Merry Christmas

“For Kimberly. She wants...”

Meredith lifted her lashes enough to see his grimace. He didn’t like this. Didn’t want it. He’d come against the solicitor’s advice, against his own better judgment. His chest rose and felt as he expelled a long, ragged sigh.

“She wants...her real mother...for Christmas,” he finished flatly.

For Christmas.

Only for Christmas.

A limited encounter... just like with her father. Limited...time out of time to cherish...treasure... haunt. The pain of the limitation sucked the blood from her brain. She clutched at the kitchen counter but couldn’t summon the strength to hold on as she slid into dark oblivion.

CHAPTER THREE

NICK picked her up from the kitchen floor and cradled her against his chest. A pins and needles sensation attacked his whole body. It wasn’t the effort of carrying her weight. She was not a big woman despite her above-average height. It was the way she seemed to nestle in his arms, her head dropping onto his shoulder as though it belonged there, her long hair flowing across his throat, skeins of silk somehow entangling him with feelings his brain couldn’t compute at all. They didn’t make sense. At least... not a sense he was ready to acknowledge.

It was too crazy... too beyond rational explanation. He hadn’t met her before. He knew he hadn’t. Her eyes being the same as Kimberly’s was not the answer, either. Kimberly was a child. Meredith Palmer was a woman. How did a woman he didn’t know get to walk through his dreams? And to have her materialise in front of him...real flesh and blood...every line of her hauntingly familiar to him... Nick was hopelessly distracted from establishing what he’d come here to do.

He should have approached the salient facts more obliquely, been more sensitive to their impact on her. It was obvious she’d been stressed at not receiving the packet from Denise and his appearance on the scene must have agitated her further despite the reassurance he’d tried to give. Here she was in a dead faint, all because he’d responded without giving enough thought to how it would affect her, and he was still caught up in how she affected him!

Instead of standing in her kitchen like a dumb ox, holding her in his own personal daze, he should be doing something constructive about bringing her back to consciousness. He forced his mind to focus on practicalities.

The sofa in her living room was only a two-seater, not large enough to lay her out comfortably. Bedroom and bathroom had to be nearby. A door stood slightly ajar near one of the bookcases. He carried her to it and manoeuvred her into what proved to be her bedroom.

She was beginning to stir as he lowered her onto the bed, her head rolling restlessly, as though in blind search of something lost. A low moan of longing or some deep inner torment issued from her throat and tugged at his heart. He grasped her hand, his fingers curling tightly around hers, pressing his warmth and strength, wanting to impart she was not alone.

Thinking he should probably get her a glass of water, he glanced around, looking for a door into an ensuite bathroom. And shock hit him again.

The walls were covered with photographs of Kimberly!

Montages of each year of his niece’s life hung in frames, interspersed with blow-ups of what were particularly good shots of her, capturing a highly expressive look that seemed to bring her personality stunningly, vibrantly alive in this room.

It was eerie, seeing Kimberly in such close focus from babyhood onward. Nick had seen most of the photographs before at various times, but never in this kind of concentration. The collection, so overwhelmingly displayed, suddenly seemed to smack of unhealthy obsessiveness.

Kimberly’s plea...if my real mother wants me... became an absurd understatement in the face of so much visual evidence of wanting. Nick’s head buzzed with a confusion of moral and legal rights. Kimberly was family to him, yet how much more was she to this woman who had given her birth? What if Kimberly’s desire to meet her was capricious? What was he setting in motion here?

The warning given by Hector Burnside, Denise’s old solicitor, started ringing in Nick’s ears. Leave well enough alone. You don’t know what you might be walking into. It could be dangerous ground.

Maybe he should have heeded the advice of a man who had seen all sides of human nature in his line of work. Nick shook his head over the dilemma he now found himself in. He’d promised Kimberly an answer from her real mother. In choosing to follow that course, he wasn’t sure if he’d stepped into a dream or a nightmare. Either way, it was too late to walk out of it.

CHAPTER FOUR

HE WAS holding her hand.

The physical link generated a flood of warm feeling that drove away the chilling fear of the unknown and soothed the whirling chaos in her mind. She hadn’t died and moved on to where impossible things were possible. She wasn’t dreaming. Nick Hamilton’s hand pressed solid substance in a world that had shifted too fast for Meredith to retain a grip on it herself.

The initial confusion of finding herself on her bed, with him sitting beside her, quickly cleared as she remembered what had gone before. “I must have fainted,” she croaked in surprise.

