Hot-Shot Doc, Christmas Bride / Christmas At Rivercut Manor

by Joanna Neil / Gill Sanderson

  Mike grinned. ‘I’ve a feeling I should have come in before. Now, then, first a drink, then a bit of business. Then we can relax. What would you like?’

  ‘A red wine, please.’ She watched him cross the room and discuss options with the bartender, scanning the shelves with a considering look. He came back with a bottle, two glasses and the menu.

  ‘Cheers,’ he said, pouring them each a ruby-red glassful.

  It tasted wonderful, soft and rich. ‘Cheers,’ she replied. ‘So, what’s this matter of business?’

  ‘The manor,’ he said. ‘It’s going to take the solicitors a while to get their act together and produce contracts for us to sign. I’ve no idea why it should, but it always does. But I really want to make a start on things now. Overhauling the central heating, for instance. Refitting the kitchen. Getting quotes on a conservatory. What I’m saying is—can I go ahead? Do you trust me not to back out of buying the house?’

  Did she? The last two men who’d had anything to do with the manor hadn’t been trustworthy at all. But this was Mike. He was different. Besides, she knew where his father lived. ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘You’re sure? Because I don’t want you to hear I’ve got a surveyor in and be worried that I might try and beat you down on the price whilst making your house temporarily unsaleable. I only want to find out early whether any treatment is needed so I can get it sorted as soon as possible.’

  ‘It’s fine, Mike. I trust you. You can have my spare set of keys. When do you want to begin?’

  ‘I thought tomorrow, for preference.’

  Tomorrow! That really was eager! This was a side of him she hadn’t seen. Or had she? Wasn’t this the same solid intractability that had got Joshua Lawrie into hospital for treatment? A pleasant, no-nonsense, velvet bulldozer?

  He laughed at the look on her face. ‘No point hanging around. Dad loves having us in the flat, but two men in one kitchen is a strain on any relationship. And now I need your help some more. I’d like to use local people if possible. Builders, plumbers, electricians, carpenters. You know everyone here. Can you make me a list? I realise they might not be available right now, but I would at least like to ask.’

  ‘Of course I will. That’s great, Mike, but why?’

  He took a sip of his wine, his face thoughtful. ‘I think it was what you said about incomers. Bethany and I are moving to Rivercut and we want to belong. And at the party I overheard one of the chaps saying he’d been laid off by a building contractor because there wasn’t the work around and the company was being forced to retrench. Now, I don’t know what sort of workman he is, but that man’s child will be going to school with Bethany. I’d rather put bread in my daughter’s friends’ mouths than fill up the coffers of some big firm from Salford or wherever.’

  Grace’s eyes stung with tears. It was the same attitude her father had always had, but from a Londoner, a stranger…‘That’s…That’s…’ She broke off, searching in her bag for a tissue. ‘You’re too good to be true.’

  He looked at her seriously. ‘I just want to do it right, Grace.’

  She blew her nose. ‘There are some people in here at this very moment who would be interested. I think you’re about to make Christmas a lot brighter for a number of families. I’ll introduce you and you can have a chat while I get my emotions in order.’

  In fact she’d refilled her glass and had perused the menu several times before Mike rejoined her.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, looking cheerful. ‘Sorry if I took a bit long. That was really useful. I don’t feel nearly so daunted now.’

  ‘Daunted? You?’ How did one daunt a steamroller?

  He sat down next to her and picked up the menu. ‘I’ll have you know I frequently tread a fine line between bluff and counter-bluff. Mmm, home-made game pie. Wonderful. What are you having?’

  It was a good meal, and by the end of it Grace felt mellow and well fed. But the pub was getting noisy and she was struggling to hear what Mike was saying.

  ‘This is hopeless,’ he mouthed. ‘Shall we go?’

  Grace nodded and put on her coat. Outside the Coach and Horses it was spectacularly silent. Maybe it was the change in her routine, but she felt different tonight. The cold made her tingle, not shiver. ‘I don’t feel as if I’ve drunk half a bottle of wine,’ she said. ‘The food must have soaked it up.’

  ‘Same with me,’ said Mike.

