by Sarah Morgan
‘Stella used to be engaged to Uncle Daniel but he didn’t want to get married because he thinks he won’t be a good father.’ Alfie pushed the fridge door shut, a yoghurt in his hand. ‘Which is rubbish, because he’s pretty cool at a lot of things, but he doesn’t think so, so he told Stella that he wouldn’t marry her. That was the same Christmas Mum left, so Stella came here and cooked lunch and it was brilliant. And she and Dad drank a lot.’ He dug a spoon out of the drawer and Hayley’s eyes flew to Patrick, who rolled his eyes in apology, his neutral expression revealing nothing about what must have been a hideous time.
Oblivious to his father’s discomfort, Alfie dug the spoon into the yoghurt. ‘And then Stella went away for ages because she was so upset that Daniel wouldn’t marry her, but she still sent me nice presents. Then she came back.’ He licked the spoon. ‘And then she and Uncle Daniel were trying not to kiss each other all the time, and—’
‘Alfie.’ Patrick’s tone was mild. ‘Enough. Eat your yoghurt and stop talking.’
‘I’m just telling Hayley about our family.’
‘You’ve told her enough.’
‘But I haven’t finished.’ The spoon still poised in the air, Alfie frowned at his father. ‘I haven’t told her the best bit.’
‘Go on, then,’ Patrick said wearily, rubbing his fingertips across his forehead. ‘Tell her the best bit. Whatever that is. But make it quick.’
‘Uncle Daniel is going to propose to Stella. Tomorrow.’
Patrick made a choked sound and suddenly sat upright. ‘He is what?’
‘He is going to propose to her.’ Smug now he had his father’s attention, Alfie slowly finished his yoghurt. ‘He told me. I saw the ring. He’s putting it in her Secret Santa—you know, you buy a present for someone at work, and—’
‘I know what Secret Santa is.’ Patrick interrupted him impatiently. ‘What’s this about a ring? Since when has my brother decided to propose and how come you know about it?’
‘I helped him decide. He wanted to marry her, really, but Stella wants lots of babies and Uncle Daniel is worried he won’t be a good dad. So I sort of helped him out with some tips.’ He saw his father’s astonished look and shrugged. ‘It wasn’t that hard. Uncle Daniel was OK when he looked after us when you were in America. Posy and I liked being with him. I just told him that. And he listened.’
Hayley couldn’t hold back her laughter. ‘So your brother is getting married?’
‘So it would seem.’ Patrick ran a hand over the back of his neck and looked at his son as though he were a stranger. ‘Where do you get all this information?’
‘Uncle Daniel and I had a long talk this morning. And, anyway, I see things.’ Alfie dropped the empty yoghurt pot in the bin. ‘I know about se—I mean, you know what. I can’t say the “s” word in front of Posy because she’s too young.’
‘Quite right,’ Patrick said faintly, ‘and so are you, frankly’
‘Dad, you’re behind the times. Two of the boys in my class have girlfriends.’
Patrick closed his eyes. ‘Alfie, you are ten years old. You are not having a girlfriend.’
‘It’s all right,’ Alfie said kindly, ‘you can stop panicking. All the girls in my class are pretty yucky, to be honest. I wouldn’t want to kiss any of them. At the moment I prefer football.’
‘I suppose I should be thankful for small mercies,’ Patrick muttered under his breath, casting Hayley a look of comical disbelief. ‘How did we get onto this subject? I thought we were talking about your family?’
‘My family is boring by comparison.’ She laughed and Alfie looked at her closely.
‘But they’re the reason you moved to America? Because they made you feel like you couldn’t do anything? If you ask me, they’re dumb. And anyone who can cook like you shouldn’t have to prove anything to anyone.’ Having made that announcement, he strolled out of the room, leaving Hayley staring after him.
Patrick cleared his throat. ‘I apologise for Alfie. He’s always been pretty direct. Probably my fault.’
‘I think he’s very special.’ Hayley rescued the bread sauce, desperately wishing that Alfie hadn’t left the room. Without him she was too aware of Patrick.
Oh, God, she shouldn’t be here.
She’d taken a risk—exposed her feelings—and now she felt like an utter fool because she had nowhere to hide.
He knew how she felt about him.
