Besides, in her defence, a tiny cottage in the middle of the English countryside was the very last place she would have expected to meet the amazingly successful American author, Jerrod Cole.
‘You might have told me,’ she said exasperatedly. ‘I felt, feel, like such a fool for not recognizing who you were.’ The man was a writing phenomenon and he had been out in the snow this morning with her son building a snowman.
God, that seemed like such a long time ago. In fact, part of her, a large part of her, wished she were still back there.
‘Then don’t,’ Jed grated. ‘The truth is I wasn’t going to tell you at all, was going to deliver you and Scott here, make polite conversation for a short time, and then leave. That is, until I met your mother.’ His voice hardened over the latter.
‘My mother?’ Meg frowned her puzzlement with this statement.
He nodded. ‘I didn’t like the way she spoke to you.’
‘I’m used to it.’ Meg shrugged.
‘And ignored Scott.’ His voice was icy now. ‘Even if she disapproves of the fact that you have him, although in this day and age even that’s ridiculous, she had absolutely no right to just ignore him like that.’ His expression was grim. ‘It may not be very commendable, but I wanted, if only briefly, to wipe that haughty look off her face.’
Oh, he had succeeded in doing that all right. He had succeeded in stunning Meg too.
‘And what’s with the “Margaret” thing?’ he continued scathingly. ‘You obviously prefer to be called Meg, the rest of the family call you Meg, so why not your own mother?’
‘I don’t know,’ Meg admitted dully. ‘Maybe…’ She broke off, staring down at her ringless hands.
‘What?’ Jed prompted shrewdly.
She shrugged. ‘Maybe it’s too familiar. I don’t know.’
She had never known, had never been able to understand why, as a child, she had received hugs and kisses from her father, but not from her mother. Not that Sonia had fared any better in that direction, but it had never seemed to bother her sister as much as it did her; Sonia and their mother were very alike in that respect, emotionally self-contained.
As a child Meg had wished she could be more like them, but as an adult she was very glad that she wasn’t.
She wouldn’t have been able to be the warm and loving mother to Scott that she was if that were the case.
She wouldn’t have enjoyed Jed kissing her as much this morning, if she were, wouldn’t, even now, be wondering what it would be like to kiss him again.
Despite what she now knew about his identity, Jed was still the only breath of security in a very unusual situation.
‘Familiar sounds fine to me,’ he said huskily.
Meg gave him a startled look, her pulse starting to beat more rapidly as she noticed how close he was in the confines of the Range Rover, her gaze easily caught and held by the intense blue of his.
‘Admit it, Meg,’ Jed murmured softly. ‘You were secretly relieved at the way I diverted your mother’s attention from you onto me,’ he explained as she gave him a guarded look.
Oh, that. For a moment there she had thought he knew, had guessed, she was too attracted to him for her own good, which would be just too embarrassing in the circumstances.
But he was perfectly correct about her relief earlier; her mother really was hard work.
‘I’m not so sure about the “just think of me as a friend of Meg’s” remark.’ She gave him a reproving look, hoping that nothing she was saying or doing was betraying how totally aware she was of him.
He grinned unabashedly. ‘Would you rather I had told your mother I’m just the man you picked up in a snowstorm?’
Meg drew in a sharp breath, even while inwardly she admitted, within very wide guidelines, that he spoke the truth.
She glared at him. ‘I’ll be more than happy to put you down again!’
‘In this weather?’ He glanced out at the heavily falling snow. ‘There’s gratitude for you.’ Even as he shook his head reprovingly his eyes were laughing at her.
One thing was becoming more and more apparent to her by the second: the snow falling steadily outside was such that Jed was never going to make it back to the cottage today.
‘Do you really have some luggage with you?’ She frowned. ‘Or did you just make that up?’
He grimaced. ‘I have an overnight bag with me. I never thought I was going to get back to the cottage today, Meg,’ he added as her eyes widened at the admission. ‘There’s a hotel in Winston; I was going to try and book in there for the night.’
