Julia, her fork suspended on the way to her mouth, grimaced. ‘Every three weeks. She loves it, but they spoil her dreadfully and I can’t afford to—Which reminds me, what do I owe you for the car? I mustn’t forget to pay.’
‘Leaving the country?’ he asked mildly, leaning back against the chair and smiling enigmatically.
‘Of course not.’ She ate the forkful, then looked at him again. ‘So how much was it?’
‘Thirty-two pounds,’ he said. ‘All bar a few pence.’
She sighed with relief. ‘Right. I’ll give you a cheque after supper.’ She eyed his plate and pushed the lasagne dish towards him. ‘Have some more. It doesn’t keep.’
‘I will. It’s delicious.’ He offered her a scoop, but she shook her head, content to watch him eat. More than content. Too much more. Darn, this had been a really bad idea!
She toyed with a little salad so she didn’t sit and stare vacantly at him, and then finally he was finished and she whisked the plates away into the kitchen next door and brought back the pudding. ‘Sorry, it’s a cheat,’ she said, serving up the little choux pastry balls filled with whipped cream and drizzled with chocolate sauce. ‘I didn’t have time to make profiteroles but these are quite fun and nearly the same. Cream?’
He smiled and took it, pouring on a generous slug and tucking in with enjoyment. ‘They’re nice,’ he said, busy munching. ‘Cheat or not, they work. I’m all for an easy life.’
They finished the little heap between them, scrapping over the last one and finally sharing it when he cut it in half with his spoon and fed it to her in a simple gesture that suddenly left her hot and cold all over and quivering inside.
Their eyes locked, and after an age he dragged his gaze away and ate the last half, licking a trace of cream from his lower lip with a kind of sensuous grace that made her mouth water.
‘Coffee,’ she said in a strangled voice, and almost fled to the kitchen.
As a retreat, it didn’t work. David followed her and insisted on helping with the washing-up.
‘It was supposed to be my treat, a thank you,’ she protested, but he just smiled and lifted the dirty pans out of the sink and ran hot water into the bowl.
‘I was properly brought up,’ he told her, his eyes twinkling. ‘Either you cook, or you wash up and put away. There were five of us. Chores were an inescapable part of life. So, I wash, or I dry and put away and you’ll never find anything again. Which is it to be?’
Julia gave up in the face of his good-natured persistence, and laughed. ‘You wash. I hate losing things.’
So they worked side by side at the sink, shoulder to shoulder, and she wondered what it would be like to work alongside him in Theatre as his scrub nurse, their bodies closely aligned and their minds focused in professional harmony.
Dangerous, she decided, and moved away a little, instantly missing the contact.
Not for long. Was it her, or him? One of them moved, just closing the gap a fraction so she could feel his warmth again and the light brush of his sweater against hers.
‘So what are you doing over the weekend?’ she asked to take her mind off his proximity.
‘My house. The electrician’s got the power on now, so I can make a bit of progress at last. It’s hard to use the electric wallpaper stripper without power, for instance, and as sure as heck the kettle doesn’t work!’ He shot her a grin, and her legs went rubbery.
Oh, dear. Too dangerous. She moved away again, stacking the plates in the cupboard and giving him a wide berth for a moment. ‘So how long will it be before you can live in it?’ she asked.
‘Oh, I can live in it. I’ve been living in it. It was only this week that was a problem. It’s all a bit primitive, but it’s fun in a rather pioneering sort of way.’ He leant against the edge of the sink and looked at her, his head on one side. ‘Fancy coming out tomorrow and seeing it for yourself? You could give me some advice. You’ve done some lovely things here, and I’d appreciate the help.’
Her mouth, in league with her traitorous heart and totally deaf to the screaming protest of her common sense, opened and accepted his invitation without missing a beat.
‘Good,’ he said with a smile. ‘I tell you what, come for the afternoon and I’ll cook for you—a trade off.’
‘Only if you let me wash up,’ she said, her mouth getting into the swing of it with terrifying ease.
‘Done,’ he said, and that was that. Oh, dear.
