Christmas Miracle: Their Christmas Family Miracle

And now she knew what had been under that robe, it would be all the harder …

‘I don’t really know what you can do,’ she said, but he followed her anyway, and he managed one-handed to make himself very useful. He helped lift the turkey out of the dish, entertained Thomas while she warmed his lunch, and then blew on it and fed him while she made the gravy and put everything out into the serving dishes he’d found for her.

‘Lunch!’ she called, sticking her head round the door, and they came pelting down the hall and skidded into the breakfast room.

‘Oh, it looks really pretty!’ Kitty said. Jake lit the candle and she carried in the turkey and knew how Tiny Tim’s mother must have felt when Scrooge gave them the goose.

The food was delicious, and the children piled in, eating themselves to a standstill, and still there was enough there to feed an army.

‘I hope you’ve got a nice line in leftover recipes,’ Jake murmured as he carried it out to the kitchen and put it on the side, making her laugh.

‘Oh, I have. I can turn anything into a meal. Have you got any brandy to put over the pudding?’

‘I have—and holly. I picked it this morning. Here.’

He turned off the lights, and she carried in the flaming pudding by candlelight, making the children ooh and aah. Then, when they couldn’t manage another mouthful, they cleared the table and put on their warm, dry coats and went back out in the garden for a walk, with Rufus in his smart new tartan coat and Thomas snuggled on her hip in his all-in-one suit. When the children had run around and worked off their lunch and the adults had strolled all down the long walk from the house towards the woods, they turned back.

And, right in the middle of the lawn outside the bay window, Kitty stopped.

‘We have to make snow angels!’ she said. ‘Come on, everybody!’

‘Snow angels?’ Jake said, his voice taut, and Millie looked at him worriedly. Was this another memory they were trampling on? Oh, dear lord—

‘Yes—all of us! Come on, Jake, you’re the biggest, you can be the daddy angel!’

And, oblivious to the shocked reluctance on his face, she dragged him by the arm, made him lie down, and lay down beside him with her arms and legs outstretched and fanned them back and forth until she’d cleared the snow, and then she got up, laughing and pulled him to his feet.

‘Look! You’re so big!’ she said with a giggle. ‘Mummy, you lie down there on the other side, and then Edward, and Thomas, too—’

‘Not Thomas, darling, he’s too small, he doesn’t understand.’

‘Well, Jake can hold him while you and Edward make your snow angels,’ she said, bossy and persistent to the last. She looked into Jake’s eyes and saw gentle resignation.

‘I’ll take him,’ he said softly and, reaching out, he scooped him onto his right hip and held him firmly, one-handed, while she and Edward carved out their shapes in the snow, and then she took her baby back and they went inside to look, shedding their wet clothes all over again, only this time their trousers were wet as well, and they had to go up and change.

‘Hey, you guys, come and look,’ Jake called from his room, and they followed him in and stood in the bay window looking down on the little row of snow angels.

‘That’s so pretty!’ Kitty said. ‘Jake, take a picture!’

So he got out his phone and snapped a picture, then went along the landing and took another of the snowman. Afterwards they all went downstairs again and Kitty got out her book, and Edward got out the construction kit, and they set them up at the far end of the breakfast table and busied themselves while she loaded the dishwasher and cleared up the pots and pans.

There was no sign of Jake, but at least Thomas in his cot had stopped grizzling and settled into sleep.

Or so she thought, until Jake appeared in the doorway with her little son on his hip.

‘He’s a bit sorry for himself,’ Jake said with a tender smile, and handed him over. ‘Why don’t you sit down and I’ll make you a cup of tea?’

‘Because I’m supposed to be looking after you and all you’ve done is make me tea!’

‘You’ve been on your feet all day. Go on, shoo. I’ll do it. Anyway, I can’t sit, I’m too full.’

She laughed at that, and took Thomas through to the breakfast room, put him in his high chair with his shape sorter puzzle and sat down with the children while she waited for her tea.

‘Mummy, I can’t do this. I can’t work it out,’ Edward said, staring at the instructions and the zillions of pieces he was trying to put together. It was complicated—more complicated than anything he’d tackled yet, but she was sure he’d be able to do it.

