Christmas Eve: Doorstep Delivery

Feeling her nerve seep out of her like air from a punctured tyre, Hayley decided that if she was going to find the courage to carry out this plan, she needed to end this conversation. ‘Thanks for the lift, Jack. Merry Christmas.’

‘Merry Christmas to you.’ His eyes twinkled. ‘Will you make it to the door without slipping?’

‘Probably not, but don’t worry—bruises suit me. I look good in blue and purple.’ Hayley smoothed her hair, even though she knew that without a pair of straighteners and half an hour in front of a mirror her attempts to look groomed wouldn’t make an impact.

With a final wave and toot of his horn, Jack drove away and Hayley was left staring at the house.

A pair of child’s red Wellington boots were tipped over in the snow, and a tiny shovel had been discarded on the path, as if the owner hadn’t been able to wait to run back inside this wonderful house and prepare for Christmas.

It wasn’t a house, Hayley thought wistfully. It was a home.

A dream home.

And inside was a family who needed her—a family who wasn’t going to spend the whole festive season treating her as the entertainment.

So why was she suddenly nervous?

Well, because she was always the same about decisions. Right thing, wrong thing? This or that? Invariably she jumped in with both feet and then realised that the other way was the better way. In fact, she’d spent most of her life unravelling the consequences of decisions she’d made.

When she’d been miles away in Chicago, Christmas with a bunch of strangers had seemed like a brilliant idea. Suddenly she wasn’t so sure.

She was about to take a job with a family she’d never even met, in a part of the country she didn’t know. And all so that she could avoid her own agonising family Christmas and track down a gorgeous stranger she’d spent one night with.

When she’d come up with the plan it had seemed bold and proactive.

A plan worthy of a competent, twenty-first-century woman.

Hayley swallowed. She didn’t need her step-siblings to point out that she wasn’t really a competent, twenty-first-century woman.

If she were a competent, twenty-first-century woman she wouldn’t have slunk out of an impossibly sexy man’s swanky hotel room before he’d woken up, neither would she have been wearing the previous night’s dress and a scarlet face that announced her sins to anyone who happened to be looking. And she definitely wouldn’t have left her knickers on his bedroom floor! A twenty-first-century woman would certainly have been able to find her knickers in the dark. Except that a twenty-first-century woman wouldn’t have needed to. She would have woken up next to the impossibly sexy man, calmly ordered room service and then handed him her phone number or left with her head held high.

She had slunk out like a criminal, ensuring that there was no chance he would ever call her, because he didn’t have her number.

All he had was her knickers.

At least Cinderella had had the sense to make it a shoe, Hayley thought gloomily as she picked her way through the snow to the front door. Losing a shoe made you seem slightly dippy and a little romantic—although it made it difficult to walk, of course. But losing knickers…

She didn’t even want to think about how losing a pair of knickers made you look.

Prince Charming would never have roamed his kingdom looking for the bottom that fitted the knickers, would he?

Cross with herself, she kicked a lump of snow and watched it scatter. She’d met the man of her dreams and then she’d walked out! What an idiot. Her step-siblings would have laughed themselves sick. Soppy, romantic Hayley, always dreaming of marriage and happy endings.

Hayley sighed. She wasn’t that old-fashioned. She had spent the night with him—although her embarrassingly quick surrender had had more to do with his superior seduction technique than her impressive decision-making abilities.

But she wasn’t going to think about that now. She wasn’t going to think about his skilled hands, or his clever mouth or the way he knew exactly where to touch and how…

Oh, God, please, please, don’t let him reject her. Please let him be dreaming of her right now. And most of all please let him have spent the past few weeks frantically calling detective agencies trying to track her down. All I know about her is that she has great taste in underwear.

Surely he was going to be pleased to see her?

Imagining his reaction to her unexpected arrival brought a smile to her face. Perhaps she’d better make sure that their first meeting took place in private in case he just hauled her into his arms and proposed on the spot.

She wondered what her stepsister would say when she met him.

How did our Hayley ever get herself a man like that?

Smiling at her own fantasies, she reached towards the doorbell.

Patrick pushed the haphazardly wrapped presents under the tree and looked at his ten-year-old son. ‘Alfie, why are you looking at the clock?’

Alfie gave a guilty start. ‘I don’t keep looking at the clock.’

‘Yes, you do.’

‘Well, it’s Christmas Eve. I—I’m excited.’ Alfie’s gaze slid furtively to the door. ‘Daddy, don’t you wish you had someone to help cook the turkey?’

‘I can cook a turkey.’ Patrick added a strip of sticky tape to a parcel that was bursting out of its wrapping.

‘Last year you said if you ever saw a turkey again it would be too soon.’

Patrick winced. Was Christmas ever going to run smoothly? ‘That was last year. I’ve studied a cookery book. I don’t foresee any complications.’ He tried to look confident. He could perform a Caesarean section in less than four minutes if the need arose. Why did he struggle to cook a turkey?

‘If you had a wife, she could cook the turkey.’

‘That isn’t a reason to get married. These days, women don’t always like doing that sort of thing.’ Patrick extracted himself from under the tree, his wide shoulders dragging through the branches and sending a shower of needles over the pale wooden floor. ‘Why are you talking about wives? We’re going to have a great Christmas. You, Posy and me.’

‘And the kittens.’

‘And the kittens.’ Remembering the kittens, Patrick frowned. ‘That woman who phoned earlier is coming to look at them any moment now. With any luck she’ll fall in love with them and that will solve one of our problems.’

‘The kittens aren’t a problem!’

‘Having four of them is a problem.’ Seeing the forlorn look on Alfie’s face, Patrick felt a flash of guilt and squatted down in front of his son. ‘Alfie, we cannot keep four kittens.’

Alfie fiddled with a bauble on the tree. ‘What if the woman gets here and she doesn’t want the kittens?’

‘Why wouldn’t she want the kittens? That’s why she’s coming.’ Patrick scooped up a pile of discarded books and stood up. ‘Take this lot up to your bedroom, will you? We need to make room for all the new mess you’re going to make on Christmas Day.’

Alfie looked up at him, a flash of desperation in his eyes. ‘Do you promise that whatever happens you won’t be angry?’

Patrick frowned. ‘Alfie, what is going on?’ He forced himself to ask the question that always niggled at the back of his mind. ‘Are you missing Mum? Is that what this is about?’

Alfie rubbed his foot along the groove in the floor. ‘Do you miss her?’

How did you tell a child that divorce had come as a blessing?

‘Your mum and I made a mistake when we got married,’ Patrick said gruffly. ‘It happens. It has nothing to do with you. We both love you.’