Книга - Mistletoe Mother

Mistletoe Mother
Josie Metcalfe


Stranded and pregnantIt was snowing, and Seth was cursing himself for coming. When he finally made it inside the front door, he discovered that he wasn’t alone. Ella couldn’t believe it. Here of all places was the man who had made her pregnant, then abandoned her.He wanted to know why she had run out on him! Why hadn’t she said she was pregnant? Ella told him—that when she’d discovered her pregnancy, she’d also learned about his wife!Ella was approaching term, the roads were blocked and Seth was the only gynaecologist in sight. They were stuck together for the most emotional Christmas of their lives….









“My God! Ella, you’re pregnant!” Seth breathed, clearly shocked.


“Well, I’m glad to see that all those years of training weren’t wasted,” she retorted acidly.

“So, who’s the father? I hadn’t heard you’d got married.”

For a moment Ella didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, but ended up determined to do neither.

“You stupid man!” she exclaimed shrilly as all those months of wondering and hurting finally boiled over. “I’m not married. I have never married and I have no intention of ever getting married. Furthermore, whether you believe it or not, you are the only man I’ve ever slept with, but to save you wasting money on DNA testing, I’ll tell you here and now that I won’t be asking you for a single penny to raise this child. At least you’ll go away from here secure in the knowledge that I have no intention of using the baby to destroy your marriage.”




Dear Reader (#u5903e72b-5cf2-5f7f-a3f5-5f1f5ee0bd60),


Trying to work out why we make the decisions we make fascinates me. For example, when problems seem insurmountable, what makes some people try to run away from them, while others would rather fight to solve them? Unfortunately, in Mistletoe Mother the heroine’s interfering sister decides to take a hand, so that one of Ella’s problems lands on the doorstep of her isolated Scottish home just ahead of a blizzard—all six feet of him!

Her other problem is something even she can’t run away from, and it can only be solved if the two of them can learn to trust each other again and rediscover the love they’d almost lost.

Happy reading, and a very merry Christmas.









Mistletoe Mother

Josie Metcalfe







www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)




CONTENTS


COVER (#u78e33f3c-8cf4-5dee-8894-1bc8c3334123)

Dear Reader

TITLE PAGE (#u6317fdb9-55b2-5a6b-b825-3dbb264526b5)

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

COPYRIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)




CHAPTER ONE (#u5903e72b-5cf2-5f7f-a3f5-5f1f5ee0bd60)


‘WHAT on earth am I doing in Scotland in the middle of winter?’ Seth Gifford groaned in disgust.

The snow seemed to be coming at him from every direction at once, and as fast as it was chilling his face and piling up on his hair and coat, it was also melting down the back of his neck in freezing trickles.

He could barely see the outline of the tiny cottage through the wildly whirling flakes surrounding him, even though it was just a few paces away. The path was slippery, too, especially with a cumbersome box of groceries in his arms.

‘Whose stupid idea was this, anyway?’ he grumbled aloud, knowing that there was no one in this whirling white wilderness to hear him. For the first time in his life he was completely alone, with not a single person for miles around him. Even his unofficial chauffeur was too far away by now to hear him talking to himself, on his way back to the cosy warmth of his cottage in the village at the other end of the glen. It would be two weeks, when Christmas and the New Year’s celebrations were all over, before the elderly man would retrieve him from his solitude in this tiny croft.

Solitude, he repeated as he made a second journey between the pile of boxes the elderly man had helped to offload at the gate and the tiny porch sheltering the front door. Well, it was another less emotive word for loneliness, he supposed. But, then, he seemed to have been lonely for so much of his life that another two weeks wouldn’t make much difference.

His colleagues back at the hospital had been looking forward to the coming festive season with their usual mix of anticipation and resignation, depending on their family situations and whether they were rostered on or off duty.

He’d barely registered feelings either way. Since Fran had died he’d had no really close friends. There was only his brother left to share the holiday season with, and he’d had his own agenda for years. Not even the matchmaking efforts of the boldest of his co-workers had been able to persuade him into starting a new relationship, and he certainly wasn’t into brief flings.

There had only ever been three women in his life who had mattered to him. First, Margaret, the mother who had died so tragically when he was only sixteen, then Fran, the wife whose disregard for hospital rules and regulations had exacted such a terrible price. The third had been a colleague in his own Obs and Gyn department who he’d foolishly believed would be there for him when he needed her most.

Instead, she had disappeared from his life without a trace and he tried to avoid even thinking about her, let alone saying her name.

‘So much for third time lucky,’ he muttered grimly as he searched in one pocket after another to find the elusive key while bracing the last box against the frame of the door. With a growl of frustration he dragged first one glove and then the other off with his teeth, beyond caring when only one of them managed to drop inside the box. The other disappeared towards his feet, probably destined to be whirled away and buried under a mountain of snow.

He supposed it was his own fault that he’d ended up here, bearing in mind his increasingly sombre moods over the last year or so. The fact that he’d never been able to confide in any of his colleagues had only added to the stress. Sometimes it had felt as if the only thing that had kept him sane had been the fact that he’d had patients depending on his skills to bring their babies safely into the world, but even so…

Really, he admitted silently, remembering the pointed comments he’d had from more than one of those colleagues, it was probably just sheer luck on his part that his whole team hadn’t ganged up to banish him to the North Pole.

‘On second thoughts, perhaps they have,’ he muttered in disgust as the rising wind blew a veritable blizzard of snowflakes around him in spite of the partial protection of the porch. But he hadn’t been that bad, had he, that they’d want to dump him in the middle of this? At Christmas, too…?

He threw a quick glance over his shoulder and grimaced. The brief glimpse he’d had of starkly beautiful winter mountains had disappeared almost as quickly as his unofficial taxi. The snow was falling faster now and the last of the daylight was almost gone. If this kept up he was going to be completely stranded in a matter of hours and who knew how long it would be before the roads would be clear again? If he didn’t find the key soon, perhaps they’d find his body still frozen on the doorstep when the snows finally thawed in the spring…

‘Gotcha!’ He finally closed his chilly fingers around the elusive key and dragged it out of his pocket. ‘Now all I’ve got to do is get the wretched thing to fit into the lock.’

With a grunt of satisfaction he heard the snick as the key turned but when he leant against the door it remained stubbornly closed, almost as though it were still firmly locked.

‘That’s all I need!’ he groaned in disbelief. ‘Am I going to have to break in to get out of the cold?’ It certainly wouldn’t be very cosy inside if he had to spend the next two weeks combating a howling gale coming in through a broken window.

