A Magical Christmas

by Patricia Thayer

  ‘You know she wouldn’t want you crying.’

  Ned had arrived and his chiding voice made Neena aware that tears were sliding down her cheeks, and probably had been for some time.

  ‘Maisie always let me cry—she said crying got the hurt out,’ Neena reminded him, although Maisie might not have used the same philosophy on her son.

  But Ned just nodded and sat down on the other side of the bed, bending forward to kiss his mother’s cheek, gruffly letting her know he was there. And now they both remembered, sharing reminiscences of the woman who had brought both of them up, until Maisie’s breathing changed, and finally stopped altogether.

  ‘She was a good woman, the best,’ Ned said, then he looked across at Neena. ‘You okay?’

  She took a deep breath and nodded.

  ‘I will be,’ she told him, and knew it was a promise. Her life had gone off track but it was time to get it back in order—Maisie had loved order and had taught her charge to believe in it as a basis for a good life. Neena owed it to Maisie to take control once again.

  Though perhaps not right now, a smaller, needy Neena deep inside her whimpered. Do I really have to?

  ‘I’ll do the certification and whatever has to be done.’

  Mak’s voice made her turn, frowning, towards the door.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded, order gone before she’d even begun to get it back.

  ‘I asked Lauren to phone me when it happened so I could do what has to be done. It’s lunchtime, I’m not holding up any patients.’

  Neena just stared at him, her heart so full of gratitude she couldn’t speak, but Ned could.

  ‘Thanks, Mak,’ he said. ‘Come on, little girl, I’ll take you home.’

  This time Neena managed a smile.

  ‘It’s a long time since you called me that, Ned,’ she said, new tears oozing from her eyes and trickling down her cheeks. ‘Lately it’s been “stupid woman”!’

  ‘Which you were,’ he reminded her but he put his arm around her and led her away from Maisie’s bed. ‘But even Mum agreed that everyone’s allowed a bit of stupidity in their life. Come along.’

  Neena went home with Ned, where they sat down and discussed Maisie’s wishes—no funeral, no service, just a private cremation, ‘and if either of you turn up I’ll come back to haunt you’—then her ashes to be scattered on the hill where the statues were.

  ‘We’ll say goodbye to her there,’ Ned said, ‘and if friends want to come, that’s okay, but as she always said, she’d outlived all her real friends by so much that the only people she knew now were people who really didn’t know her at all.’

  ‘You and I did,’ Neena protested, but she had always known what Maisie had meant—that the people she’d really loved had gone before her…

  So they talked until the shadows spread into the room, when Ned reminded her he had animals to care for and should be going.

  ‘You go, I’m all right,’ Neena told him, but Ned still hesitated, showing an uneasiness so rare in Ned Neena guessed it had nothing to do with his mother’s death.

  ‘That fellow Mak—he’s not bothering you?’

  The question made her want to laugh at the absurdity of it. ‘Bothering her’? As if the muddle in her mind and the chaos in her body could fit into a mild word like ‘bother’!

  Oh, he might be tantalising her, tormenting her, frustrating her and generally disrupting her life, but bothering her?

  ‘No, he’s not bothering me,’ she told Ned.

  The man who wasn’t bothering her returned to the house as she was putting the finishing touches to the Christmas tree. She’d set it up, as Maisie always had, in the bow window in the living room so the lights of it could be seen from the street.

  Why she was putting it up at all, she didn’t know, but it had given her something to do, and in doing it she remembered her old friend and carer, for it was a task they’d shared for so many years.

  ‘I picked up a pizza at the café,’ Mak announced as he walked in, the smell of cheese wafting from the box he carried. ‘They assured me there that you liked anchovies.’

  His hazel eyes were studying her—gauging her mood? Her grief?

  ‘Thank you,’ Neena said. ‘For the food, for thinking of it, for today at the hospital, for today at work.’

