Kitabı oku: «Christmas Miracle: Their Christmas Family Miracle», sayfa 3

CHAPTER THREE

EDWARD was waiting for her.

He was sitting on the top step, and his eyes were full of trepidation. ‘Well?’

‘We’re staying,’ she said with a smile, still not really believing it but so out of options that she had to make it work. ‘But he’d like us to spend the time up here unless we’re down in the breakfast room or kitchen cooking for him, so we don’t disturb him, because he had an accident skiing and he’s a bit sore. He needs to sleep.’

‘So can I unpack my things again?’ Kitty asked, appearing on the landing, her little face puzzled and a bulging carrier bag dangling from her fingers.

‘Yes, darling. We can all unpack, and then we need to go downstairs very quietly and tidy up the kitchen and see what I can find to cook us for supper.’

Not that there was much, but she’d have to make something proper for Jake, and she had no idea how she’d achieve that with no ingredients and no money to buy any. Maybe there was something in his freezer?

‘I’ll be very, very quiet,’ Kitty whispered, her grey eyes serious, and tiptoed off to her room with bag in hand and her finger pressed over her lips.

It worked until she bumped into the door frame and the bag fell out of her hand and landed on the floor, the book in the top falling out with a little thud. Her eyes widened like saucers, and for one awful minute Millie thought she was going to cry.

‘It’s all right, darling, you don’t have to be that quiet,’ she said with an encouraging smile, and Edward, ever his little sister’s protector, picked up his own bag and went back into the bedroom and hugged her, then helped her put her things away while Millie unpacked all the baby’s things again.

He was still sleeping. Innocence was such a precious gift, she thought, her eyes filling, and blinking hard, she turned away and went to the window, drawn by the sound of a car. Looking down on the drive as the floodlights came on, she realised it was Kate.

Of course. Dear Kate, rushing to her rescue, coming to smooth things over with Jake.

Who was sleeping.

‘Keep an eye on Thomas, I’m going to let Kate in,’ she said to Edward and ran lightly down the stairs, arriving in the hall just as Kate turned the heavy handle and opened the door.

‘Oh, Millie, I’m so sorry I’ve been so long, but Megan was in the bath and I had to dry her hair before I brought her out in the cold,’ she said in a rush. ‘Where are the children?’

‘Upstairs. It’s all right, we’re staying. Megan, do you want to go up and see them while I make Mummy a coffee?’

‘I don’t have time for a coffee, I need to see Jake. I’ve got to try and reason with him—what do you mean, you’re staying?’ she added, her eyes widening.

‘Shh. He’s asleep. Go on, Megan, it’s all right, but please be quiet because Jake’s not well.’

Megan nodded seriously. ‘I’ll be very quiet,’ she whispered and ran upstairs, her little feet soundless on the thick carpet. Kate took Millie by the arm and towed her into the breakfast room and closed the door.

‘So what’s going on?’ she asked in a desperate undertone. ‘I thought you’d be packed and leaving?’

Amelia shook her head. ‘No. He’s broken his wrist and he’s battered from end to end, and I think he’s probably messed his knee up, too, so he needs someone to cook for him and run round after him.’

Kate’s jaw dropped. ‘So he’s employing you?’

Millie felt her mouth twist into a wry smile. ‘Not exactly employing,’ she admitted, remembering his blunt words with an inward wince. ‘But we can stay in exchange for helping him, so long as I keep the children out of his way.’

‘And the dog? Does he even know about the dog?’

She smiled. ‘Ah, well, now. Apparently he likes the dog, doesn’t he, Rufus?’ she murmured, looking down at him. He was stuck on her leg, sensing the need to behave, his eyes anxious, and she felt him quiver.

When she glanced back up, Kate was staring at her openmouthed. ‘He likes the dog?’ she hissed.

‘His grandmother had one. He doesn’t go a bundle on the Christmas decorations, though,’ she added ruefully with a pointed glance at the light fitting. ‘Come on, let’s make a drink and take it upstairs to the kids.’

‘He was going to put a kitchen up there,’ Kate told her as she boiled the kettle. ‘Just a little one, enough to make drinks and snacks, but he hasn’t got round to it yet. Pity. It would have been handy for you.’

‘It would. Still, I only need to bring the children down if I’m actually cooking. We’re quite all right up in the playroom, and at least it’ll give us a little breathing space before we have to find somewhere to go.’

