Their Christmas Family Miracle

by Caroline Anderson

  ‘Stop it. We’ll get some for the children tomorrow,’ he chided, reading her mind with uncanny accuracy, and she laughed and sat down.

  ‘How did you know?’

  His mouth quirked. ‘Your face is like an open book—every flicker of guilt registers on it. Stop beating yourself up, Amelia, and tell me about yourself. What do you do for a living?’

  She tried to smile, but it felt pretty pathetic, really. ‘Nothing at the moment. I was working freelance as a technical translator for a firm that went into liquidation. They owed me for three months’ work.’

  ‘Ouch.’

  ‘Indeed. And David had just run off to Thailand with the receivers in hot pursuit after yet another failed business venture—’

  ‘David?’

  ‘My ex-husband. Self-styled entrepreneur and master of delusion, absent father of my children and what Kate describes as a waste of a good skin. He’d already declined to pay the maintenance when I left him for the second time when I was pregnant with Thomas, so I’d already had to find a way to survive for over a year while I waited for the courts to tell him to pay up. And then I lost my job, David wasn’t in a position to help by then even if he’d chosen to, and my landlord wanted out of the property business so the moment I couldn’t pay my overdue rent on the date he’d set, he asked me to leave. As in, “I want you out by the morning”.’

  Jake winced. ‘So you went to your sister.’

  ‘Yes. We moved in on the tenth of December—and it lasted less than two weeks.’ She laughed softly and wrinkled her nose. ‘You know what they say about guests being like fish—they go off after three days. So twelve wasn’t bad. And the dog does smell.’

  ‘So why don’t you bath him?’

  ‘Because they wouldn’t let me. Not in their pristine house. I would have had to take him to the groomer, which I couldn’t afford, or do it outside under the hose.’

  ‘In December?’ he said with a frown.

  She smiled wryly, remembering Andy’s blank incomprehension. ‘Quite. So he still smells, I’m afraid.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous. Heavens, he’s only tiny. Shove him in the sink and dry him by the fire.’

  ‘Really?’ She put down her ice cream spoon and sat back, staring at him in amazement. ‘You’re telling me I could bath him in your lovely kitchen?’

  ‘Why not? Or you could use the utility room. Wherever. It doesn’t matter, does it? He’s only a dog. I can think of worse things. You’re all right, aren’t you, mate?’ he said softly, turning his head and looking at the hearth where Rufus was lying as close to the woodburner as the fireguard would let him. He thumped his tail on the floor, his eyes fixed on Jake as if he was afraid that any minute now he’d be told to move.

  But apparently not. Jake liked dogs—and thought it was fine to wash him in the kitchen sink. She stood up and took their bowls through to the kitchen, using the excuse to get away because her eyes were filling again and threatening to overflow and embarrass her. She put all the plates into the dishwasher and straightened up and took a nice steadying breath.

  Rufus was at her feet, his tail waving, his eyes hopeful.

  She had to squash the urge to hug him. ‘Do you think I’m going to give you something? You’ve had supper,’ she told him firmly. ‘Don’t beg.’

  His tail drooped and he trotted back to Jake and sat beside him, staring up into his eyes and making him laugh.

  ‘He’s not looking convinced.’

  ‘Don’t you dare give him anything. He’s not allowed to beg, and he’s on a special diet.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it. I bet he costs more to run than all the rest of you put together.’

  She laughed and shook her head. ‘You’d better believe it. But he’s worth every penny. He’s been brilliant.’ She bit her lip. ‘I don’t mean to be rude, but I did promise the children I’d read to them, and I need to change Thomas’s nappy and put him into pyjamas.’

  He nodded. ‘That’s fine. Don’t worry. I’ll see you later. In fact, I might just go to bed.’

  ‘Can I get you anything else?’

  He shook his head. ‘No. I’m fine, don’t worry about me. I’ll see you in the morning. If you get a minute before then, you could dream up a shopping list. And thank you for my supper, by the way, it was lovely.’

