A Father by Christmas

by Meredith Webber

  Thomas knows him? Sophie’s stomach muscles clenched. She wanted to shout at Vicki, tell her strangers should never be allowed inside, but Vicki was ahead of her.

  ‘He’s a regular visitor,’ she said. ‘All the kids love him.’

  By this time Sophie was at the doorway of the preschool area and could see the visitor. Though how someone as tall as Gib could fold himself onto a four-year-old-size chair she didn’t know.

  His back was to her, his hands busy with a mess of play dough, modelling a figure of some kind. The children around the table were similarly employed, although Thomas seemed to be eating his rather than making something with it.

  The stomach muscles that had relaxed when she saw who the ‘visitor’ was now began to tense again. Why was he here?

  ‘Sophie!’

  Thomas’s glad cry thrust away the remnants of her concern and she spread her arms as he ran towards her. It also made Gib turn and he held up hands green from the play dough and grinned at her.

  ‘Come and join us,’ he said, as Sophie scooped a hurtling Thomas into her arms and hugged him tight, pressing her cheek against his bouncing curls, feeling the little skip of her heart produced by the deep love she felt for him, and heightened by fear that she might lose him.

  ‘Yes, come and make something, Sophie!’ Thomas added his own plea. ‘And see Gib’s pig. He makes the best pigs.’

  ‘It was supposed to be a donkey,’ Gib explained, as Sophie drew cautiously closer. ‘We were doing a nativity scene.’

  ‘I’m sure there were pigs somewhere in the vicinity,’ Sophie said, hoping she sounded OK when the unexpectedness of this encounter was now making her distinctly nervous.

  Tiredness?

  She thought not…

  Thomas squiggled out of her arms and returned to the table, tugging her by the hand so she had no choice but to take the empty chair beside Gib and examine the animals he and the other children had already completed.

  ‘You can do the donkey,’ he said to her, passing her a ball of slightly dirty red play dough.

  The children showed their models, and argued over whose was best—Thomas insisting his nibbled-at oblong was a sheep. Then, the limit of his attention span reached, he drifted off with two other boys, the three of them turning their animals into battering rams as they charged at each other.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Sophie asked, keeping her voice below the level of the children’s chatter.

  Gib smiled at her.

  ‘It must seem odd, but I often come down and play with the kids for a while. I think that’s how Etty started her volunteering here. It’s the normality of it I like.’

  The explanation stopped there, and from the sure way his fingers moved, shaping a green lump into something that might have been a person, she knew his attention was back on his task, not their conversation.

  ‘Normality?’

  He looked up now, as if surprised by her query.

  ‘I suppose, having Thomas, it doesn’t mean as much to you, but because most, if not all, of the children I have dealings with were either preemies or low birth weight babies, their progress is different. I know we have charts and tables that give us detailed standards of development of so-called normal children, but they’re figures and graphs, not real life children. It’s one thing to read that by three or four a child will represent a human figure with hands and feet and hair, but it’s different to see them doing it.’

  ‘You come down here to watch them draw?’

  ‘And play!’ Gib said, putting down his model and turning so he was looking directly at her. ‘The point is, I see kids who began life in the NICU growing and developing, learning new skills, and I get excited for them and for their parents, but it’s hard to judge how far they still have to go unless you see them with children of their age group. Look at this lot—see Sally over there, and Sam, her twin. They were low birth weight babies, and although they are socially OK with children of their own age, seeing them with the others, making models, drawing, even in pretend play, you can see where those two are still catching up.’

  Sophie understood what he was saying but her attention had shifted to Thomas and, seeing him playing so well with the two older boys, she smiled.

  ‘He’s a very well-adjusted child,’ Gib said, apparently following her eyes if not her thoughts. ‘At his age, I’d have been like Aaron over there.’

  He pointed to a small child standing a little apart, smiling at the three boys’ play but not joining in.

  ‘Only I’d have been sucking my first two fingers as I watched.’