  ‘Nonsense, it’s what I’m here for, but you really do need two doctors in this town, even without the workers out at the site. What do you do for time off? How do you manage then? Are there locums available? Do the flying doctors provide that kind of cover? What happens?’

  He was sounding crosser and crosser as he fired the questions at her, but Neena could only shake her head.

  ‘Can we eat while I answer?’

  He looked taken aback for a moment, then he grinned at her.

  ‘Sorry, but although there wasn’t one emergency today, it finally sank in how difficult it must be to run the practice on your own. And once the baby arrives it will be impossible.’

  Uh-oh! He’d remembered why he was really here—to take over the baby’s life. Neena was following him into the kitchen, drawn by the smell of the pizza and the fact that it seemed a long time since she’d eaten, so the realisation did no more than warn her to be wary. She had to eat, and an argument now would spoil the food.

  ‘I’ve got a locum booked while I take maternity leave and I’m hoping he or she might like the place enough to want to stay.’

  ‘You don’t know who you’re getting as a locum—don’t know if it’s a he or she?’

  Mak was slapping plates on the table, his voice rising in disbelief as he asked the question.

  ‘I’ve booked one through an agency,’ Neena explained, watching the slices of pizza land on her plate and wondering if she could pick one up and start on it before Mak sat down.

  He found the roll of paper towels and plonked it in the middle of the table and finally did sit, but before she could start eating he was questioning her again.

  ‘And is that satisfactory for the town? Having a stranger of whom you know nothing coming in to take your place?’

  She looked at the pizza and sighed. No chance of eating until she’d sorted out what was really bothering Mak. It couldn’t possibly be the locum.

  ‘The town is used to locums. After my father died they went for ages without a doctor at all, then the government stepped in and we had a series of locums, some good and some not so good, and in the years since I’ve been practising, I have been away at times, mostly to attend conferences to help update my skills and knowledge. And yes, I know the town needs another doctor and I have, from time to time, tried to find one, but it’s not that easy.’

  She glared at him across the table.

  ‘Satisfied?’ she demanded. ‘Now can I eat?’

  ‘Go right ahead,’ he said, but she knew she hadn’t touched on whatever lay behind his bad mood. Well, too bad, she hadn’t had that great a day herself. She took a bite of pizza and found it had been seasoned by something wet and salty. Surely she wasn’t crying again.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ Mak was on his feet, angrier than ever, striding around the table, lifting her from the chair then sitting down on it with her on his knee. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be upsetting you today of all days, and you need to eat. Lauren said you’d had nothing all day. Here, let me wipe the tears.’

  He ripped a paper towel off the roll and dabbed at her cheeks then lifted a slice of pizza and held it to her lips. ‘Eat!’ he commanded, and she took a bite, chewed and swallowed then took another, her body stiff with tension, afraid to relax against Mak’s bulky warmth in case all the attraction stuff started up again.

  Not that it hadn’t already, for he’d rested one hand against her hip and heat was radiating out from it, sprinting along her nerves and puddling in her belly.

  ‘I’m sorry I was cross. That’s the last thing you needed today. It’s just that spending only one day doing your job on my own, I got to realise just how hard it must be for yo
u—how impossible, really. I mean, I read all the time about the problems of getting doctors in country areas and, worse, keeping them there, but the realities of the job these country doctors do just doesn’t come through in those news stories. I mean, who else is there to certify the death of a loved one for them? It’s ridiculous you have no back-up, no support.’

  Neena shifted on his knee, sure her weight must be bothering him, wanting to move but enjoying the comfort of his solid body.

  Enjoying the heat!

  ‘It’s not that bad,’ she protested, her mouth still half-full of pizza.

  She should move, get off his knee. She’d stopped crying, so why keep sitting there?

  Because it felt so good?

  No, that was a reason to move!

  ‘We manage—me and all the other doctors running single-practitioner practices out here in the bush.’

  ‘I’m not worried about all the other single practitioners out here in the bush, I’m worried about you.’

