Christmas Where She Belongs

And confirmed the jangling had nothing to do with fear.

‘I’m Clancy,’ she said, snatching her hand back lest it transmit any of the rioting going on in her body. She’d heard of instant attraction, but this was ridiculous!

Mac let his gaze roam around the tiny apartment, mainly because he didn’t want to keep staring at the woman. It wasn’t that she was so outstandingly beautiful, but she had eyes as green as the lucerne in his back paddock—green with a hint of blue—and skin as smooth as a new baby’s, ivory pale but not white, all set off, well, framed really, by a cap of feathery dark hair.

She was small, but definitely curvy, and although dressed for a relaxing Sunday at home, there was no hint of sloppiness—in fact, she was wearing long shorts with a crease that could cut your hand and a spotless, beautifully ironed T-shirt.

Who ironed T-shirts?

‘You wanted something?’

The voice was good as well, soft, slightly husky, deeper than you’d expect from a smallish woman.

‘Mac?’ she added, when he didn’t reply—couldn’t really, he was lost in surprise that this should be Hester’s niece.

He pulled himself together and looked around for Mike, who, wonder of wonders, was sitting by his side, pretending to be a perfect dog.

‘I …’ Mac began, then realised he had no idea how to go on.

‘Is there somewhere we can sit?’ he asked. ‘I realise you must have just moved in, and don’t have furniture, but I noticed coffee shops up the road with pavement tables. We could take Mike there.’

‘Mike?’ the woman echoed, though she obviously caught on because she was looking at the dog.

‘Hester called all her dogs by people names, which is strange when you consider she regarded dogs as far more intelligent than people.’

The woman, Miss Clancy, frowned and shook her head, then put up one hand and ruffled her neatly cut hair.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about, but you’re right, let’s go and get a coffee.’

Mac was about to head out the door when she added, rather testily, ‘And not having furniture doesn’t mean I’ve just moved in, I just haven’t found the furniture I want.’

She lifted a handbag off a hook by the door and followed him out, pulling the door shut behind her, but before they reached the elevator, an elderly man emerged from another apartment, obviously heading in the same direction, though he paused to give Mike a disapproving look.

‘Dogs are not allowed in this building. You should know that, Miss Clancy.’

‘He’s just passing through, Mr Bennett,’ Clancy responded politely, though the colour in her cheeks suggested she was embarrassed by the reprimand.

Mac waited until they were outside the complex, walking up the tree-lined street towards the closest pavement café, before bringing up the subject again.

‘So, it’s going to be a problem, you inheriting Mike?’

The only response was a narrow-eyed glare, but even glaring those eyes were special.

They reached the café and Clancy chose a table at the outside edge of the pavement, no doubt assuming it would keep Mike out of other patrons’ way. But she didn’t know Mike.

‘So!’ she said, sitting down with her back to the quiet road. ‘Start at the beginning, who you are, why are you here, who is or was Hester and, probably most important of all, as I can’t keep the dog, what are you going to do with him?’

He smiled at her.

‘Very succinct summation of the main points. No wonder you’ve done so well as a teacher,’ he said.

The smile was Clancy’s undoing. It sneaked through her skin and curdled in her blood, turning it thick and sluggish, but no matter how her body was behaving, she couldn’t let him get away with the jibe.

‘I am a nurse educator, the senior lecturer in surgical nursing and theatre skills at the university,’ she pointed out.

The man’s smile widened.

‘Just as I said—a really good teacher! You must be to have done so well. But tell me, having trained to nurse, what made you go into teaching? Did you not like nursing?’

He was impossible.

‘I don’t think that’s any of your business,’ she snapped. ‘Anyway, we’re here to talk about the dog, not me.’

‘Ah, Mike!’ the infuriating man drawled, while the dog sniffed the leg of a leggy blonde three tables away and was rewarded with a bit of buttered and very jammy croissant.

Should she call the dog? Clancy wondered. Would it come if she did?

‘Start with who you are,’ she said to the man, deciding it was easier to ignore the dog.

‘My name is McAlister Warren, and—’

‘McAlister Warren? That sounds more like a firm of lawyers than a name.’

Yes, that had been rude, but she was strung so tightly the words had just slipped out. Anyway, the situation was so bizarre, surely a little rudeness wouldn’t count.

Not that rudeness affected the man. He could give as good as he got.

‘It’s the name my parents gave me,’ he said smoothly, ‘and coming from someone called Willow Cloud Clancy, your criticism of my name is a bit rich.’

Clancy cringed. Few people knew her real name, and those who did would never dare to use it. She’d been Clancy from her first day at school—at real school, that was …

‘Everyone calls me Clancy,’ she said, aware that colour had crept into her face. He was right—she should never have mentioned names.

‘Good choice,’ he said, smiling cheerfully at her across the table and causing the little hairs on her arms to stand on end as if his words had brushed her skin. ‘Now, coffee? Something to eat with it?’

Clancy had been so busy trying to work out why the man was affecting her, she hadn’t noticed the waitress, one she didn’t know, approach the table.

‘Long, black and nothing to eat,’ she managed to reply, hoping coffee—black—might get her brain working again while certain that the way she felt, she’d choke on food.

‘So, you’re Mac,’ she prompted. ‘From Carnock, was it?’

As she said the word, a memory stirred and she knew why she’d opened the door. Once, long ago, she’d searched for a town called Carnock on a map in the school library, wondering just how far away it was and whether she could walk there if she started early enough. She was a good walker, and every morning walked a long way uphill to catch the bus to school …

‘You’ve heard of Carnock?’

Mac’s question was casual enough, but Clancy could feel his attention was focussed fully on her, as if the question had some deeper meaning.

‘One of the towns that had to be totally evacuated during the floods last year?’ she responded, realising she hadn’t connected the town to her childhood memory back then. It had to be the talk of an inheritance that had triggered the memory now.