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www.millsandboon.co.uk
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Copyright
CHAPTER ONE
‘WHO the hell are you?’
Bethany’s auburn brows rose over dark green eyes at the unexpected attack by the man who’d answered her knock on the door. Her second knock, she might have informed him, but didn’t—her first knock having gone unanswered.
He hardly looked in the mood to be told such a thing. He was a tall, dark-haired man in his late thirties, with flinty grey eyes that at the moment, she was sure, had a look of desperation in them. The short dark hair seemed to be standing up on end too, and judging by the orderly look of the rest of his appearance—tailored dark suit and pristine white shirt, perfectly knotted tie at his throat—Bethany didn’t think this was a usual occurrence.
In fact, she was sure that it wasn’t; she wouldn’t be here at all if anything about this situation were as it usually was!
She gave the man a smile, determined not to be put off by his aggressive attitude; after all, her last assignment had involved a man who’d had all the endearing qualities of Scrooge before the transformation, so anything had to be an improvement on that. Of course, she hadn’t complained at the time—it wasn’t for her to complain—but this Christmas, she had to admit, it would be nice—
‘I asked who you are?’ The dark-haired man im-patiently interrupted her wandering thoughts. ‘If you’re collecting for something—’
‘No.’ She smiled dismissively, her smile widening as a tiny golden-haired bundle came into view behind him, doing cartwheels across the pale blue carpet, while two dark-haired boys wrestled quite happily together on the rug in front of the fire.
Christmas was such a joyous time for everyone, Bethany acknowledged happily, but especially for children. She was pleased, and a little excited herself, that children were involved in this assignment. She loved children. She had been a child herself once—and there were certain people who believed she still was, she accepted ruefully, a slight shadow darkening her creamy brow. She had tried so hard to show them how responsible she was, how adult she could be, but each time they gave her some responsibility something seemed to go slightly wrong.
‘No, I’m not collecting for anything, Mr Rafferty,’ she assured him smoothly. ‘It is Mr Rafferty, isn’t it?’ She hadn’t been told too much about him, but as he seemed to be at the right address, and in charge of three children, then she assumed he had to be Nick Rafferty.
Bethany gazed up at him as he turned to scowl at the three highly active children, her hair a long blaze of red down her back, her green eyes huge in her small heart-shaped face, her nose pert and snub, covered with a liberal sprinkling of freckles, and her mouth wide and generous. That mouth was smiling now, the green eyes aglow.
‘Yes, I’m Nick Rafferty,’ he finally acknowledged with a sigh, visibly wincing as the volume of noise in the room behind him seemed to rise to crescendo level. ‘Shut up, you lot!’ he turned briefly again to shout—an effort he might just as well have saved himself as, after one brief glance in his direction, the two boys carried on wrestling and the golden-haired little girl proceeded to cartwheel in the other direction across the room.
‘Oh God!’ The man in front of her seemed to pale visibly, displaying the reason for his hair standing on end as he ran agitated fingers through the darkness, making it stick up even more. ‘Can I help you?’ he prompted agitatedly.
Bethany calmly shook her head. ‘No, but I hope I can help you.’ She continued to smile at him—something that seemed to irritate him even more.
He shook his head. ‘I wish you could,’ he sighed. ‘I’m sorry, who did you say you were?’ He frowned darkly.
‘Heavenly Angels,’ Bethany informed him lightly as she walked past him into the apartment, unhurriedly separating the two boys as they came dangerously close to the artificially warm fire and standing the two of them up to dust them down and straighten their dishevelled appearance.
She smiled warmly at them and the golden-haired bundle, having ceased cartwheeling now, walked slowly over to join them as curiosity got the better of her concerning this newcomer in their midst. Bethany’s smile became even warmer as she looked at the angelic child—her curls golden, her face pure innocence, her blue eyes candid and freckles dusting her snub nose.
‘How the hell did you do that?’ an amazed Nick Rafferty demanded to know, when all three children were standing calmly in a row, looking up at Bethany.