‘The key must fit, otherwise what was the point in giving it to me?’

The envelope bearing the key and the address of this little cottage had been hand-delivered to his office just two days ago. He hadn’t recognised the handwriting and no one would admit responsibility, but everyone he’d asked had been almost insultingly eager that he should take the suggested holiday.

Another flurry of snow sifted its way down the back of his neck and for just a second he contemplated finding his mobile phone to ask for his unofficial taxi driver to come straight back to collect him. Then the thought of dragging a man almost old enough to be his grandfather out again on a night like this resurrected a little of his pride.

‘You’re not caving in at the first hurdle,’ he told himself fiercely. ‘The others might have been half joking when they sent you here, but you’re the only one who really knows how much you need to get your head together. Now, think, man. Why didn’t the key work? Perhaps the door’s warped, or something. Small wonder if this weather is par for the time of year.’

As he bent down to deposit his ungainly burden before trying again, he suddenly realised that he was still talking to himself and grimaced. Was this a new habit? Surely the isolation wasn’t getting to him already.

As he straightened up to try the key again, the increasingly vicious wind caught the end of his scarf and flipped it right across his face just as the door swung silently open in front of him. He blinked as light and warmth spilled over him like some unearthly benediction and suddenly realised that he had an unexpected welcoming committee.

‘How far have you got, then?’

Ella bent awkwardly towards the hearth to lift the corner of the tea towel and peered at the rising dough underneath it with a satisfied smile.

The bread wouldn’t be ready to go into the oven for another twenty minutes or so. Just enough time to get the fire going so that the oven would be hot enough to make a crusty top on each loaf. ‘Just the way you taught me, Granny,’ she murmured as she set the timer, feeling as ever that her grandmother’s spirit would never really leave the cottage she’d loved so much. ‘Put the bread in first, when the oven’s hottest, then pastry, then cakes as the temperature slowly falls.’

Later, she would be putting in a casserole to simmer slowly overnight, but her supper tonight was going to be at least one steaming bowl of home-made leek and potato soup with a couple of slices of hot, freshly baked bread. ‘If I can get the fire hot enough, that is,’ she grumbled as she lowered herself heavily to her knees and reached for a handful of kindling. ‘I’m moving even slower than Granny did, and she was eighty years old and riddled with arthritis.’

After the last seven or eight months, the whole baking process was almost second nature now—lighting a fire in the old-fashioned cloam oven from the briskly burning embers of the open hearth, then raking out the fire when the oven reached the right temperature to bake the bread.

Her father had wanted to replace the centuries-old hearth with a modern cooker to make his mother’s life a little easier but she’d stubbornly clung to the methods she’d grown up with. In spite of the effort involved, Ella could understand the attraction of the old ways, especially on such a cold day.

The fire was blazing brightly in the depths when she shut the oven door and sat back on her heels, glad that her grandmother had resisted. It might be old-fashioned, but the wide fireplace with the cloam oven built into the wall of one side of it was certainly the most appropriate for this sort of weather.

‘Not only does it keep me warm but I can use it for cooking my food, too, and all without worrying about power cuts or running out of gas bottles.’

The swiftly running stream that hurried past the back of the cottage provided her water, via the totally modern tanks and pipes at one end of the tiny loft. Granny had been easily persuaded that there was no good reason to carry buckets of water or make trips to the ‘privy’ when she could have the labour-saving convenience of running water and an inside bathroom.

At the same time, the force of the stream on its downward rush had been unobtrusively utilised to provide all the power she needed for lighting and a fridge. In a really bitter winter the volume of water might be diminished by ice, but so far the little diesel generator hidden away in one of the outhouses as an emergency backup hadn’t been needed at all.

Anyway, she preferred the oil lamps her grandmother had once relied on, and she had a plentiful supply of candles. There was plenty of wood split for burning, with several days’ worth neatly piled beside the fire and even a stack of peat if she got desperate.

Real pioneer stuff, as her sister Sophia was prone to tease, her pretty face screwed up in an expression of mock disgust as she examined her neatly manicured nails.

And it was just teasing, Ella knew with a renewed surge of gratitude for Sophia’s generosity. They’d both loved their visits to the little cottage and had revelled in the freedom to roam far and wide no matter what time of year they’d come. It seemed almost impossible that they would never again hear the soft burr of Granny’s voice as she bade them come in for their tea, or the stories she would tell of the creatures that shared the glen with her.

It had been her bequest to the two of them that they should share the cottage between them and it had been Sophia’s idea that Ella should stay here until she decided what direction her life was going to take.

She’d originally offered to sell the cottage so that Ella could use the money to live on, only admitting how much she’d hated the thought of losing it when Ella had turned the idea down without a second thought.

Staying here had been the best solution all round. She had chickens for eggs and she’d become almost self-sufficient once she’d got the vegetable garden going. As for the rest, it hadn’t taken long to dust off her grandmother’s spinning wheel so that she had goods to sell or barter in the way of isolated rural communities for the other things she needed.

Her thoughts were wandering happily over the little successes that had helped to bring her out of the depression that had driven her here when a sound outside the front of the cottage drew her attention.

A car? She began the struggle to get to her feet. ‘If that’s Malcolm coming to check up on me again I shall give him a piece of my mind. I told him I had plenty of everything and he shouldn’t be driving around when the weather’s like this. Doesn’t he realise that Morag worries about him?’

She used the arm of the chair to heave herself upright and stood puffing for a moment while she listened to the sound of thuds and bumps in the little porch. She hardly needed more food and she had enough wood stacked within easy reach to last for a couple of months at least. She even had a source of fresh milk, delivered daily to the end of the track by one of the MacLain lads on his way into the village. Anything else she needed, including help, she just had to lift the phone to find any number of people willing to offer, such was her grandmother’s legacy within the tiny community.

The only thing she hadn’t got—and that Malcolm couldn’t deliver—was some extra energy.

‘Oh, I’ll be so glad when I’ve lost some of this weight,’ she grumbled as she waddled towards the door. ‘The next three weeks can’t go fast enough. I can’t wait to see my feet again—no offence, baby!’ she added as she slid a hand under the voluminous hand-knitted jumper which had once been her father’s and patted the taut mound of her belly.

For a moment it almost sounded as if someone was trying to use a key in the lock, but before she could think anything of it she was distracted by a hefty kick against her hand.

‘So, you want to get out, do you? If you take my advice, you’ll wait until the weather’s a bit better, or at least until daylight,’ she murmured fondly as she reached out to slide the old-fashioned bolt aside, her other hand reaching for the light switch that was almost never used. ‘We don’t want to make Malcolm do too many trips in the snow.’

