Their Christmas Miracle

“Four months? Dear God.” Giving an anguished sigh, he dragged his fingers through his hair, leaving the slick black locks standing on end.

Guilt turned in her stomach. Maybe she should have forced herself to look harder, but the truth was she’d been scared of what she might find out about her past and about herself. When Chris found her, the single thought in her head, besides fear, had been the words I’m sorry. She’d carried with her a shadow of indefinable guilt that made her wonder if she’d made some kind of horrible mistake.

Now that same shadow had her wanting to run her fingers through his hair and ease his frustration.

“Linus has been dealing with the soap factory since the end of October,” he muttered. “October! We could have brought you home weeks ago. Maddie could have...”

“Maddie?”

Her heart seized up. Maddie was the name she’d chosen when Chris had asked what he should call her. The name had sprung to her tongue without a second thought. It couldn’t be a coincidence Collier was using the same name. “Who is Maddie?”

He turned his face and looked her in the eye. Son of gun if she didn’t hold her breath at the seriousness in his expression. “Maddie,” he said, “is our daughter.”

Rosalind squeaked. She had a daughter? A little girl?

Stunned, she stood up and walked to the window on the back wall, the one next to the set of deer antlers. Chris liked to tell people the giant horns were from a reindeer, but it was embellishment for business’s sake. Scotland didn’t have reindeer outside of Cairngorms. One of the weird facts she seemed to simply know.

She knew about reindeer but not about her own child. Might as well stomp on her heart this moment. It had never occurred to her she might have children.

Oh, sure, she would feel a pull whenever a young child came in to the restaurant, but she assumed every woman of childbearing years experienced the same yearning. She’d never dreamed there was someone out there with half her DNA.

“Would you like to see a photograph?” Thomas asked.

“Yes, please.” Spinning around, she leaned against the windowsill and waited for him to come to her. In case this was a trick, she didn’t want to sound too eager. Although gushing the word please didn’t exactly exude calm.

Nor did Collier’s expression exude deceit.

Rosalind’s hands shook as he handed her the phone. She was beautiful. A pudgy-cheeked angel with brown bobbed hair and Collier’s eyes. The photo showed her standing on a rock in a flower garden in a sunflower-print dress. Her little arms were stretched high over her head, pointing toward the sky.

“Maddie.” Her fingers stroked the screen.

“I took this on her birthday last August.”

Rosalind let out a gasp. She’d missed her daughter’s birthday? “How...how old is she?”

“Five.”

A five-year-old daughter. “I didn’t know,” she said, as if saying the words aloud would chase away the guilt.

What kind of mother forgets her own child? She swiped left through the photo gallery, discovering there was picture after picture of the little girl. Laughing. Posing with a stuffed dog. Feeding pigeons in the park. And then...

She found a photo of her and the girl together.

Taken when neither were paying attention to the camera, they were kneeling in front of a Christmas tree. The little girl, Maddie, had a box on her lap, while she, Rosalind, was reaching around her to straighten the bow. Longing grabbed at Rosalind’s chest.

“I’ve tried my best,” she heard Collier saying, “but she misses her mother. I can only imagine what she’ll do when she sees you tomorrow.”

“Excuse me, when?” Rosaline let the arm holding the phone drop to her side and narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you saying you want me to go back to London with you tonight?”

His eyes widened. “Are you telling me you don’t want to come home?”

“We only just met,” Rosalind said. It was too soon. Granted his story was compelling, but it was still a story. “You expect me to accept what you’re telling me because you have a phone full of photographs?” Photographs of her, she added silently. They terrified her, because they revealed a life about which she knew nothing.

Shaking her head, she said, “I’m not ready.”

She thought about how agitated Collier got when she mentioned not wanting to find herself. It was nothing compared to the look of horror her current answer generated. Seriously, though, wouldn’t she be a fool to go along without some kind of tangible proof? Besides photos, that is. After all, photographs could be manipulated.

“Do you really think I would go through the bother of manipulating photographs and then flying all the way up here just to trick you?” he said when she commented as much. “For God’s sake, I thought you were dead.”

So he kept saying, and if Rosalind were to base the truth solely on his reactions, there’d be no argument.

“Look at it from my point of view. You’re a stranger.” Her conscience winced at the pain that passed across his face. To her, he was a stranger though, and no matter how handsome and persuasive his story may be, she needed to be sensible. “You come in here out of the blue with hugs and photos and expect me to take you at your word when I can’t even remember my own birthday.”

“February the twenty-fourth.”

“Thank you, but you’re missing my point. Would you pick up and leave your safe haven based on a handful of photographs and the word of someone you just met?”

Crossing her arms, she leaned on the sill and waited for her words to sink in. She could see from the way he stepped back that her argument made sense.

“What is it you need?” he asked.

Good question. Answers to what happened to her would be a nice start. “Time,” she told him. “You’re moving too quickly. I know you said I’ve been missing for months, but I need time to wrap my head around everything you’ve told me.” As well as she could anyway. “And I need proof. More proof I mean, beyond the photos in your phone.”

“All right. I’ll have a package sent to you first thing tomorrow. You get email up here, right?”

She couldn’t help but chuckle. “Yes. The restaurant has an email account.”

“All right, then. You want proof, proof you shall get. Anything you need if it will help bring you home.”

With that, she expected to leave. Instead, he moved closer. So close that Rosalind could smell the faint scent of musk on his suit jacket.

“I still can’t believe it’s really you,” he whispered. “I’ve missed you, Rosie.”

He lifted his hand and she tensed thinking he was about to hug her again. The notion wasn’t as off-putting as it should’ve been. Rosalind blamed his eyes. In the shadows, they were like midnight. A woman could get lost in eyes like that if she wasn’t careful.

“Space,” she managed to whisper just as his fingers were about to brush a hair from her temple. “I’m also going to need space so I can truly think.”

Disappointment flashed in his eyes, but he stepped back like a gentleman. “Of course. Take all the time and space you need.”

“Thank you.” She let out her breath. “I appreciate your patience. Now, if you don’t mind, I need to go upstairs and lie down. My head is spinning.”

Once again, Thomas fought the urge to chase her as she rushed away. Patience, he reminded himself. Patience and space. He had to remember how overwhelming his news must feel to her. Hell, it was overwhelming to him.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Linus strolling toward him, a glass of amber liquid in hand.

“Here. Figured you might need one,” he said.

Taking the glass, Thomas took a long drink, savoring the burning sensation as the liquor went down his throat.