiing.’
‘I hate skiing,’ the boy said. ‘That woman in the kindergarten was horrible. She smelt funny. Here, I’ve finished this one.’
And he scrambled to his feet and turned round, then caught sight of Jake and froze.
‘Well, come on then, give it to me,’ the woman said, waving her hand behind her to try and locate it.
‘Um…Mum…’
‘Darling, give me the branch, I can’t stand here for ever—’
She turned towards her son, followed the direction of his gaze and her eyes flew wide. ‘Oh—!’
‘Mummy, do I need more berries or is that enough?’ the little girl asked, but Jake hardly heard her because the woman’s eyes were locked on his and the shock and desperation in them blinded his senses to anything else.
‘Kitty, hush, darling,’ she said softly and, dropping down, she slid off the edge of the table and came towards him with a haphazard attempt at a smile. ‘Um…I imagine you’re Jake Forrester?’ she asked, her voice a little uneven, and he hardened himself against her undoubted appeal and the desperate eyes.
‘Well, there you have the advantage over me,’ he murmured drily, ‘because I have no idea who you are, or why I should come home and find you smothering my house in bits of dead vegetation in my absence—’
Her eyes fluttered briefly closed and colour flooded her cheeks. ‘I can explain—’
‘Don’t bother. I’m not interested. Just get all that—tat out of here, clear the place up and then leave.’
He turned on his heel—not a good idea, with his knee screaming in protest, but the pain just fuelled the fire of his anger and he stalked into the study, picked up the phone and rang Kate.
‘Millie?’
‘So that’s her name.’
‘Jake?’ Kate shrieked, and he could hear her collecting herself at the other end of the line. ‘What are you doing home?’
‘There was an avalanche. I got in the way. And I seem to have guests. Would you care to elaborate?’
‘Oh, Jake, I’m so sorry, I can explain—’
‘Excellent. Feel free. You’ve got ten seconds, so make it good.’ He settled back in the chair with a wince, listening as Kate sucked in her breath and gave her pitch her best shot.
‘She’s a friend. Her ex has gone to Thailand, he won’t pay the maintenance and she lost her job so she lost her house and her sister kicked her out yesterday.’
‘Tough. She’s packing now, so I suggest you find some other sucker to put her and her kids up so I can lie and be sore in peace. And don’t imagine for a moment that you’ve heard the end of this.’
He stabbed the off button and threw the phone down on his desk, then glanced up to see the woman—Millie, apparently—transfixed in the doorway, her face still flaming.
‘Please don’t take it out on Kate. She was only trying to help us.’
He stifled a contemptuous snort and met her eyes challengingly, too sore in every way to moderate his sarcasm. ‘You’re not doing so well, are you? You don’t seem to be able to keep anything. Your husband, your job, your house—even your sister doesn’t want you. I wonder why? I wonder what it is about you that makes everyone want to get rid of you?’
She stepped back as if she’d been struck, the colour draining from her face, and he felt a twinge of guilt but suppressed it ruthlessly.
‘We’ll be out of here in half an hour. I just need to pack our things. What do you want me to do with the sheets?’
Sheets? He was throwing her out and she was worrying about the sheets
?
‘Just leave them. I wouldn’t want to hold you up.’
She straightened her spine and took another step back, and he could see her legs shaking. ‘Right. Um…fine.’
And she spun round and walked briskly away in the direction of the breakfast room, leaving him to his guilt. He sighed and sagged back against the chair, a wave of pain swamping him for a moment. When he opened his eyes, the boy was there.
‘I’m really sorry,’ he said, his little chin up, just like his mother’s, his eyes huge in a thin, pale face. ‘Please don’t be angry with Mummy. She was just trying to make a nice Christmas for us. She thought we were going to stay with Auntie Laura, but Uncle Andy didn’t want us there because he said the baby kept him awake—’
There was a baby, too? Dear God, it went from bad to worse, but that wasn’t the end of it.