There was no way she could allow him to do that after all that he had done for her and Scott. And if he wasn’t to stay in a hotel tonight, then he would have to stay here.
He was so close to her now, the weather cocooning them in a world of silence, that at that moment nothing else seemed to exist but the two of them, the very air between them seeming electrified with expectation.
As if becoming aware of that himself, Jed’s eyes darkened, his narrowed gaze moving down to the parted softness of her lips.
Meg instinctively moistened those lips with the tip of her tongue.
‘I really can’t let you do that.’ She didn’t get any further, staring up at Jed in fascination as he looked down at her only briefly before lowering his head, his mouth easily capturing hers.
It was as if the time since earlier this morning had never been, her lips parting beneath his as he deepened the kiss, pulling her into his arms, although the stowing box between them stopped them getting as close as Meg would have liked. Wanted. Desired.
His hair felt so thick and silky against her fingers, heat building inside her as she met the fiery passion of his kiss.
A blast of cold air gusted inside the Range Rover as the door beside Meg was wrenched open, Meg pulling away self-consciously from Jed to turn and look at her brother-in-law, Jeremy’s teasing expression telling her he knew exactly what he had just interrupted.
‘The two of you have been gone so long Lydia sent me out to make sure you hadn’t somehow got lost in the snow,’ Jeremy drawled, smiling, seemingly impervious to the falling snow.
She had only met Jeremy twice, once when he’d come to the flat one evening to pick her sister up for a date, and the second time when the two of them had told her they were engaged to be married, but on both occasions she had rather liked him.
Although she wasn’t too sure she liked the fact that he had caught her and Jed—well, in an embarrassing situation if not a compromising one.
‘Lydia did? Or was it David?’ Jed was the one to respond to the other man sceptically.
Jeremy gave him a rueful smile. ‘Oh, it was definitely Lydia—her tea is getting cold, I’m afraid.’
Meg watched as the two men shared what could only be classed a male understanding look.
How did Jed do that? Meg wondered with some bewilderment. He had quite effortlessly silenced her mother earlier, immediately charmed her father, remained totally immune to Sonia’s sensual charm, and now he and Jeremy were exchanging looks like conspirators in a war.
Jed’s mouth twisted ruefully. ‘Please tell Lydia we’ll be right in,’ he drawled dryly.
Jeremy turned to give Meg a friendly smile. ‘You’re looking really well, Meg,’ he told her warmly before closing the door to return to the house.
The implication being that the way she looked had something to do with having Jed Cole in her life.
She shot him a glance. ‘We really will have to stop doing that.’
‘Will we?’ he mused softly. ‘Why?’
‘Because…well…’ she frowned as she pushed back the heavy curtain of her hair ‘…two strangers caught in a snowstorm together and all that.’
‘We’re hardly alone, Meg,’ he mocked pointedly. ‘And I don’t think we can be called strangers any more, either,’ he added teasingly.
No, they weren’t, were they? she accepted a little dazedly as they got out of the Range Rover to collect the
luggage from the back. But she would be a fool to read more into a couple of kisses than there really was. Because as soon as the snow cleared Jed would be on his way. Back to New York, probably. And she would never see him again.
Don’t, for goodness’ sake, get involved, Meg, she told herself firmly as she helped carry the luggage inside.
At the same time having the feeling her warning might have come too late.
Jed knocked on the door to Meg’s room, waiting for her to answer, and when she didn’t he opened the door and went inside anyway, sure that she was in there.
She was, lying on one of the single beds, an arm up and draped over her eyes, Scott already fast asleep in the other bed, angelically beautiful, a large red sack draped over the bottom of the bed.
Jed padded softly across the room on bare feet, intending—well, he didn’t know what he intended doing, only that he was drawn to these two like a magnet. He wasn’t sure what that meant, either.
‘It’s far too early for Father Christmas,’ Meg murmured without moving the arm from over her eyes.
