‘I want you.’
Then Ethel carried in the pudding—and what a pudding! It was the mother and father of all puddings. They’d flamed it, and two of the old men carried it from the kitchen as a ball of blue-gold fire. He’d be treating them for burns next, he thought. Ralph had Parkinson’s disease, for heaven’s sake—he normally shook all over—and here he was bearing flame, but he didn’t even look like dropping it.
They put it in front of Blake. ‘You do the honours, Doc,’ they told him. ‘Doc McKenzie should be doing it but she’s got herself otherwise occupied.’
So he sliced the pudding and loaded his portion with brandy sauce and whipped cream and ice cream—and then a bit more brandy sauce for good measure. And then a bit more, because he felt just fine.
Finally they were gone. The table was cleared, the refrigerator stocked with enough leftovers to last for days, the washing-up had been done and the town’s elderly folk, Wendy, Jason, Kyle and Christy made their way shakily home.
Jason was back on his bike but the rest of them were walking, which was just as well, given the amount of brandy sauce consumed. Only Grace remained, settling herself on the porch swing and smiling and smiling, like all her Christmases had come at once. Nell was her family—her grandchild—and her time for claiming her had come, but she was willing and wanting to share.
‘She should be stirring,’ she told Blake, looking at her watch. ‘It’s about four hours…’
‘She might sleep around the clock.’
But Grace wanted a happy ending here, and she wanted it fast. The writing was on the wall, but if Blake was allowed to leave… He’d haul himself back into his shell, she thought, and it might take Nell months to get him out again. Grace had the greatest confidence in her granddaughter, but if she could help, then she would.
‘I’m sure you should check her obs,’ Grace said to Blake, and she grinned. ‘I started nurse training once, you know, before I decided I was born to be a fisherwoman, and I remember that patients weren’t allowed to sleep for more than four hours. They might get the idea that the medical staff weren’t necessary—and that would never do, now, would it?’
‘No, indeed.’ Blake sounded bemused. He’d sounded bemused since he’d delivered the baby, Grace thought, and she was pleased by it. He was nicely off balance and she intended that he stay that way.
‘And it’d be even worse if Nell found that you were unnecessary.’
‘Grace…’
‘Go in to her,’ Grace told him, and gave him a push bedroom-wards. ‘And, for heaven’s sake, do what you want to do. It’s time you looked out for yourself for a change. Give the girl what she wants most for Christmas—and get yourself what you want most into the bargain.’
‘I don’t—’
‘You do, you know,’ she said wisely. ‘Now, go.’
He did. Blake paused at the bedroom door and he looked across at the great bed where Nell was sleeping and he felt his heart lurch within his chest. She was curled up like a kitten.
Or maybe not a kitten, he thought as he watched her. Maybe she was more like a fiercely protective mother cat, her arms curled around her bundle of baby and her face resting against the soft fleece of her baby son’s wrapping.
She’d had such a hard time… Her short-cropped curls were clinging damply to her face. Her skin was far too pale, and her freckles stood out far too clearly. She looked about ten!
No! A surge of longing so fierce rose inside him that it threatened to overwhelm him. She wasn’t about ten, he thought savagely. She was a grown woman—she was every inch a woman—and she was so desirable…
He felt his hands clenching into fists, and his nails were digging into his palms. Dear God…
Nell opened her eyes and she smiled, and as she did so, knowledge slammed home like a thunderbolt. He’d been so afraid of exposing himself to pain again—of loving as he’d loved Sylvia. But this wasn’t like that. It wasn’t in the least like that. This wasn’t a love that exposed one to pain. It was no bitter-sweet barb, waiting to hurt him and waiting to hurt others with it.
It was a different sort of loving—the right sort. It was infinitely precious, infinitely tender and infinitely wonderful. It was love as he’d never loved in his life before.
‘Nell…’ And all the joy of the day was in his voice. After all, it was Christmas. The time of giving.
He’d already given, he thought dazedly. His heart was hers. It was just up to Nell to accept.
‘You said… You said you wanted me,’ he managed in a voice that was so unsteady he could hardly comprehend it was his.
‘Did I?’ Her eyes were wary.
‘Yes.’
‘You can never depend on what a woman says in labour.’
‘So you don’t want me.’
‘I never said that.’
Hmm.
‘Are you hungry?’ he asked, and he smiled at her. And such a smile… It was all Nell could do not to gasp.