  He stood there, perfectly at ease, gazing down the snowcovered street. Grace began to suspect that he was in no hurry for the evening to end either. She took a quick breath. Say it now and say it quickly. ‘I’ve got a bottle of claret that was given to me by a grateful farmer. I haven’t liked to drink it alone, so if you fancy another glass…’

  Now he turned and looked at her steadily. ‘Are you sure?’ he said.

  Ah, so she hadn’t imagined those moments during the meal when their arms had accidentally brushed. ‘Of course I’m sure. It’s just a bottle of wine after all. And you can collect the keys for the manor at the same time.’ She kept the tremor out of her voice.

  ‘So I can.’ They started strolling towards her cottage. ‘Why was the farmer grateful?’

  Grace laughed. ‘Oh, he liked the way I’d dressed the wound on his shin. He said it didn’t hurt at all. All I’d done was shave the hairs on his leg before attaching the plaster.’

  ‘Florence Nightingale would have been proud of you.’

  Coloured lights shone merrily around the Christmas tree outside her door. Grace got a small pleasurable lift from the sight.

  ‘Very handsome,’ said Mike.

  ‘Isn’t it just. And there’s more.’ She opened her door and bent to flick the switch on at the socket. Dozens of fairy lights sprang into twinkling life on her inside tree.

  ‘Now, that’s pretty. Seems a shame to turn the main light on.’

  Grace’s heart beat faster. ‘We don’t have to. Wait a moment.’

  She crossed the room to the mantelpiece, on which she had arranged two bright red candles amidst Christmas foliage. She lit them carefully and the room was changed. It became a place of shadows and magic.

  Mike hung his coat on the back of the door and sat down on the settee. She could almost hear him saying, See, I’m not looming. Nevertheless she went rather quickly into the kitchen to fetch the wine.

  The couch was big enough for two. Just. But she could feel their shoulders touching and his thigh pressed next to hers. Her hand shook just slightly as she poured the wine.

  ‘Do you know,’ he said. ‘I feel really positive. I’ve been doing something this evening. Not simply my job—that’s an everyday thing. Not selling my flat and selling my partnership. Those are looking-backwards things. Today I’ve been doing something forward-looking. Planning what needs doing to the manor. Accepting deep within myself that Bethany and I are going to live here and make a future. I’ve been moving on.’

  Grace smiled. ‘You’re right. That is a good thing.’ It was what she should be doing, she realised. Now the millstone of debt was gone, she should be thinking positively too. Put Peter behind her once and for all. Start to trust again. ‘To the future,’ she said, holding up her glass.

  He clinked his against it. ‘The future.’ They drank in silence for a minute. ‘There is one thing I’m worried about,’ he continued. ‘The driveway. It’s so open. Anyone could walk in. Bethany could wander out. Has it always been that way?’

  Oh, Mike! And there she had been thinking that with the candles and the wine, things might be approaching romantic. He was looking at her enquiringly. Grace dredged her memory. ‘I’m pretty sure there used to be gates when I was small. I remember looking through openwork scrolls at the road and I can’t think where else I’d have been looking if not through gates. I guess the posts rotted or something. They’ll have been too big to store in the attics. You’ll have to investigate the barns.’

  He raised his eyebrows, amused. His blue eyes danced in the candlelight. ‘They won’t have been thrown away?’


  ‘Good Lord, no. Nothing has ever been thrown away at the manor.’

  He chuckled. ‘If that’s the case you could probably have paid several months’ mortgage money out of the scrap value in the outbuildings.’

  ‘I never thought of that.’ She found herself breathing in his clean-sweater scent and a faint tang of citrus. ‘You smell nice,’ she murmured inconsequentially. The claret must have been more potent than the wine at the pub.

  It seemed natural for him to put his arm round her shoulders. ‘So do you. You feel nice too,’ he replied.

  An inner certainty stole over Grace, as warm and languorous as the wine. She put her glass on the table. She knew what would happen next. And she knew what might happen after that if they both let it.

  She heard the ‘ting’ as he placed his glass on the coffee table too. And then he kissed her.