‘You really shouldn’t swear in front of the children, Mr Rafferty,’ she advised him softly. ‘It isn’t good for innocent ears to—’
‘Children!’ he repeated scathingly. ‘In my book children should be seen and not heard—and preferably not the former either, if it can be arranged. And these three are demons from he—’
‘You’re becoming agitated, Mr Rafferty,’ Bethany calmly understated, ruffling the golden curls of the little girl as she smiled up at her so endearingly, with her two front teeth missing. The little girl was sure to have a lisp too, which must sound absolutely adorable coming from such a beautiful child. ‘That isn’t good for children. Children need firm, unflappable guidance, not—’
‘I don’t need a lecture from you on how to behave towards children!’ he exploded furiously. ‘Just how many children of your own do you have?’
‘Well…none. But—’
‘I didn’t think so,’ he said scornfully. ‘You aren’t much more than a child yourself!’ he added disgustedly, with a scathing glance at her five-foot stature and childlike features which didn’t make her look much older than the cherub standing at her side.
Bethany smiled at the knowledge of just how wrong he was. Looks could be deceptive. She might look young, but she was actually—
‘I asked who you were,’ he reminded her harshly. Her smile seemed to have infuriated him even more as he glared down at her from his superior height, dark brows meeting frowningly together across those steely grey eyes.
‘And I answered you, Mr Rafferty,’ she replied evenly, turning to smile at the little girl at her side as a tiny warm hand slid into hers. ‘Heavenly Angels—’
‘Which tells me precisely nothing,’ Nick Rafferty interrupted impatiently. ‘You look absolutely nothing like an angel to me!’
Her smile became wistfully sad at the correctness of that statement. He wasn’t the first person to mention that fact. Angels were reputedly golden-haired and blue-eyed—ethereally beautiful creatures. Her green eyes and freckles certainly didn’t lend themselves to beauty, and, though she had tried to rectify the colour of her hair once, it had turned out purple, which hadn’t gone down too well with the powers that be.
‘I like her, Daddy Nick,’ the little girl next to her said, smiling up at Bethany with that toothless grin.
Nick’s mouth twisted disgustedly. ‘I’m sure that’s a great recommendation, Lucy—’ his tone implied that it was the opposite ‘—but—’
‘It certainly is,’ Bethany agreed happily, deciding to ignore his caustic tone as she bent down on one knee so that she was on the same level as the little girl. ‘As it’s you and your brothers I’ve been sent here to care for.’
‘You have?’ The cherubic face brightened as she turned to the tall man towering gloweringly over them. ‘Daddy Nick, did you hear what the angel said? She’s—’
‘I heard, Lucy,’ he rasped dismissively. ‘And I would like an explanation of that remark.’ He turned to Bethany. ‘You don’t look like a friend of their mother’s,’ he added scathingly. ‘But if you are,’ he continued, before Bethany could make any reply, ‘I can assure you I don’t need one of Samantha’s cronies to— Lucy, will you stop pulling on the young lady’s arm like that!’ he thundered as the little girl did exactly that to Bethany’s coat-sleeve.
Lucy gave him a reproachful look from under lashes that were long and golden. ‘I only wanted to know if the angel can make jam sandwiches,’ she muttered petulantly, her bottom lip starting to tremble precariously.
Bethany, spotting the tell-tale tremble, picked the little girl up in her arms, cuddling her close. ‘Of course I can, darling,’ she crooned comfortingly. Couldn’t Nick Rafferty see that he was upsetting Lucy with his aggressive attitude?
‘Now?’ Lucy prompted hopefully.
Bethany smoothed back the tumbling golden curls. ‘Well, maybe not now—it will ruin your tea. But—’
‘We haven’t had any lunch yet,’ put in the younger of the two boys hopefully.
‘You haven’t?’ Bethany nodded understandingly. That explained a lot.
It was usually her experience—and, contrary to Nick Rafferty’s belief, she did have quite a lot of experience with children!—that children either became bad-tempered or hyperactive when they were hungry. The latter she had never quite understood, when it was food for fuel that they were in need of, but she had always been told she asked too many questions anyway, and, to be honest, that par-ticular one hadn’t seemed as important as some of the others she had wanted answers to.
