He smiled then. And she had no hope whatsoever of controlling the way her heart pitter-pattered.
Or the way the breath hitched in her throat.
His gaze lowered to her mouth and his eyes darkened to a deep stormy blue. The air between them crackled with energy and electricity.
He shot off the sofa. ‘Goodnight, Nicola.’
Pitter-patter. Pitter-patter. She closed her eyes. ‘Goodnight, Cade.’
* * *
The next morning Nicola rose at six o’clock. A peek into Ella’s room and then the boys’ room confirmed they all still slept soundly. Holly would sleep through to her usual seven o’clock, but Nicola had fully expected to find the other children wide awake and bouncing off walls.
She sneaked down to the stables to give Scarlett a Christmas carrot. Jack and several of the other stockmen and jackaroos were holding their own Christmas festivities in the stockmen’s quarters, so she left a box of old English toffee, that she’d discovered Jack had a fondness for, on the bench by his front door where he had his morning coffee. He should find it first thing.
She turned to make her way back to the homestead, but paused to drink in the early morning air. At this time of the day the light was clear and crisp. The landscape didn’t yet shimmer with its usual heat haze, and the light was easy on the eyes. It allowed her to survey, unhindered, all the natural rugged beauty of the place before the sun blazed down with its hard blinding ferocity.
The khaki-green of the mulga scrub contrasted prettily with the yellow-white of the grass...and beneath it all the red dirt of the Outback. She hadn’t expected to find so much beauty out here in the western reaches of Queensland. She hadn’t fully appreciated it when she’d first arrived. But this place and its people had helped her heal and she gave thanks that she could now see and appreciate the stark and ancient grandeur of the landscape. And that she had the best part of another month in which to enjoy it.
Christmas at Waminda Downs! An optimism she hadn’t allowed herself to feel for this day since she was a child welled in her now. She grinned and then set off at a trot for the homestead.
Entering her room via the French windows, the first thing Nicola saw was Ella sitting in the middle of her double bed. Her heart tripped. Had Ella panicked when she hadn’t been able to find her? Had she leapt to the conclusion that, just like her mother, Nicola hadn’t kept her promise and had deserted her?
‘Hey, chickadee!’ She swept her up in her arms for a hug and then plonked them both back down on the bed. ‘Merry Christmas.’
‘Merry Christmas.’ A smile warred with a frown on the child’s face.
‘I went down to the stables to wish Scarlett a merry Christmas,’ she confided.
‘I thought you were in the bathroom.’
Okay, Ella hadn’t been worried about her whereabouts, so...?
‘Excited?’ she asked.
‘What if Santa didn’t come?’ the little girl blurted out. ‘He forgot last year.’
Ah, the puzzle pieces slotted into place.
‘Did you look?’ Ella whispered. ‘Was there anything in our stockings?’
She understood it wasn’t the presents that Ella needed. It was the magic and the hope. ‘I haven’t looked yet. Do you want to go and do that now?’
Ella nodded, and while she was too big to be carried much any more, Nicola knew that the child needed the security. So she lifted her up onto her hip and started towards the living room.
Then she halted.
Ella’s bottom lip started to quiver, but Nicola winked at her. ‘You know, I think we need your daddy for this too.’ She detoured to Cade’s room and knocked on his door. A muffled sound emerged that she chose to interpret as a ‘what?’ or a ‘yes?’ rather than an oath.
‘Wake up, sleepy-head, the fun’s about to start and you don’t want to miss it.’
‘Don’t you dare start without me!’
There was a thump and a couple of bumps and a muffled curse or two and Ella giggled. ‘Daddy’s funny.’
‘Hilarious,’ he growled, flinging the door open and seizing Ella in his arms and swinging her around until she squealed.
His T-shirt was rumpled, his hair dishevelled and Nicola’s blood heated up.
‘Daddy—’ Ella clasped him tight about the neck ‘—we have to see if Santa’s been.’
Nicola shook herself, trying to dispel images that had nothing to do with Christmas and everything to do with Cade and rumpled sheets. ‘We...uh...thought you might like to join us.’
‘You were right.’
His blue eyes sent her a simple message—thank you. It turned her to mush.
Oh, grow a backbone, Nicola Ann!
She ousted her mother’s voice from her head immediately. It was Christmas. She wasn’t going to tolerate that voice today.
‘Shall I lead the way?’ she asked Ella.
Ella nodded and, without further ado, Nicola set off for the living room. She might not need a backbone, but a little steel in her legs wouldn’t have gone amiss. The presence of warm male flesh moving so closely behind her leached the strength from her limbs with each step she took.
She hummed “Jingle Bells” under her breath in an effort to ignore and counter her traitorous body’s reaction. Her newfound Christmas optimism and excitement—it left her so much more receptive to...to other things it would be wiser not to name.
She paused on the threshold of the living room, caught Ella’s eye and smiled, and then with an arm partly around the little girl and partly around the father who carried her, she swept them all into the room.
Ella’s eyes widened. They grew as large as frisbees as she stared at each of the stockings tacked to the mantelpiece, all full to bursting.