  He kissed her as he’d kissed her before. Gently, tentatively almost, as if he wasn’t sure what he was doing or whether he’d be welcome. But he was welcome. She trailed her fingertips down the side of his face. She could feel the slight roughness of his cheek—it had been morning when he’d shaved.

  This was so easy. There was no need to hurry. She could feel his tongue exploring the insides of her lips, touching the sensitive corners of her mouth. She mirrored his actions, feeling him respond, marvelling at how right this felt. When he pulled away she felt bereft, but it was only because he’d moved on to kissing her cheeks, her forehead, even the tip of her nose. ‘That’s lovely,’ she said.

  She realised that she’d never felt quite like this before. Mike was more than just a man—he was the man.

  Then she gasped and called out his name. Very, very gently he had nibbled the bottom of her ear. How did he know that that was one of the most sensitive parts of her body? How did he know that that combination of pleasure and the tiniest pain possible could bring her so much joy? But he did know. And he did it again. How could he know her so well?

  They’d somehow moved around, turned in their embrace until they were half lying on the couch. Her head had fallen back, her body was melded tightly to his. And now he was kissing her mouth again, but this time with a growing need that was fully matched by her own. She opened up to him without restraint, giving as well as receiving, letting his tongue join hers in joyous delight.

  They paused, not really wanting to stop but knowing the next step had to be taken slowly, if it was taken at all. Grace’s eye fell on their two glasses. ‘Do you want a drink?’ she asked with a mischievous smile.

  ‘Grace!’ Then he propped himself up on one elbow. ‘What have you got in mind?’

  ‘You’ll like it. Yes or no?’

  ‘Yes. But I’d rather kiss you again.’

  ‘Well, it involves kissing…’

  She took a small sip from her glass, then raised her face to his. He kissed her. And she let the wine trickle from her mouth to his and it was more wonderful than she could have guessed.

  ‘Oh, I like that. In fact, I think I’d like another drink—just like that one. Or would you like me to feed you some wine this time?’

  The claret was warm when it arrived in her mouth, slipping over her tongue and tasting of him. Their kiss took on a momentum of its own as she ran her hands around his back, feeling his palms sweeping over the silk of her dress. She shifted, trying to indicate without words that if his hand wanted to roam lower she wouldn’t object. But her leg hit the arm of the settee and her foot found the branches of the Christmas tree.

  She lifted her head. ‘There’s not a lot of room here. Would you…? Would you like to move to somewhere more comfortable?’

  For a moment the sound of his breathing was the only noise in the room. He knew as well as she did what she was asking him. What had happened so far could still be drawn back from. It could be passed off as momentary madness, perhaps to be smiled over and forgotten. But after they had gone upstairs there would be no turning back.

  Huskily, he asked, ‘Grace, is this really what you want?’

  ‘Yes—if you want it too. If you don’t we’ll just have a lovely last kiss and then I’ll put the light on and we’ll finish our drinks and talk about the manor. I won’t be hurt. I won’t be offended.’

  ‘I do want it,’ he muttered. ‘Part of my head is telling me to walk away, but most of me thinks you are gorgeous and generous and intelligent and I would like very much indeed to make love to you.’

  He’d said it. It was out in the open. Grace’s whole body quivered. ‘Come on, then,’ she whispered, and took his hand to lead him up the narrow stairs.

  Upstairs she switched on her bedside reading lamp and pulled the curtains. Mike held her hand again as he sat on the edge of the double bed and looked around at the small items of furniture she’d brought from the manor, at the faded duvet and matching curtains that had been hers for years, at the pictures—as many as the room would hold.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said softly, squeezing her hand. ‘Thank you for trusting me enough to bring me up here. This is a very special room for you, isn’t it?’

  Grace felt her eyes sting again. He was right. And because he had sensed what her bedroom meant to her, she knew everything from now on would be fine.

  ‘Yes,’ she said simply.

  He smiled, his face gentle in the shadows. ‘Come here and lie down next to me. Just for the moment I’d like to kiss you without getting a crick in my neck.’

  So they slipped off their shoes and lay side by side on the duvet. Mike eased his arm under her head and she rolled gladly towards him, her knee bending naturally so that her leg was half on top of his. As they kissed, his hands unhurriedly roamed her body, feeling the pulse in her neck, stroking her back, cupping the edge of her breast.