And how clever of Jake to realise that he was very bright, she thought, as she saw the kit was for older children. Bright and brave and hugely talented in all sorts of ways, and yet his father couldn’t see it—just saw a quiet child with nothing to say for himself and no apparent personality.

Well, it was his loss, she thought, but of course it wasn’t—it was Edward’s, too, that he was so undervalued by the man who should have been so proud of him, should have nurtured and encouraged him. It wouldn’t have occurred to David to look into choir school. He would have thought it was sissy.

But there was nothing—nothing—sissy about Jake. In fact he was a lot like Edward—thorough, meticulous, paying attention to detail, noticing the little things, fixing stuff, making it right.

The nurturer, she realised, and wondered if he’d spent his childhood trying to stick his family back together again when clearly, from what she’d overheard, it had been broken beyond repair. How sad that when he’d found his own, it had been torn away from him.

And then he came out and sat down with them all, on the opposite side of the table, and slid the tea across to her. Edward looked up at him and said, ‘Can you give me a hand?’

‘Sure. What’s the problem?’ he asked, and bent his head over the instructions, sorted through the pieces and found the missing bit. ‘I think this needs to go in here,’ he said, and handed it to Edward. Didn’t take over, didn’t do it for him, did just enough to help him on his way and then sat back and let him do it.

He did, of course, bit by bit, with the occasional input from Jake to keep him on the straight and narrow, but there was a worrying touch of hero worship in his voice. She only hoped they could all get through this and emerge unscathed without too many broken hopes and dreams, because, although Jake was doing nothing she could fault, Edward was lapping up every moment of his attention, desperate for a father figure in his life, for a man who understood him.

And she was dreading the day they moved out, to wherever they ended up, and she had to take him away from Jake.

She doubted Jake was dreading it. He was putting up with the invasion of his privacy with incredible fortitude, but she had no doubts at all that he’d be glad when they left and he could settle back into his own routine without all the painful reminders.

Sadly, she didn’t think it would be any time soon, but all too quickly reality was going to intervene and she’d have to start sending out her CV again and trying to get another job. Maybe Jake would let her use the Internet so she could do that.

But not now. It was Christmas, and she was going to keep smiling and make sure everyone enjoyed it.

Jake included.

He thought the day would never end.

It had been fun—much more fun than he could have imagined—but it was also painful. Physically, because he was still sore from his encounter with the trees and the rocks in France, and emotionally, because the kids were great and it just underlined exactly what he’d lost.

And until that day, he’d avoided thinking about it, had shut his heart and his mind to such thoughts.

But he couldn’t shut them out any more; they seeped in, like light round the edges of a blind, and while Millie was putting the children to bed he went into his little sitting room and closed the door. There was a video of them all taken on Ben’s second birthday, and he’d never watched it again, but it was there, tormenting him.

So he put it on, and he watched his little son and the wife he’d loved to bits laughing into the camera, and he let the tears fall. Healing tears—tears that washed away the pain and left bittersweet memories of happier days. Full days.

Days like today.

And then he took the DVD out and put it away again, and lay down on the sofa and dozed. He was tired, he realised. He’d slept well last night, but not for long, and today had been a long day. He’d go to bed later, but for now he was comfortable, and if he kept out of the way Amelia wouldn’t feel she had to talk to him when she’d rather be doing something—probably anything—else.

She’d done well. Brilliantly. The meal had been fabulous, and he was still full. Maybe he’d have a sandwich later, start on the pile of cold turkey that would be on the menu into the hereafter. Turkey and cold stuffing and cranberry sauce.

But later. Not now. Now, he was sleeping …

‘That was the best day,’ Edward said, snuggling down under the quilt and smiling at her. ‘Jake’s really cool.’

‘He’s been very kind,’ she said, wondering how she could take Jake gently off this pedestal without shattering Edward’s illusions, ‘but we are in his way.’

‘He doesn’t seem to mind.’

‘That’s because he’s a very kind man, very generous.’

‘That’s what Kate said—that he was generous.’ He rolled onto his back and folded his arms under his head. ‘Did you know he went to choir school?’