‘Um…maybe.’
‘There’s Christmas pudding and brandy sauce.’
‘How about if I just have brandy sauce?’
‘You can have anything you damned well want.’
‘Including you?’
That set him back. He stared and she smiled across at him, but her eyes were suddenly unsure. ‘I guess,’ he said. ‘Nell…’
‘You gave me my grandmother,’ she said softly. ‘And my son.’
‘You know where the brandy sauce recipe came from?’ he asked, because the tension was unbearable and he had to break it somehow. ‘From Grace. We figured out what had happened. Your mother used to sneak over to visit them on Christmas Day and she wrote down the recipe. It’s like a final piece of evidence.’
‘I don’t need evidence to know I’m Grace’s granddaughter,’ Nell said softly, but her eyes were still on his face and her attention was only half on what she was saying. The rest was devouring the way Blake was looking at her. ‘I guess from the time I came back to town, I sensed that I was loved.’
‘By Grace.’
‘Who else would love me?’ But her voice was strained, and he couldn’t bear it. Not now. Not when the joy of the world was in his heart.
‘I would.’
Silence. ‘Blake, you don’t have to. Just because I…’
Still he didn’t move. ‘Just because you what?’
And in the end it was easy. ‘Just because I love you,’ she whispered, and the whole world held its breath.
And that was enough for him. He was across the room in seconds, stooping and gathering her into the safety of his arms, her tiny son cocooned between them both. ‘Nell. My love…’
And then there was no need for words. He was kissing her and kissing her, tenderly at first, wondering, but then more urgently, his kiss a claim and a giving all on its own.
‘My Nell…’ Finally he broke away—an inch, but no more. Just enough to get the words out.
‘You can’t…’ She gazed up into his eyes, and her whole body trembled.
‘What can’t I do?’
‘You can’t love me.’
‘Watch me.’
‘But I’m your Christmas present.’
‘So?’
‘I’m only yours for four weeks.’ But she was smiling now as he put her away from him and held her at arm’s length, and the trembling had ceased. What she read in his face was fine by her.
‘When I was two,’ he said softly, smiling and smiling, ‘I was given a fire engine for Christmas. It was a particularly splendid fire engine.’
‘So?’ She was smiling so much she could hardly speak. Between them lay her tiny son, just hours old, and Blake looked down at him and his smile encompassed him as well. Answering an unspoken question.
‘I’m thirty-four years old,’ Blake said softly. ‘I’ve kept my fire engine for thirty-two years and it’s still going strong. I might get it out and play with it this very night just to check it’s still in working order for one young man who might have a us
e for it someday.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Nell whispered, but she did and her heart was singing.
‘It’s simply that I keep my Christmas presents for a very long time,’ he told her, and his hands held her and his eyes caressed her face. ‘Thirty-two years for my fire engine is the record, but I’m working on it. I reckon fifty’s a better bet. What do you say, Nell McKenzie? Will you be my Christmas present for fifty years?’
‘Fifty years!’
‘What’s wrong with fifty years?’
‘Just that it’s not nearly enough,’ she said strongly, and she put her hand around his head and found his mouth with her lips. ‘Oh, Blake, my darling, merry Christmas. For now and for ever.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
‘NOT again?’ Blake groaned as he opened the door. ‘Jason Gunner, you did this to us last Christmas.’
‘Last Christmas was the bike.’ Jason stood on the front porch and grinned, blood dripping from a very impressive cut on his elbow. ‘This year we got a trampoline.’
Blake sighed as Nell emerged from the kitchen to see what was happening. One very small boy crawled determinedly behind her—where his mum went, Michael went—and Ernest brought up the rear. ‘Nell, look what we have here. It’s Jason.’
‘Well, I’m not stitching you on the bathroom floor,’ Nell said sternly. ‘Look what happened when we did it last year.’
‘Hey, you’re only four months pregnant this time.’
‘It’s pregnant enough not to take any chances,’ Nell told them. ‘Take him into the kitchen. I’ll move the turkey from the table.’
‘I’ll move the turkey,’ Blake growled, but he was caressing his wife with his eyes. ‘You’re right. We’re taking no chances.’
‘If I can lift Michael then I can lift a turkey.’ Nell hoisted her one-year-old into her arms and hugged him. ‘And you’d best hurry. With a birthday and Christmas on the one day, we have a heap of celebrating to do.’