Her voice startled him out of the private reverie he’d fallen into. His head jerked around to face her. His eyes had a dazed look. “Yes,” he said, his focus sharpening. “You still look pale. Would you like a drink of water?”

She started to prop herself up on her elbow. The room reeled. She fell back on the pillows, hopelessly dizzy. “Yes, please. It might help.” She closed her eyes, fighting a wave of nausea. “Sorry...”

“My fault.” His weight shifted off the bed. “Be right back.”

A combination of shock with too much wine on an empty stomach, Meredith reasoned, wishing she’d had the sense to eat properly. She didn’t want Nick Hamilton thinking she was sickly and unable to cope with difficult situations. He might think bet ter of her meeting Kimberly for even a short time.

The longing to see her daughter in the flesh rose so strongly, it overrode every other consideration. To actually see her, watch her in action, listen to her, hear how she felt about so many things... it would be worth any amount of heartache.

Fearing that the opening Nick Hamilton had offered might be withdrawn if his impression of her was negative, Meredith swung her legs off the bed and bent her head down to her knees, determined on regaining her equilibrium. By the time he returned with a glass of water, she had steadied enough to drink it.

The weight of liquid helped settle her stomach. As she put the emptied glass on the bedside table, she glanced up to thank him, only to find he wasn’t watching her. He was staring at the photographs on the wall and the grim set to his face did not reflect any pleasure in them.

Her heart sank as she realised what an overwhelming effect the display might have on someone who hadn’t seen it, who didn’t live with it. She didn’t expect others to understand her need for these all too few windows on the life of her lost child and she instinctively recoiled from having that deeply driven maternal need exposed.

“I didn’t invite you in here. I don’t invite anyone in here,” she burst out defensively.

The look he turned on her was so wary it made Meredith feel frantic. Was he in retreat from her? She made a floundering gesture at the photographs.

“I mean all this...it’s private,” she cried, desperate to win a sympathetic hearing. “You probably take Kimberly and everything about her for granted, having her around you all the time. This is the only way I have of seeing my child grow up.”

He shook his head, an appalled expression in his eyes, as though, until this moment, he hadn’t begun to comprehend the immense loss she’d borne since Kimberly’s birth.

“I gave her up because I thought it best for her. That doesn’t mean I love her any less,” Meredith asserted with vehement passion, trying to appeal to his sense of fairness.

“I’m sorry,” he said gruffly. “I had no idea...no appreciation of...” He gestured apologetically. “I beg your pardon for not being more...prepared.”

The father of her child, appearing out of nowhere to suddenly hold out the chance of a reunion—more of a reunion than he knew—how could he have any idea what it meant to her? She ached all over just looking at him, having him near, bringing back the memories of her double grief.

He backed off a step, his face creased in pained concern. “I didn’t mean to invade your privacy by bringing you in here. It was only to help. If you’d prefer to recover alone now...”

Anxiety sank its claws in. Was he seizing an opportunity to escape from a situation he was finding too fraught with emotion? Had she just ruined the one chance she might ever have of meeting her daughter? The last thing she wanted was to drive him away. So much was hanging in the balance. She sought frantically for ways to plead her cause and all she could come up with was to beg a stay of judgment.

“Please don’t go. I won’t collapse on you again.”

An aeon seemed to pass as his eyes bored into hers, searching, sifting, undecided as to what was right or wrong. His tension made hers worse. Every nerve in her body was strung tight, willing him to stay and talk until a more favourable position was reached.

“I’ll wait in the living room,” he said, clearly discomforted by the walls of photographs, the stark evidence of deprived motherhood and the overcharged atmosphere that had risen from its confrontation.

An intense wash of relief brought a hot flow of blood to Meredith’s cheeks. Hopefully it gave them a healthy-looking flush. “I’ll come with you,” she rushed out, afraid to let him out of her sight in case he had second thoughts. “It’s food I need. Once I’ve had something solid to eat I’m sure I’ll feel much better.”

She quickly pushed up from the bed, swaying slightly before finding her balance. He was beside her in an instant, ready to lend his support. Her eyes pleaded for belief as she assured him, “I’m not usually fragile.”

“Take my arm.” It was a firm command. “I’ll see you seated on your sofa. Then you can tell me what to do in your kitchen to assemble a meal for you.”

“I can manage,” she protested, intent on proving it.

“So can I,” he insisted, intent on taking control.

The need to show independent strength suddenly lost its importance. If she kept him busy with her now, she gained the time to impress him as a responsible person whom he could trust to act both sensibly and sensitively when it came to a meeting with Kimberly. It had to come to that. Had to.