‘Yes—I heard him tell you,’ she said. ‘I’d just come downstairs.’

‘He said it was great. Hard work, but he loved it there. He was a boarder, did you know that? He had to sleep there, but he said his mum and dad used to fight, and he was always in the way, so it was good, really.’

She was just opening her mouth to comment when Edward went on diffidently, ‘Were we in the way? Was that why Dad left?’

Her heart aching, she hugged him. ‘No, darling. He left because he realised he didn’t love me any more, and it wouldn’t have been right to stay.’

He hadn’t loved the children either, but there was no way she was telling Edward that his father had used them as a lever to get her to agree to things she wouldn’t otherwise have countenanced. Things like remortgaging their house so riskily, because otherwise, he said, they’d be homeless.

Well, they were homeless now, and he’d had to flee the country to escape the debt, so a lot of good it had done to prolong it. And why on earth she’d let him back last year so that she’d ended up pregnant again, she couldn’t imagine. She must have been insane, and he’d gone again long before she’d realised about the baby.

Not that she’d send Thomas back, not for a moment, but life had become infinitely more complicated with another youngster.

She’d have to work on her CV, she thought, and wondered what Jake was doing and if he’d let her use the Internet to download a template so she could lay it out better.

‘You need to go to sleep,’ she said softly, and bent over and kissed Edward’s cheek. ‘Come on, snuggle down.’

‘Can we play in the snow again tomorrow?’ he asked sleepily, and she nodded.

‘Of course—if it’s still there.’

‘It will be. Jake said.’

And if Jake had said …

She went out and pulled the door to, leaving the landing light on for them, and after checking on the sleeping baby she went back downstairs, expecting to find Jake in the breakfast room or the drawing room.

But he wasn’t, and his study door was open, and his bedroom door had been wide open, too.

Which left his little sitting room. His cave, the place to which he retreated from the world when it all became too much.

She didn’t like to disturb him, so she put her laptop in the breakfast room and tidied up the kitchen. The children had had a snack, and she was pretty sure that Jake would want something later, so she made a pile of sandwiches with freshly cut bread, and wrapped them in cling film and put them in the fridge ready for him. Then she put Rufus’s new coat on and took him out into the snow for a run around.

He should have been used to it, he’d been outside several times today, but still he raced around and barked and tried to bite it, and she stood there feeling the cold seep into her boots and laughed at him as he played.

And then she turned and saw Jake standing in the window of his sitting room, watching her with a brooding expression on his face, and she felt her heart miss a beat.

Their eyes locked, and she couldn’t breathe, frozen there in time, waiting for—

What? For him to summon her? To call her to him, to ask her to join him?

Then he glanced away, his gaze caught by the dog, and she could breathe again.

‘Rufus!’ she called, and she took him back inside, dried his paws on an old towel and took off her snowy boots and left them by the Aga to dry off. And as she straightened up, he came into the kitchen.

‘Hi. All settled?’

She nodded. ‘Yes. Yes, they’re all settled. I wasn’t sure if you’d be hungry, so I made some sandwiches.’

‘Brilliant. Thanks. I was just coming to do that, but I wasn’t sure if I could cut the bread with one hand. It’s all a bit awkward.’

‘Done,’ she said, opening the fridge and lifting them out. ‘Do you want them now, or later?’

‘Now?’ he said. ‘Are you going to join me? I thought maybe we could have a glass of wine and a little adult conversation.’

His smile was wry, and she laughed softly, her whole body responding to the warmth in his eyes.

‘That would be lovely,’ she said, and found some plates while he opened the bottle of red they’d started the night before last and poured two glasses, and they carried them through to the breakfast room, but then he hesitated.

‘Come and slum it with me on the sofa,’ he suggested, to her surprise, and she followed him through to the other room and sat down at one end while he sprawled into the other corner, his sore leg—well, the sorer of the two, if the bruises were anything to go by—stretched out so that his foot was almost touching her thigh.

And they ate their sandwiches and talked about the day, and then he put his plate down on the table beside him and said, ‘Tell me about your work.’