‘—and the dog smells and he got on the sofa, and that made him really mad. I heard them fighting. And then Mummy said we were going to see Kate, and she said we ought to come here because you were a nice man and you wouldn’t mind and what harm could we do because the house was hundreds of years old and had survived and anyway you liked children or you wouldn’t have done the playroom in the attic.’
He finally ran out of breath and Jake stared at him.
Kate thought he was that nice? Kate was dreaming.
But the boy’s wounded eyes called to something deep inside him, and Jake couldn’t ignore it. Couldn’t kick them all out into the cold just before Christmas. Even he wasn’t that much of a bastard.
But it wasn’t just old Ebenezer Scrooge who had ghosts, and the last thing he needed was a houseful of children over Christmas, Jake thought with a touch of panic. And a baby, of all things, and—a dog?
Not much of a dog. It hadn’t barked, and there was no sign of it, so it was obviously a very odd breed of dog. Or old and deaf?
No. Not old and deaf, and not much of a dog at all, he realised, his eyes flicking to the dimly lit hallway behind the boy and focusing on a small red and white bundle of fluff with an anxiously wriggling tail and big soulful eyes that were watching him hopefully.
A little spaniel, like the one his grandmother had had. He’d always liked it—and he wasn’t going to be suckered because of the damn dog!
But the boy was still there, one sock-clad foot on top of the other, squirming slightly but holding his ground, and if his ribs hadn’t hurt so much he would have screamed with frustration.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Edward. Edward Jones.’
Nice, honest name. Like the child, he thought inconsequentially. Oh, damn. He gave an inward sigh as he felt his defences crumble. After all, it was hardly the boy’s fault that he couldn’t cope with the memories…‘Where’s your mother, Edward?’
‘Um…packing. I’m supposed to be clearing up the branches, but I can’t reach the ones in the light so I’ve got to wait for her to come down.’
‘Could you go and get her for me, and then look after the others while we have a chat?’
He nodded, but stood there another moment, chewing his lip.
Jake sighed softly. ‘What is it?’
‘You won’t be mean to her, will you? She was only trying to look after us, and she feels so guilty because Dad won’t give us any money so we can’t have anything nice ever, but it’s really not her fault—’
‘Just get her, Edward,’ he said gently. ‘I won’t be mean to her.’
‘Promise?’
Oh, what was he doing? He needed to get rid of them before he lost his mind! ‘I promise.’
The boy vanished, but the dog stayed there, whining softly and wagging his tail, and Jake held out his hand and called the dog over. He came, a little warily, and sat down just a few feet away, tail waving but not yet really ready to trust.
Very wise, Jake thought. He really, really wasn’t in a very nice mood, but it was hardly the dog’s fault. And he’d promised the boy he wouldn’t be mean to his mother.
Well, any more mean than he already had been. He pressed his lips together and sighed. He was going to have to apologise to her, he realised—to the woman who’d moved into his house without a by-your-leave and completely trashed his plans for crawling back into his cave to lick his wounds.
Oh, damn.
‘Mummy, he wants to talk to you.’
Millie lifted her head from the bag she was stuffing clothes into and stared at her son. ‘I think he’s said everything he has to say,’ she said crisply. ‘Have you finished clearing up downstairs?’
‘I couldn’t reach the light, but I’ve put everything else outside and picked up all the bits off the floor. Well, most of them. Mummy, he really does want to talk to you. He asked me to tell you and to look after the others while you have a chat.’
Well, that sounded like a quote, she thought, and her heart sank. It was bad enough enduring the humiliation of one verbal battering. The last thing she needed was to go back down there now he’d drawn breath and had time to think about it and give him the opportunity to have a more concerted attack.
‘Please, Mummy. He asked—and he promised he wouldn’t be mean to you.’
Her eyes widened, then she shut them fast and counted to ten. What on earth had Edward been saying to him? She got to her feet and held out her arms to him, and he ran into them and hugged her hard.
‘It’ll be all right, Mummy,’ he said into her side. ‘It will.’
If only she could be so sure.
She let him go and made her way downstairs, down the beautiful old oak staircase she’d fallen so in love with, along the hall on the inches-thick carpet, and tapped on the open study door, her heart pounding out a tattoo against her ribs.