She pulled the door open and was momentarily blinded by a flurry of whirling snowflakes before she realised that, whoever he was, the man on her doorstep wasn’t sixty-four-year-old Malcolm.

For just a moment the reflexes she’d honed when she’d lived in the city nearly had her slamming the door in the stranger’s face. Then common sense stayed her hand.

Whoever he was, and whatever had brought him to her door, he needed help to find his way back to the road, although how he could possibly have mistaken her little track for the properly surfaced glen road she had no idea.

‘Are you lost?’ she asked, and had to suppress a smile when she heard echoes of her grandmother’s accent in her voice. When she’d lived in the city all those years, during her training, her own accent had almost disappeared. Until this moment she hadn’t realised that it had returned stronger than ever.

She shivered as the wind forced its way through the narrow gap between door and jamb, glad of her thick jumper and the fact that she wasn’t out in that awful weather.

As her visitor fought to subdue the ends of his scarf the light over his head suddenly illuminated a head of thick dark hair, tousled by the wind in spite of the neatness of the style and dotted with glittering shards of ice. He blinked to rid sinfully long lashes of the latest sprinkling of snowflakes and revealed eyes the colour of burnished steel.

‘If this isn’t Buchanan’s Croft, I am lost,’ her visitor said wryly.

Every hair went up on the back of Ella’s neck when she heard that all-too-familiar voice and she had an awful sinking feeling inside her that wasn’t helped by the vigorous football match being enacted inside her.

‘And why would you be looking for the Buchanan’s Croft?’ she asked, copying his ‘foreign’ pronunciation of the name as she had to raise her voice over the rising sound of the wind. She had a dreadful feeling as the scene played out in front of her eyes that her peaceful existence was just about to shatter beyond repair. This was all of her worst nightmares come to life and she would far rather have shouted at him to go away than hold a polite conversation on her doorstep.

‘Because I’m supposed to be staying at the croft for the next two weeks and I seem to have been delivered to the wrong place.’ He was searching his pockets as though trying to find something. ‘Is it far away?’

‘Staying?’ she squeaked as the situation just got worse and worse. ‘But…’

‘Ah! Here it is!’ he exclaimed as he pulled a crumpled sheet of paper out of an inside pocket. ‘There’s the address, right there.’

He held the pale blue slip towards her and she leant forward to look at it.

Her gasp as she recognised the handwriting in the distinctive violet ink echoed his exclamation when she was clearly illuminated for the first time.

‘Sophia!’ she hissed, and didn’t know whether to burst into maniacal laughter or floods of tears when she realised what her sister had done.

‘Ella?’ he exclaimed, clearly shocked. ‘Ella Buchan? What are you doing here?’

‘What am I doing here?’ she repeated. ‘I live here, Seth. This is the Buchan’s Croft—’ she stressed the correct pronunciation ‘—and since Sophia married in March, I am the last remaining Buchan.’

Ella stepped back into the cottage, opening the door wider to invite him into the warmth. There was no point in leaving him standing on the doorstep any longer, not now that she knew her wretched sister had deliberately sent Seth up to see her.

She should have expected Sophia to find some means of having her own way. All their lives she had been pulling rank as the older sister and the fact that she was now a married woman didn’t seem to have made any difference—probably made things worse, in fact.

‘But…How long have you been living here? No one seemed to know where you’d gone. Where are you working now?’ The questions were tumbling out of him without giving her a chance to reply, but at least they were telling her that Sophia hadn’t primed him before he’d come up here.

If she’d thought about it logically, she’d have realised that her sister was far too Machiavellian to have done that. All she’d needed to do had been to set the scene by sending Seth up to see her. That would guarantee that little sister Ella had to ‘sort her life out’ just as Sophia had been advising her for months.

Seth was standing there with his coat and scarf still on but apparently totally unaware of his surroundings, his eyes riveted to her face almost as if he was expecting her to disappear at any moment.

A sudden sharp ring took Ella by surprise. For a moment she couldn’t think what it was, then remembered the bread dough waiting to be cooked.

‘Excuse me but I’ve got to see to that,’ she said as she hastily turned towards the fireplace. If she was lucky she could get her brain to work in the few moments the task would take.

‘In that case, I’ll bring those boxes in from the porch before they get buried under the snow,’ he said after an interminable pause.

For a moment she’d thought he was going to insist on some immediate answers but the alternative was almost worse. The fact that he was even now carrying his belongings inside was bringing home to her the fact that, thanks to her sister’s scheming, the one man she’d never wanted to see again was actually here, in her house. And, thanks to the dreadful weather, he was going to have to stay here at least until tomorrow morning.

She hurriedly bent to her task, raking the glowing embers out of the cloam oven before she slid the pans of perfectly risen dough into position and shut the door.

Automatically, she reached for the timer and set it again, wondering as she heard it begin to tick the minutes away how different her life was going to be by the time it rang again.

She wrapped her arms around herself as the front door opened again, tucking her hands up inside the ends of the baggy sleeves as the wind whistled across the room and straight up the chimney.

‘Where do you want me to put these?’ He gestured with a nod of his head towards the box he was carrying. ‘It seems to be tins and packets. Staple items.’

‘Through here.’ She turned to open the door on the other side of the fireplace, nervousness setting her chattering. ‘Granny always called it the scullery. The butler sink is still here but the old wash copper’s been replaced with a machine—not that Granny saw the need for using it when she was only washing for one, but Dad insisted she wasn’t to do the sheets and towels by hand any more.’

She had to stop when she ran out of breath and gestured silently for him to put the box on the battle-scarred wooden table against one wall.

Equally silently he obeyed, then paused to look around, his eyes taking in everything from the beamed ceiling that scarcely cleared his head to the handcrafted cupboards along one wall and the flag-stoned floor.

Ella found she was almost holding her breath while she waited for his reaction to his simple surroundings. It was certainly very different from anything a topflight obstetrics and gynaecology consultant would choose to live in.

Then he smiled. It was little more than a brief curving of a mouth that never smiled enough but it sent a shaft of warmth straight to her vulnerable heart.

‘It’s amazing,’ he said softly, his eyes going back to her as she hovered anxiously in the doorway. ‘Apart from the fridge and washing machine lurking in that corner you could almost imagine you’d stepped back in time. Is the whole croft the same?’

‘More or less…apart from the sinful luxury of the tiniest bathroom in the Western world.’

