One Winter's Day: A Diamond in Her Stocking / Christmas Where They Belong / Snowed in at the Ranch

Lizzie swallowed hard against a hitch in her voice when she remembered the magic of those hours with Jesse. It hadn’t been just physical—for her, anyway. At the wedding she’d seen a spark of ‘what might have been’ if circumstances had been different.

‘I love Jesse to pieces. But I don’t want to see you hurt.’ Sandy paused. ‘Or, for that matter, see Jesse hurt.’

‘What do you mean, “see Jesse hurt”?’

‘Were you serious about him at the wedding? Or was he just a fling before you got back to the reality of being a single mum?’

‘Of course I wasn’t serious—how could I be with all those warnings echoing in my head?’ Though there had been moments when she’d been guilty of daydreaming of something more. ‘Jesse was fun. A diversion. He made me laugh at a time when I didn’t have a whole lot to laugh about.’

‘That’s what I mean. We’d be angry if a guy toyed with a pretty woman just for a diversion. Why would it be different for a woman with a handsome guy?’

‘You can’t be serious. I wasn’t toying with Jesse. It’s not the same thing at all.’

‘Isn’t it? Seems to me there’s a lot more to Jesse than he lets on. Sometimes I think it might be a disadvantage to be as good-looking as he is. Does he ever wonder if women flock to him because of how he looks or because of who he is?’

‘It’s not something I’ve thought about,’ Lizzie said.

‘People think women are throwing themselves at him all the time and he wouldn’t care if someone dumped him like you did. He was gutted when you went home without another word to him, though he tried to hide it.’

‘R-really?’ was all Lizzie could manage to stutter. Could that be true?She’d only thought of her own hurt feelings. ‘There...there was a misunderstanding. But we’ve sorted that out. It’s been six months. I...I’m sure there’ve been other women for him in the meantime.’

It was ridiculous, but her heart twisted painfully at the thought of Jesse with someone else. Even now, when she’d put him strictly off-limits.

She’d been stabbed by a sharp and unexpected shard of jealousy when she’d rushed back to the wedding reception to find Jesse with the woman she now knew was his cousin. Her jealousy had been disproportionate to the incident, she knew; after all, she’d had no claim on him. Seeing him laughing with the lovely woman had brought its own brand of pain but had also ripped the scab off buried memories of Philippe’s behaviour. Never, never could she allow herself to fall for a man like that again.

‘Jesse hasn’t mentioned any girls,’ said Sandy slowly.

‘Would he tell you?’

Sandy shook her head. ‘I guess not. He seems to live by the code “a gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell”.’

‘That’s a good point in his favour. But there’s no need for you to worry about me and Jesse. We’ve agreed we’re going to try and be friends as we’re connected by family, but that’s all.’ No-strings fun. That was how he’d described it and it wouldn’t happen again.

‘Good,’ said Sandy with rather too much emphasis. ‘Please keep it that way.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Jesse is so not for you.’

Lizzie felt stung by Sandy’s assumption. ‘I know that. I’ve figured it out all by myself. I don’t need my big sister to tell me,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘I am not interested in Jesse as anything other than...than an acquaintance. Someone I have to try to be friends with because you’re married to his brother.’ She would keep telling herself that.

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ said Sandy with an air of relief that Lizzie found more than a tad insulting.

‘By the way,’ she said, ‘thanks for not telling me Jesse would be here when I arrived in Dolphin Bay.’

Sandy looked shamefaced. ‘Yeah. That. I didn’t know he was going to injure his shoulder and land home here, did I? He’s staying in the converted boathouse where we lived before we built the big house.’

‘You could have warned me.’

‘I was worried you’d get yourself wound up at the thought of seeing him. I didn’t want you worrying about it. You’ve got enough on your plate.’

They’d always looked after each other and her sister’s advice was well meant. ‘Oh, Sandy, you don’t have to worry about me. I’ve no intention of letting any guy get to me again.’