He was sitting with his back to her, and at her knock he swivelled the chair round and met her eyes. He’d taken off the coat that had been slung round his shoulders, and she could see now that he was wearing a cast on his left wrist. And, with the light now shining on his face, she could see the livid bruise on his left cheekbone, and the purple stain around his eye.
His hair was dark, soft and glossy, cut short round the sides but flopping forwards over his eyes. It looked rumpled, as if he’d run his fingers through it over and over again, and his jaw was deeply shadowed. He looks awful, she thought, and she wondered briefly what he’d done.
Not that it mattered. It was enough to have brought him home, and that was the only thing that affected her. His injuries were none of her business.
‘You wanted to see me,’ she said, and waited for the stinging insults to start again.
‘I owe you an apology,’ he said gruffly, and she felt her jaw drop and yanked it up again. ‘I was unforgivably rude to you, and I had no justification for it.’
‘I disagree. I’m in your house without your permission,’ she said, fairness overcoming her shock. ‘I would have been just as rude, I’m sure.’
‘I doubt it, somehow. The manners you’ve drilled into your son would blow that theory out of the water. He’s a credit to you.’
She swallowed hard and nodded. ‘Thank you. He’s a great kid, and he’s been through a lot.’
‘I’m sure. However, it’s not him I want to talk to you about, it’s you. You have nowhere to go, is this right?’
Her chin went up. ‘We’ll find somewhere,’ she lied, her pride rescuing her in the nick of time, and she thought she saw a smile flicker on that strong, sculpted mouth before he firmed it.
‘Do you or do you not have anywhere else suitable to go with your children for Christmas?’ he asked, a thread of steel underlying the softness of his voice, and she swallowed again and shook her head.
‘No,’ she admitted. ‘But that’s not your problem.’
He inclined his head, accepting that, but went on, ‘Nevertheless, I do have a problem, and one you might be able to fix. As you can see, I’ve been stupid enough to get mixed up with an avalanche, and I’ve broken my wrist. Now, I can’t cook at the best of times, and I’m not getting m
y housekeeper back from her well-earned holiday to wait on me, but you, on the other hand, are here, have nowhere else to go and might therefore be interested in a proposition.’
For the first time, she felt a flicker of hope. ‘A proposition?’ she asked warily, not quite sure she liked the sound of that but prepared to listen because her options were somewhat limited. He nodded.
‘I have no intention of paying you—under the circumstances, I don’t think that’s unreasonable, considering you moved into my house without my knowledge or consent and made yourselves at home, but I am prepared to let you stay until such time as you find somewhere to go after the New Year, in exchange for certain duties. Can you cook?’
She felt the weight of fear lift from her shoulders, and nodded. ‘Yes, I can cook,’ she assured him, hoping she could still remember how. It was a while since she’d had anything lavish on her table, but cooking had once been her love and her forte.
‘Good. You can cook for me, and keep the housework under control, and help me do anything I can’t manage—can you drive?’
She nodded again. ‘Yes—but it will have to be my car, unless you’ve got a big one. I can’t go anywhere without the children, so if it’s some sexy little sports car it will have to be my hatchback.’
‘I’ve got an Audi A6 estate. It’s automatic. Is that a problem?’
‘No problem,’ she said confidently. ‘David had one.’ On a finance agreement that, like everything else, had gone belly-up in the last few years. ‘Anything else? Any rules?’
‘Yes. The children can use the playroom upstairs on the landing, and you can keep the attic bedrooms—I assume you’re in the three with the patchwork quilts?’
She felt her jaw sag. ‘How did you guess?’
His mouth twisted into a wry smile. ‘Let’s just say I’m usually a good judge of character, and you’re pretty easy to read,’ he told her drily. ‘So—you can have the top floor, and when you’re cooking the children can be down here in the breakfast room with you.’
‘Um…there’s the dog,’ she said, a little unnecessarily as Rufus was now sitting on her foot, and to her surprise Jake’s mouth softened into a genuine smile.
Their Christmas Family Miracle Page 3