Before Julia could commit herself to any further folly, the dishes were finished and the coffee was made, and they went through to the sitting room. She’d lit the gas fire because it was chilly, and they pulled their chairs up and stretched their feet out to the flames and listened to the gentle hissing of the gas, and Julia found herself wishing it would never end.
It did, though, about an hour later, when their coffee was finished and her eyelids were drooping.
‘You’re tired,’ he said softly. ‘Why don’t I go and let you get an early night?’
She felt a little pang of regret, but he was right.
‘I feel too idle to move,’ she told him, and he laughed and pulled her to her feet.
‘Come on, lazybones. See me off and lock the door and go up to bed like a good girl.’
But she didn’t want to be a good girl. The feel of David’s warm hands around hers made her long to feel them elsewhere, touching her, holding her, caressing her…
She slipped her hands out of his and pushed her hair back from her face, tucking it behind her ears. ‘You’re a nag,’ she told him lightly, and he chuckled.
‘So I’m told. Never mind, you’ll be grateful later when you don’t wake up with a crick in your neck and cold feet.’
They went out into the hall, and as her hand reached out to turn on the light, he stilled it, catching her hand in his and easing her against his chest.
‘Wait,’ he murmured, his voice low, and then his lips brushed hers, just lightly, and her knees sagged so that she swayed against him. His arms came up round her, his mouth locked to hers, and out of nowhere came a heat so intense she thought her body would catch fire.
Just before the flames took hold he eased away, dropping one last feather-soft kiss on her lips before moving to the door.
‘I’ll pick you up tomorrow at two,’ he said, and his voice was low and gruff and scraped over her nerve endings like rough silk.
Then he was gone, and she went back into the sitting room and curled up in his chair and relived the touch of his mouth against hers until the longing was so great she thought she’d weep with it.
She was seeing him again tomorrow, she thought, and even though her common sense told her it was too dangerous for her status quo, her heart soared with joy.
CHAPTER THREE
DAVID’S cottage was lovely. The roof was low, the walls red brick, and it was set back from the village green behind a little gate and a dense evergreen hedge that gave it privacy. There was no traffic to speak of, because the green was off the main route through the village, and it was peaceful and gloriously romantic.
That spooked Julia. After his kiss last night, she didn’t need a romantic setting to make it even harder to keep their relationship in perspective!
Still, the interior did a little to dispel her fears. Far from romantic, it resembled a building site in parts, and she had to use her imagination to the full to picture how it would be when it was finished.
Not that it was cold or unwelcoming, but it was just, well, unfinished, to say the least. The front door opened straight into a large room that ran the width of the cottage, with an inglenook fireplace at one end and old oak beams that spanned the room, supporting the upper floor. Once done it would be lovely, but now it was bare except for an ancient sofa in front of the glowing woodburner and a lonely television sitting on the old brick floor in the corner.
David led her through into the kitchen behind it, which looked over the garden and across fields to the other side of the valley beyond. It was a v
ery pretty view, and she could see why he’d fallen in love with it, but it was going to take years—or thousands of pounds—to put it right.
‘I’m going to have a few hand-built pine kitchen units put in around that area,’ he told her, indicating an L-shaped section of wall under the windows. ‘Then over here I’ll have a couple of dressers and things—very simple and unfitted, except for the bit with the sink and the washing machine and dishwasher, but they’ll have to be built in so they don’t show.’
‘And a table?’ she said, looking at the space in the middle and wondering if it was big enough. ‘A table would be nice. Is there room?’
‘Somewhere. I might have to find a little one or put it against the wall but, yes, a table in the kitchen is an absolute must! Come and see the garden while it’s light. It’s a mess, but it could be pretty.’
Julia looked at the tangled beds and overgrown shrubs with no real understanding. She’d never been much of a gardener—had never really had the time—and now she felt ignorant as he talked about hardy fuchsias and dividing clumps of perennials and the advantages of spring over autumn pruning.
He tipped his head on one side after a minute and looked at her apologetically. ‘Sorry. You’re not a gardener, are you? I must be boring you to death.’