‘And, actually, it’s a huge relief,’ Kate said, sagging back against the worktop and folding her arms. ‘I was wondering what to do about Jake—I mean, I couldn’t leave him here on his own over Christmas when he’s injured, but my house is going to be heaving and noisy and chaotic, and I would have had to run backwards and forwards—so you’ve done me a massive favour. And, you never know, maybe you’ll all have a good time together! In fact—’

Amelia cut her off with a laugh and a raised hand. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said firmly, remembering his bitterly sarcastic opening remarks. ‘But if we can just keep out of his way, maybe we’ll all survive.’

She handed Kate her drink, picked up her own mug and then hesitated. No matter how rude and sarcastic he’d been, he was still a human being and for that alone he deserved her consideration, and he was injured and exhausted and probably not thinking straight. ‘I ought to check on him,’ she said, putting her mug back down. ‘He was talking about malt whisky.’

‘So? Don’t worry, he’s not a drinker. He won’t have had much.’

‘On top of painkillers?’

‘Ah. What were they?’

‘Goodness knows—something pretty heavy-duty. Nothing I recognised. Not paracetamol, that’s for sure!’

‘Oh, hell. Where is he?’

‘Just next door in the little sitting room.’

‘I’ll go—’

‘No. Let me. He was pretty cross.’

Kate laughed softly. ‘You think I’ve never seen him cross?’

So they went together, opening the door silently and pushing it in until they could see him sprawled full length on the sofa, one leg dangling off the edge, his cast resting across his chest, his head lolling against the arm.

Kate frowned. ‘He doesn’t look very comfortable.’

He didn’t, but at least there was no sign of the whisky. Amelia went into the room and picked up a soft velvety cushion and tucked it under his bruised cheek to support his head better. He grunted and shifted slightly and she froze, waiting for those piercing slate grey eyes to open and stab her with a hard, angry glare, but then he relaxed, settling his face down against the pillow with a little sigh, and she let herself breathe again.

It was chilly in there, though, and she had refused to let Kate turn the heating up. She could do it now but, in the meantime, he ought to have something over him. She spotted a throw over the back of the other sofa and lowered it carefully over him, tucking it in to keep the draughts off until the heat kicked in.

Then she tiptoed out, glancing back over her shoulder as she reached the door.

Did she imagine it or had his eyelids fluttered? She wasn’t sure, but she didn’t want to hang around and provoke him if she’d disturbed him, so she pushed Kate out and closed the door softly behind them.

‘Can you turn the heating up?’ she murmured to Kate, and she nodded and went into his study and fiddled with a keypad on the wall.

‘He looks awful,’ Kate said, sparing the door of the room another glance as she tapped keys and reprogrammed the heating. ‘He’s got bruises all over his face and neck. It must have been a hell of an avalanche.’

‘He didn’t say, but he’s very sore and stiff. I expect he’s got bruises all over his body,’ Millie said, trying not to think about his body in too much detail but failing dismally. She stifled the little whimper that rose in her throat.

Why?

Why, of all the men to bring her body out of the freezer, did it have to be Jake? There was no way he’d be interested in her—even if she hadn’t upset and alienated him by taking such a massive liberty with his house, to all intents and purposes moving into his house as a squatter, she’d then compounded her sins by telling him what to do!

And he most particularly wouldn’t be interested in her children. In fact it was probably the dog who was responsible for his change of heart.

Oh, well, it was just as well he wouldn’t be interested in her, because there was no way her life was even remotely stable or coherent enough at the moment for her to contemplate a relationship. Frankly, she wasn’t sure it ever would be again and, if it was, it certainly wouldn’t be with another empire builder. She’d had it with the entrepreneurial type, big time.

But there was just something about Jake Forrester that called to something deep inside her, something that had lain undisturbed for years, and she was going to have to ignore it and get through these next few days and weeks until they could find somewhere else. And maybe then she’d get her sanity back.

‘Come on, let’s go back up and leave him to sleep,’ she said, crossing her fingers and hoping that he slept for a good long while and woke in a rather better mood …

He was hot.

He’d been cold, but he’d been too tired and sore to bother to get the throw, but someone must have been in and covered him, because it was snuggled round him, and there was a pillow under his face and the lingering scent of a familiar fragrance.

Kate. She must have come over and covered him up. Hell. He hadn’t meant her to turn out on such a freezing night with little Megan. He should have rung her back, he realised, after he’d spoken to Amelia, but he’d been high as a kite on the rather nice drugs the French doctor had given him and he hadn’t even thought about it.