‘I don’t have any,’ she reminded him. ‘In fact, I was going to ask you about that. I need to write a CV and get it out to some firms. I don’t suppose you’ve got wireless broadband so I can go online and do some research?’

‘Sure. You can do it now, if you like. I’ll help you—if you want.’

She flashed him a smile. ‘That would be great. Thanks.’

‘Any time. Have you got a computer or do you want to use mine?’

‘My laptop—it’s in the breakfast room. I’ll get it.’

He’d sat up by the time she got back in there, so she ended up sitting close to him, his solid, muscled thigh against hers, his arm slung along the back of the sofa behind her. As she brought up her CV, he glanced at it and sat back.

‘OK, I can see a few problems with it. It needs more immediacy, it needs to grab the attention. You could do with a photo of yourself, for a start. People like to know who they’re dealing with.’

‘Really? For freelance? It’s not as if I’d have to disgrace their office—’

‘Disgrace? Don’t be ridiculous,’ he said, leaving her feeling curiously warm inside. ‘And anyway, it’s about how you look at the camera, if you’re open and straightforward and decent.’

‘Or if you have tattoos or a ton of shrapnel in your face,’ she added, but he laughed and shook his head.

‘That’s irrelevant unless you’re talking front of house and it’s the sort of organisation where it matters. In some places it’d be an asset. It’s much more about connecting with the photo. Stay there.’

And he limped out stiffly, drawing her attention to the fact that he was still sore, despite all he’d done today for her and her children. He should have been lying down taking it easy, she thought uncomfortably, not making snowmen and snow angels and construction toys. And now her CV.

He came back with another laptop, flipped it open and logged on, and then scrolled through his files and brought up his own CV. ‘Here—this is me. I can’t show you anyone else’s, it wouldn’t be fair, but this is the basic stuff—fonts, the photo size and so on.’

She scanned it, much more interested in the personal information than anything else. His date of birth—he was a Cancerian, she noticed, and thirty-five this year, five years older than her—and he’d been born in Norwich, he had three degrees, he was crazily clever and his interests were diverse and, well, interesting.

She scanned through it and sat back.

‘Wow. You’re pretty well qualified.’

‘So are you. How come you can’t find a job? Is it that they don’t get beyond the CV?’

She laughed. ‘What, a single woman with three young children and one of them under a year?’

‘But people aren’t allowed to ask that sort of thing.’

‘No, but they ask about how much time you’re able to commit and can you give weekends and evenings if necessary, are you available for business trips—all sorts of sly manoeuvring to get it out of you, and then you can hear the gates slam shut.’

‘That’s crazy. Lots of my key people are mothers, and they tend to be well-organised, efficient and considerate. And OK, from time to time I have to make concessions, but they don’t pull sickies because they’ve drunk too much the night before, and they don’t get bored and go off travelling. There are some significant advantages. I’d take you on.’

She stared at him, not sure if he’d meant that quite how it sounded, because Kate had said in the past that it was a shame he had someone and didn’t need her. So it was probably just a casual remark. But it might not have been …

‘You would?’ she asked tentatively, and he nodded.

‘Sure. I could do with a translator. It’s not technical stuff, it’s more business contract work, but I farm it out at the moment to someone I’ve used for years and she told me before Christmas that she wants a career break. What languages have you got?’

‘French, Italian, Spanish and Russian.’

He nodded slowly. ‘OK. Want to try? Have a look at some of the things I need translating and see if you’ve got enough of the specific vocabulary to do it?’

‘Sure,’ she said slowly, although she wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure at all if it would be a good thing to do, to become even more involved with a man who her son thought had hung the moon and the stars, and on whose lap her daughter had spent a good part of the day cuddled up in front of the fire.

A man whose heart was so badly broken that he had to run away every Christmas and hide from the pain.

A man, she realised, who she could very easily come to love …

He must be crazy.

It was bad enough having them all descend on him without a by-your-leave, taking over his house and his life and his mind. It was only a step from lunacy to suggest a lasting liaison.