‘Let me take him.’ Grace came through from the kitchen, wiping flour from her hands. She took her great-grandson into her arms and held him close, their copper heads blending together as she planted a kiss on his grubby cheek. ‘Michael Blake Sutherland, what have you been up to?’
‘He’s had his fire engine in the sand pit,’ Blake told her, and Nell smiled fondly at the pair of them.
‘You realise nothing Santa can give him this Christmas can ever come up to the standard of your thirty-three-year-old Christmas present. Your fire engine’s the best.’
‘No,’ Blake told her, and his arm came around his wife’s waist and hugged hard. ‘It’s not the best Christmas present. Last year I received a wife and a son. What could be better than that?’
‘A trampoline,’ Jason said promptly, and glared at them both. ‘Aren’t you going to fix my elbow? I’m dripping.’
‘So you are.’ Blake grinned. ‘If I didn’t know you’d deserved it, I’d be worried. But come along.’ He steered the nine-year-old kitchenwards. ‘Let’s get this turkey off the table and you on it.’
‘Hey, I haven’t started the brandy sauce yet,’ Grace called as both doctors disappeared toward the kitchen. ‘You be quick.’
‘We’ll be the fastest stitchers in the West,’ Blake called back. ‘If brandy sauce is at stake… How many eggs are we putting in this year?’
‘A dozen.’
‘It’s not nearly enough.’ And as he reached the kitchen door he paused, his arm around his wife. Both of them looked back at Grace and they smiled.
‘Our family’s extended, and then some,’ Blake told Michael’s great-grandmother. ‘I want enough brandy sauce to feed all Sandy Ridge and a few more besides.’
‘How many have you invited?’ Nell asked, startled.
‘Twelve for Christmas dinner, but afterwards…’
‘Afterwards?’
‘Afterwards everyone who loves us will be here to sing carols. So we need to be ready.’
‘Everyone who loves us?’ Nell grinned up into her husband’s face. ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Blake Sutherland, stop looking smug. You look like the cat that got the canary.’
‘I’m not. I’m the Blake that got Nell.’
He stooped, and she succumbed to his kiss for an instant and then pushed him away, laughing. ‘Blake, Jason’s waiting. Blake, you can’t kiss me like that in front of the children. Blake!’
‘Well, you will wear those overalls and you know they always do things to my insides. And, besides, that’s what you get for hanging mistletoe.’
‘There’s no mistletoe here.’
‘Mistletoe’s somewhere and mistletoe’s infectious,’ Blake said softly, cupping his wife’s hands in his palms and stooping towards her once again. ‘As a medical condition, I’d say it’s extremely infectious and it lasts a very long time. Fifty years or more. As diseases go, it takes the cake.’
‘There’s no cure?’
‘Just brandy sauce to keep it fed,’ he said softly. ‘And a baby or two. And you. Who could ask for more than that, my love?’
‘Hey, remember me,’ Jason said indignantly, and Blake grinned and waved his hand at the boy.
‘Join the queue,’ he told him. ‘This doctor’s busy. He’s dealing with a very urgent Christmas present—in fact, it’s so urgent it’s left over from last year. And he always treats emergency cases first.’
‘Always?’ Nell whispered as Blake’s lips claimed hers once again.
‘Always.’
For ever.
‘Nell, shall we give them our recipe?’
‘But it’s a family secret.’
‘They have just read our story and it is Christmas. The time of sharing.’
‘And I guess we’ve so much to share. Grace and Michael and you and me—and our own special Ernest and a new little life on the way. You’ve talked me into it, my love. So…Merry Christmas, everyone. From Blake and from Grace and from Ernest and from me. With love.’
BRANDY SAUCE
1 egg, separated
120 g/4 oz/ ¾ cup sifted icing sugar
125 ml / 4 fl. oz / ½ cup whipped cream
45 ml / 3 tablespoons brandy
Beat egg white until stiff. Gradually add icing sugar, a tablespoon at a time. Fold in whipped cream and beaten egg yolk. Flavour with brandy to taste. Chill.
Multiply the recipe as many times as you like.
Enjoy!
ISBN: 978-1-4268-8156-5
DR. BLAKE’S ANGEL
First North American Publication 2002
Copyright © 2002 by Marion Lennox
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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