Damn.

He rolled onto his back and his breath caught. Ouch. That was quite a bruise on his left hip. And his knee desperately needed some ice, and his arm hurt. Even through the painkillers.

He struggled off the sofa, eventually escaping from the confines of the throw with an impatient tug and straightening up with a wince. The gel pack was in the freezer in the kitchen. It wasn’t far.

Further than he thought, he realised, swaying slightly and pausing while the world steadied. He took a step, then another, and blinked hard to clear his head.

Amelia was right, he shouldn’t have too many of those damn painkillers. They were turning his brain to mush. And it was probably just as well he hadn’t taken them with whisky either, he thought with regret. Not that she’d been about to give him any, the bossy witch.

Amelia. Millie.

No, Amelia. Millie didn’t suit her. It was a little girl’s name and, whatever else she was, she was all woman. And damn her for making him notice the fact.

He limped into the breakfast room and saw that Edward had done a pretty good job of removing the branches and berries from the floor in front of the fire. He felt his brow pleat into a frown, and stifled the pang of guilt. It was his house. If he didn’t want decorations in it, it was perfectly reasonable to say so.

But had he had to be so harsh?

No, was the simple answer. Especially to the kids. Oh, rats. He made his way carefully through to the kitchen, took the pack out of the freezer and wrapped it in a tea towel, then went back to the breakfast room and sat down in the chair near the fire and propped the ice pack over his knee. Better.

Or it would be, in about a week. It was only a bruise, not a ligament rupture, thankfully. He’d done that before on the other knee, and he didn’t need to do it again, but he realised he’d been lucky not to be smashed to bits on the tree or the rock field.

Very lucky.

He eased back in the chair cautiously and thought with longing of the whisky. It was a particularly smooth old single malt, smoky and peaty, with a lovely complex aftertaste. Or was that afterburn?

Whatever, it was in the drinks cupboard in the drawing room, and he wasn’t convinced he could summon up the energy to walk all the way to the far end of the house and back again, so he closed his eyes and fantasised that he was on Islay, sitting in an old croft house with a peat fire at his feet, a collie instead of a little spaniel leaning on his leg and a glass of liquid gold in his hand.

He could all but taste it. Pity he couldn’t. Pity it was only in his imagination, because then he’d be able to put Amelia and her children out of his mind.

Or he would have been able to, if it hadn’t been for the baby crying.

‘Oh, Thomas, sweetheart, what’s the matter, little one?’

She couldn’t believe he was doing this. She’d fed him just before Jake had arrived home, but now he was awake and he wouldn’t settle again and he was starting to sob into her chest, letting fly with a scream that she was sure would travel all the way down to Jake.

He couldn’t be hungry, not really, but he obviously wanted a bottle of milk, and that meant going back down to the kitchen and heating it, taking the screaming baby with her, and by the time she’d done that, he would certainly have disturbed her reluctant host. Unless she left him with Edward?

‘Darling, could you please look after him for a moment while I get him his bottle?’ she asked, and Edward, being Edward, just nodded and held his arms out, and carried Thomas off towards the bedroom and closed the door.

She ran lightly downstairs to the sound of his escalating wails. As she hurried into the breakfast room, she came face to face with Jake sitting by the fire, an ice pack on his knee and the dog at his side.

She skidded to a halt and his eyes searched her face. ‘Is the baby all right?’

She nodded. ‘Yes—I’m sorry. I just need to make him a bottle. He’ll settle then. I’m really sorry—’

‘Why didn’t you bring him down?’

‘I didn’t want to wake you.’ She chewed her lip, only too conscious of the fact that he was very much awake. Awake and up and about and looking rumpled and disturbingly attractive, with the dark shadow of stubble on his firm jaw and the subtle drift of a warm, slightly spicy cologne reaching her nostrils.

‘I was awake,’ he told her, his voice a little gruff. ‘I put a gel pack on my knee, and I was about to make some tea. Want to join me?’

‘Oh—I can’t, I’ve left the baby with Edward.’

‘Bring them all down. Maybe I should meet them—since they’re staying in my house.’

Oh, Lord. ‘Let me just make the bottle so it can be cooling, and then we’ll get a little peace and I can introduce you properly.’