‘Damn it, woman, you startled me. I thought you must have fallen asleep,’ he said irritably as she shifted her arm slightly to look at him.
‘No,’ she assured him flatly. ‘I’m certainly not asleep.’
Jed stood next to the bed looking down at her. ‘Then what are you doing?’
She sighed, her arm falling back to her side, her eyes closed now. ‘I’m lying here trying not to scream. What are you doing?’ she demanded with some alarm as he moved to stretch out on the bed beside her.
He lay back with his eyes closed. ‘The same as you—trying not to scream. That has got to be the weirdest afternoon I’ve ever spent. Are you usually that polite to each other?’ His own family was noisy and boisterous, a row usually breaking out between a couple of them within minutes of their meeting up again.
‘Usually, yes.’ Meg frowned.
He gave a disgusted shake of his head. ‘And who changes for dinner when it’s just family?’ he continued disbelievingly, having known himself dismissed a short time ago when the whole family had risen to go upstairs to their respective bedrooms to change for dinner.
Except Meg, of course. She had escaped over an hour ago after giving Scott his tea in the kitchen, coming back to announce, much to Scott’s disappointment, that it was now time for his bath before going to bed.
When Meg hadn’t returned after an hour Jed had been sure that she must have fallen asleep too, this the first opportunity he’d had to check up on her.
He opened one eye at Meg’s continued silence after his last statement, only to find she had propped herself up on one elbow and was now looking at him. ‘What?’ he asked tersely.
She shook her head, turning away slightly. ‘You shouldn’t be in here,’ she told him quietly.
‘Why shouldn’t I? We’re more than adequately chaperoned.’ He gave a pointed look at the sleeping Scott. ‘Although I didn’t get the impression earlier that would be such a problem, anyway,’ he drawled as he turned back to look at Meg. A blushing Meg. ‘You should have seen your face earlier when your mother asked if we would be sharing a room.’ He had found it difficult at the time to contain his humour at the look of shock on Meg’s face; now he gave a teasing grin at the memory.
Although he had to admire the dignity with which Meg had informed her mother that she and Scott would be sharing a bedroom, not Meg and Jed.
But Lydia had still allocated them adjoining rooms, with a communicating door between, the doorway he had just come through.
Meg shook her head impatiently, her face pale. ‘I can’t imagine what my mother was thinking of!’
Jed raised dark brows. ‘Possibly treating you like the adult you obviously are?’ he suggested, having found Lydia subdued most of the afternoon, seeming to watch them all rather than taking an active part in the conversation, such as it was.
Although Scott’s obvious excitement at the approach of bedtime had more than made up for any awkwardness there might have been between the adults—and there had been plenty of that, the undercurrents in this family so deep Jed hadn’t had time to try and work them out yet. It appeared the little boy and his grandfather had become firm friends, which wasn’t surprising; David was as warm as his youngest daughter.
‘I somehow doubt that.’ Meg’s mouth twisted sceptically at his suggestion about her mother’s motives. ‘It’s more likely that she meant to be insulting.’
‘Hey, I take exception to that,’ he chided, enjoying teasing her. ‘I’m not usually considered unacceptable to a woman’s parents.’ Not that he had ever met any before; his relationships didn’t usually run along that line.
‘Not to you, to me.’ Meg sighed, laying her head back down on the pillow beside his. ‘Because of Scott.’
‘That’s rubbish,’ Jed dismissed irritably. ‘He’s such a cute kid, no one could feel that way about him. He and your father have definitely bonded.’ David Hamilton’s pleasure in his grandson was undeniable, the two having spent most of the afternoon on the floor playing with Scott’s toys.
‘Yes.’ A smile played over Meg’s lips.
Jed turned to give her a considering look. ‘Do you ever see his father?’
She frowned. ‘Whose father?’
‘Scott’s, of course,’ he came back impatiently, lowering his voice as the little boy moved in his sleep. ‘Do you and Scott ever see his father?’
‘Certainly not.’ Meg sounded shocked at the idea, forcefully so.
