Orphan Under the Christmas Tree

The life she’d chosen for herself!

As for Tom, well, her refusal hadn’t dented his confidence. Since his arrival in town she’d watched him flirt with every woman in Crystal Cove; watched him squire any number of them around town, although none of the women he’d dated then deserted seemed to bear grudges against him, singing his praises as a companion, their pleasure in the affair, remaining friends with him even after the relationships had ended.

Tom Fletcher, she’d realised very early on, was one of those men all women loved, and apparently he loved being loved by them, but he was of the ‘love them and leave them’ tribe with no intention of ever settling down.

And to be honest, she wasn’t sure about the affairs or even his prowess as a lover because none of the women ever talked.

Which in itself was odd …

‘Earth to Lauren?’

She stared at him, unable to remember what he’d said, and unable to believe she’d drifted off into her own thoughts while the man, apparently, had something to say to her.

‘Sorry,’ she muttered. ‘What was it you wanted?’

You, Tom would have liked to say, but he knew he could never say it. Oh, he’d asked her out once, but fortunately she’d said no, because as he’d grown to know Lauren Cooper he’d realised she was a woman who deserved the best of everything the world had to offer and, as far as men went, that wasn’t him.

‘Nothing,’ he said instead. ‘Except to know if you’re okay. You’re pale as milk, you’re sitting in an empty room way after working hours, and groaning loudly.’

She looked into his eyes and managed a wry smile.

‘Not loudly, surely?’ she queried.

‘Loudly!’ he repeated. ‘It brought me racing from my office.’

Her smile improved.

‘You? Race? Ice-cool Tom? The one who keeps his head when all around are losing theirs, isn’t that the saying?’

‘Well, I hurried,’ he amended then because it was always so—well, nice—to be sitting talking to Lauren about nothing in particular—something that rarely happened in both their busy lives—he added, ‘And you did groan, so tell me.’

If only she could! With a supreme effort of will, Lauren refrained from groaning again.

Although …

She studied him for a moment, considering the bizarre idea that had flitted into her head—checking it from all angles.

Tom was a friend, after all, and what were friends for but to help each other out?

Although might it not be tempting fate?

‘I am a friend.’ Tom echoed her thoughts. ‘So, rather than doing both sides of the argument in your head, why don’t you talk it out with me?’

‘Because it would involve you!’

Was it because the answer had come upon her so suddenly that she’d blurted that out?

‘Aah!’ Tom was grinning at her, laughter dancing in his eyes, mischief gleaming there as well. ‘You’ve killed someone and need help to dig the hole to bury the body!’

She had to smile!

‘Not quite that bad,’ she admitted, ‘although there were times today when I could have strangled an obnoxious eight-year-old who thought hosing all the girls who walked past the refuge was a fun way to pass the afternoon.’

‘Bobby Sims?’ Tom asked, and she smiled again as she nodded in answer to his query. One of the things that made Tom Fletcher so darned appealing—apart from film-star looks—was his empathy. He could sit down with someone and be on his or her wavelength within minutes, or so Lauren had always found.

‘But you didn’t strangle the terror of the refuge, so what’s the problem?’

Lauren shifted her attention away from Tom—too distracting—looking around the room, feeling so ridiculous she wondered if she could make up some story to explain her groan and he’d go away and she’d find an excuse to just not go to the tree raising.

Except she had to go!

As her eyes came back to rest on Tom’s face, he lifted one eyebrow, a trick she’d tried and failed to master in her youth, and she knew he deserved an honest answer.

‘You’ll think I’m stupid,’ she began, then was furious with herself for being feeble enough to utter such an inanity. ‘No, I am stupid. And pathetic, and ridiculous, and I’ve got myself into a tizz over nothing so best you just slope off to wherever you’re going and leave me groaning into my hands.’

Lauren didn’t do stupid. That was the first thought that came into Tom’s head as he listened to her castigate herself. Of all the women he’d ever known, she was the most sensible, practical and level-headed, guided by what had always seemed a boundless store of common sense and a determination that bordered on ruthless—at least, where keeping the women’s refuge open was concerned. As far as he knew, in her private life she was just that, private—she lived alone and seemed to like it that way—but stupid? Never!

‘I’m not going,’ he announced. ‘Not until you tell me what’s got you frazzled like this. Is it Christmas? Does your family make a big deal of it, so you have relatives who bore you stupid descending on you for weeks at a time, and people arguing about who’s doing the cake and the best stuffing for the turkey?’

That won a smile, but it was wan and he realised that, subconsciously perhaps, he’d been worried about Lauren for a while. She was still as beautiful as ever, having good bone structure so tiredness didn’t ravage her features as it did some people. But she was pale, and the dark shadows beneath her eyes had deepened so they had a bruised look.

The smile had dried up while he was thinking about her looks, and she was frowning at him now.

Quite ferociously, in fact, so the words, when they came, seemed to have no meaning—certainly nothing to connect them to a ferocious frown.

‘I want to ask you out,’ she said, her eyes, a golden, greeny-brown and always startling against her golden blonde hair, fixed on his, no doubt so she could gauge his reaction.

Challenging him, in fact!

‘Okay,’ he managed, though battling to process both the invitation and the fierceness of it, which made the slight start of pleasurable surprise he felt quite ridiculous. ‘When?’

‘Tonight,’ she said. ‘In fact, right now—we should be leaving any minute.’

‘But it’s the great tree raising do tonight,’ he reminded her. ‘We’re both going anyway. The entire hospital staff was invited.’

No reaction beyond another, barely suppressed groan, so he took a wild guess.

‘Do you mean after the tree raising? Dinner somewhere perhaps?’

He was speaking lightly, but inside he was a mess of confusion, though why he couldn’t say. Perhaps because Lauren looked so unhappy, while her lips, usually full and with a slight natural pout, were pressed together, suggesting the tension she was feeling had increased rather than decreased after she’d shot out the invitation.

‘I suppose we could eat afterwards,’ she mumbled, and Tom had to laugh.

‘Now, there’s a gracious invitation,’ he said, but no glimmer of humour lightened Lauren’s face. If anything, she was looking even more grim!

He stood up and walked around the desk, squatting beside her and looking directly into her face, putting his hand on her shoulder—the lightest of touches but showing her without words that he was there for her.

‘Tell me,’ he said softly, and to his astonishment tears welled in her eyes, overflowed, and slid silently down her cheeks.