He nodded, his mouth twitching into a slight smile, and she felt relief flood through her at this tiny evidence of his humanity. She went into the kitchen and spooned formula into a bottle, then poured hot water from the kettle on it, shook it and plonked it into a bowl of cold water. Thankfully there had been some water in the kettle so it didn’t have to cool from boiling, she thought as she ran back upstairs and collected the children, suddenly ludicrously conscious of how scruffy they looked after foraging in the woods, and how apprehensive.

‘Hey, it’s all right, he wants to meet you,’ she murmured reassuringly to Kitty, who was clinging to her, and then pushed the breakfast room door open and ushered them in.

He was putting wood on the fire, and as he closed the door and straightened up, he caught sight of them and turned. The smile was gone, his face oddly taut, and her own smile faltered for a moment.

‘Kids, this is Mr Forrester—’

‘Jake,’ he said, cutting her off and taking a step forward. His mouth twisted into a smile. ‘I’ve already met Edward. And you must be Kitty. And this, I take it, is Thomas?’

‘Yes.’

Thomas, sensing the change of atmosphere, had gone obligingly silent, but after a moment he lost interest in Jake and anything except his stomach and, burrowing into her shoulder, he began to wail again.

‘I’m sorry. I—’

‘Go on, feed him. I gave the bottle a shake to help cool it.’

‘Thanks.’ She went into the kitchen, wondering how he knew to do that. Nieces and nephews, probably—although he’d said he didn’t have any family. How odd, she thought briefly, but then Thomas tried to lunge out of her arms and she fielded him with the ease of practice and tested the bottle on her wrist.

Cool enough. She shook it again, tested it once more to be on the safe side and offered it to her son.

Silence. Utter, blissful silence, broken only by a strained chuckle.

‘Oh, for such simple needs,’ he said softly, and she turned and met his eyes. They were darker than before, and his mouth was set in a grim line despite the laugh. But then his expression went carefully blank and he limped across to the kettle. ‘So—who has tea, and who wants juice or whatever else?’

‘We haven’t got any juice. The children will have water.’

‘Sounds dull.’

‘They’re fine with it. It’s good for them.’

‘I don’t doubt it. It’s good for me, too, but that doesn’t mean I drink it. Except in meetings. I get through gallons of it in meetings. So—is that just me, or are you going to join me?’

‘Oh.’ Join him? That sounded curiously—intimate. ‘Yes, please,’ she said, and hoped she didn’t sound absurdly breathless. It’s a cup of tea, she told herself crossly. Just a cup of tea. Nothing else. She didn’t want anything else. Ever.

And if she told herself that enough times, maybe she’d start to believe it.

‘Have the children eaten?’

‘Thomas has. Edward and Kitty haven’t. I was going to wait until you woke up and ask you what you wanted.’

‘Anything. I’m not really hungry after that sandwich. What is there?’

‘I have no idea. I’ll give the children eggs on toast—’

‘Again?’ Kitty said plaintively. ‘We had eggs on toast for supper last night.’

‘I’m sure we can find something else,’ their host was saying, rummaging in a tall cupboard with pull-out racking that was crammed with tins and jars and packets. ‘What did you all have for lunch?’

‘Jam sandwiches and an apple.’

He turned and studied Kitty thoughtfully, then his gaze flicked up to Amelia’s and speared her. ‘Jam sandwiches?’ he said softly. ‘Eggs on toast?’

She felt her chin lift, but he just frowned and turned back to the cupboard, staring into its depths blankly for a moment before shutting it and opening the big door beside it and going systematically through the drawers of the freezer.

‘How about fish?’

‘What sort? They don’t eat smoked fish or fish fingers.’

‘Salmon—and mixed shellfish. A lobster,’ he added, rummaging. ‘Raw king prawns—there’s some Thai curry paste somewhere I just saw. Or there’s probably a casserole if you don’t fancy fish.’

‘Whatever. Choose what you want. We’ll have eggs.’

He frowned again, shut the freezer and studied her searchingly.

She wished he wouldn’t do that. Her arm was aching, Thomas was starting to loll against her shoulder and if she was sitting down, she could probably settle him and get him off to sleep so she could concentrate on feeding the others—most particularly their reluctant host.

After all, she’d told him she could cook—

‘Go and sit down. I’ll order a takeaway,’ he said softly, and she looked back up into his eyes and surprised a gentle, almost puzzled expression in them for a fleeting moment before he turned away and limped out. ‘What do they like?’ he asked over his shoulder, then turned to the children. ‘What’s it to be, kids? Pizza? Chinese? Curry? Kebabs? Burgers?’