Jed held up a defensive hand. ‘Just asking, Meg. It wouldn’t be so unusual.’
‘In this case it would,’ she assured him determinedly, moving back to look at him. ‘Why do I have the feeling that this is all research to you, and we may all appear in your next book?’
He winced, brought back to earth with a resounding bump. ‘I wish,’ he muttered harshly.
‘What does that mean?’ She looked confused.
‘It means I’m not even sure there’s going to be a next book.’ Jed got up restlessly from the bed. ‘What do you think I’m doing at the cottage in the first place?’ He scowled, hands thrust into his jeans pockets. ‘The public, my publishers, both here and in the States, are all clamouring for the next Jerrod Cole book. A book I haven’t even written yet, and don’t know if I ever will,’ he admitted bleakly, putting into words for the first time the doubts he had been experiencing this last year that he could write another book—and fear that he couldn’t.
The Puzzle hadn’t been his first book, but his seventh, the six previous books also best-sellers, but with none of the same worldwide success or the resulting pressure to produce another runaway hit as The Puzzle had been.
Obviously he couldn’t write another book like The Puzzle, had to write something completely different, but at the same time it had to be something that wouldn’t disappoint all those people anxiously awaiting the next Jerrod Cole novel.
Easier said than done. In his case, writer’s block had become a total shutdown. So much so that he had left New York to come to England, hoping the change would ease the pressure, accepting his editor’s offer of the use of his holiday cottage in middle England, and shutting himself away there for the last two months.
It hadn’t helped.
Nothing helped, his growing frustration with the situation only making things worse.
But he had, he suddenly realized, forgotten that frustration for a brief time today as he’d concentrated on Meg and her family.
Meg sat up to look at him concernedly. ‘But can’t you—?’ She broke off, frowning, as a knock sounded on her bedroom door followed by that door opening.
‘Oh!’ A slightly disconcerted Sonia stood in the doorway as they both turned to look at her. ‘Sorry.’ She grimaced, green gaze speculative as it moved from the standing Jed to where Meg still sat on the side of the bed. ‘I just wanted to have a quick word with Meg before dinner,’ she drawled, recovering quickly. ‘But I can come back later.’ She smil
ed knowingly.
So similar to look at and yet so very different.
Meg possessed none of her twin’s artifice or sophistication, none of that hard gloss, either, that perfection that should have made Sonia the more beautiful of the two, and yet somehow didn’t. Not to Jed, anyway.
He saw the sudden awareness of that in Sonia’s eyes as they narrowed speculatively on her sister, telling Jed that this preference of her younger, less confident twin had never happened to Sonia before. That slight, angry flush to Sonia’s cheeks, in Jed’s opinion, boded ill for Meg.
He moved to where Meg now stood, his gaze challenging Sonia’s as his arm dropped lightly about Meg’s slender shoulders. ‘I think that would be a good idea.’ He nodded. ‘After all, we wouldn’t want to disturb Scott, now, would we?’ he added with soft determination.
Sonia’s expression became blank as it shifted to the sleeping child. ‘No,’ she agreed evenly. ‘We certainly wouldn’t want to disturb Scott.’
Jed could feel Meg’s tension beneath his arm, at the same time knowing that the politeness with which the two women had been treating each other all afternoon had been nothing but another façade.
What was it with the women in this family? Having had only brothers as siblings, he wasn’t as familiar with this female tension as he could have been, but he had been close to his mother all his life, all her sons were, and the strain in this family was completely unknown territory to him.
Except he knew this wasn’t normal, the undercurrents between the three Hamilton women such, he felt, that if any one of them ever came out and told the other two the truth the whole structure would collapse like a house of cards.
The fact that the two sisters were still staring at each other, neither one willing to back down from whatever silent challenge was being waged, only confirmed this belief.
‘We’ll see you later, then, Sonia.’ Jed spoke lightly but firmly, determined to break this impasse.
The Christmas Night Miracle Page 7