And she knew how he felt about her.
She stirred the bread sauce vigorously to avoid having to look at him.
He’d taken advantage of being away from his children to have some easy sex. And she’d been easy sex. And she was angry and humiliated that she’d allowed her dreamy personality to turn a steamy encounter into something more.
Even though she was trying to be pragmatic about the whole thing, his assumption that her reason for tracking him down must be because she was pregnant had crushed her. His reaction was so far removed from the one she’d expected. She’d honestly thought he’d felt the same way about her as she did about him. Of course she had or she would never have travelled all this way and risked making a fool of herself. It hadn’t occurred to her that she was making a fool of herself.
Alfie bounced back into the room. ‘Come and see your room, Hayley. You’ll love it. It has a sloping ceiling and a really cool bathroom with a drench thing.’
Hayley looked down at him for a long moment and then turned her head to look at Patrick.
He held her gaze and something flickered between them.
Hayley dismissed it as her imagination. She wasn’t making that mistake again. Wasn’t assuming there was a connection where there was none.
‘I’d like you to show me my room,’ she said to Alfie, and he grinned happily.
‘Your room is right next to mine. If you’re lonely, you can sleep in my spare bunk.’
Hayley couldn’t help smiling. ‘That’s really generous of you, Alfie. I might just do that.’ He was the sweetest, most engaging child she’d ever met. ‘Come on, then. Show me the room.’
Relieved to escape from Patrick’s brooding gaze for a short time, Hayley followed Alfie up the beautiful wooden staircase and up to the top floor of the barn. He pushed open a door and Hayley gave a gasp of surprise because nothing had prepared her for the breathtakingly beautiful view from the room.
Floor-to-ceiling windows faced open fields, framing the snow-covered trees and the mountains behind. ‘Oh, my goodness,’ she said weakly, ‘It’s stunning.’ Was he a millionaire or something? The house was incredible.
‘You should see my dad’s bedroom. It’s huge. So is his bed. Mind you, he needs an enormous bed because Posy often crawls in with him in the middle of the night.’ Alfie darted across the bedroom and pushed open another door. ‘This is your bathroom. The window goes all the way along so you can still see the view from the bath. You’ve gone really red—I suppose you’re worrying about someone seeing you naked, but they won’t. We don’t have any neighbours, which is quite useful when Posy is having one of her tantrums.’
Hayley, whose colour had more to do with inappropriate thoughts involving Patrick’s bed than modesty, managed a smile. ‘Thanks. I’ll remember that.’
‘I’m just saying that you don’t need to worry too much about wandering around with no clothes on.’
‘There is absolutely no way I’ll be wandering around with no clothes on,’ Hayley assured him hastily, shrinking at the thought of bumping into Patrick in anything less than full clothing.
She’d already left one pair of knickers on his bedroom floor. That was more than enough.
From now on she would be making no moves at all, except ones that took her in the opposite direction.
‘I thought Dad would be really mad with me for advertising for a housekeeper,’ Alfie confided, ‘but I think he’s pleased now that you’re going to be cooking the turkey. He’s hopeless at it.’
‘Well, if we want a delicious lunch without a nervous breakdo
wn, we’d better go and finish our preparations.’ Hayley held out her hand. ‘Are you ready, Chef?’
Alfie grinned. ‘Ready.’
Another layer of snow fell overnight and Hayley woke to a world so impossibly beautiful that for a moment she didn’t move. Warm and snug under the soft duvet, she lay there, listening to church bells chiming in the distance.
Christmas morning.
And for once she didn’t have to brace herself to face her family. To try and be someone she wasn’t.
There was a tap on the door and Patrick walked in, a mug in his hand. He was wearing a pair of black jeans and his jaw was dark with stubble. ‘You wanted to be woken at eight…’
Oh, my, he looked good in the morning—heavy lidded and unshaven…
‘Yes. I want to get the turkey in the oven so that we can eat at a decent time.’ Hayley decided it was safer to look at the mug he was holding, rather than him. ‘Thanks for the tea.’
‘I thought it might help you wake up. I’m guessing you’re jet-lagged. What time did you get to sleep?’