Not that it need be anything other than strictly professional, he realised. It could all be done online—in fact, it could be Kate who dealt with all the communications. He didn’t have to do anything other than rubber-stamp payment of her invoices. It would solve her financial problems, give her independence from the scumbag of an ex-husband who’d trashed her life so comprehensively with his lousy judgement and wild ideas, and give the children security.

And that, he discovered, mattered more to him than he really wanted to admit. It would give them a chance to find a house, to settle into schools—and that in itself would give Edward a chance to join a choir, church or school, or maybe even apply to choir schools for a scholarship. They could live anywhere they chose, because she wouldn’t have to come into the office, and so if he did end up in a choir school he wouldn’t necessarily have to board if she was close enough to run around after him.

And she could afford to look after Rufus.

He glanced down at the dog, snuggled up between their feet, utterly devoted to his mistress.

Hell, he’d miss the dog when they moved. Miss all of them. He’d have to think about getting a dog. He’d considered it in the past but dismissed it because of his business visitors who stayed in the house from time to time, but maybe it was time to think about himself, to put himself first, to admit, perhaps, that he, too, had needs.

And feelings.

‘Think about it, and we’ll go over some stuff tomorrow, maybe,’ he said, shutting his laptop and getting to his feet. ‘I’m going to turn in.’

‘Yes, it’s been a long day.’ She shut her own laptop and stood up beside him, gathering up their glasses with her free hand. Then, while she put the dog out, he put his computer back in the study and went back to the kitchen, looking broodingly out over the garden at the snowman staring back at him with slightly crooked Brussels sprout eyes, and he wondered if his feelings could extend to a relationship.

Not sex, not just another casual, meaningless affair, a way to scratch an itch, to blank out the emptiness of his life, but a relationship.

With Amelia.

She was calling Rufus, patting her leg and encouraging him away from a particularly fascinating smell, and then the door shut and he heard the key turn and she came through to the breakfast room and stopped.

‘Oh! I thought you’d gone upstairs.’

‘No. I was waiting for you,’ he said, and something flickered in her eyes, an acknowledgement of what he might have said.

He led her to the landing by his bedroom and turned to her, staring wordlessly down at her for the longest moment. It was crazy. He didn’t know her, he wasn’t ready, he was only now starting to sift through the raft of feelings left behind by losing his family—but he wanted her, her and her family, and he didn’t know how to deal with that.

Sex he could handle. This—this was something else entirely. He lifted his right hand and cradled her cheek. ‘Thank you for today,’ he said softly, and her eyes widened and she shook her head.

‘No—thank you, Jake. You’ve been amazing—so kind I don’t know how to start. It could have all been unimaginably awful, and instead—it’s been the best Christmas I can remember. And it’s all down to you. So thank you, for everything you’ve done, for me, for the children, even for Rufus. You’re a star, Jake Forrester—a good man.’

And, going up on tiptoe, she pressed a soft, tentative kiss to his lips.

The kiss lingered for a second, and then her heels sank back to the floor, taking her away from him, and he took a step back and let her go with reluctance.

There was time, he told himself as he got ready for bed. There was no hurry—and maybe this was better not hurried, but given time to grow and develop over time.

He opened the bedside drawer and took out his painkillers, and the photo caught his eye. He lifted it out and stared at them. They seemed like strangers now, distant memories, part of his past. He’d never forget them, but they were gone, and maybe he was ready to move on.

He opened his suitcase and pulled out the broken remains of the watch, and put it with the photograph in a box full of Rachel’s things in the top of his wardrobe.

Time to move on, he told himself.

With Amelia?

CHAPTER EIGHT

‘ISN’T it time we bathed the dog? We’ve been talking about it for days, and we still haven’t got round to it.’

She looked up at Jake and bit her lip to stop the smile. ‘He is pretty smelly, isn’t he?’

‘You could say that. And right now he’s wet and mucky from the snow, so it seems like a good time. And he’s got all night to dry by the fire.’

‘I’ll get my shampoo and conditioner and run the water in the sink,’ she said, getting to her feet from the hearthrug and running up to her bathroom, then coming back to the utility room—because even she drew the line at bathing the dog in the kitchen sink—and a moment later Jake appeared with the dog at his heels and an armful of towels from the cupboard in the boiler room.