‘No wonder you’re all a little—over-excited. Could you point me in the direction of the kitchen, Mr Rafferty?’ she enquired brightly.
‘It’s this way.’ The younger of the two boys again took charge, taking hold of Bethany’s hand to lead her in the direction of a doorway to the left of this main room.
‘I— But— Josh! Jamie!’ Nick Rafferty thundered at them again.
Neither boy took any notice of him, but he sounded rather desperate, so Bethany was the one to take pity on him and briefly halt their progress to the kitchen, turning to look at him enquiringly.
‘We don’t even know who this young lady is!’ Again he directed his words to the two boys.
Bethany smiled in sympathy with his agitation. ‘Children are like that, Mr Rafferty; they rarely bite the hand that chooses to feed them. They also,’ she went on firmly as he seemed about to explode once again, ‘instinctively know who they can trust. And who they can’t,’ she added pointedly, before entering the kitchen with two hungry boys trailing after her and an angel—if not quite a heavenly one!—in her arms.
CHAPTER TWO
NICK thought of following them, of demanding answers from the ‘heavenly angel’, but as peace descended over the room for the first time in the last chaotic twenty-four hours he thought better of it. After all, what harm could come to the children when they were only a few feet away from him in the kitchen? And they were finally quiet. And being fed…
Damn it, he had forgotten all about giving the children lunch. He so rarely ate that particular meal himself, he just hadn’t thought—
Goddamn it, he didn’t know how to look after children for any length of time! What the hell Robert had thought he was doing bringing them here, he had no idea. What had made it even more difficult was that it had been the first time he and Robert had spoken more than abrupt words of greeting and parting in over five years.
Robert, who had been his best friend, his business partner—and who had taken Nick’s wife and children from him five years ago!
And now, through necessity, he had brought the children back. But Nick had never had any idea of how to look after the children—had always left that part of their marriage to Samantha. Oh God, Samantha… Was she going to be OK? Was she going to live? They had left so many things unsaid between them, so much bitterness, so much pain. And now she had been seriously injured in a car accident, might die from her injuries. Why was it, Nick agonised, that people never felt remorse for past hurts until it was possibly too late? Why—?
‘Mr Rafferty?’
He looked up blankly, blinking as he focused on the angel. A red-haired angel! Whoever had heard of such a thing? And yet, as he looked up at her, he could almost swear that he saw a glow about that red hair. A little like a halo…?
‘Your lunch, Mr Rafferty.’ She held out a plate, pushing it into his unresisting fingers before turning away to return to the children in the kitchen. Children now quietly eating the lunch she had prepared for them…
Nick shook his head in self-disgust. A halo! He was losing his mind. The woman had merely been standing with the light behind her, giving a glow to the deep red of her hair. Almost twenty-four hours of caring for the children had obviously started to affect his judgement.
The woman was no angel, was only flesh and blood—rather pretty flesh, he decided as he watched the gentle sway of her bottom as she returned to the kitchen. She was a little young for his tastes, probably only in her early twenties, but nevertheless the tiny body looked to be perfectly proportioned—the breasts small and pert, the hips narrow and shapely. And that hair, it was—
God, he was losing his mind! What the hell did the physical attributes of that young woman matter? His life was in chaos! He was supposed to be leaving for Aspen, Colorado, tomorrow, for a skiing holiday over the Christmas period, instead of which he had three children to care for until further notice. What the hell was he going to say to Lisa when he told her they couldn’t go away, after all?
Lisa! Damn, he hadn’t given her a thought since Robert had delivered the children to him here early yesterday evening. She was going to throw a tantrum at his lack of attentiveness. Oh, damn Lisa—a diamond bracelet would soon calm her ruffled feelings. Lisa was the least of his worries at the moment; it was what he was going to do with the three children over Christmas that should be uppermost in his thoughts. It was uppermost in his thoughts; he just didn’t have an answer!
‘You haven’t touched your sandwich, Mr Rafferty.’ The angel had returned, a cup of tea in her hand this time and her coat removed now, her hair falling softly onto a green jumper that exactly matched the colour of her eyes.