She laughed, anxious to dispel his worries. ‘I wouldn’t say I wasn’t a gardener. To be honest, I don’t know if I am or not. I’ve never really had the time to find out. My garden in Victoria Road is just a concrete yard and a tiny patch of rather tatty grass with a straggly shrub in the corner. Goodness knows what it is. I plant a few tubs in the spring to brighten it up and cut the grass when I remember.’
He chuckled. ‘There’s time to learn, if you want to. Your daughter might like it. We all spent hours in the garden with Mum, weeding and edging and hoeing the vegetables. Fruit picking was always the best bit. We never grumbled about having to do that, especially not the raspberries.’
She pictured a mischievous little boy with pink juice running down his chin, and laughed. ‘I can imagine. No wonder you wanted to live in the country after a childhood like that. Did you help on the farm, driving tractors and things?’
‘When we were older. At first we had to help with the animals. We had stock in those days, and there was always something to do, feeding calves or lambs or collecting eggs. We weren’t allowed on the tractors until we were eight, and couldn’t drive them till we were ten—our legs weren’t long enough. It’s all arable now, though, so it’s easier. Wheat doesn’t get you out of bed at four on a Sunday morning.’
‘That would be easier,’ she agreed, and his mouth quirked in that wonderful smile again.
‘Absolutely. Come and see the rest.’
‘The rest’ turned out to be a neglected little orchard at the end, with a gnarled old apple tree in the corner with an ancient swing dangling from one branch. ‘I’m going to plant daffodils and bluebells around here in clumps,’ he told her, ‘and have a wild bit—butterfly plants and so on. Do my bit for conservation.’
‘Looks like nature’s doing that already,’ she said with a smile, and he chuckled.
‘Let’s go in and put the kettle on, and I’ll show you the upstairs. It’s pretty much as it was. I haven’t got round to trashing it yet, but the bathroom’s next on the menu. That’ll be fun, having the water off. Oh, well.’
‘Pioneering spirit, you said.’
David grimaced good-naturedly and shut the back door behind them. ‘So I did. Come on up.’
He flicked the button on the kettle in passing, and led Julia back into the main room of the cottage and through a little door at the far end by the fire. It opened to reveal stairs climbing steeply to the next floor, and he led her up them, warning her to mind her head, although she was nothing like as tall as him so it was easier.
‘I’m having an extension if the plans are passed—just a single room downstairs and one up, with a proper staircase onto this landing, because getting furniture up these is a nightmare.’
‘I can imagine,’ she said, looking round as they reached the top. ‘Gosh, it’s a huge landing.’
‘Well, not really. Technically it’s a small bedroom,’ he told her with a grin, ‘and the other one is through there. I’m going to divide this up to make a bathroom, and the bedroom in here…’ he ducked through the doorway ‘…will be split into two again as it used to be. Then the new room at the back overlooking the fields will have its own bathroom as well.’
She looked around and nodded, and wondered if he was good with his hands. He had to be, she decided, because there was a lot of talk of ‘I’m going to do this’ and ‘I’ll put this here’, as if he intended to do the work himself.
Besides, he was a surgeon, so it wasn’t hard to imagine that he’d be practical.
They went back down the twisty staircase to the kitchen, and while he made a pot of tea she sat in the comfy carver and studied him appreciatively.
Odd, how she’d thought he was bulky when she’d first seen him. He wasn’t at all, she considered thoughtfully, just broad-shouldered, with a deep chest. At somewhere around six feet tall there was a lot of him, but he was fit and muscled, and in those old jeans that snuggled his lean hips he looked good enough to eat.
‘Hungry?’ he asked, and she wondered guiltily if her eyes had given her away.
‘Pardon?’ Lord, did she really sound so breathless?
‘I asked if you were hungry. I’ve got some of my mother’s fruit cake. It’s good—not too rich, so you don’t feel over-indulged, but tasty enough to be a real treat.’