  ‘Bit of a loner?’ Sophie asked, turning back to look at him, seeing, as he lifted his left hand to indicate which fingers he’d sucked, that he was no longer wearing his wedding ring.

  Because of the play dough catching in it?

  ‘You could say that!’ he said, his ringless hand busy again with the little figure.

  Thomas returned to her side and, anxious to be alone with him—or anxious not to be so close to Gib?—Sophie stood up.

  ‘I’ll see you later,’ Gib said. ‘Etty phoned earlier to say as we’d all be home together, we might have a barbeque. We can have it early so it won’t affect Thomas’s bedtime too severely.’

  Sophie stared at him.

  ‘You don’t like barbeques?’ Gib prompted. ‘You’re not one of those people who think charred meat is carcinogenic?’

  ‘It is, isn’t it? However, barbeques don’t worry me, but if you’ve got a night off, surely you’ve got better things to do than cook a barbeque for me and Thomas.’

  Especially if you’re still a loner!

  ‘And Etty,’ he reminded her. ‘And I’m not committing to an entire night of barbequing. So, see you at home?’

  He smiled and Sophie knew all the warnings she’d been giving herself about not being attracted to this man had failed. His smile made her toes tingle, and her heart tap out a rap rhythm against her ribs. She felt hot and cold all at the same time, and although she knew Thomas was talking to her—tugging at her hand and saying something—her ears had tuned him out, Gib’s final sentence—See you at home—echoing over and over again in her head.

  ‘Or it will be too late for a swim.’

  Thomas’s voice finally penetrated the fog in which she found herself, although it was Gib who answered the little boy.

  ‘It’s never too late for a swim in our pool, Thomas,’ he said. ‘There are lights all around it, and even under the water so you can see really well in there at night.’

  ‘Lights under the water? Did you hear that, Sophie? Can we swim at night? Can we swim tonight?’

  With or without Alexander Gibson?

  He wasn’t committing for an entire night so maybe he was going out. Maybe he had a date. Maybe that was why he’d taken off his wedding ring.

  Sophie considered all these things as she led Thomas to the car and clipped him into his car seat. It was better than considering how she’d feel if Gib did swim with them. If the man, fully clothed, could make her toes tingle with a smile, what would seeing him half-naked do to her extremities?

  Give her goose bumps! She found that out a couple of hours later, when Gib decreed it was dark enough for the pool lights to go on and Thomas insisted they all have a swim.

  All but Etty, who announced she’d had enough swims for one day and would be better employed fixing salads for the barbeque and making a cherry tart for sweets.

  Thomas was already in the pool, getting through the water with his fearless dog-paddling motion, and Gib had dived in the deep end and was swimming lazy laps. Sophie hesitated to take off the sarong wrap she had tied at her waist, as embarrassed and uncertain about revealing her body as she’d been when she’d first developed breasts.

  Would he think her too thin?

  As if it mattered!

  ‘Come on Sophie!’ Thomas called, and she whipped off the sarong and slid into the water. Perhaps if she stayed submerged, her body size and shape wouldn’t be
too obvious.

  Thomas splashed water at her face, reminding her the issue was his happiness, not Alexander Gibson’s impression of her body. She splashed back and soon forgot everything but the sheer joy of playing in the water with her little boy.

  Her little boy! Fiercely she echoed the words, renewing her determination to fight for the right to keep him—fight her mother and, if necessary, his father, too.

  Whoever he might be!

  Gib hauled himself out of the water at the far end of the pool and watched them play, seeing the joy in both their faces, seeing Sophie’s hair escaping from the knot at the back of her head, dark threads of it lying wetly on her back.

  Was he becoming obsessed by Sophie’s hair?

  Definitely not—his attention was just as easily attracted to the pale, slim body he could see beneath the water. She was wearing a black swimsuit that clung to her shapely breasts and slender waist, before following the swell of her hips.

  His left thumb moved to his ring finger of that hand and he realised he’d forgotten to put his wedding ring back on after playing with the play dough.

  Forgotten?

  ‘Gib, watch me swim to you.’