‘After all you went through with Philippe, you know I can’t help but worry about you. When I think of how you were in Sydney all by yourself having the baby while he—’

Lizzie put up her hand to stop her sister’s flow of words. She didn’t want to even think about that time, let alone talk about it. ‘I’m older and wiser now. And much, much tougher.’

‘Maybe I was wrong not to warn you about Jesse being home in Dolphin Bay.’

‘No. You were right. It did give me a shock to see him here. Then to find out I’ll be working with him every day...’ Maybe if she’d known, she’d have found a way to put off the opening of the café until Jesse had gone.

‘Don’t knock back any offers of help—even if you don’t particularly want to spend time with Jesse,’ said Sandy. ‘It’s a big ask to get this café open for business in seven days. Besides, he’s only here for a few weeks.’

‘Four, to be precise,’ Lizzie said. ‘But don’t worry, Sandy. I’ve got very good at resisting temptation. Jesse Morgan is no danger to my heart, I can assure you. I promise I’ll make an effort to get along with him for your sake.’

CHAPTER FIVE (#ud56d94bd-93ea-5ea5-9819-c5e5228162a2)

JESSE HADN’T LIVED in Dolphin Bay for any length of time for years. If he took the new job he’d been offered in Houston, Texas, he’d rarely be back to his home town. Yet he took pride in showing Lizzie more of the area where he, his father and his grandfather had grown up.

He had seen so many parts of the world devastated by floods, tornadoes, earthquakes and other disasters he never took its beauty for granted. No matter the growth of the town itself, the heritage-listed harbour, the beaches and the national park bushland stayed reassuringly the same. Whatever the ups and downs of his life, he took comfort from that.

‘All I’ve seen of this part of the world is the town, the beach and the road in and out,’ Lizzie said when she settled into the SUV he’d borrowed from his father. She was wearing white jeans and a simple knit top that gave her a look of cool elegance, of discreet sexiness he found very appealing. ‘I’m looking forward to seeing more.’

‘Then we’ll drive the long way around to the places we’re going to visit,’ he said.

Spring was his favourite time here, the quiet months before the place became overrun with summer tourists. The bush was lush with new growth, a haze of fresh green splashed with the yellow of spring-flowering wattle. The ocean dazzled in its hues of turquoise reflecting cloudless skies; the sand almost white under the sun.

After they’d left the town centre behind, he drove along the road that ran parallel to the sea and stopped at the rocky rise that gave the best view right down the length of Silver Gull, the beach south of Big Ray. He was gratified when Lizzie caught her breath at her first sight of the rollers crashing on the stretch of pristine sand, the stands of young eucalypt that grew down to the edge of it. He owned a block of land on the headland that looked right out to the ocean. One day he’d build a house there.

‘I don’t know if you’ve been away long enough to be impressed that in the evening kangaroos sometimes come down to splash in the shallows,’ he said.

Her smile was completely without reticence. ‘I would never not be impressed by that. If I saw kangaroos there now, I’d go crazy with my phone camera. My French friends would go crazy too when I sent them the photos.’

‘You might want to bring your daughter down one evening,’ he said, smiling at her enthusiasm, as he put the car into gear and pulled away.

‘Amy would love that, and so would I,’ she said. ‘Our Aussie beaches were one of the things I really missed when I was living in France.’

‘France must have had its advantages,’ he said, tongue-in-cheek.

‘Of course it did. Not just the food but also the fashion, the architecture—I loved it. Thought I would always live there.’ He didn’t miss the edge of sadness to her voice.

‘I’m sorry it didn’t work out,’ he said.

‘Thank you,’ she murmured and turned her head to look out of the window, but not before he saw the bleakness in her eyes.

He’d like to know what had gone wrong with her marriage. What kind of a jerk would let go a woman like Lizzie and her cute little daughter? But it wasn’t his business. And he didn’t want to talk on an intimate level with her. Not when he was determined to deny any attraction he still felt for her.

‘If I remember right you used to surf when you were a teenager,’ she said after a pause that was starting to feel uncomfortable.