How did she do that? Just suddenly appear in front of him, almost as if— He shook his head, rousing himself enough to take the cup and saucer with his free hand, realising as he did so the impracticality of doing so; now he couldn’t eat his sandwich even if he wanted to. Which he didn’t. The children may have a partiality for jam sand wiches, but he certainly didn’t!
‘Everything will be all right, Mr Rafferty.’ She reached out to touch his arm gently. ‘Mrs Fairfax is very ill at the moment, but I’m positive she will recover.’ She smiled, a smile as gentle as her touch. ‘I would have been told if it were to be otherwise.’
Nick could never remember feeling at a loss for words, but somehow this young woman seemed to have that effect on him. What did she mean; she ‘would have been told’ if Samantha wasn’t going to come through this? Perhaps he should be concerned about the children being alone in the kitchen with her after all; she was obviously slightly deranged. First claiming to be an angel and now assuring him that his ex-wife would recover from the accident that had left her with multiple injuries.
‘The baby is going to be fine too,’ the strange young woman continued smilingly. ‘Now, please eat your lunch, Mr Rafferty. Everything will seem much brighter once you’ve eaten.’
Nick had the impression that she was talking to him as if he were another of the children, and he—Baby! What baby? Samantha wasn’t pregnant; Robert would have told him if she was.
This young woman was the strangest person he had ever met in his life, and made the most outrageous remarks. Why, she— He turned helplessly in the direction of the telephone as it began to ring, looking down at the cup and saucer he held in one hand and the laden plate in the other.
‘I’ll get it for you, Mr Rafferty.’ Once again there was that gentle pat on his arm. ‘Perhaps it’s Mr Fairfax, with news of your wife,’ she added brightly.
Ex-wife. Samantha was Robert’s wife now, had been for the last four years. And it was more likely to be Lisa making the call, furious with him for not calling her—and having another woman answer the telephone would not improve her temper!
Too late—the angel had already answered the call, was lifting the receiver to her ear. Hell, what was this young woman’s name? He couldn’t keep thinking of her as an angel!
‘Mr Fairfax!’ she greeted brightly, smiling reassuringly at Nick. ‘Yes, of course Mr Rafferty is here. Just a moment and I’ll get him for you.’ With the minimum of effort she put down the receiver and divested Nick of the cup of tea and the plate, putting them both down on the coffee-table before disappearing from the room.
Nick stood watching her for several dazed seconds, too bemused to move. And then he remembered that Robert was on the telephone. ‘Robert.’ He barked the greeting, wincing as he heard his own aggression. ‘How is she, Robert?’ He gentled his voice as he spoke of the woman who had once been his wife but belonged irrevocably to this man.
‘Off the danger list,’ the other man said thankfully. ‘But I can’t leave her, Nick. I’m sure you understand.’
Yes, he understood. Robert loved Samantha more than anything else in the world—more than his own friendship with Nick, more than the wealth his business partnership had brought him. More than anything. It had come as a blow to Nick to realise that Samantha felt the same way about Robert.
Had Nick ever loved her that deeply? Had Samantha ever loved him in the same way? Maybe, in the beginning—before other things had become more important, before complacency had made him take for granted the one thing that had given everything else in his life meaning. But if he had loved Samantha enough surely that wouldn’t have happened? He—
Oh, God, not now; he had been over all of this so many times in the last five years, and in the end it changed nothing. Samantha was now Robert’s wife, and the two of them loved each other—they had for a very long time.
‘The children?’ he prompted Robert abruptly, part of him envying the other man, another part of him knowing it had never been that way between himself and Samantha.
‘Their presents are all at the house, Nick, hidden in the wardrobe. If you—’
‘Robert, Christmas is still two days away,’ he interrupted agitatedly. So Samantha still hid the presents in the wardrobe… ‘Surely you’ll be able to get away by then?’
There was silence for a moment at the other end of the telephone line, and then Robert drew in a ragged breath. ‘Lord knows I love the children as if they were my own, Nick,’ Robert finally rasped. ‘I’ve had to; you’ve practically disowned them the last five years. But the truth of the matter is they are your children, Nick, and it isn’t going to kill you to give up your usual skiing holiday with the latest bimbo to spend Christmas with them!’
