A Magical Christmas

by Patricia Thayer

  ‘I could make love to you right here and now,’ he whispered, adding more fuel to the fire already burning within her.

  ‘Not a good idea,’ she murmured, lips to lips, not moving even a fraction of a centimetre.

  One of his hands had slid between them and was fondling her breast, sending tremors of delight directly to the nerve centre of her sexuality. Now she was moaning against his mouth and though her head kept yelling at her to stop, to move away, she could no more move than she could deny the attraction she felt towards this man.

  Her body yielded to the moment, thoughts banished as she revelled in the delights physical attraction could provide. Heat swelled her tissues, and blood throbbed through her veins, her body pulsating with a need she barely understood and had never felt assuaged. Her lips began their own exploration, moving across his cheek, along a jaw slightly rough with emerging whiskers. The feel of that roughness intensified her excitement, and she slid her hands beneath his shirt and felt the contrast of the smooth skin on his lower back, the hardness of his backbone…

  ‘You are beautiful, and you are driving me to distraction!’ Mak growled the words as he eased away from her. ‘I know all the reasons this is impossible as well as you do, yet it’s equally impossible for me to keep my hands off you.’

  Neena felt the coldness of separation—the shock of it—a sense of loss.

  He had slung his arm around her shoulders and, holding her close, was meandering on down the lane, chatting away as if this was a perfectly normal conversation.

  ‘And it is impossible—what could it be but a brief affair? Then there are the complications of the baby, but what I can’t decide is whether kissing you from time to time—I’ll try to restrict myself to darkness and odd moments—is going to make things better or worse.’

  They walked on in silence for a few minutes, then he spoke again.

  ‘Don’t you have anything to add to this conversation?’

  The lane had ended at a cross street and her house was just ahead. Mak’s arm dropped from around her shoulders, although Neena was reasonably sure there was no one around to see them.

  More loss!

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she said, unable to keep a touch of tartness out of her voice, ‘but, then, thirty-four-year-old ex-virgins don’t have a lot of experience to draw on in situations like this.’

  He halted under a streetlight and looked down at her, lifting his hand to run a finger down her cheek.

  ‘Did it bother you a lot, the virginity thing?’

  He was frowning at her, as if really interested in her answer, but with the tension of his presence still firing all her senses, all she could do was shrug it off.

  ‘I never thought about it,’ she said. ‘Well, not often. Everyone has bad days when they’re tired and out of sorts and when I was like that I sometimes wished I had someone I could whinge to.’

  His frown disappeared and he laughed out loud.

  ‘That’s the best reason for getting married that I’ve ever heard—to have someone to whinge to!’

  ‘Well, it’s true—that’s how I felt!’ Neena told him crossly. ‘And I don’t see anything funny about it.’

  ‘We should be back in the lane so I could hug you,’ he said. ‘I’m not laughing at you but at the simplicity of it. Most people think of marriage as a sharing of joys but you’re absolutely right, having someone to complain to when things are going wrong is important.’

  But for some reason, him agreeing with her didn’t make Neena feel any better. In fact, it made her feel worse so she strode away, taking the front steps two at a time, reaching the top before she realised she hadn’t checked on Albert. She turned to come back down but Mak halted her with a hand in the air.

  ‘I’ll check on him,’ he said, and Neena wondered if having someone to check on Albert for her might be nearly as good a reason for marriage as having someone to whinge at.

  Not that it could be—at least, not with Mak…

  And now she knew Mak, would she be happy with an alternative?

  It was such a weird thought that she opened up the steamer trunk to distract herself and began to delve through the Christmas decorations. What colours had she used last year? Red and green, she rather thought. So this year maybe gold and white, garlands with gold bells and white flowers hanging off them along the veranda, and tomorrow she’d sort out the lights and put up the Christmas tree then decorate it with white and gold baubles.

  Mak came up the steps, reported Albert was asleep and opened the other trunk.

  ‘Wow, you really do Christmas in a big way. Look at all the decorations.’

  He pulled out a bag of scarlet flowers, and another bag of red balls, going through the contents of the trunk with the excitement of a child.

  ‘No, I’m going white and gold so anything that’s not white or gold, just put back,’ Neena told him as he opened up a huge red paper bell.

  ‘No red?’ he queried, waving the bell at her, and once again Neena felt a twinge of loss. Hanging Christmas decorations with someone would be nice as well.

  ‘You can pull out any green garlands,’ she told him. ‘We can thread them around the veranda and put the white and gold decorations in them.’

  They worked amiably together for an hour, decorating the front veranda so people walking by could see they’d made a start.

  ‘We’ll leave the rest for tomorrow,’ Neena said, when the strain of this unnatural togetherness had become too much for her. ‘Do you want a cup of something or a cold drink before you go to bed?’

  ‘I’ll fix something for myself in a minute,’ Mak said, getting back up on the small stepladder to adjust the tilt on an angel he’d put above the door. He’d climbed down as Neena slid past him—or almost slid past him.

  ‘Hoy!’ he said, touching her arm to halt her escape. ‘That’s mistletoe up there with the angel—you know what that means.’