  He was stroking her back now and the rhythmic touch was so soothing—so hypnotic—Neena wanted to lean back against him and forget everything but the feel of his body and the warmth of his arms around her.

  But this was Mak Stavrou. She’d let one of his family get close to her and—

  ‘Worried about me or the baby?’

  The words popped out and though she regretted them immediately they couldn’t be recalled.

  He was cursing, or at least she assumed that’s what it was, for the flow of words were presumably in Greek and he’d stopped stroking her back, which made her feel sad.

  She should move.

  But as when she’d decided that the first time, nothing happened.

  ‘Forget the baby!’ He’d finally reverted to English. ‘Let’s just keep this conversation about us.’

  ‘Oh, Mak,’ Neena sighed. ‘You must know there can be no us.’

  ‘Because of some presumptuous idiot you once employed, or because of my nephew, who seems to be known around town as The Rat?’

  Mak’s voice was pure steel, and though now the conversation had turned nasty and her legs might have obeyed an order to move, he’d wound his arms around her, tucking her hard against his body, making escape impossible. His hands rested on the bump and she knew he must feel the baby kicking.

  ‘Because our lives are so far apart.’ It was a weak response but she’d had to say something.

  ‘So we don’t even explore the attraction between us? And don’t bother denying the attraction, Neena. We’d have ended up in bed last night if you hadn’t inconveniently remembered the other doctor.’

  Now she moved, turning on his lap so she could see his face, see his eyes burning with intensity as they fixed on her face.

  ‘Is that all you want? To explore the attraction? To end up in bed?’

  He cursed again and drew her close once more.

  ‘Why does everything I say to you end up sounding like that?’ he muttered, the words muffled because his lips were pressed against her head. ‘No, it isn’t all I want. I want to know you, and not just biblically. I want to learn more about you—like the anchovies on pizzas and why you’ve never cut your hair and what it is about this place and its people that has such a strong hold on your heart. Little things and big things and, yes, sex is part of it, part of getting to know you, but it’s not just about sex.’

  He paused then added, ‘And it’s definitely not about the baby. It’s about you and me. Maybe we’ll discover that there’s nothing more than the attraction, but if we don’t, if the attraction leads to deeper emotions, then we’ll work out the geographical problems and any other problems—together.’

  Neena could feel the tears starting again and blinked them back. She answered the least consequential bit of Mak’s statement, because that was about all she could cope with right now.

  ‘My father liked my hair long—my mother had long hair, I suppose that’s why.’

  Mak laughed and she could feel the deep chuckle as a movement in his chest. Feel his ribs, and the muscles that encased them, feel the strength of his legs—feel his desire…

  Desire!

  ‘And it is about the baby,’ she added sadly. ‘Though not in the way that you mean. It was my fault, the pregnancy—but in the beginning, it was all about exploring an attraction—’

  His fingers found her lips and pressed against them.

  ‘It takes two to make a baby and I don’t want to know.’

  She sighed, but now she did move. As if she could tell Mak about that night with Theo—tell Mak what his nephew had done…

  She stood up on the pretext of getting a glass of water and took the chair across the table from where he now sat.

  ‘I wouldn’t have taken you for a coward,’ Mak said, as she selected another piece of pizza.

  She put it down on a piece of paper towel, the delicious aromas that had tempted her now making her feel nauseous.

  ‘A coward?’

  The green eyes were on her face, studying her intently—seeking a lie or evasion, she was sure.

  ‘Isn’t that what you are? Aren’t you hiding from life behind one bad emotional experience? Aren’t you living vicariously through other people’s lives because you’re afraid to have a life of your own? Oh, I can understand it—you’d lost your mother when you were so young, then to lose your father as a teenager, for a long time you’d have been too wary to get close to anyone, lest you lose them, too. Is that what happened with Theo—did you send him away? Or did you fall in love with him and when he walked away—as Theo surely would—you suffered another loss and decided that was it?’

