by Kris Pearson
Christmas Holiday Husband 203
Christmas Holiday Husband
(Heartland Heroines 2)
Kris Pearson
Ellie McKenna accepts a holiday tutoring assignment for five-year old twins on a huge New Zealand farm. She finds to her consternation that the farmer is Tony Robinson, her first and only lover from eleven years ago. And the father of her son.
Smashwords Edition
For more information about this author, visit http://www.krispearson.com/
As always, love and thanks to Philip for the covers, and the unfailing encouragement and computer un-snarling. And to the rest of my family—my beautiful sister Merilyn, and her sons Eugene and Heath.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is co-incidental.
Copyright © 2013 by Kris Pearson
Cover design © by Philip Pearson
Cover photograph dreamstimes.com
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the US Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior permission of the author.
ISBN
CHAPTER ONE
Ellie woke with a jump. Bright New Zealand sunlight streamed in from the balcony. Unfamiliar countryside noises floated on the summer air. Several of the farm dogs barked up a frenzy not too far away, and the ocean roared incessantly in the background.
A glance at her watch had her cursing softly. A quarter to eight—no way to impress her new employer. And what about the twin daughters she was here to tutor? She didn’t want them waiting in their schoolroom, wondering where their tardy teacher was.
Scrambling from the huge bed, she showered in haste, then dragged on the first clothes that came to hand—the jeans she’d travelled in yesterday and a fresh yellow and white striped T-shirt. She pulled her dark hair into a ponytail and ran peachy gloss quickly over her lips.
Embarrassed, and still somewhat dishevelled, she raced down the grand staircase and into the deliciously scented farmhouse kitchen.
“Bacon and eggs?” an amused male voice asked. There was a rustle of newsprint, and the farmer lowered his paper and glanced over the top of the pages at her.
Ellie registered dark eyes. A cleft chin. Hair cut brutally short. A once-loved face that now showed both sorrow and exhaustion.
He managed to speak before her astounded brain found any words. “Ellie? Ellie McKenna? What the...?”
There was absolute silence for a little time as she collapsed slowly onto the opposite chair, fighting for her self-possession. “Tony?” she finally whispered.
He laid the farming paper aside and lifted big shoulders in a shrug. “Tony—Robbie—whatever.”
“You’re Robbie?”
“Tony Robinson.” Smiling, he proffered his hand.
Stunned, she reached out and shook it.
“We’re being very formal, considering…” He left the rest of the sentence hanging.
Ellie wrenched her fingers free, buried her face in her hands, and stayed frozen as waves of memory and need and confusion rolled over her.
His grip on her hand had been firm and warm. One touch and he’d marked her as his again, as surely as when they’d been lovers in Sydney a decade earlier.
Finally she raised her eyes to his. “Sorry,” she croaked. “That was silly. It’s just such a huge shock, meeting you out of the blue again like this. I had no idea...”
Her pulse now pounded at least as rapidly as it had the night her flat caught fire and she’d struggled frantically to rescue everything she held precious.
He shook his head. “Nor me. I asked Ginny to arrange the tutor for the twins. Your name would have meant nothing to her, and she only told me you were Ellinore.”
“Awful name. Ellie’s better. She called you ‘Robbie’ on the phone...” Ellie floundered into awkward silence, fiddled with a knife on the table, then tried again. “And Wharemoana Homestead didn’t register with me. If she’d said ‘Robinson’s Farm’...then maybe...”
“Maybe you’d have wondered?”
“Perhaps. Who knows?” She tried to keep her tone light as her eyes roved all over him. Because of course she would have wondered. Tony had vividly dominated her mind for months after she’d met him. Later, she’d deliberately forced his memory further and further back as her baby son claimed her heart and her life.
But why now? Why, after eleven long years had her past collided head-on with her present, threatening to wreck everything she’d struggled so hard to achieve?
She felt young and gauche. Defensive and insecure. Tony had disappeared from her life after one intense week and never reappeared. She might have hoped, but she’d never expected to see him again. She knew he was somewhere in New Zealand because over the past two or three years she’d heard the odd local reference to him—a forestry item on the radio, something to do with cattle breeding on TV. She’d Googled him the first time on one of the classroom computers, made sure it was him, and then done her best to close him out of her mind again. But despite her best efforts, here he was across a sunny breakfast table as though the huge gap in time had never happened.
Her hungry eyes raced over him again, confirming he’d become an impressive man—still with that infectious smile now he’d relaxed a little. Thirty-five, she calculated. With beautiful shoulders straining the fabric of his blue polo shirt.
He reached a tanned arm across to the counter and set the toaster going. Ellie watched his long fingers threading the bread into the slots. Once again her heart pounded along like a racehorse; her blood racing and raging through her body. Those fingers had traced every inch of her skin, teasing and taunting her—making it impossible to say ‘no’ on the softly scented evening they’d first made love.
“The hair’s a bit different,” she said, desperate to break the silence that had settled between them.