‘Sounds lovely,’ she said, dredging up a smile that hopefully wasn’t too inane and wondering if her thoughts were as clearly written on her face as she imagined them to be.
Apparently not, or, if they were, he was ignoring them. They took their tea and cake through to the sitting room, such as it was, because it was chilly in the kitchen even with the portable gas stove, and David had lit the woodburner in the sitting room in the morning, so it was lovely and cosy.
They sat together on the two-seater sofa in front of the fire because there was nowhere else, and he handed her the tray while he pulled up a bright plastic toolbox to put it on.
‘I like your coffee-table,’ she teased, and he grinned.
‘Good, isn’t it? You don’t see many like that.’
‘Certainly not, although I have to say it’s a little colourful for my taste.’
The smile lurked around his mouth as he lay back into the corner of the sofa, his mug balanced on his belt buckle, and sighed contentedly. ‘I’m glad you’re here. I should be stripping wallpaper.’
‘Don’t let me stop you,’ she advised, her mouth twitching, and he closed his eyes and chuckled.
‘Oh, I think I should. Ignoring a guest would be too rude to contemplate.’
‘I could help you, when we’ve finished our tea,’ she suggested a moment later. ‘I’m good at it—lots of practice. There were six layers in my bedroom.’
He cracked an eye open and peered at her. ‘Really?’
‘Really. I counted them.’
He sat up. ‘No, I mean, really, you’d help me?’
Julia gave a wry laugh. ‘Why not? I’ve got nothing else to do that won’t keep, and I hate being in the house when Katie’s away. It seems so empty and desolate.’
‘So we could look on it as a little therapy for you so I don’t have to feel guilty, is that right?’
She chuckled. ‘If it makes you feel better. Actually, I just enjoy it. Or I could cook if you’d rather.’
‘And get out of the washing-up? Not a chance. No, we’ll have our tea and then we’ll turn the radio on and strip to music.’
He was only teasing, but she felt her cheeks heat. ‘In your dreams,’ she retorted, trying not to remember her dreams of the night before or how empty and alone they’d left her feeling.
He pulled a wry face and grinned. ‘Worth a try. We’ll take some wallpaper off, then, if you insist.�
��
‘I do,’ she said firmly, but as he smiled that understanding smile at her, she found she wished she didn’t.
Monday morning seemed to take for ever to arrive. He’d dropped her home at ten thirty on Saturday, after a wonderful casserole that she had a sneaking suspicion had come from his mother, and she’d dreamed of him again and woken restless and unsettled. Sunday had been a day of catching up with jobs—the laundry, the cleaning—and then Katie had come home, full of all the things she’d done and all the places she’d been, and Julia had felt inadequate as usual because she didn’t have any money to spend on the child in such frivolous ways.
She could, of course, have asked his parents for help with paying off the credit-card debt that Andrew had run up, but her pride forbade her. Julia told herself he’d been her husband at the time, although they’d been separated, and she should have taken steps to close the account. It had, after all, been a joint card, and thus she had still had responsibility for the debts on it when he’d died.
She’d just never thought about it. He’d changed the address, so the statements hadn’t come to her, and she’d totally forgotten the card existed.
More fool her. It had been a mistake she wouldn’t make again, but in the meantime Katie was being spoilt by his parents and Julia was having to deal with the fallout.
So it was with relief for several reasons that she went into work on Monday morning, and her first job after taking report was to prep Mrs James for surgery. The test results had come back showing a handful of stones obstructing her gall bladder, and she was to have keyhole surgery first thing that morning to remove them.
‘Are you sure he’ll be able to see well enough through a tiny hole?’ Mrs James asked Julia as she explained the procedure again. ‘I mean, are you sure it’s safe?’
‘Yes, I’m sure. He’ll fill up the inside of your abdomen with carbon dioxide gas to separate all the bits and pieces, and then he’ll use a thing called a laparoscope to see inside you, and the surgical instruments will be pushed through little holes in your side and tummy and he’ll guide them using the laparoscope. The gas helps to hold everything apart so he can see more easily.’
The Perfect Christmas Page 4