How well this man knew him, Nick acknowledged self-derisively. Strange, he had forgotten how well Robert did know him, with the five-year gap in their friendship. But Robert was wrong about one thing. They weren’t all his children. Jamie and Josh, yes—and he admitted he should have spent more time with them since Samantha had left him—but Samantha wouldn’t hear of him taking Jamie and Josh without Lucy, and Lucy wasn’t—
‘I’m not leaving Samantha, Nick,’ Robert told him determinedly. ‘So you’ll just have to cope. I’m sure the young lady who answered the telephone just now is more than capable of lending a hand;she sounded rather sweet. It’s quite easy; Jamie and Josh just want to watch television and fight with each other all the time, and Lucy will take to anyone who gives her jam sandwiches!’
‘The “young lady” has already given her those,’ Nick told him drily. And Jamie and Josh had done nothing but watch television and fight since they’d arrived yesterday!
‘There you are, then,’ Robert said with satisfaction. ‘More than capable.’
Maybe she was—it certainly still seemed very quiet in the kitchen—but that wasn’t the point. The point was what was he going to do with three children over Christmas? ‘Robert—’
‘I’m not leaving the hospital, Nick,’ the other man cut in with vehement determination. ‘I want to be here when Samantha wakes up. Her life is out of danger, but there are still complications.’
Nick felt his stomach contract; he and Samantha might be divorced, and Samantha with Robert now, but that didn’t mean he didn’t still care what happened to her. ‘What sort of complications?’ he asked warily.
‘They’re concerned about the baby,’ the other man told him distractedly. ‘Sam has wanted another baby for so long, I can hardly believe it’s happened now,’ he continued worriedly. ‘It will break her heart if anything goes wrong.’
Nick had stopped listening, was barely aware of his own agreement to take care of the children until such time as Robert could leave Samantha, or of the other man terminating the telephone call, of replacing his own receiver.
He sat down heavily, staring at the closed kitchen door. She had known about the baby, had told him, ‘The baby is going to be fine too.’ How had she known about the baby? How—?
Nick looked down at the sandwich in his hand, which he had begun to eat without being aware of it, staring at it uncomprehendingly. Not jam at all, but smoked salmon. His favourite…
CHAPTER THREE
BETHANY was sitting at the breakfast bar chatting to the children as they ate when Nick Rafferty came thundering through the doorway. Really, the man seemed to charge into everything at an aggressive rate. Into rooms, out of them again—and into conversations too, she quickly realised!
‘I would like a private word with you, Miss—Miss— What the hell is your name?’ He scowled across the width of the room at her.
The children took absolutely no notice of the aggression in his tone, continuing to munch quite happily on their sandwiches. Which didn’t seem right to Bethany either; it couldn’t be healthy for the children actually to be used to Nick Rafferty’s constant abruptness.
‘Her name is Beth, Daddy Nick,’ Lucy was the one to inform him, with traces of strawberry jam about her rosebud mouth. ‘Isn’t that nice?’ She grinned happily, obviously pleased that her lisp was totally irrelevant when she said ‘the angel’s’ name.
Bethany was glad that her name pleased the little girl, but this wasn’t the first time she had heard Lucy call Nick Rafferty Daddy Nick; it seemed rather a strange thing to call her father. Of course, the three children were growing up with a stepfather, which must be confusing for children so young if they were fond of him, but even so…
‘Very nice.’ Nick Rafferty agreed with the little girl with a distinct lack of conviction. ‘Would you come through to the sitting-room, Miss—Beth?’ He sounded impatient with the lack of a surname. ‘We need to talk,’ he added grimly.
‘Of course.’ She nodded smoothly, smiling reassuringly at the children. ‘When you’ve finished eating put your plates on the side and then go and wash your faces and hands, so that you don’t get sticky fingers all over your daddy’s furniture,’ she advised ruefully, sure that that wouldn’t go down too well at all. The apartment was beautifully furnished and decorated, and expensively so—not at all suitable for young and active children. ‘As soon as I’ve finished talking to your father we’ll all wrap up warm and go for a walk—’