  She felt the cold, dead place around her heart warm a little, and she smiled. ‘My pleasure,’ she said, and took herself upstairs before she fell any further under his spell, because she’d discovered during the course of a glass of wine and a bowl of ice cream that Jake Forrester, when it suited him, could be very, very charming indeed.

  And that scared the living daylights out of her.

  His bags were missing.

  The cabbie had stacked them by the front door, and they were gone. Kate, he thought. She’d been over while he was sleeping earlier, he knew that, and he realised she must have taken them up to his room. Unless Amelia had done it?

  Whatever, he needed to go to bed. Lying on the sofa resting for an hour was all very well, but he needed more than that. And it was already after ten. He’d sat and had another glass of wine in front of the fire in the breakfast room, with Rufus keeping him company and creeping gradually closer until he was lying against his foot, and eventually it dawned on him that he was hanging around in the vain hope that Amelia would come back down and sit with him again.

  Ridiculous. And dangerous. They both had far too much baggage, and it would be dicing with disaster, no matter how appealing the physical package. And there was no way he wanted any other kind of relationship. So, although he was loath to disturb the dog, he’d finally eased his toes out from under his side and left the room.

  And then had to work out, in his muddled, tired mind, what had happened to his bags.

  He detoured into the sitting room and picked up his painkillers, then made his way slowly and carefully up the stairs. He was getting stiffer, he realised. Maybe he needed a bath—a long, hot soak—except that he’d almost inevitably fall asleep in it and wake up cold and wrinkled in the middle of the night. And, anyway, he hated baths.

  A shower? No. There was the difficulty of his cast to consider, and sealing it in a bag was beyond him at the moment. He’d really had enough. He’d deal with it tomorrow.

  Reluctantly abandoning the tempting thought of hot water sluicing over his body, he eased off his clothes, found his wash things in the bag that had indeed arrived in his room, cleaned his teeth and then crawled into bed.

  Bliss.

  There was nothing like your own bed, he thought, closing his eyes with a long, unravelling sigh. And then he remembered he hadn’t taken the painkillers, and he needed to before he went to sleep or his arm would wake him in the night.

  He put the light back on and got out of bed again, filled a glass with water and came back to the bed. He’d thrown the pills on the bedside chest, and he took two and opened the top drawer to put them in.

  And there it was.

  Lying in the drawer, jumbled up with pens and cufflinks and bits of loose change. Oh, Lord. Slowly, almost reluctantly, he pulled the little frame out and stared down at the faces laughing back up at him—Rachel, full of life as usual, sitting on the grass with Ben in between her knees, his little hands filled with grass mowings and his eyes alight with mischief. He’d been throwing the grass mowings all over her, and they’d all been laughing.

  And six months later, five years ago today, they’d been mown down by a drunk driver who’d just left his office Christmas party. They’d been doing some last-minute shopping—collecting a watch she’d bought him, he discovered when he eventually went through the bag of their things he’d been given at the hospital. He’d worn it every day for the last five years—until it had been shattered, smashed to bits against an alpine tree during the avalanche.

  An avalanche that had brought him home—to a woman called Amelia, and her three innocent and displaced children.

  Was this Rachel’s doing? Trying to tell him to m
ove on, to forget them both?

  He traced their faces with his finger, swallowing down the grief that had never really left him, the grief that sent him away every Christmas to try and forget the unforgettable, to escape the inescapable.

  He put the photo back in the drawer and closed it softly, turned off the light, then lay back down and stared dry-eyed into the night.

  She couldn’t sleep.

  Something had woken her—some strange sound, although how she could know the sounds of the house so well already she had no idea, but somehow she did, and this one was strange.

  She got out of bed and checked the children, but all of them were sleeping, Thomas flat out on his back with his arms flung up over his head, Edward on his tummy with one leg stuck out the side, and Kitty curled on her side with her hand under her cheek and her battered old teddy snuggled in the crook of her arm.

  So not them, then.

  Jake?

  She looked over the banisters, but all was quiet and there was no light.