  He was waiting for an answer, the mesmerising eyes demanding one.

  ‘I thought you didn’t want to know,’ she snapped, angry because a lot of what he’d said was probably true. ‘What do you want me to say? Yes, your psychobabble about my avoiding relationships is spot on? It probably is, I’ve considered it myself, and as for Theo—as for your precious nephew—well, I did explore the attraction and then, at the end, I decided the exploration had gone far enough. I knew he was as shallow as he was clever and charming, I knew his sole aim was to get me into bed, and though I thought I’d be able to go along with it, for the experience if nothing else, at the last minute I decided not to—I said no.’

  She took a breath, thinking it might calm the anger, but it was too white hot to stop.

  ‘Theo took it as a tease, we struggled a little, and that’s probably when he lost the condom—and I lost the struggle. What’s done is done. The baby’s mine, not yours or your family’s. Goodnight!’

  She stormed out of the room before she made a total idiot of herself by bursting into tears.

  Again!

  Mak sat in the kitchen and swore some more, not that it helped.

  Theo had raped her!

  The implications of it loomed so large in his head he couldn’t think about it, although for the first time he didn’t feel sadness over his nephew’s death—he felt regret the wretch wasn’t alive so Mak could kill him himself.

  How had she handled it?

  Who would she have turned to? Not Ned or Maisie—she was too protective of them.

  No one! He knew that was the answer. She hadn’t reported it to the police, or Theo would have been charged and the family would have known.

  So she’d kept it all inside her where most of her hurts seemed to be.

  His heart ached as he thought of her situation—alone in a way he could never imagine. Then discovering she was pregnant!

  How could he not shake his head? So much fell into place now, especially Neena’s reluctance to have anything to do with his family.

  Feeling totally useless and inadequate, Mak tipped the remnants of the pizza—more than half-uneaten—into the bin and tidied the kitchen. More than anything he wanted to go to Neena, to hold and comfort her.

  Comfort she wouldn’t accept—not, at least, from him.

  He left the house, checked on Albert, then too
k to the streets, hoping to walk off the tension and—yes, anger in his body. He was in the darkened lane, his anger beating out the rhythm of his strides when his mobile trilled in his pocket. Habit had kept it on him, although he hadn’t expected to receive any phone calls.

  ‘Have you talked to her about giving me a proxy for the shares?’ Helen’s voice demanded, and Mak, who’d been reliving the kiss he’d shared with Neena in the lane, was jolted out of his reverie.

  ‘No!’

  Well, what else could he say?

  ‘But it’s what you’re there for,’ Helen bleated, and Mak forbore from reminding her that her original story had been a keen interest in her unborn grandchild. ‘The cousins have called an extraordinary general meeting for the third of January—the woman should have got a notice of it from the solicitors. She’ll have a copy of the notice and a proxy form and an agenda for the meeting, including notice of motions. The cousins want to merge with a big power company but first they have to vote on a new board chairman—well, with Dad dead we have to do that anyway—but if one of them wins the vote, they’ll take Hellenic in a different direction. This talk of a merger is just an excuse to sell it off! We owe it to Dad, Mak—you owe it to Dad!’

  And although aware she was dumping a classic guilt trip on him, Mak couldn’t help but accept a little of it. His father would have loved Mak to follow him into the business, his father would have hated seeing the business go out of family hands…

  ‘I’ll talk to her,’ he promised Helen, though he wasn’t sure just how he could follow through on the promise. As if the bloody shares mattered, given the enormity of what Neena had suffered.

  And was possibly still suffering if she hadn’t had counselling, or sought help of some kind…

  CHAPTER NINE

  NEENA set the mood for the day as Mak entered the kitchen to find her already there, sipping at her weak coffee.

  ‘Coffee maker’s on, and I found some fruit bread in the freezer. I’m having it toasted for breakfast as a change from cereal. I left it on the bench so if you want some, help yourself.’