He raised a hand and ran it over the soft bristles. “Fundraising scheme for cancer research. With my wife the way she was...”
Ellie nodded, still disconcerted.
“... some of us volunteered to have our heads shaved in public at a local charity auction a couple of weeks ago. Raised thousands. Easier than selling raffle tickets or whatever. It was in the papers.”
I must have missed it in the staff-room, she thought. She didn’t pay out even the small amount for a newspaper if she could save it toward her soon-to-be new house, and she’d been too busy to spend much time on the internet news sites lately. But she could picture all too clearly the cruel clippers buzzing over his scalp, and the dark silk of his hair cascading onto the floor. Years ago she’d run her fingers through it, delighting in its thick softness. “You had lovely hair.” She bit her lip, angry she’d let slip such a telling comment, but he took no apparent notice.
“It’ll grow. Not a great price to pay in summer.” He changed the subject abruptly. “And you became a teacher? You said that’s what you wanted, back in Sydney.”
Ellie was surprised he’d remembered. “Yes,” she said, thinking of the sacrifices she and her mother had both made to bring it about. Going without the daily newspaper had been the least of it.
“And there was a fire? Ginny said something about that. She’s out picking flowers to arrange at the local church, by the way. She’ll be back inside soon.”
Ellie nodded. Ginny had welcomed her yesterday, shown her to her room, and provided a delicious dinner. She’d been surprised not to see her this morning. Just as well she hadn’t been in the kitchen a few min
utes ago!
“The place I was renting burned down,” she murmured, remembering the panic-stricken night, and Cal’s screams, and the crackling pitiless flames. “There wasn’t much that escaped. I grabbed a few clothes and the photo album, but that was all I saved.”
And my lovely son, she added to herself. Your lovely son from all those years ago. The best thing in my life.
She took a deep breath, hoping to relax the searing tension out of her spine. “I’m close to moving into a new house I’m having built. When I’ve finished my contract here, it should be ready.”
“So—the job you wanted. A new house. A husband, too?”
The query hung between them like a monstrous multi-coloured elephant.
“Two out of three ain’t bad,” she replied, trying to keep her voice level and non-committal, but not managing to hold his gaze.
For there was no husband—not even the sniff of one. After Tony, no man had gotten close to her. No-one was as vivid, as desirable, as all-pervading. She knew this for the truth, however much tried to convince herself that producing a baby, managing her teacher training, caring for her child, working, and saving for a home, had occupied her whole time and left none for a man. Tony had stolen her heart and never returned it.
Somehow she dragged up the courage to raise her eyes to his again. “I’ve never married. Not my thing. I’m enjoying being independent, relying on myself.” She gave a small shrug to indicate that a husband was the least of her needs, but when the toast sprang up, she jumped too, so tense that it took only that tiny unexpected shock to push her over the edge.
Tony reached across, juggling the steaming slices in his long capable hands as he slid them into the antique silver toast rack. “What will you eat? Bacon and eggs? Cereal? Have a look in the pantry if you like.”
“Toast is fine.” She reached for a slice at the same instant he did, and pulled her fingers back as though he was red hot.
“Sorry—after you,” he said courteously, pushing the toast toward her with an engaging smile. Her son’s smile exactly.
The fragile shreds of Ellie’s hard won composure disappeared again.
Tony’s smile. Tony’s thick dark hair. Tony’s killer eyelashes. Callum had them all. If Tony ever saw his son he’d recognise him instantly.
There was such danger here! She knew now there was no way she could allow Cal to visit her at the farm if she wanted to keep him safe. She’d have to go back into town to see him whenever she could. Bringing her son here for a few days was simply impossible. Tony would seduce him away from her. With his money and charm and land, and most of all, his masculinity. Cal desperately wanted a father, and Ellie had fallen way short there.
She concentrated on buttering her toast, aware she was being inspected.
“Mine’s not the only hair that’s different,” Tony said.
Memories crowded in on her. For that long-ago holiday in Australia her hair had been fiery red.
“This is more my real colour.”
“You had lovely dark eyebrows.”
He’d noticed? Her heart jolted. “Bit of a giveaway, were they?”
“Made me wonder.”
She forced herself to relax a little. “I was young enough and silly enough to believe being a redhead would be fun.” She managed a wry smile. “Maggie talked me into it, of course. There was hell to pay from my mother once I came back to New Zealand.”
He nodded, eyes still fixed intently on her face. “And how is Maggie? Still a party animal?”
Ellie laughed at his description, relieved to be on safer ground. She supposed Maggie had seemed lively company in Sydney. “She’s a nurse for one of the big aid agencies. She was injured in Afghanistan a few years ago, but that didn’t stop her. She’s working in Somalia now. We keep in touch.”
“She was quite a girl.”
“And still is.” She cast about for another topic before he could grill her further about her own life. “How did the rest of the trip work out for you and Darren?” She tipped her head on one side, indicating she expected him to entertain her with travel stories.