  Rufus?

  Oh, Lord, Rufus. Did he want to go out? Was that what had woken her, him yipping or scratching at the door?

  She pulled on a jumper over her pyjamas—because, of course, in her haste she’d left her dressing gown on the back of the door at her sister’s—and tiptoed down the stairs, glancing along to Jake’s room as she reached the head of the lower flight.

  She’d brought his luggage up earlier while he was sleeping and put it in there, because he couldn’t possibly manage to lug it up there himself, and she’d had her first look at his room.

  It was over the formal drawing room, with an arched opening to the bathroom at the bay window end, and a great rolltop bath sat in the middle, with what must be the most spectacular view along the endless lawn to the woods in the distance. She couldn’t picture him in it at all, there was a huge double shower the size of the average wetroom that seemed much more likely, and a pair of gleaming washbasins, and in a separate little room with its own basin and marble-tiled walls was a loo.

  And at the opposite end of the room was the bed. Old, solid, a vast and imposing four-poster, the head end and the top filled in with heavily carved panelling, it was perfect for the room. Perfect for the house. The sort of bed where love was made and children were born and people slipped quietly away at the end of their lives, safe in its arms.

  It was a wonderful, wonderful bed. And not in the least monastic. She could picture him in it so easily.

  Was he lying in it now? She didn’t know. Maybe, maybe not—and she was mad to think about it.

  There was no light on, and the house was in silence, but it felt different, she thought. There was something about it which had changed with his arrival, a sort of—rightness, as if the house had relaxed now he was home.

  Which didn’t explain what had woken her. And the door to his room was open a crack. She’d gone down to let the dog out and tidy up the kitchen after she’d settled the children and finished unpacking their things and he must have come upstairs by then, but she hadn’t noticed the door open. Perhaps he’d come out again to get something and hadn’t shut it, and that was what had woken her, but there was no sign of him now.

  She went down to the breakfast room, guided only by the moonlight, and opened the door, and she heard the gentle thump of the dog’s tail on the floor and the clatter of his nails.

  ‘Hello, my lovely man,’ she crooned, crouching down and pulling gently on his ears. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I take it you’re talking to the dog.’

  She gave a little shriek and pressed her hand to her chest, then started to laugh. ‘Good grief, Jake, you scared me to death!’ She straightened up and reached for the light, then hesitated, conscious of her tired old pyjamas. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘I couldn’t sleep. You?’

  ‘I thought I heard a noise.’

  He laughed softly. ‘In this house? Of course you heard a noise! It creaks like a ship.’

  ‘I know. It settles. I love it—it sounds as if it’s relaxing. No, there was something else. It must have been you.’

  ‘I stumbled over the dog—he came to see me and I hadn’t put the light on and I kicked him by accident and he yelped—and, before you ask, he’s fine. I nudged him, really, but he seemed a bit upset by it, so I sat with him.’

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry—he does get underfoot and—well, I think he was kicked as a puppy. Has he forgiven you?’

  The soft sound of Jake’s laughter curled round her again, warming her. ‘I think so. He’s been on my lap.’

  ‘Ah. Sounds like it, then.’ She hesitated, wondering if she should leave him to it and go back to bed, but sensing that there was something wrong, something more than he was telling her. ‘How’s the fire?’

  ‘OK. I think it could do with more wood.’

  ‘I’ll get some.’

  She went out of the back door and brought in an armful of logs, putting on the kitchen light as she went, and she left it on when she came back, enough to see by but hopefully not enough to see just how tired her pyjamas really were, and the spill of yellow light made the room seem cosy and intimate.

  Which was absurd, considering its size, but everything was in scale and so it didn’t seem big, just—safe.

  She put the logs in the basket and opened the fire, throwing some in, and as the flames leapt up she went to shut it but he stopped her.

  ‘Leave it open. It’s nice to sit and stare into the flames. It helps—’

  Helps? Helps what? she wanted to ask, but she couldn’t, somehow, so she knelt there on the hearthrug in the warmth of the flames, with Rufus snuggled against her side, his skinny, feathery tail wafting against her, and waited.