  This was good, simply relaxing and getting to know his body, enjoying the shivers of pleasure as he got to know hers. And all the time something was building inside both of them—the urge to move on, to take this new, tentative delight to greater heights.

  His fingers ran down the indentation of her spine, curved over her hips, found the hem of her dress. And then up her nylon-clad leg until…

  ‘Stockings,’ he said, his voice breaking. ‘Oh, Grace, do you know what you do to a man?’

  ‘I can take them off if you like,’ she said, a laugh in her voice.

  ‘Don’t you dare.’ He brushed the bare skin and moved on up underneath the blue silk. He found the lacy cup of her bra, lingered for an exquisite moment then slid around the back to the fastening. A moment later it was undone. Grace felt her whole self trembling as his hand moved back to cover her breast.

  ‘Oh, Mike,’ she breathed, and rolled onto her back, lifting her arms in mute invitation for him to ease her dress up and off. She heard his intake of breath, his inarticulate gasp of pleasure.

  The bra came off with the dress. He leaned over her upper body, slowly stroking from the shoulders down and around each curve. Grace felt the skin of her breasts tighten, her nipples harden in anticipation. He brushed them with his palms, rubbed with his fingers—but so slowly!

  ‘Mike…please…’ she murmured, aching for more.

  At last his head bowed over her and his tongue touched first one then the second proud peak. She moaned—then cried out with delight as he took one into his mouth. That was so good!

  She reached out, wanting to touch him too. Her fingers encountered fine Shetland wool. Her eyes flew open. ‘Mike, you’re still dressed!’

  ‘Mmm? Oh, so I am.’

  Grace snatched her dressing gown from the bedpost, pulling it around her. ‘Just to make us even,’ she said at his protest. ‘Stand up—I want to do this properly.’ She slid off the bed to face him. First his sweater joined her dress on the floor. Then she undid all his shirt buttons and slid it off. He had a magnificent torso. She spent a moment admiring it before running her hands lightly down his front to his belt. It was a matter of seconds before he was stepping out of his jeans, but when she gripped the waistband of his black
silk boxers he put his hands over hers.

  ‘Aren’t we forgetting something?’ he said. ‘We’re not even any more.’

  Grace’s insides turned to liquid. She raised one foot and rested it on the bed so he could peel off the stocking. Then did the same with the other. She loosened the belt of her dressing gown but just as the front was about to part she put a hand to her mouth. ‘Oh,’ she said, suddenly remembering something. ‘Mike, it is Christmas, you know.’

  ‘I do know. Why do you mention it?’

  ‘Because last weekend my six-year-old god-daughter gave me a very silly present that she had picked out herself and made me promise to wear to my first Christmas party of the season.’

  ‘Which was today.’

  ‘Er, yes.’

  ‘Okay, I’m warned.’ He untied her belt and pushed the dressing gown off her shoulders to fall in a soft heap on the carpet. He looked down—and a smile crossed his face.

  ‘I’ll have you know they’re very warm and comfortable,’ she said.

  ‘I still want to take them off you.’ And then he laughed joyously. ‘I’ll bet no one at that party today guessed that underneath your gorgeous slinky dress you were wearing a pair of white satin knickers with happy Father Christmases all over them.’

  Delicately he slid the white satin downwards, his hands lingering on her skin. Delicately she did the same for him, feeling the first thrilling touch of his warm maleness against her abdomen. With one hand she pulled back the duvet.

  He swore.

  ‘Mike?’ What had she done?

  He growled in frustration. ‘I…I didn’t expect…It’s been such a long time since…’

  She giggled. ‘I’ve got a box of condoms in my bedside drawer. I was going to throw them out when…’ She broke off. ‘But I never got round to it.’ She looked up at him shyly. ‘I’m glad now.’

  Mike took her in his arms and swept her off her feet and into the bed. ‘So am I.’

  It was different now when she felt him beside her, both of them lying down between her sheets. For a moment there had been a respite, time for a joke even. She realised that she had been more nervous than she knew. But now they were in bed together, they were naked and the delight she had felt before returned, but heightened so much.