‘Thank God for that,’ he exclaimed fervently. ‘I suddenly wondered if there was still a…what were they called? At the bottom of the garden.’

‘A privy? There is,’ she informed him with a straight face, only breaking into a smile when she saw his look of horror. ‘No longer in use, though,’ she added, wickedly long seconds later.

The flash of humour in his eyes promised retribution but when he approached her it was only to make his way towards the remaining pile of bags and boxes.

He paused in mid-stride and whirled to face her, almost cannoning into her as she followed him across the room.

‘Dammit, Ella, this isn’t going to work,’ he exclaimed, taking a hasty step out of her way as he raked a long-fingered hand through his hair. ‘I came up here expecting to spend the next two weeks in an isolated little cottage of some sort. I certainly didn’t expect to find you here and I want to know what’s going on.’

‘Going on?’ It had sounded almost like an accusation but what was she guilty of?

‘Well, obviously you got your sister to set me up, so what I want to know is what you’re hoping to get out of it? If it’s just another one-night stand you wanted, we certainly didn’t have to come all this way for it. If you’d let me know you were interested, perhaps we could have arranged for a two-week stay in a comfortable hotel somewhere.’

‘Seth!’ The unexpectedness of his attack had left her almost speechless, apart from the fact that it was totally unfair. She wasn’t the one who had—

‘Of course! Stupid me! You don’t go in for anything as long as two weeks. Just the one night after your sister’s wedding and then, when I came back, you’d disappeared off the face of the earth.’ He was so angry that his eyes were almost shooting sparks at her but that didn’t stop her from retaliating with all the fire of her redhead’s nature.

‘I wasn’t the one who disappeared after one night, or have you got a more convenient memory than I have?’ She gave a mirthless laugh as the memories of that fateful day began to scroll their disjointed way through her head. She’d been trying to block them out for month after miserable month and still hadn’t managed it.

‘In case you really have forgotten what happened, let me remind you of the salient facts,’ she snapped fiercely, holding one hand up to count them off, finger by finger.

‘One—we danced at my sister’s wedding. Two—we ended up in bed together. Three—you had disappeared by the time I woke up the next morning. Four—by the time I went back on duty it was announced that you had gone on some sort of hastily organised leave with no date given for your return. Now,’ she continued when she’d drawn in a hasty breath and planted her fists combatively on her hips, ‘correct me if I’ve missed anything out, but I’m almost certain that nowhere in that series of events was there any mention on your part that you’d even enjoyed the encounter in the first place, let alone that you were interested in repeating it.’

His lips had been pressed into a thin line and his hands had been balled into tight fists when she’d started, but by the time she finished his arms were hanging limp at his sides, his eyes riveted on the front of her baggy jumper.

She glanced down to see that she’d planted her hands on her hips as she’d harangued him, and the gesture had drawn her clothing against the burgeoning evidence of her heavily pregnant state.

‘My God! Ella, you’re pregnant!’ he breathed, clearly shocked.

‘Well, I’m glad to see that all those years of training weren’t wasted,’ she retorted acidly, just as the timer rang again.

It didn’t take more than a minute to turn the loaves round to ensure they baked evenly, but it was long enough for her to regret her rudeness.

There had been two of them in that hotel room that night and that meant it had been just as much her fault as his that they hadn’t taken any steps to prevent her getting pregnant.

She straightened up from her task, knowing that she had to apologise, but before she could speak he beat her to it.

‘So, who’s the father? I hadn’t heard you’d got married but, then, once you left the hospital you were outside the scope of the gossip grapevine.’ He stopped suddenly, as though struck by a sudden thought. ‘Is this place big enough to have guests to stay? Won’t your husband have something to say about your sister dumping an old colleague of yours on him?’

For a moment Ella didn’t know whether she was going to laugh or cry but ended up determined to do neither.

‘You stupid man!’ she exclaimed shrilly as all those months of wondering and hurting finally boiled over. ‘I’m not married. I have never been married and I have no intention of ever getting married. Furthermore, whether you believe it or not, you are the only man I’ve ever slept with, but to save you wasting your money on DNA testing I’ll tell you here and now that I won’t be asking you for a single penny to raise this child. At least you’ll go away from here secure in the knowledge that I have no intention of using the baby to destroy your marriage.’

The last words were still quivering in the bread-scented room when reaction began to set in.

This was not how she’d dreamed of telling Seth that he was going to be a father.

In her dreams his marriage didn’t exist and he’d come to her telling her that he’d missed her dreadfully and couldn’t bear to live without her.

In her dreams he’d told her that he loved her and the baby they’d made that magical night, and would take care of them for ever.

In her dreams he came to her and wrapped her in loving arms while he kissed her. He didn’t stand on the other side of the room like a statue carved out of granite with his eyes burning into her like hot coals.

For a moment she just stood there with her hands resting protectively over the prominent bulge of her pregnancy, wondering why everything had gone so wrong. When she’d first met him she’d thought he was something so special. How could she have been so mistaken?

They had been working together for several months before the fateful day of her sister’s wedding, time in which she’d believed they’d been getting to know each other. Only she hadn’t known him at all. Hadn’t known that he’d been hiding such a monstrous secret until it had been far too late to stop herself falling in love with him.

She was still glaring at him after her outburst, but the longer she looked the more she began to notice about his appearance.

He’d changed since she’d seen him last. There was a sprinkling of grey at his temples that hadn’t been there before and he looked thinner, almost as if he’d been ill.

There was a subtle difference in the expression in his eyes, too. A year ago their polished steel had had the intensity of lasers where now they seemed almost…almost defeated.

He doesn’t look happy, she thought with a strange ache around her heart.

Startled by the burgeoning emotion she’d vowed to dismiss for ever, she suddenly realised that in spite of everything she was as much in love with him as she’d ever been.

Then to her utter mortification she burst into tears.




CHAPTER TWO (#u5903e72b-5cf2-5f7f-a3f5-5f1f5ee0bd60)


FROM the first moment she saw him, Ella felt as though a light had been switched on inside her.

‘Seth Gifford,’ she whispered as she walked away after their first introduction, loving the feel of the words in her mouth.

Somehow she just knew that she had met the man who was going to be the most important part of her life, and she was filled with an almost giddy excitement.

It wasn’t enough that she’d just landed the job of her dreams. After waiting twenty-seven years and nearly giving up hope, she’d met the man of her dreams, too. What was more, she was almost certain she’d seen an answering spark of attraction in his eyes that had nothing to do with the fact that she was a well-qualified midwife.