  Thomas’s cry was a timely reminder that he shouldn’t be thinking of Sophie the way he was, and he watched the little boy swim splashily towards him. He was a cute little kid, so confident and full of life. It had only been a week since he had moved in, but Gib was enjoying getting to know him.

  Thomas reached him and Gib slid into the water. He lifted the child onto his shoulders, feeling the lack of weight—the slightness of his body—and felt a rush of something he didn’t understand as small fingers grasped his hair. Suddenly he found himself thinking, for the first time in years, about Hilary Cooper, and whether or not she’d conceived.

  If maybe, somewhere, he had a child…

  But that was neither here nor there. Being a dad was out of the question—of course he liked kids, but he’d made the decision not to be a father. Not only that, he’d made a promise.

  ‘Go under, Gib, go under!’ Thomas yelled, and Gib ducked under so both he and the little boy were submerged momentarily before bobbing back up to the surface.

  ‘Did you see, Sophie! Did you see?’

  Gib lifted the child down, turned his eel-slippery form in his arms and set him swimming back to Sophie.

  He couldn’t get attached to Thomas. Sophie would move on—meet someone who’d be only too happy to take Thomas as part of the package. Yet as Thomas turned again and splashed back towards him, so confident Gib’s arms would reach out to hold him, that strange feeling returned.

  The barbeque was set up down by the river in a gazebo with a long table of iron lace and matching chairs with bright yellow cushions to soften the seats. Sophie sat so her arm rested on the low wall of the gazebo and looked out at the river, the aroma of sizzling steak tantalising her taste buds while Thomas’s chatter, as he ‘helped’ Gib cook, made her warm with happiness.

  OK, so thinking about Gib made her warm in other ways, but she could cope with that, as long as Thomas was safe and happy.

  ‘Do you think you’ve got enough food?’ she asked Etty, who’d been setting the table and putting out dishes of salad while they swam.

  ‘Wait till you see Gib eat,’ Etty told her. ‘He might look lean and mean but that man can put away a mountain of food.’

  ‘That man’ appeared in person, carrying a platter of steaks, Thomas following importantly behind with the barbeque tongs.

  We could almost be a family, Sophie thought, then she glanced at Gib’s left hand to remind herself he was still in love with his dead wife.

  The ring was still missing.

  Had he forgotten to put it back on?

  Or had her earlier guess been correct and he’d taken it off because he was going out with someone later—someone he felt serious enough about to finally remove the ring?

  The smell of the meat turned from tempting and delicious to distinctly nauseating, but Sophie forced herself to choose a small piece for Thomas, cutting it up for him, adding salad to his plate, then passing it across the table.

  Etty was chattering about the Christmas decorations she and Thomas would put up tomorrow, asking Gib if he’d be available to help with the high bits, although they wouldn’t need him for the angel for the top of the tree until the following week.

  ‘It’s due to be delivered next Saturday.’

  ‘Just how big is this tree you’ve ordered?’ Gib asked, and Sophie, seeing the fondness in his eyes as he spoke to Etty, felt a surge of jealousy towards the unknown woman for whom Gib had removed his ring.

  ‘It’s very very big.’ Thomas answered for Etty, holding his little arms as wide as they would go. ‘Me and Etty, we meas—’ He looked towards his carer who smiled and offered him the word he needed. ‘Measured to the roof and got one that big.’

  ‘That big?’ Gib teased, and Sophie’s jealousy morphed to regret. He was so nice, this boss of hers—nice all the way through that he’d bother with a little boy he barely knew and allow what apparently was a monstrous tree to be set up in his lovely house.

  No wonder she was falling—

  Don’t even think about it!

  She ate her meal, knowing it was delicious and she should be appreciating it more, but too tied up in thoughts of Gib to do more than chew and swallow.

  ‘A certain small boy looks ready for bed,’ Etty said, and Sophie stood up, glad of an excuse to get away from the cosy family atmosphere that had crept around them.

  ‘No, you sit, I’ll take him,’ Etty insisted. ‘We’re halfway through a story we want to finish, aren’t we, Thomas?’