  And before she could object he was kissing her again. Worse still, she was kissing him back! Again! Somehow he shuffled them into the hall so they weren’t clearly visible to anyone walking by, but their lips remained joined and their bodies fitted into the contours of each other’s as if they already knew the bumps and hollows.

  Mak held her close and his mouth consumed hers, stealing her heat and tasting her passion, desire enveloping them both. Neena began to tremble under the spell of it, her body firing, melting, aching, a need for fulfilment she didn’t fully understand sending tremors deep into her belly.

  He wanted to share my bed!

  The stark phrase she’d used so recently echoed in Neena’s head and she broke away, muttering it out loud, so Mak looked at her with an expression of shock and distaste. A black frown drew his eyebrows together, growing anger evident in his face and the tension of his body.

  Well, she couldn’t help that! She escaped to her bedroom and collapsed on her bed, so confused by her emotions she didn’t know where to start thinking about them.

  ‘Was I the one who said we couldn’t have an affair?’ Neena asked, watching the fan lazily stir the air above her. She ran her hands over the bump. ‘How foolish was that, huh, Baby Singh?’

  But deep in her heart she knew having an affair with this man to whom she was so attracted would only make the parting, when it inevitably came, far harder. Better to put up with a little frustration now than an agony of regret later.

  The problem was that it was more than a little and, she suspected, more than frustration. Frustration she could handle, but this aching loneliness that seemed to have permeated every cell in her body, that was something else.

  But she was used to loneliness—personal loneliness—so why now was it upsetting her?

  Resting her hands on Baby Singh’s bump, she considered it—well, not for long, because she really knew. Without any conscious effort on her part—and, to be honest, not much on his—she was falling in love with Mak. For a while she’d put it down to attraction—to some late-developing part of her suddenly becom
ing aware of her sexuality—but in her heart she knew it was more than that. Talking to the man, working with him, discussing patients and medicine in general, an insidious idea had slid into her mind—not to mention her body—an idea that this was good, better than good, special.

  That this might be love!

  Her sigh reverberated around the room, hanging on the blades of the fan and washing back over her…

  Mak was experienced enough to know if he’d kept kissing Neena in the hall the inevitable conclusion would be that they’d have ended up in her bed. And now she’d put a stop to it, he somehow felt ashamed of himself—as if, some time in the future, she might remember him, too, as a man who’d wanted only one thing—to share her bed…

  Which he did, of course, but he didn’t want her remembering him that way—speaking of him with the same distaste she’d used when speaking of that other man…

  He strode along the hallway to his room where he sank down on the bed and rubbed his hands across his face, trying to banish the taste of her from his lips, and all thoughts of her from his mind.

  Maybe she was a witch!

  The thought didn’t help—bewitchment wasn’t going to go away any more than desire was.

  Desire?

  Or lust?

  Wasn’t that all it was?

  He pictured her in his mind and knew it wasn’t lust—what he felt for her was more complicated than lust.

  Much more complicated!

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  NEENA rose early, mixed up enough formula to see Albert through the day, then took it out to the stables where she filled his bottle and put the rest in the small refrigerator she’d turned on out there. She walked the little camel around the yard, chatting quietly to him, but her head was wondering where things stood between herself and Mak Stavrou while her heart was wondering if it really was love or if it was just an overheated reaction to romantic kisses in a darkened lane.

  Whatever it was, head and heart agreed that seeing him again would be awkward, working with him maybe worse than that, but her morning chores accomplished, she had to return to the house, to shower, dress for work, have breakfast then get about her business. Life went on no matter what was happening in the hidden depths of one’s heart.

  Was it symptomatic of just how confused she was that she dithered in front of her wardrobe, and instead of pulling on a skirt and cotton knit top—her usual work-wear—she considered a white cotton dress she’d bought on impulse in Baranock one day. It had a lacy insert across the bust and hung in soft folds below the insert, so it was cool, but for all its shapelessness, kind of sexy.

  A work dress it was not! No, but she could wear it to Baranock on Friday when they went, and maybe while she was there check out the little boutique where she’d bought it and see what else they had. Maybe a Christmassy kind of dress—or something sleek and slinky.

  Sleek and slinky when she was six months pregnant?

  Ashamed of her own thoughts, she grabbed a denim skirt and pale blue, sleeveless T-shirt and pulled them on, this fantasising about her wardrobe so bizarre she didn’t want to think about what might be causing it.

  ‘Good morning.’

  Didn’t have to think about what might be causing it—he was sitting in the kitchen!

  Mak sounded relaxed and friendly but, then, stopping the kiss probably hadn’t caused him the slightest anguish so how else should he sound?

  She echoed his greeting, surreptitiously eyeing him in an effort to gauge his mood.

  As well try to read the mood of the table, Mak’s face gave away as little, his hazel eyes meeting hers momentarily then moving on as he crossed to the bench to start the coffee machine.

  Neena helped herself to cereal, added milk and a tub of yoghurt, some slices of mango…

  ‘Did you slice the fruit?’ she asked, surveying the platter that held not only mango but rockmelon, orange and peach slices.