‘Oh—not sure,’ Hayley mumbled, pulling the duvet up to her chin. ‘Late. Still feels like the middle of the night.’ She wasn’t going to confess that her appallingly disturbed night had had everything to do with him and nothing to do with the time difference. ‘Thanks for the tea.’
‘The children are going to wait until you’re down before they open their presents.’
‘They don’t have to do that.’ Hayley was dying to drink the tea but she didn’t want to expose any part of her body while he was in the room. It was bad enough being in bed while he was standing there. It felt intimate. And she was doing her best to avoid all suggestion of intimacy. ‘But I’m not family or anything. I was going to spend the morning in the kitchen. Let you get on with it.’
‘You’re living with us, Hayley,’ he said mildly. ‘You’re one of the family.’
In her dreams.
She was so aware of him that she was relieved to have the kitchen as an excuse to hide.
In the end she did join them for present opening, watching wistfully as the children tore paper off parcels and squealed with delight.
‘I have a present for Hayley.’ Alfie vanished and then reappeared, carrying two kittens.
‘Oh!’ Hayley gasped in delight and Patrick groaned.
‘Alfie, you can’t—’
‘My cat had four kittens…’ Alfie placed the kittens in Hayley’s lap ‘…and Dad says I can only keep two. So I’m giving you the other two. I want them to go to someone nice.’
The kittens snuggled into each other and Hayley stared down at them with a lump in her throat. ‘They’re gorgeous.’
‘Alfie…’ Patrick ran his hand over his jaw ‘…you can’t just give someone an animal. Hayley doesn’t have anywhere to keep them.’
‘Well, they’re hers just for Christmas, then,’ Alfie said stubbornly. ‘While she’s staying here. I’ll let her feed them and things.’
‘I think she’s going to be busy enough feeding us,’ Patrick muttered, but Hayley shook her head, enchanted by the kittens.
‘They’re beautiful, Alfie. And wherever I go after Christmas, I’ll make sure it’s somewhere I can have kittens. Thank you.’
Later, while Alfie and Posy were playing with their presents and her kittens were curled up on the sofa asleep, Hayley slipped away to the kitchen.
This was the perfect Christmas, wasn’t it?
Snow falling outside the window and children laughing in the next room.
She worked steadily and without fuss and when she eventually placed the bronzed turkey in the centre of the table, Alfie gasped and clapped his hands.
‘For once it looks the way it always looks in the pictures. Thanks, Hayley. I’m starving.’
Lunch was a noisy, happy affair. Crackers were pulled, jokes were read and paper hats were worn, although Hayley had to make use of a roll of tape in order to stop Posy’s from falling down around her neck.
She was just setting light to the Christmas pudding when Patrick’s mobile rang.
He fished it out of his pocket, frowning as he saw the number. ‘Excuse me—I need to answer this. Tom?’ Moving away from the table, he strolled to the other end of the living room and Hayley’s gaze lingered on his broad shoulders.
‘Hayley, the pudding is going to fall off the plate,’ Alfie said helpfully, and she gave a start and concentrated on what she was doing.
‘Pudding?’ But she could still hear Patrick talking.
‘Well, it’s her first labour…No, I wouldn’t think so…Calm down, will you?’
‘Someone is in trouble,’ Alfie predicted, pouring brandy sauce onto his pudding. ‘Is this alcoholic? Am I going to get drunk?’
‘You’re not going to get drunk.’
‘Good, because the next thing that’s going to happen is that Dad is going to come off the phone and say he has to go to the hospital.’
Patrick slipped the phone back into his pocket and strode back to them. ‘I’m really sorry but I’m going to have to go to the hospital.’
‘Told you.’ Alfie leaned across the table and pushed the candle away from his sister’s fingers. ‘Don’t touch that, Pose, or you’ll be going to the hospital too. In an ambulance. What is it this time, Dad? Twins?’
‘No.’ Patrick looked distracted. ‘Tom Hunter’s wife has gone into labour. And he’s worried about her.’
‘Tom works with Dad,’ Alfie told Hayley, and Patrick gave a frown of apology.
‘Sorry, Hayley.’
‘It’s fine. Do you want pudding or are you going straight in? I can stay with the children.’
‘It’s more complicated than that.’ Patrick ran a hand over the back of his neck, and then looked at her thoughtfully. ‘You’re a midwife.’
