Their Mistletoe Baby. Karin Baine

       PROLOGUE

      THIS WAS GOING to be the best Christmas ever. Freya was going to make sure of it. She heard Lucas turning his key in the front door and hoped the smell of her home cooking would put a smile back on his face.

      ‘I’m in the kitchen,’ she called, thankful she’d had the day off to make up for their earlier tiff.

      Lucas hadn’t been in the best of moods lately, which surely hadn’t been helped by having to work Christmas Eve or her mistake of bringing up obviously delicate subjects when he was overworked and overtired. Not that she’d expected the idea of having a baby to be so controversial for a doctor who’d chosen to specialise in paediatric care and was so great with his young patients.

      They’d never discussed starting a family. Freya had simply assumed Lucas would be as keen as she was, but his negative reaction to the idea this morning had told a different story. He’d surprised her by storming off to the hospital, slamming the door behind him when she’d mentioned feeling broody recently. In hindsight, she had put him on the spot by asking when they could start thinking about babies when he was obviously under a lot of pressure already and not in the right head space to become a father yet.

      They could discuss it properly later so they were both clear on the long-term plans for this relationship.

      As Lucas strode into the kitchen, still wearing the same scowl he’d had for days now, Freya conceded it probably wasn’t good timing anyway when marriage already seemed far from the fairy tale she’d always imagined. Her spirits sank a little as that dream of having a family of her own seemed further away than ever. Lucas’s recent mood swings were even making her slightly regret the pact she’d made with him that they would spend the holidays together, just the two of them. This would be her first year not sharing it with her tinsel-loving, Christmas-aholic parents, made more difficult by the fact her new husband didn’t appear to share her enthusiasm for the season either.

      The more Freya tried to make it special for them, the more detached Lucas seemed to become, but she was determined to make Christmas, and their marriage, a success. She’d lost too much already to let it all slip through her hands again.

      ‘You’ve been busy.’ Lucas leaned up against the refrigerator and gave the baked goods lining the kitchen counter a cursory glance before he continued scrolling through his phone.

      If Freya was honest, it wasn’t the amorous reunion she’d been hoping for where they would both admit they’d been in the wrong and engage in some wild kitchen make-up sex so they could move on and enjoy the rest of Christmas.

      She’d heard passion sometimes went off the boil when you got married but she hadn’t expected it after only a few months. They should still be in that can’t-wait-to-rip-each-other’s-clothes-off honeymoon stage, which was why she was worried she wasn’t living up to his wifely expectations. Her mother had always seemed to juggle her nursing career and her home life perfectly and she couldn’t help but wonder if this blip in their love life had somehow been down to her. After all, she didn’t have a good record for keeping men interested. All she wanted to do was make this first Christmas together special for him.

      ‘The turkey’s almost done if you want some. I always love Christmas Eve at home, with the smell of the turkey cooking and getting to sample some before dinner on the big day. I’ve made my own stuffing too, just the way my mum always did. Maybe I’ll get to pass on the family tradition someday too.’ It slipped out before she realised and she tensed, waiting for another heated reminder she was alone in her enthusiasm for a large brood to fill her house at Christmas.

      ‘I’m not really hungry. Maybe later.’ Luckily, Lucas appeared oblivious to her slip of the tongue, his phone still monopolising his attention. Freya told herself such was the nature of being married to a paediatric consultant—he was always in demand—but there was a niggling doubt something else was behind his recent distraction. Especially when there’d been a few occasions he’d seemed to end calls abruptly when she’d walked into the room.

      ‘I made gingerbread men too. You know Christmas isn’t Christmas without creating a cloned army of little dudes capable of breaking your teeth on the one day of the year a dentist is impossible to get hold of. I thought you could help me decorate them later in time for Santa Claus stopping by.’ The ironic nod to her childlike obsession with the season had been an attempt to make him laugh but Lucas simply rolled his eyes as though it was a chore she was forcing him to perform, the joke lost on him. Freya made the excuse to herself that he was probably exhausted after his shift because it was less painful than believing he’d tired of her already.

      ‘Great. I...er...think I’ll go take a shower first.’ He walked out of the kitchen, batting away the paper garlands she’d hung from the ceiling with his free hand, as if they were nothing but a nuisance.

      That was exactly how she didn’t want him to see her—as if she was nothing more than a pretty decoration he could do without cluttering up his life—but even when he wasn’t working he came to bed late and rose early, so they spent little time together as a couple these days. Married life was new to them both but she would do whatever it took to make this work. This was her chance to have the family she’d always wanted and she wasn’t going to fail a second time.

      * * *

      Lucas closed his eyes and let the water wash his tears away where no one could see them. As a newlywed spending his first Christmas with his beautiful wife this should have been the happiest time of his life. Yet he couldn’t seem to get excited about their future when his past had come back to haunt him so vividly.

      He couldn’t begin to think of starting a family now when he was still reeling from the news of his father’s death. The impact of losing the only parent he’d known had been greater than he’d ever imagined but not because he was grieving the loss of the man who’d raised him. His sorrow was for the childhood he’d been denied and the one he’d suffered instead. The one he now couldn’t escape in his head and that wouldn’t let him enjoy married life in peace.

      Everything he had worked so hard to achieve seemed like a lie now that he was forced to face who he really was behind the career and success he’d built for himself. It wouldn’t be fair to bring a baby into existence when he was struggling to hold his own together. He could never hope to give a child a happy, secure home now when his world felt as though it was crashing down around him.

      Lucas scrubbed away his self-pity and shut off the shower. None of this was fair on Freya. A normal husband would’ve told his wife his estranged father had finally succumbed to liver disease and had someone to endure the funeral with him. He would have given her the reason he was so against the idea of bringing a baby into the middle of his personal turmoil—he was afraid of becoming his father’s son and ruining another childhood. Except his relationship with his father had been so toxic he hadn’t wanted the ugliness of it to taint her. Freya was so idealistic about their marriage and how the next phase of their life together should play out he didn’t want to destroy that rosy vision with the disturbing reality behind his.

      He should’ve known it would take more than time and distance to truly escape the man’s clutches.

      When Lucas had received the call about his father’s passing, he’d been forced to think about the man he’d been and had instantly been transported to a time he’d done his best to forget. Now, every time he closed his eyes he was overwhelmed by memories he’d tried to suppress, until even his waking moments were dominated by dark thoughts and a need to escape them.

      Freya was the only one saving him from total despair but he was drowning in his own misery and now, more than ever, she was drifting just out of reach as she fussed around, trying to make his house the home he’d never had.

      Her talk of babies and family was only natural when he’d never spoken out against it