  Sophie hesitated but as Thomas came towards her for a goodnight kiss, then went off happily on Etty’s knee, she couldn’t argue.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Gib said, when the pair had disappeared into the shadows of the house that loomed above them.

  Sorry?

  ‘For what?’ Sophie asked, turning to face him although she’d been trying to avoid looking at him.

  ‘For Etty. She’s about as subtle as a sledgehammer. Taking Thomas like that—leaving the two of us together. She thinks I should remarry and now you’re here, with a little boy she already adores, she can’t believe I haven’t snapped you up.’

  ‘In a little over a week?’ Sophie said lightly, although her heart was racing and her breathing mechanism had gone awry. ‘And you? How do you feel? Do you want to remarry?’

  Another head-slapping moment! Had she really asked that?

  But before she’d died of shame, he answered.

  ‘No.’

  One definite word, which should have stopped her cold, but caution didn’t stand a chance.

  ‘That’s it? Just no? Presumably you’ve a reason.’

  He chuckled, as if her persistent—pathetic?—probing was amusing him. But when he stood up and walked towards the fence that separated his property from the river, his shoulders were slumped and his head bowed, body language suggesting there was nothing amusing about his reason.

  Regret that she’d upset him made her move towards him, desperate to offer comfort—or at least make amends.

  ‘I’m sorry. It’s none of my business. I don’t know why I kept asking.’

  He glanced towards her, then, as if feeling her empathy, he put his arm around her shoulders and drew her closer, so they both stood leaning against the fence, looking out at the river.

  ‘A man and a woman, softly lapping water, the moon shining on the river—why wouldn’t you be asking?’

  He looked down into her face, and Sophie, in wonderment that the connection between them had suddenly shifted to a whole new dimension, held her breath. Then he lifted his hand and pulled out the comb that held her damp hair knotted, probably untidily, behind her head.

  ‘I’ve been wanting to do that for days,’ he murmured. ‘And this.’

  He ran his fingers through her freed hair and fanned it out so it fell across her back an
d shoulders.

  ‘Beautiful hair, beautiful smile—how could a man walk away from you, Sophie? Or did you walk, taking Thomas with you?’

  Sophie stilled. ‘He didn’t walk away because we were never together and he never wanted Thomas. He doesn’t even know he exists. But that’s not the point. We were talking about you, so don’t think changing the subject will divert me.’

  He was staring down into the water that slid so quietly past them.

  ‘If he doesn’t know, how do you know he doesn’t want Thomas?’

  It was the question striking fear in Sophie’s heart, and she shivered as she used Hilary’s words—the words kept her going these days.

  ‘It was agreed he’d have nothing to do with Thomas,’ she said.

  Had he noticed her slight, involuntary shudder that he touched her again—touched her shoulder and, moving closer, smoothed her hair?

  ‘The man’s a fool,’ he muttered, more to himself than to her, then he turned her so she was facing him, and with one hand tilted her head so he could look into her eyes.

  ‘This attraction between us, do you feel it, too?’

  She dipped her head in reluctant agreement, too uptight and anxious to find words to confirm or—more sensibly—deny it.

  But that barely there nod was all the answer he needed, for he bent his head and brushed an, oh, so gentle kiss across her lips.

  She pushed away before her feelings could betray her—not far away, but out of kissing distance.

  ‘I, ah…There’s Thomas. I…’

  What on earth was she supposed to say?

  Well, for a start she could ask why, if he didn’t want to remarry, he’d taken off his wedding ring, her sensible self replied, but standing close to him, feeling the heat of his body, was so good she didn’t want to spoil the moment.

  ‘I’ve been wanting to do that, too,’ he said softly. ‘But now it’s done, that’s as far as it goes, sweet Sophie. I don’t get involved—too involved—with women any more, particularly not with women who have to consider their child before they go into a relationship.’

  ‘Presumably you’ve a reason,’ Sophie said, moving far enough away from him to ease the physical chaos his body was causing.