‘What’s a kebab?’

‘Disgusting. Anyway, you’re having eggs, Kitty, we’ve already decided that.’

Over their heads she met his eyes defiantly, and saw a reluctant grin blossom on his firm, sculpted lips. ‘OK, we’ll have eggs. Do we have enough?’

We? Her eyes widened. ‘For all of us?’

‘Am I excluded?’

She ran a mental eye over the meagre contents of the fridge and relaxed. ‘Of course not.’

‘Good. Then we’ll have omelettes and oven-baked potato wedges and peas, if that’s OK? Now, for heaven’s sake sit down, woman, before you drop the baby, and I’ll make you a cup of tea.’

‘I thought I was supposed to be looking after you?’ she said, but one glare from those rather gorgeous slate grey eyes and she retreated to the comfort of the fireside, settling down in the chair he’d been using with a sigh of relief. She’d have her tea, settle Thomas in his cot and make supper.

For all of them, apparently. So—was he going to sit and eat with them? He’d been so anti his little army of squatters, so what had brought about this sudden change?

Jake pulled the mugs out of the cupboard and then contemplated the lid of the tea caddy. Tea bags, he decided, with only one useful hand, not leaves and the pot, and putting the caddy back, he dropped tea bags into the mugs and poured water on them. Thank God it was his left arm he’d broken, not his right. At least he could manage most things like this.

The stud on his jeans was a bit of a challenge, he’d discovered, but he’d managed to get them on this morning. Shoelaces were another issue, but he’d kicked his shoes off when he’d got in and he’d been padding around in his socks, and he had shoes without laces he could wear until the blasted cast came off.

But cooking—well, cooking would be a step too far, he thought, but by some minor intervention of fate he seemed to have acquired an answer to that one. A feisty, slightly offbeat and rather delightful answer. Easy on the eye. And with a voice that seemed to dig right down inside him and tug at something long forgotten.

It was the kids he found hardest, of course, but it was the kids he was most concerned about, because their mother was obviously struggling to hold things together. And she wasn’t coping very well with it—or maybe, he thought, reconsidering as he poked the tea bags with the spoon, she was coping very well, against atrocious odds. Whatever, a staple diet of bread and eggs wasn’t good for anyone and, as he knew from his experience with the cheese sandwich, it wasn’t even decent bread. Perfectly nutritious, no doubt, but closely related to cotton wool.

He put the milk down and poured two glasses of filtered water for Edward and Kitty. ‘Hey, you guys, come and get your drinks,’ he said, and they ran over, Edward more slowly, Kitty skipping, head on one side in a gesture so like her mother’s he nearly laughed.

‘So—what are kebabs, really?’ she asked, twizzling a lock of hair with one forefinger, and he did laugh then, the sound dragged out of him almost reluctantly.

‘Well—there are different kinds. There’s shish kebab, which is pieces of meat on skewers, a bit like you’d put on a barbecue, or there’s doner kebab, which is like a great big sausage on a stick, and they turn it in front of a fire to cook it and slice bits off. You have both in a kind of bread pocket, with salad, and your mother’s right, the doner kebabs certainly aren’t very healthy—well, not the ones in this country. In Turkey they’re fantastic.’

‘They don’t sound disgusting,’ Kitty said wistfully. ‘I like sausages on sticks.’

‘Maybe we can get some sausages and put sticks in them,’ Edward said, and Jake realised he was the peacemaker in the family, trying to hold it all together, humouring Kitty and helping with Thomas and supporting his mother—and the thought that he should have to do all that left a great hollow in the pit of Jake’s stomach.

No child should have to do that. He’d spent years doing that, fighting helplessly against the odds to keep it all together, and for what?

‘Good idea,’ he said softly. ‘We’ll get some sausages tomorrow.’ He gathered up the mugs in his right hand and limped through to the breakfast room and put them down on the table near Amelia. She looked up with a smile.

‘Thanks,’ she murmured, and he found his eyes drawn down to the baby, sleeping now, his chubby little face turned against her chest, arm outflung, dead to the world. A great lump in his throat threatened to choke him, and he nodded curtly, took his mug and went back to the other room, shutting the door firmly so he couldn’t hear the children’s voices.

He couldn’t do this. It was killing him, and he couldn’t do it.

He’d meant to sit with her, talk to her, but the children had unravelled him and he couldn’t sit there and look at them, he discovered. Not today. Not the day before Christmas Eve.

The day his wife and son had died.