‘See, sweetie? Didn’t I tell you Santa would come?’
Ella pressed her face to Cade’s neck and promptly burst into tears.
He stared at Nicola over the top of Ella’s head, his eyes wide with panic.
Nicola shook her head and gave him a thumbs-up. ‘Excitement,’ she mouthed silently.
In no time, Ella wriggled from her father’s arms and had seized her stocking, squealing in delight as she extracted her bounty.
In less than ten minutes, the rest of the family had joined them, Verity carrying Holly. With nothing to do but to watch and enjoy, Nicola sat back and took it all in, soaked up the joy and awe of the children, the warmth and affection of the adults and the promised magic of the day.
‘You okay?’ Cade asked, plonking himself beside her on the sofa, one of his hands resting briefly on her knee.
‘Yes, of course. I...’
To her horror, she found her eyes prickling with tears. Cade’s expression sharpened in a heartbeat. He moved towards her but she shook her head, gave him a thumbs-up and mouthed ‘excitement’ to him. He grinned then and she was grateful she witnessed it through a sheen of tears or it might well have slayed her where she sat.
When she was sure she could speak without disgracing herself, she said, ‘I’ve never seen anything like this before except on the telly. I’ve never experienced this much...unadulterated joy.’
His eyes softened, those amazing blue eyes that could look as hard as the sky or as soft as a breeze, depending on their mood. ‘Nic—’
‘No, no.’ She didn’t want him feeling sorry for her. ‘It’s wonderful.’ She beamed at him. ‘I want to thank you for letting me be a part of it.’
She couldn’t
explain to him what a privilege she found it...or what a revelation. In Melbourne she’d developed a veneer of cynicism about Christmas to protect herself from disappointment and inevitable letdown. She realised now how self-defeating that had become. She made a vow to dispense with that cynicism for good. Christmas should never be a chore or something to run away from. It should be celebrated and cherished.
* * *
Cade tried to keep his attention on the children—on their merriment, their wide-eyed delight and their comical glee with their presents—but the smell of strawberry jam filled his senses and he found his eyes returning to Nicola again and again.
Her eyes shone with as much delight as the children’s. A soft smile curved her lips. He found it particularly hard to drag his gaze from those soft, plump, kissable, strawberry-jam-scented curves. If he could have just one Christmas wish, it would be for another taste of those lips. Not a quick brush of his lips against hers, but a thorough and devastating rediscovery of their shape and texture, of their give and take, of their taste and the way her body with its killer curves melted into his when—
‘Daddy?’ A tug on his shirtsleeve brought him back with a start. A glance at Nicola’s pink-tinged cheeks told him his hungry survey hadn’t gone unobserved.
Friends! He’d promised they’d be friends. Nothing more.
He swiped a forearm across his brow. He had to get these darn hormones back under wraps before they flared out of control and brought him undone. But, damn it, they dodged and weaved and bucked his restraint with greater ferocity than the brumbies he’d been breaking in these last few weeks.
‘Daddy?’ Another tug.
‘What, princess?’
‘When can we open the presents under the tree?’
The presents under the tree were from the family members to each other.
Ella hopped from one foot to the other. ‘I have five presents under there!’
He understood the lure and excitement of presents—he’d admit to a certain amount of curiosity about the present under there with his name on the gift tag, written in Nicola’s neat schoolteacher’s hand—but he didn’t want his daughter growing up to think that was all Christmas was about.
‘Not until after Grandma reads us the Christmas story after breakfast. Then we’ll all take turns to say what we’re grateful for. That was a tradition from his own childhood.
Ella leaned in close. ‘I’m grapeful for lots and lots of things, Daddy.’ She climbed up onto his knee and snuggled in close. ‘I’m very grapeful that Santa came, that he didn’t forget. And I’m grapeful that you’re here and Holly and Grandma and Nic and Harry and Auntie Dee and Uncle Keith and Simon and Jamie...and that it’s like a big party.’ She glanced up at him. ‘Aren’t you grapeful for that?’
His chest expanded until he thought it might explode. He had to swallow before he could speak, infected by all that darn female emotion that had been flying around no doubt. ‘You bet.’
But as Ella slid off his knee with a final squeeze, he knew he couldn’t blame anyone else for the prickle of heat that threatened his eyes and his heart. He’d accomplished what he’d set out to—he’d given his daughters the Christmas they deserved. It filled him up and made him breathe easier. He would never neglect Christmas again. Never. It was too important. In a world that could be cold and brutal, it was too...necessary.
He glanced at Nicola. His children’s infuriatingly delightful nanny had helped him make this day a reality, just like she’d promised she would. He wondered if she realised that was because of who she innately was, though, rather than some artificial taking part that she’d felt obliged to perform.
He closed his eyes for a moment when he recalled Ella’s heartbreaking question about her mother the previous night. He was grateful now—so grateful—that Nicola had answered the way she had. There might be tears over Fran before the day was through, but Nicola was right—he could only control those things that lay in his power. Fran did not come under that particular banner. He could rest safe in the knowledge that he’d done everything he could to give his girls the Christmas they deserved. But rather than Ella or Holly, his gaze returned constantly to Nicola.