Hayley slowly put the pudding down on the table, wondering where this was leading. ‘You know I’m a midwife.’
‘We’re chronically short of midwives at the moment—particularly over the Christmas period. People are being struck down by flu and apparently there isn’t an agency midwife to be had north of Birmingham. Tom’s worried that Sally won’t have continuity of care.’
‘I registered with the agency when I arrived in the UK, but I haven’t—’
‘You’re already registered?’ Patrick’s face cleared. ‘Fantastic. In that case, is there any way I can persuade you to come to the hospital with me?’
‘No way!’ Alfie shot to his feet, his eyes fierce. ‘You are not leaving us with Mrs Thornton on Christmas Day! I want to stay with Hayley.’
‘You can both come to the hospital,’ Patrick said immediately, scooping Posy out of her chair. ‘Alfie, go and pack a backpack with all her toys and a change of clothes. You can play in my office. Bring some DVDs.’
‘Yippee!’ Alfie bounced towards the Christmas tree where the presents were still scattered. ‘There’s always loads of chocolate at the hospital. Will Aunty Mags be there?’
‘Yes.’
‘W-wait a minute,’ Hayley stammered. ‘I can’t just turn up and work. I’m not sure they’d want me to just—’
‘I’ll call Human Resources on the way in and they can do whatever it is they need to do.’
‘Human Resources?’ Hayley gaped at him. ‘But it’s Christmas Day! They’re not working.’
‘My dad is really important,’ Alfie said proudly as he reappeared, carrying a bulging rucksack. ‘If he says someone has to do something, they have to do it.’
Patrick lifted an eyebrow. ‘I hadn’t noticed that rule applying to you.’
Alfie grinned. ‘That’s different. I’m your son. I get special treatment.’ He grabbed Posy and manoeuvred her into her coat. ‘Come on, Pose. We’re going to have fun.’
CHAPTER FOUR
‘SHE’S dilated less than two centimetres in the last four hours but she doesn’t want me to intervene,’ Tom said in a raw tone, his face pale and tired. ‘And I feel helpless. I’m an obstetrician! I’ve deli
vered hundreds of women, but I can’t think straight.’
‘That’s because she’s your wife.’ Patrick switched on the television in his office, pulled up two chairs and settled the children. ‘It’s different when you’re emotionally involved.’
‘Well, you know what Sally’s like—stubborn. I think the time has come to intervene but she refuses to even consider anything that constitutes aggressive management.’
‘I’ll take a look at her.’ Patrick removed his jacket and slung it over the chair. ‘This is Hayley. She’s going to be Sally’s personal midwife.’
Suddenly the focus of attention, Hayley turned pink. She wanted to open her mouth and protest that he’d never even seen her work, but Patrick was already ushering her along the corridor.
Without pausing, he pushed open the first door he came to and walked into the delivery suite.
Hayley looked around her in surprise. The room was light, bright and homely, with views across the mountains from the large picture window.
A petite woman sat on the bed in the middle of the room, concentrating on her breathing.
‘Sal?’ His voice gentle, Patrick strode across to the bed, leaned forward and kissed her on both cheeks. ‘You really pick your moments. I haven’t eaten my Christmas pudding.’
‘You’re a lousy obstetrician, Ric,’ the woman moaned. ‘You told me there was no way this baby would come until Boxing Day.’
‘I hate to disillusion you, babe, but it could well be Boxing Day.’ Patrick looked at the clock and then at the chart by the bed. ‘Not exactly motoring, are you?’
‘It’s definitely time to intervene,’ Tom said gruffly. ‘Sally, I really think you should—’
‘If you don’t shut up, Tom Hunter, I’m never speaking to you again. And I’m certainly not sleeping with you again. Not if this is the outcome.’ Sally screwed up her face as another pain hit her and Hayley saw Tom tense helplessly.
‘Sally—’
Like a wounded tigress, Sally growled at him. ‘Patrick, talk some sense into him. And here’s a hint—while you’re having that conversation I don’t want to hear the words amniotomy, oxytocin infusion, ventouse or forceps. And I definitely don’t want to hear Caesarean section. Or I am never again cooking you my special crispy duck or my lemon tart. Got that?’