‘Is there anything else you want to see?’ her guide asked as they continued on their way along the light and airy corridor towards the delivery suites.

A swift sideways glance at her new colleague reassured her that Carol didn’t seem to have noticed anything amiss in her reaction to their obs and gyn consultant and she breathed a sigh of relief. That was not the way she wanted to start to build up a relationship in the department.

‘I’ll probably have dozens of questions,’ she answered with a laugh. ‘But you’ve told me so much in the last half-hour that I can’t tell what’s stuck yet.’

‘I know what you mean,’ Carol commiserated. ‘Every obs and gyn department does the same basic job but there are always differences in their routines when you move to another hospital.’ She paused to throw Ella a speculative look. ‘What do you think so far? Are you going to like us enough to stay?’

I’d stay just for the pleasure of seeing Seth Gifford every day, she heard a little voice say inside her head, and swiftly squashed it. ‘This is pretty much my ideal job,’ she admitted candidly, not seeing the point of beating around the bush. ‘I’ve always wanted to work somewhere that was at the forefront of all aspects of human fertility, and to come here, where there are so many inter-departmental links, is perfect.’

The understanding smile on Carol’s face encouraged her to continue enthusiastically.

‘I’ll be learning, too, because I’ll be able to see everything from perfectly straightforward deliveries of naturally achieved pregnancies to those that would never have happened without medical assistance. And then there’s the staff. I only met some of them when I came for my interview, but everyone’s been very welcoming, right up to the top man.’

‘Top man?’ Carol questioned. ‘Oh, you mean Mr Gifford. He’s not exactly the top man because we share Professor den Haag with St Augustine’s, and Mr Crossman, our other consultant, has about ten years’ seniority, but he is all our own.’

Ella suddenly found herself longing to ask Carol for details about Seth and that shook her. She’d never allowed anyone or anything to interfere with her job before, and she wasn’t going to let her hormones get in the way now. It might be the first time they’d really sat up and taken notice of anyone, but that was her own problem.

‘So, what is the atmosphere like in the department? Does everyone get on well?’ she asked as her guide finally took her into the comfortable atmosphere of the staff lounge to make them a coffee. Carol had warned, laughingly, that sitting down would probably be the signal for dozens of patients to turn up in complicated labour, but they’d deemed it worth the risk. Midwifery was definitely one of the less predictable specialties and they all learned early on in their training to grab the chance of a break with both hands.

‘Actually, we do all get on reasonably well,’ Carol confirmed thoughtfully. ‘You’ll always get those who don’t pull their weight quite as willingly as others but here they seem to be balanced by others who always do their share and more.’

‘Doesn’t that lead to friction?’

‘Oh, there’s the occasional flare-up to make the slackers pull their socks up, but it’s generally fairly good-natured.’

‘What about the bigwigs? What are they like to work with?’ She hadn’t been able to resist asking after all.

‘Professor den Haag is wonderful. He’s a big blond gorgeous teddy bear of a man who loves his work every bit as much as he loves his wife and family. They’ve got six children already. Three sets of twins!’

Ella blinked. She couldn’t imagine how any woman coped with one set, let alone three.

‘Wow! Gluttons for punishment!’ she exclaimed. ‘What about Mr Crossman? I met him briefly at my interview but he was called into theatre for an emergency Caesarean almost as soon as we shook hands.’

‘He’s a quiet man, not much older than the professor but seems much more middle-aged somehow. Steady and hardworking but doesn’t seem to have much rapport with his patients—the adult ones, that is. He adores babies, though. He’s just become a grandfather for the first time so he’ll probably trap you in a corner with the latest photos when he finds he’s got a new victim to show them to.’

‘I’ve been warned!’ Ella chuckled. ‘And what about Mr Gifford?’ Finally, she’d asked about the one person she really wanted to know about.

‘Well, what can I tell you?’ Carol said with a shrug and a roll of her eyes. ‘Obviously, he’s totally gorgeous. The archetypal tall, dark and handsome with those lovely velvety grey eyes, added to which he’s brilliant at his job and excellent with all his patients. But other than that, there isn’t much to tell. He hasn’t been here very long—probably nearly six months now. He seems to keep himself very much to himself outside his duty hours and that’s as much as we know so far.’

‘That’s quite amazing, knowing what hospital grapevines are like,’ Ella commented, unaccountably disappointed not to have learned anything of a more personal nature about the man who had jump-started her female hormones at last. ‘Usually everyone knows everything, including his inside leg length, within the first twenty-four hours of a good-looking man joining the staff.’

Carol was still laughing as she got up to answer the phone but her smile had faded by the time the call ended.

‘Damn!’ she muttered with a scowl and tipped the rest of her coffee down the sink.

‘Problem?’ Ella was already on her feet and giving her pale blue tunic top a tug to straighten the hem over her hips.

‘One of our assisted pregnancies has started bleeding. Her husband’s bringing her in now.’

‘Oh, dear. How far along is she? Enough for the baby to survive?’ Automatically Ella found herself following Carol out into the department, her own coffee unceremoniously dumped with barely a pang of regret.

‘No chance at all. She’s not even reached the end of the first trimester yet. And this time I really thought we’d cracked it for them.’ Carol sounded really upset for the couple.

‘You sound as if you know them well. I take it they’ve been coming for a while?’

‘Too long,’ she confirmed darkly. ‘I first met them when they were going through all the tests to find out why she wasn’t conceiving. She’d had problems with an IUD when they were first married but hadn’t realised that the infection had affected her Fallopian tubes. Both tubes were so badly scarred that finally it was decided that their only option was IVF. This is their third attempt.’

Ella had come across such cases at her last hospital and her heart went out to the couple. She couldn’t imagine what it must be like to want to start a family only to discover that you would never achieve it without medical intervention. The fact that this was already their third attempt was witness to this couple’s determination to succeed.

Unfortunately, she mused while they waited for Mira to arrive, sometimes all the determination in the world was not enough to ensure success. Would they be one of the unlucky ones who were fated never to have a child of their own?

‘She’s one of Mr Gifford’s cases,’ Carol announced, scanning the top page of the case notes as she came back into the examination room where Ella had been checking the range of supplies to hand. ‘Could you page him for me? The numbers are listed on the wall phone for convenience. I’ve already contacted the ultrasound technician and checked the availability of a bed in case she needs to be admitted.’

Ella had barely put the phone back in its cradle after logging the page when it rang again.