“Fantastic couple of years. The overland route through Australia was great. The interior is mind-boggling. The distances. The dryness of the place.” He smiled crookedly. “I hated leaving you.”
“Don’t,” she begged. “Yes—I hated it too. You know I did, the way I cried all over you.” She shook her head to chase the wretched memory away. She’d spent their last night together in extreme distress, sobbing and hiccupping and apologising, and then starting all over again as he’d stroked her hair and tried to soothe her. “But that was always how it was going to be with us, Tony. A holiday romance—nothing more. You and Darren were travelling on. I needed to come home to do my teacher training. It was another life. Long gone.”
She gritted her teeth, determined to keep her expression calm. This was the last thing she needed. Meeting Tony again had utterly demolished her self-possession. Trying to relive the past would disrupt all the careful plans she’d put in place... make the years of unrelenting work and deprivation seem even tougher.
Ellie had found herself pregnant just as she was about to start her teacher training, and Tony was probably half the world away by then, travelling who-knew-where.
Her mother, Rebecca, had been widowed early and never remarried. Unwilling to let her daughter live the same hard life, she’d encouraged and cajoled and insisted that Ellie took a temporary clerical job until Callum was born, and then attended Teachers’ College with the following year’s intake.
It had been grindingly hard, but at last, with steady work as an on-call relief teacher, Ellie had saved the deposit for her modest new home.
She had it all planned. Her mother would move out of the tiny church-owned flat. They’d live as a threesome in the house with a bedroom each. There’d be a sunny courtyard with terracotta pots full of lavender. A lawn where Callum could kick a ball around. Finally she’d feel he had what he deserved.
The fire in her flat had been shattering. But because she’d possessed very little, she’d lost very little. Now, facing up to Tony, she knew she had everything to lose. For what man wouldn’t want to claim his only son? A son who resembled him so closely that it was startling?
Cal was everything to Ellie. Everything and more. He was her reason for living and breathing...for working and striving...for planning and succeeding.
“Another life?” Tony queried, breaking into her desperately churning thoughts.
“Sydney was years ago,” she dismissed, in a voice she hoped wasn’t trembling like the rest of her.
He regarded her steadily across the table, then rose to his feet. She drew a quiet breath. He was an imposing figure—so tall now he was standing beside her. A man in his prime. Hard-muscled and strong...tanned and aggressively male. The brutal haircut made him look tougher and more demanding. But even without that, he would have stolen her wits away. He was everything she’d remembered and imagined for the last eleven years—plus apparent wealth and easy authority and undiluted charm.
He bent swiftly and cupped her face in his hands. Before she could react, he kissed her—warm, fast, and sure. She slammed a hand against his chest to try and deflect him, but it was too late. And as she gasped with surprise, he flicked his tongue between her parted lips, setting all her nerve ends jangling, and unleashing the yearning she’d been keeping a tight rein on for so long.
He straightened seconds later and sauntered across to the pantry. “It’s good to see you again, Ellie.”
She sat stock-still, rigid with the whiplash of desire. It had been so long since she’d let any man get close to her, and now it had to be this one. “Don’t do that again, please Tony,” she whispered. “I can’t possibly work here if you’re going to stir up the past.”
“It was just hello.”
xxx
He pulled the pantry doors open, knowing it had been a hell of a lot more than that. It had been hello, and you’re beautiful, and
I remember everything. Seeing her again had shocked him to the soles of his feet. He’d been totally unable to keep his hands off her. How, after all this time, could she still do this to him?
He rattled around amongst the jars, pushing the honey and peanut butter and pickles aside, with no idea of what he was looking for.
She was still the girl in the white bikini who had stared at him with such longing, thinking she was hidden behind her sunglasses. The girl who’d attracted him so fiercely that he’d dived into the hotel swimming pool, hoping the cold water would force his lustful blood back to more appropriate parts of his body.
And she was doing it to him again. With a view of nothing more stirring than preserves and tinned salmon, he was rock hard and aching. “I’ll hardly be trying to jump you in front of my mother-in-law and daughters,” he muttered.
“Good.”
“But it’s amazing to see you again.”
“Yes.”
xxx
Ellie flinched. She sounded like some prissy pruned-up old maid. “Sorry—I just wasn’t expecting it,” she added, trying to make amends. She drank him in while he stared broodingly into the shelves of groceries. His long legs, she noted with despair, were as good as ever. He wore army-khaki shorts, and bulky work socks. Presumably he’d kicked off his boots at the door.
The soft old blue polo shirt was no sort of fashion statement with the khaki shorts and thick socks, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from his rangy body.
She’d run her hands down that long back. Raked her fingernails over those broad shoulders as her body clenched in ecstasy around his. Licked every square inch of his skin. And she felt desperately ready to do it all again.
Her fingers relaxed as her mind wandered, and the knife slid off her plate with a clatter. They both started. Ellie bent to retrieve it from the tiled floor. Tony swung away from the pantry and took it from her. He crossed to the sink, washed and dried the knife, and returned it.
She nodded her thanks.