  But Jake didn’t say any more, just sighed and dropped his head back against the chair and closed his eyes. She could see that his fingers were curled around a glass, and on the table behind him was a bottle. The whisky?

  ‘What?’

  She jumped guiltily. ‘Nothing.’

  He snorted. ‘It’s never nothing with women. Yes, it’s the whisky. No, it doesn’t help.’

  ‘Jake—’

  ‘No. Leave it, Amelia. Please. If you want to do something useful, you could make us a cup of tea.’

  ‘How about a hot milky drink?’

  ‘I’m not five.’

  ‘No, but you’re tired, you’re hurt and you said you’d had enough caffeine today—it might help you sleep.’

  ‘Tea,’ he said implacably.

  She shrugged and got to her feet, padded back through to the kitchen and put the kettle on, turning in time to see him drain his glass and set it down on the table. He glanced up and met her eyes, and sighed.

  ‘I’ve only had one. I’m not an alcoholic, Amelia.’

  ‘I never suggested you were!’ she said, appalled that he’d think she was criticising when actually she’d simply been concerned for his health and well-being.

  ‘So stop looking at me as if you’re the Archangel Gabriel and I’m going off the rails!’

  She gave a soft chuckle and took two mugs out of the cupboard. ‘I’m the last person to criticise anyone for life choices. I’m homeless, for heavens’ sake! And I’ve got three children, only one of whom was planned, and I’m unemployed and my life’s a total mess, so pardon me if I pick you up on that one! I just wondered…’

  ‘Wondered what? Why I’m such a miserable bastard?’

  ‘Are you? Miserable, I mean? Kate thought—’ She broke off, not wanting him to think Kate had been discussing him, but it was too late, and one eyebrow climbed autocratically.

  ‘Kate thought—?’ he prompted.

  ‘You were just a loner. You are, I mean. A loner.’

  ‘And what do you think, little Miss Fixit?’

  She swallowed. ‘I think you’re sad, and lonely. She said you’re very private, but I think that’s because it all hurts too much to talk about.’

  His face lost all expression, and he turned back to the fire, the onl
y sign of movement from him the flex of the muscle in his jaw. ‘Why don’t you forget the amateur psychology and concentrate on making the tea?’ he said, his voice devoid of emotion, but she could still see that tic in his jaw, the rhythmic bunching of the muscle, and she didn’t know whether to persevere or give up, because she sensed it might all be a bit of a Pandora’s box and, once opened, she might well regret all the things that came out.

  So she made the tea, and took it through and sat beside the fire in what started as a stiff and unyielding silence and became in the end a wary truce.

  He was the first to break the silence.

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ve made the shopping list?’

  She shook her head. ‘Not yet. I could do it now.’

  ‘No, don’t worry. We can do it over breakfast. I have no doubt that, no matter how little sleep we may have had, the kids will be up at the crack of dawn raring to go, so there’ll be plenty of time.’

  She laughed a little unsteadily, feeling the tension drain out of her at his words. ‘I’m sure.’ She got to her feet and held out her hand for his mug, then was surprised when he reached up his left hand, the one in the cast, and took her fingers in his.

  ‘Ignore me, Amelia. I’ll get over it. I’ll be fine tomorrow.’

  She nodded, not understanding really, because how could she? But she let it go, for now at least, and she squeezed his fingers gently and then let go, and he dropped his arm and held out the mug.

  ‘Thanks for the tea. It was nice.’

  The tea? Or having someone to sit and drink it with?

  He didn’t say, and she wasn’t asking, but one thing she knew about this man, whatever Kate might say to the contrary—he wasn’t a loner.

  ‘My pleasure,’ she murmured and, putting the mugs in the sink, she closed the doors of the fire and shut it down again. With a murmured, ‘Good night,’ she went upstairs to bed, but she didn’t sleep until she heard the soft creak of the stairs and the little click as his bedroom door closed.