‘Winston Ward,’ she said automatically, completely forgetting that this wasn’t her old hospital, then hastily corrected herself. ‘I’m sorry. That’s not right. It’s…what is the name of the obs and gyn department, Carol?’ she hissed over her shoulder, totally flustered by her mistake. If she hadn’t been thinking about Seth Gifford she’d have had her mind on her job.

‘I take it that’s Ella,’ said a dark brown velvet voice in her ear. ‘It’s Seth Gifford here. Somebody paged me.’

‘Yes. I—I did…or rather Carol asked me to,’ she stammered, completely thrown by the tremor of awareness that spiralled through her at the sound of his voice. She thought she could even hear amusement in his tone.

‘Mira Connolly is on her way in,’ she continued, hastily dragging her wayward thoughts back to the important matter in hand. ‘Apparently she’s bleeding.’

‘Damn!’ she heard him say forcefully. ‘I’ll be there in a couple of minutes. I expect Carol’s organised the ultrasound?’

‘Yes. And a bed in case she needs to be admitted.’

‘Well done.’

The sharp click in her ear told her that he’d cut the connection but it took her a second to relinquish her hold on the receiver.

‘How soon can he be here?’ Carol prompted.

‘He’s already on his way, by the sound of it. He doesn’t waste time on small talk, does he?’

‘You’d be surprised,’ she argued. ‘I’ve never seen him watching the clock when a patient needs reassurance.’

The sound of the lift arriving had both of them craning their necks around the doorjamb to see who was arriving. A wheelchair emerged at speed expertly wielded by a porter. The tearstained woman huddled in it was obviously their patient while the tall man following them, his thinning blond hair wildly dishevelled and devastation in his eyes, was equally obviously her husband.

‘This way, Mick,’ Carol called when the porter paused briefly to look both ways along the corridor. ‘We’re all ready in here.’

‘Is Mr Gifford here?’ the woman demanded tearfully as soon as she caught sight of the two of them. ‘I need to see Mr Gifford. He’ll be able to do something, I know he will. I can’t lose this baby. Not this time!’ She dissolved into racking sobs that continued right through her transfer onto the examining couch. Even Carol’s repeated assurances that the consultant was on his way couldn’t comfort her.

Ella wasn’t sure what she expected Seth to do when he arrived but it certainly wasn’t the way he walked straight across to sit on the edge of the couch and wrap a comforting arm around the patient’s shoulders.

‘Hush, Mira,’ he murmured. ‘Hush, now. You don’t even know whether there’s anything to cry about. You haven’t even given me a chance to check yet.’

‘But…but I’m b-bleeding again. I’ve l-lost the b-baby again. I know I have!’

‘Mira, listen to me,’ he demanded sternly, deliberately holding her gaze. ‘Have I ever lied to you?’

‘N-no.’ She shook her head miserably.

‘Well, I won’t start now. Obviously as you’re bleeding there is a chance that you’ve lost your baby. You’ve been through this often enough to know that. But, until I’ve checked you over, none of us can know for sure. Even women who aren’t on IVF sometimes have intermittent bleeding for one reason or another, and then go on to have perfectly normal healthy babies.’

She nodded, but Ella knew the poor woman didn’t really believe it.

‘Well, I hope you trust me enough to know that I’ll always tell you the truth, whatever it is,’ Seth said softly as he straightened up off the side of the examining couch, relinquishing his position with a gesture to her husband to take his place.

Ella was certain that the rest of them in the room had been trying to look as if they were busy with something else to give her the semblance of privacy, but she knew that she’d been riveted by Seth’s compassion while he’d been calming Mira down. She certainly hadn’t noticed the arrival of the ultrasound technician.

‘How long ago did you empty your bladder?’ the motherly woman asked quietly as she began to set up the equipment, switching on the computerised display and thoughtfully warming the probe.

‘Actually, I need to go now,’ Mira admitted, looking fearfully at the blank screen that would soon display the presence or absence of the baby in her womb. ‘Should I go before you start?’

‘It’s not necessary for you to go anywhere,’ she said soothingly. ‘It’s actually better if your bladder is full. We can get a better picture.’

Ella stepped forward to help rearrange Mira’s clothing to expose her abdomen, draping her with a towel so that the conductive jelly didn’t make a mess.

‘Lie very still now,’ the technician warned as she took the probe in a smooth sweep across the pale skin of her lower abdomen.

Ella couldn’t see the screen from her position so had to content herself with watching Seth’s expression.

He started off with his dark brows drawn together to form a deep furrow above his nose as he concentrated on the shadows and blurs that the screen would display. At one point he murmured something to the technician, his grey eyes piercingly intent as he pointed at something on the screen, and Ella found herself holding her breath.

In spite of the number of people in the room and the hum of the equipment, she was certain she could have heard the proverbial pin drop while they waited for the verdict. When he straightened up and turned to face Mira again the expression on his face had hardly changed but some sixth sense told her that the news was going to be good.

‘I don’t think you’ve ever seen one of these scans before, have you?’ he began conversationally, pulling the trolley full of electronic gadgetry over slightly so that his patient could see the picture on the screen more easily without having to move her position.

‘This is your uterus,’ he continued, tracing the outline on the screen. ‘And this dark tadpole, just here, is your baby. The head is smaller than the width of two of your fingers and from the top of the head to its little rump is less than the length of your little finger.’

They all heard Mira swallow before she could force herself to speak, her eyes glued to the tiny shadow on the screen.

‘Is it still alive?’ she whispered fearfully, clutching so tightly to her husband’s hand that his fingers were turning white. He seemed to be too engrossed in the screen to even notice.

‘See for yourself,’ Seth urged with a nod to the technician to run the scan again. ‘That was a still frame you were looking at, while this is what is happening inside you while we’re looking at it. Can you see that little fluttering movement?’

‘Yes,’ they agreed breathlessly, still without taking their eyes off the screen.

‘That’s your baby’s heart beating inside you, and the last time I checked an ultrasound, only live babies had hearts that beat that strongly.’

Mira burst into tears, but this time they were accompanied by a tremulous smile. Ella was hard put not to join her, concentrating on wiping up the jelly and righting Mira’s clothing while she regained her composure.

‘So why was she bleeding?’ Mira’s husband finally asked, obviously very close to tears himself.

‘We might never know,’ Seth admitted candidly. ‘Most people don’t realise that only one in six of normally conceived babies ever survive to birth, and the proportion is even lower for assisted pregnancies like yours. But if I were to hazard a guess, I would say that Mira just lost the twin.’

‘The twin?’ he echoed, obviously too befuddled to think clearly.