  And now he smiled, a real smile for it lit his eyes and caused such ructions in Neena’s heart and lungs and stomach she wished she hadn’t spoken.

  ‘I told you I could cook,’ he said.

  ‘So you did,’ she managed, then concentrated on her breakfast, refusing to look at him again.

  ‘So what excitement is on the agenda for today?’ he asked, and she had to look at him.

  ‘More of the same. I’d like to be able to tell you that Thursdays offer some variety but as you have probably gathered by now, most of our variety comes from emergencies and the fewer I have of those the happier I am.’

  He nodded.

  ‘Well, in that case I might take the day off from the surgery and visit the ambulance station, then go out to the powerhouse site again. I can find out how many people they are expecting to employ out there both short term and long term. Is that all right with you?’

  It was Neena’s turn to nod, which she did, because although she’d been uneasy about getting through the day in Mak’s company, the thought of not having him around made her feel even worse. Not that she hadn’t asked for it—firstly breaking away from the kiss last night then, to make matters worse, putting Mak in the same category as the horrible doctor she’d employed years ago.

  ‘It’s probably a good idea,’ she agreed, although she knew the pause between his conversation and her response had been far too long.

  No more was said, so Neena finished her breakfast, put her plate and cup in the dishwasher and left the room, going through to her bathroom to clean her teeth and put on lipstick before heading to work.

  ‘Well, I’m off,’ she called from the end of the hall. His answering, and supremely casual, ‘Bye’ slammed into her chest like an arrow.

  So it was gone, the rapport they’d built between them. And just like Dr Horrible—to say nothing of Theo—it had all been about getting her into bed. Depression threatened to descend like a thick black cloud, but as she crossed the veranda and saw the decorations there—a lot of them decorations her father had bought for her as a child—she pushed it away. She was a strong, independent woman, for all she’d been tempted to think in terms of togetherness by kisses so subtle, yet so hot, just thinking about them warmed her body.

  Or maybe that was just the midsummer sun, already burning on her skin and parching the ground across which she walked. If she hurried she’d have time to go up to the hospital before she started work. If Mr Temple was still stable she’d send him home, but make sure he had his tablets in packs with the days and times to take them clearly marked.

  She arrived at the same time as a nurse from the retirement village pushed a wheelchair in through the emergency doors—Maisie.

  ‘I phoned your house and got Dr Stavrou. He said you’d already left and I guessed you’d come here. Maisie’s had a really bad night.’

  Neena was already bending over her old friend, talking quietly to her as she checked her pulse and listened to the rattling agony of every breath.

  ‘Will you at least let me put you on oxygen?’she asked, and Maisie nodded, so Neena followed the two nurses as they wheeled Maisie into a ward and settled her into bed.

  ‘It’s time for me to go, Neena,’ Maisie whispered, and Neena bit back the tears she longed to shed, opting instead for briskness.

  ‘Nonsense! You can’t go before Christmas, you’d spoil the holiday for too many people. And then there’s the baby—you have to wait to see the baby.’

  Maisie smiled, but her eyes closed and although her breathing was easier once Neena inserted a nasal cannula, she didn’t open them again, drifting off to sleep, or possibly into a light coma.

  ‘I’ll phone Ned, he’s out at the Harrises’,’ Neena said, patting Maisie’s hand then moving away because duty called, no matter that she longed to sit with the beloved old woman for the final hours of her life.

  Ned said he’d be in as soon as he could and Neena was saying goodbye to Lauren when the phone rang again.

  ‘Dr Stavrou for you,’ Lauren said, handing Neena the receiver.

  ‘Hel
lo!’

  The word was probably as wary as Neena felt. He was supposed to be on his way out to the site, or at the ambulance station, not phoning her.

  ‘Lauren told me about Maisie,’ he said, his deep voice coming so clearly over the phone it sent shivers down Neena’s spine. ‘I’m sure you want to stay with her, so I’ll go to the surgery. I’ve plenty of time to do the other visits. You sit tight and I’ll handle the patients.’

  What could she say?

  ‘Thank you.’

  It didn’t seem enough but just saying those two words made a lump form in her throat and she had to swallow determinedly before speaking at all.

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ he said, all business, so matter-of-fact she had to wonder if his previous plans for the day had been no more than an excuse to avoid her company.

  She returned to sit beside Maisie, taking her hand and talking to her about the adventures and joys they’d shared.

  ‘Remember that boy in primary school who was always pulling my plaits,’ Neena murmured. ‘And you went up to him as he walked home and told him you’d pull something else of his, and hard, if he didn’t leave me alone. I never knew what you were going to pull, not until we got into high school and had our sex education talks. Can you imagine a young girl today not knowing what boys looked like until they were thirteen?

  ‘And the time in sixth grade when I had to take something I’d cooked myself and you said chocolate crackles were the only things I’d be able to manage but it was midsummer and by the time I got them to school they were a mess of chocolate, Copha and rice crisps in the bottom of the cake tin.’

  Neena kept talking, holding Maisie’s hand, aware she probably couldn’t hear the conversation but wanting her dear friend to know she was close by anyway, so the things they’d laughed over together all got another airing, the remember this, remember that of so many shared years.