Christmas Miracle: Their Christmas Family Miracle. Shirley Jump
everything was in scale and so it didn’t seem big, just—safe.
She put the logs in the basket and opened the fire, throwing some in, and as the flames leapt up she went to shut it but he stopped her.
‘Leave it open. It’s nice to sit and stare into the flames. It helps—’
Helps? Helps what? she wanted to ask, but she couldn’t, somehow, so she knelt there on the hearthrug in the warmth of the flames, with Rufus snuggled against her side, his skinny, feathery tail wafting against her, and waited.
But Jake didn’t say any more, just sighed and dropped his head back against the chair and closed his eyes. She could see that his fingers were curled around a glass, and on the table behind him was a bottle. The whisky?
‘What?’
She jumped guiltily. ‘Nothing.’
He snorted. ‘It’s never nothing with women. Yes, it’s the whisky. No, it doesn’t help.’
‘Jake—’
‘No. Leave it, Amelia. Please. If you want to do something useful, you could make us a cup of tea.’
‘How about a hot milky drink?’
‘I’m not five.’
‘No, but you’re tired, you’re hurt and you said you’d had enough caffeine today—it might help you sleep.’
‘Tea,’ he said implacably.
She shrugged and got to her feet, padded back through to the kitchen and put the kettle on, turning in time to see him drain his glass and set it down on the table. He glanced up and met her eyes, and sighed.
‘I’ve only had one. I’m not an alcoholic, Amelia.’
‘I never suggested you were!’ she said, appalled that he’d think she was criticising when actually she’d simply been concerned for his health and well-being.
‘So stop looking at me as if you’re the Archangel Gabriel and I’m going off the rails!’
She gave a soft chuckle and took two mugs out of the cupboard. ‘I’m the last person to criticise anyone for life choices. I’m homeless, for heavens’ sake! And I’ve got three children, only one of whom was planned, and I’m unemployed and my life’s a total mess, so pardon me if I pick you up on that one! I just wondered …’
‘Wondered what? Why I’m such a miserable bastard?’
‘Are you? Miserable, I mean? Kate thought—’ She broke off, not wanting him to think Kate had been discussing him, but it was too late, and one eyebrow climbed autocratically.
‘Kate thought—?’ he prompted.
‘You were just a loner. You are, I mean. A loner.’
‘And what do you think, little Miss Fixit?’
She swallowed. ‘I think you’re sad, and lonely. She said you’re very private, but I think that’s because it all hurts too much to talk about.’
His face lost all expression, and he turned back to the fire, the only sign of movement from him the flex of the muscle in his jaw. ‘Why don’t you forget the amateur psychology and concentrate on making the tea?’ he said, his voice devoid of emotion, but she could still see that tic in his jaw, the rhythmic bunching of the muscle, and she didn’t know whether to persevere or give up, because she sensed it might all be a bit of a Pandora’s box and, once opened, she might well regret all the things that came out.
So she made the tea, and took it through and sat beside the fire in what started as a stiff and unyielding silence and became in the end a wary truce.
He was the first to break the silence.
‘I don’t suppose you’ve made the shopping list?’
She shook her head. ‘Not yet. I could do it now.’
‘No, don’t worry. We can do it over breakfast. I have no doubt that, no matter how little sleep we may have had, the kids will be up at the crack of dawn raring to go, so there’ll be plenty of time.’
She laughed a little unsteadily, feeling the tension drain out of her at his words. ‘I’m sure.’ She got to her feet and held out her hand for his mug, then was surprised when he reached up his left hand, the one in the cast, and took her fingers in his.
‘Ignore me, Amelia. I’ll get over it. I’ll be fine tomorrow.’
She nodded, not understanding really, because how could she? But she let it go, for now at least, and she squeezed his fingers gently and then let go, and he dropped his arm and held out the mug.
‘Thanks for the tea. It was nice.’
The tea? Or having someone to sit and drink it with?
He didn’t say, and she wasn’t asking, but one thing she knew about this man, whatever Kate might say to the contrary—he wasn’t a loner.
‘My pleasure,’ she murmured and, putting the mugs in the sink, she closed the doors of the fire and shut it down again. With a murmured, ‘Good night,’ she went upstairs to bed, but she didn’t sleep until she heard the soft creak of the stairs and the little click as his bedroom door closed.
Then she let out the breath she’d been holding and slipped into a troubled and uneasy sleep.
IT WAS the first time in years he’d been round a supermarket, and Christmas Eve probably wasn’t the day to start—not when they even had to queue to get into the car park, and by the time they’d found a space Jake was beginning to wonder why on earth he’d suggested it.
It was going to be a nightmare, he knew it, rammed to the roof with festive goodies and wall-to-wall Christmas jingles and people in silly hats—he was dreading it, and it didn’t disappoint.
The infuriatingly jolly little tunes on the in-store speakers were constantly being interrupted with calls for multi-skilled staff to go to the checkouts—a fact that didn’t inspire hope for a quick getaway—and the place was rammed with frustrated shoppers who couldn’t reach the shelves for the trolleys jamming the aisles.
‘I have an idea,’ he said as they fought to get down the dairy aisle and he was shunted in the ankle by yet another trolley. ‘You know what we need, I don’t want to be shoved around and Thomas needs company, so why don’t I stand at the end with him and you go backwards and forwards picking up the stuff?’
And it all, suddenly, got much easier because he could concentrate on amusing Thomas—and that actually was probably the hardest part. Not that he was hard to entertain, quite the opposite, but it brought back so many memories—memories he’d buried with his son—and it was threatening to wreck him. Then, just when he thought he’d go mad if he had to look at that cheerful, chubby little smile any longer, he realised their system wasn’t working.
The trolley wasn’t getting fuller and, watching her, he could see why. She was obviously reluctant to spend too much of his money, which was refreshing but unnecessary, so he gave up and shoved the trolley one-handed into the fray while she was dithering over the fresh turkeys.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘They’re so expensive. The frozen ones are much cheaper—’
‘But they take ages to defrost so we don’t have a choice. Just pick one. Here, they’ve got nice free-range Bronze turkeys—get one of them,’ he suggested, earning himself a searching look.
‘What do you know about Bronze turkeys?’ she asked incredulously.
He chuckled. ‘Very little—but I know they’re supposed to have the best flavour, I’m ethically comfortable with