‘You remember that we put two embryos back in when we did the implantation?’ Seth prompted patiently. ‘It’s possible that both of them actually started to grow, but that one of them has just failed for some reason.’

‘What about the one that’s left? What are his chances?’

‘I’m afraid I’m not in the business of fortune-telling,’ he said as kindly as he could. ‘All we can do is wait and see.’ He glanced back at Mira who was now gazing at the print the technician had made for her of that little tadpole with the beating heart.

‘I’d like to keep her in overnight,’ he added softly for the husband’s ears. ‘I think she’ll probably be calmer knowing we’re close at hand, even if there’s really nothing we can do at this stage.’

It didn’t take long for the arrangements to be made and even though Ella had never met the woman before, she found herself crossing her fingers that this story would have a happy ending.

Seth had obviously been called to the department from some other task, but there was no sign that he was in a hurry to return to it. In spite of the fact that he had already done his part in explaining what was going on, he waited in the unit until Mira had been settled into bed.

‘Make sure you get a good night’s sleep, now,’ he warned when he stuck his head around the door. ‘Stress won’t do any of you any good and, with any luck, you’re going to need every bit of your strength when that little one arrives in another six months.’

He glanced at Ella and her pulse gave a silly skip at the intensity she saw in those clear grey eyes, especially when they lingered for an extra moment.

‘You can page me if you’re worried about anything,’ he said quietly. ‘I don’t think there’ll be any problems, but I won’t be far away if you need me.’

She nodded, but even before he disappeared down the corridor she was silently kicking herself. There might have been a special intensity in his gaze when he’d looked at her but it was obviously purely as a result of his concern for his patient. There was nothing personal in it at all.

‘That’ll teach you to let the attraction get out of hand,’ she muttered crossly to herself as she set the examination room to rights. ‘Just because there are lights, bells and whistles going off inside you whenever he’s around doesn’t mean that he feels the same way. Grow up!’

The trouble was, these were all the symptoms of growing up that she’d missed out on when she’d been a teenager. She’d seen her classmates and even her sister go through the clammy hands, racing pulse and gooey eyes stage over the boys without ever suffering a hint of it herself.

Unfortunately, it looked as if she was coming down with a massive case of it now.

‘If you’ve finished in here, would you like to see if you can do anything with this?’ Carol asked, hefting the scruffy-looking cardboard box in her arms.

‘It depends what “this” is,’ Ella said, taking a wary peep inside the flaps. ‘Oh! Christmas decorations! I’d almost forgotten how close it was getting. I’d be delighted to have a go. Any guidelines?’

‘Well, the hospital usually puts a big tree up in the main reception area and threads lights through the ones either side of the entrance outside. They give us a smaller one for the central reception area dividing the two halves of this unit but it’s up to us to do the decorating of that and the wards. That box you’re holding is the treasure trove of almost every bit of tatty tinsel from the first Christmas since the hospital opened this wing.’

‘It doesn’t look as if there’s enough in here to make a cheerful show in one room, let alone the whole department,’ Ella said with a grimace. The closer she examined it, the tattier everything appeared. It also seemed as if it had all been squashed flat when it had been piled in the box at the end of last Christmas.

‘Well, I’ll leave it all in your capable hands,’ Carol said, beating a suspiciously hasty retreat.

‘Gee, thanks!’ Ella muttered as she made her way to the staff lounge, wondering what on earth she was going to be able to achieve with so little to work with. Some of their patients were in for such a long time for bed rest that they would need the department brightened up for the festive season. It was bad enough to endure months of uncertainty with a threatened miscarriage without having to stare at the same old walls while the rest of the hospital was decorated in a celebratory mood.

‘Problem?’ enquired a dark brown velvet voice and Ella nearly dropped the box.

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ she gasped when Seth had to grab to prevent the contents cascading onto the floor. ‘I didn’t realise there was anyone in here and you made me jump.’

Well, it was nearly true. She hadn’t known he was here and her reaction to hearing his voice right beside her had nearly caused her to drop her burden.

‘In which case, I’m sorry,’ he said sincerely as he relieved her of the unwieldy carton and placed it on the nearest coffee-table. ‘Am I allowed to ask what this is?’

‘Feel free to have a look,’ she offered, frustrated to hear how breathless she sounded. He was going to think she was some sort of brainless twit at this rate. It really was time she got herself under control.

‘Ah,’ he said solemnly. ‘I can quite understand why you were looking glum. I take it this is the departmental box of decorations.’

‘I hope it isn’t the sum total of festive cheer for the whole hospital or we might all be in for a pretty miserable time,’ Ella said wryly. ‘Any suggestions as to how these can be rejuvenated? At the moment they’re more likely to induce deep depression.’

‘Hmm.’ He held up a very ragged-looking fairy and raised an eyebrow. ‘I see what you mean. I can’t imagine this granting anybody’s wishes.’

‘The rest of it isn’t any better. Look at it,’ she groaned. ‘How is that supposed to cheer up the whole department, including a tree in the central reception area?’

‘The short answer is that it won’t,’ he said, his voice suddenly decisive. ‘I’ve got an idea. Will you come for a quick walk through the department and give me an idea of what we need to do this properly?’

‘What do you mean—properly?’ she said warily.

‘I don’t know exactly. Not masses of kids’ stuff because they have that on their wards, and I presume that the kids who visit their mums in here have their own stuff at home.’

He looked up to glance around the fairly spartan room they were standing in before fixing her with that surprisingly intense grey gaze.

‘I’m not thinking about anything over the top. Just something fairly simple—and tasteful—that can be repeated with variations in each area.’

‘You mean the same sort of decorations at the doors and windows of each room, or over each bed, but in a different colour scheme for each area.’

‘That sort of thing, yes. Do you think it would work?’

There was an almost boyish enthusiasm in his voice that surprised her, having seen how seriously he seemed to treat life.

‘I think it would be perfect!’ she exclaimed, completely bowled over by this unexpected side to him. ‘Much better than tired tinsel that should have been pensioned off years ago. The only question is, how do we do it?’

He hesitated a moment, and Ella had the impression that there was an argument going on inside his head before he spoke again in a slightly diffident voice.

‘If you’ve got a list of your times of duties over the next few days, perhaps we could go out together and see what we can find.’

‘You mean…we’d go shopping…together?’ She sounded breathless again, hardly able to believe what she was hearing. She’d only met the man a few hours ago and it had just sounded as if he was suggesting the two of them go shopping for Christmas decorations together.

