A Miracle For Christmas

But she saw he was already out of it.

Exhausted from the effort she’d put into getting him where he was, she threw herself down into the nearest chair and looked at him broodingly.

Why, she wondered, was he here alone? And especially at this time of year, when families gathered together, drawn by love, memories and layers of tradition.

She herself couldn’t wait to get home.

But this man didn’t believe in Christmas. She frowned as she remembered the words he’d spoken to her the night before. Go away, he’d growled. I don’t do Christmas.

She hugged her arms around herself, and leaned forward in her seat, toward the sofa. Why? she wanted to ask the man lying there. Why don’t you do Christmas?

Even in sleep he looked forbidding. It was the scowl, of course. It was deeply etched, and looked as if it might be a permanent fixture on that hard male face. Her gaze became drawn inexorably to his mouth. The lips...though they were slightly parted she could detect a firmness there, that spoke of control...but along with that firmness was a sensuality, that spoke of something else.

She sighed.

He stirred, and murmured something that sound like ‘Ashley...’ and then settled back into sleep.

He didn’t waken again till early afternoon.

Damian remembered telling her that morning that she was pretty. He had been wrong. Now, half-awake and unnoticed, he scrutinized her as she sat curled up on the sofa across from his, engrossed in a magazine. She had changed into an emerald green sweater and navy stretch pants, and her hair was tied back with an emerald green velvet ribbon. His lidded gaze took in the delicacy of her bone structure, the sweet curve of her lips, the copper highlights in her hair. She was more than pretty, he reflected; she was beautiful. The subtle kind of beauty that could sneak up on a man if he wasn’t careful, and steal his heart. If he believed in Christmas, he would also believe in miracles, and he would believe she’d been sent to him, meant for him...

A Christmas miracle.

But if he believed in anything it was that Christmas, and miracles, were for other men. Never for him.

He cleared his throat. ‘You’re still here?’

She looked up, closed the magazine and laid it on the cushion beside her. ‘Mmm.’ Her full pink lips hovered between a grimace and a pout. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘On the mend.’

‘Good.’

He stretched, and clasped his hands behind his head. ‘What day is it?’

‘The twenty-fourth.’

His grin was wry. ‘Already? So...where were you making for last night, when you ended up in my snowbank?’

‘Home for Christmas.’ She was wearing dangling silver earrings; earrings with a dark green stone that picked up the color of her eyes. As she lifted her shoulders in a shrug, the earrings swung and briefly touched her pale neck, the silver glinting in the light. ‘I’m not expected till today—I was going to surprise them by coming early.’

‘Them? Your family?’

‘Mmm. They all live in Rockfield. Two grandmothers, two parents, several aunts and uncles, four brothers and their wives and an assortment of nieces and nephews ranging from a newborn baby with colic, to a teenage boy with acne and raging hormones.’

Family. Boy, did this woman ever have a family. Envy pierced him. ‘And you’ve brought only one teddy bear?’

Her laugh had the clear tinkle of water gurgling over white pebbles in a brook. ‘Of course not. I’ve loads more presents in the van.’ For a moment, as she spoke, her eyes had sparkled, but as he watched, the sparkle faded. With a barely concealed sigh, she got up from the sofa, crossed to the window and hugged her arms around herself. She was looking out, but there could be little to see but the falling snow. She stood still for a long while. Silence filled the room, except for the occasional howl of the wind outside, the frequent blatter of snowflakes against the window.

She wiped the fingertips of her right hand over the mist her breath had made on the pane. He saw her shift restlessly; flick back her ponytail.

‘You’re anxious to get going,’ he said.

She turned. Her expression was strained. ‘I phoned Grantham Towing again while you were asleep and they won’t be sending anyone out till the storm’s over and the side road’s been ploughed. I may be stuck here for another night.’

He shoved back the duvet and got up. He swayed a little, but as she moved toward him, he steadied himself. ‘I’m okay,’ he reassured her. ‘Just dizzy there for a sec.’ He crossed over to where she was standing and held out his hand. ‘Damian McAllister.’

‘Stephanie Redford.’ He noticed that her fingertips still retained the damp from the windowpane, but her skin was soft. Now she was close, and he was conscious again of her perfume. Faint and elusive, yet intensely disturbing, it made him think of moss and roses...and slow sensual kisses.

He swallowed, released her hand and robbed the heel of his thumb over his stubbled jaw. Dangerous, he told himself, to let himself think that way.

‘I’m going up to have a shower,’ he said.

‘I’ll fix us something to eat.’

‘Cupboard’s pretty bare.’

She smiled faintly. ‘Not totally.’

His head was getting a bit dizzy again. ‘Good.’

As he ascended the stairs, he realized he was whistling contemplatively under his breath, and with a frown, put a stop to it Irritably he admitted he’d been wondering what it would feel like to untie the green velvet ribbon, spread out that glorious brown hair and let the lustrous strands spill through his fingers.

And even more irritably, he admitted he’d been wondering what it would feel like to sink down with this woman on a bed of green moss, with the scent of pink roses all around, and claim her pouting lips in a passionate kiss.

He glowered. His instincts warned him that Stephanie Redford was not the type to take such kisses lightly. She was beautiful and desirable—but she was also ‘nice’; his deepest instincts told him that, as they also told him that here was a woman who believed in love and marriage...and all the trimmings.

Christmas, for example. It was clear she believed in Christmas.

He did not.

He muttered an oath as he pushed open his bedroom door. He would have to make sure he never kissed her, because his deepest instincts told him something else. They told him that if he ever did kiss her, she’d be impossible to forget.

CHAPTER THREE

TEARS rolled down Stephanie’s cheeks, and with a choking sob, she clumsily wiped them away with her sweater sleeve as she hurried across the kitchen to click off the radio.

She should have known better than to switch it on; should have known that the airwaves would be joyous with the music of Christmas.

‘Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht!

Alles schläft; einsam wacht...’

Even though the choir had been a German one, and the language unfamiliar, the sweet purity of the children’s voices as they sang ‘Silent Night’ had moved her unbearably.

She loved Christmas and had always been emotional at this time, but her feelings were especially near the surface this year because of her broken engagement—

‘Smells good.’