* * *
Nicola, Dee and Verity laughed in unison when they unwrapped their gifts from each other—they’d bought one another silk scarves, admired together from the same website. The children all momentarily glanced up from the Amazing Facts picture books and activity packs that Nicola had bought for them, but they quickly went back to oohing and ahhing over their pictures. Cade shot Harry a surreptitious glance to find she was grinning too, and sporting her Wonder Woman apron—again, one of Nicola’s gifts—with pride.
He stretched his legs out, leaned back and savoured the moment. Then he seized two presents from beneath the tree and placed them into Nicola’s lap.
She glanced up at him with a shy smile. ‘Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome. Now open them.’
She tore the wrapping paper from the first, grinned and rolled her eyes. ‘What are you trying to do to my waistline?’ she demanded, holding up the biggest jar of chocolate-coated sultanas he’d been able to find.
‘A little indulgence is good for the soul,’ he countered, and then had to drag his gaze from her mouth. That wasn’t the kind of indulgence he’d meant.
He watched as she unwrapped the second gift. Her soft ‘Oh!’ and wide eyes were the only thanks he needed.
‘What did you get?’ Dee demanded.
Nicola held up her bounty. ‘Novels,’ she said, and her eyes shone. ‘Romance novels.’
‘Ooh, that looks like a good story,’ Dee said, ‘and I love that author.’
‘Let me see,’ Verity said. ‘Oh, I’ve read that one. It’s fabulous!’
But Nicola wasn’t looking at Dee or Verity, who were admiring the cache of books. She was staring straight at him with an expression that made him push his shoulders back.
‘You remembered.’
‘I did.’ It occurred to him that, as far as Nicola went, there’d be very little he’d ever forget. Her eyes and her smile told him he’d given her the perfect present. It hadn’t been much, but her true delight in the gift moved him far more than he’d expected. It made him suddenly awkward. It made him wish he could buy her a whole library of romance novels if that would make her happy.
‘Open yours,’ she urged with a nod towards his present under the tree. ‘It’s just something little. A joke really,’ she said.
Her eyes danced and anticipation fizzed through him. He didn’t need a second bidding. He seized the present and tore off the paper. He stared for a moment and then started to laugh. She’d given him the largest box of assorted chocolates and sweets he’d ever seen with a big Beware sticker plastered across the front. The accompanying note read: Please eat in moderation! Somehow she’d taken a bad memory, a moment of awfulness, and had turned it into something he could laugh about.
As he made a move to kiss her cheek, a second item fell out, wrapped in bubble-wrap. Intrigued, he unrolled it, and then a grin spread across his face. In his hand he held a finely wrought pewter figurine of a boxer.
Nicola grinned back at him. ‘I couldn’t resist.’
Verity stared from one to the other. ‘I sense there’s a story there.’
‘Perhaps,’ Nicola conceded. ‘Though maybe it’s more of a private joke.’
Her tact touched him, but he had no such qualms. ‘Very private,’ he declared, ‘
as I have no intention of ever telling anyone how you managed to flatten me when I gave you a boxing lesson.’
Dee promptly held her hand up and Nicola high-fived her. ‘What can I say?’ she said mock modestly. ‘Horse-riding and boxing—it appears I’m a natural at both.’
When Dee and Verity had turned away, caught up in admiring Keith’s gift to Verity—a lovely opal bracelet—Nicola nodded towards the tree again. That was when he saw a second present sporting his name on the gift tag in Nicola’s handwriting. ‘That one is from Ella and Holly.’
He glanced at his daughters and then ripped off the paper to find a photo frame—obviously decorated by them, no doubt with Nicola’s assistance. While he instantly loved the haphazard stars and lopsided flowers painted on the frame, it was the photo that caught his attention, and held it.
Ella and Holly didn’t just smile from the frame and they didn’t just giggle—their entire faces and bodies glowed and roared with laughter. It spoke of their youth and their innocence, and there was no shadow of the past sixteen months there—it was a moment of straight-down-the-line exhilaration.
And it stole his breath.
He suddenly realised why this Christmas—why making it so perfect for Ella and Holly—had become so important for him. He’d been searching for optimism, for hope for the future, and an assurance that they would all be okay.
He held that assurance in his hand.
He met Nicola’s gaze. ‘Thank you.’
CHAPTER NINE
NICOLA paused in the doorway to the living room and drank in the stillness and silence of the Christmas night. The children had all gone to bed a couple of hours ago, and it appeared that the rest of the household had retired too.
It had been a big day.
It had been the most amazing Christmas she’d ever had.
It was getting late, but she was still too keyed up to sleep. Perhaps she just wasn’t ready to let it all go yet. Sinking into the largest of the sofas, she slid sideways so she half-sat, half-lay across it, her head resting on its arm. So much fun had taken place in this room today. Her lips curved upwards as she remembered it all. And at the centre had been Cade.
The Nanny Who Saved Christmas Page 13