‘I don’t see that there’s any alternative, unless you can think of a way to magically resuscitate that lot.’ He hitched a dismissive thumb at the box. ‘I’m prepared to foot the bill for the new stuff if you’ll come with me to give some input on the selection. Deal?’

His final word almost sounded like a challenge and there was a suspicious glint in his eyes as he held his hand out towards her.

‘OK. Deal,’ she agreed rashly and put her hand in his.

That first contact between them sent a shiver through her and her heart seemed to take an extra beat before it settled into a faster rhythm.

‘So when are you free? This afternoon?’

Ella couldn’t think. Not with her hand still firmly held in his. Had he forgotten it was there or was he holding it hostage until he’d pinned her down to a specific time?

‘Um. I think so. Yes. I’ve been rostered for a short day, as it’s my first day here, in case there was any paperwork still to be sorted out. I know there isn’t because I went to the personnel department yesterday after I’d picked up my uniforms.’

‘So, what time shall we meet and where? Do you know the area at all? Do you know if there are any shops around here that specialise in things like Christmas decorations? It’s not something I’ve had much experience with buying.’

She gave her hand a little tug and for the briefest second he seemed strangely reluctant to release her, then let go of her hand with a jerk as though suddenly remembering where they were and what he was doing.

‘I’m due to finish at three, but—’

‘But that will depend on whether you’re in the middle of a delivery,’ he finished for her. ‘You don’t have to tell me how it works.’ He thought for a minute. ‘I’ll come up at three to see how the land lies and we can take it from there. Did you drive to work this morning or shall we go in my car?’

Ella’s head was still whirling with the speed of events long after he’d left the room. Thank goodness the department was so quiet. She wasn’t at all sure that she would have been capable of concentrating on managing even the most straightforward delivery.

Even the simple task of wandering around the department to get an idea of just how many doors and windows there were seemed to be beyond her. It wasn’t until she nearly tripped over her own feet that she finally got her head on straight and began to think logically. She even managed to take a wicked delight in weaving a web of suspense about what she was up to, carefully keeping Seth’s part in the plans strictly to herself.

It nearly drove the rest of the staff mad as they pestered her for details. It was only when a couple of them cornered her during her lunch-break that she realised that the decorating of the department was an annual bugbear that everyone tried to palm off to whoever didn’t run fast enough in the opposite direction.

As the newest member of staff she had been a sitting duck.

‘Well, this duck won’t quack,’ she murmured to herself, knowing that her mysterious grins and misleading hints were putting everyone off the scent. As if she’d actually intended taking the tinsel home to iron the crumpled sections!

On the other hand, the patients were thoroughly enjoying the situation, taking an almost evil glee in winding the rest of the staff up for her.

As she’d gone into each room, from the four-bedded wards to the single-occupancy rooms, she’d sworn each inmate to secrecy before explaining what she was doing.

Several of them had offered suggestions, either of decorating schemes or of good places to find the decorations at a reasonable price.

By the time three o’clock came around without a potential new arrival in sight, Ella had a notepad full of diagrams, measurements and totals and was ready to go.

The sight of Seth’s dark head appearing round the door of the staff lounge was enough to double her heart rate, but she determinedly told herself that it was just a result of their subterfuge.

‘You’re ready,’ he said with a satisfied nod. ‘I’ll get the car and meet you down by the entrance to the staff car park.’

‘Um…’ She paused, suddenly tongue-tied because she didn’t know what to call him. ‘Ah, Mr Gifford, I don’t know—’

‘Ella, it’s Seth,’ he interrupted quietly. ‘I’m only Mr Gifford in front of the patients. OK?’

‘OK.’ She swallowed, surprised by how intimate it felt to be invited to use his first name. ‘I was only going to say that I don’t know what your car looks like.’

‘It’s white. A BMW, 3-series.’

She couldn’t help the grin.

‘What’s wrong with that?’ His forehead pleated in a swift frown.

‘I wouldn’t know a 3-series from a moon-rocket,’ she explained with a chuckle. ‘But I do know what the BMW logo looks like on the bonnet and I know the colour white.’

He raised his eyes in typical male exasperation and one corner of his mouth actually lifted in a wry grin before he raised a hand in farewell and let the door close behind him.




CHAPTER THREE (#u5903e72b-5cf2-5f7f-a3f5-5f1f5ee0bd60)


‘BRR! I hadn’t realised it was so cold out here!’ Ella exclaimed through chattering teeth as she slid hastily into Seth’s car.

‘And the forecast is for worse to come,’ he warned as he leaned forward to turn the heater up to maximum then glanced across at her, obviously checking that she’d fastened her seat belt before he set off. ‘Apparently, there’s some local man who’s been doing his own forecast for the last forty years or so—gets it right more often than the pundits with their electronics, by all accounts—and he reckons it’s going to be another long cold wet winter.’

‘Thanks! That’s just what I needed to hear! Couldn’t he at least have sweetened the pill by mentioning a few brief spells of sunshine and unseasonable warmth?’

He laughed. ‘Sorry. Not a balmy breeze in sight. Still, what are you worried about? You work in a fully heated hospital, warm enough for people to wander about in their shirtsleeves all year round.’

‘That’s the trouble. It makes coming out into the cold so much more of a shock to the system.’ Almost as much of a shock as finding herself sitting side by side with Seth Gifford in the intimate confines of his quietly luxurious car. Thank goodness they had the weather and other allied subjects to talk about or she’d be sitting here tongue-tied.

‘I’m sure that central heating has a lot to do with all these flu epidemics we keep having each year,’ she continued hastily, not wanting the silence to stretch too long in case she leapt into the void with something embarrassing. ‘My grandmother always maintained that people aren’t nearly so hardy as they used to be when they lived in virtually unheated houses.’

‘Tell that to the ones who died of the flu pandemic just after the First World War,’ he argued. ‘Twice as many died of that in a matter of weeks as were killed in the four years of the war itself, and none of them were living with central heating.’

‘I know, but they didn’t have access to the Health Service or the variety of drugs we have now, so there would have been far more people in the “at risk” category.’

‘True,’ he conceded, more than half his concentration on manoeuvring the car into a parking space in the car park attached to the shopping centre. ‘There are fewer deaths from flu these days than back in 1918, but…Oh, for goodness’ sake, what are we debating this for?’ he exclaimed with disbelief clear in his voice as he turned to face her with the keys in his hand. ‘We’re on our way to buy Christmas decorations, so let’s declare a truce.’

‘A Christmas truce, like they had in the trenches during the War?’ she proposed cheekily.

‘Does that mean that hostilities could break out again as soon as the last mince pie has been eaten?’ Seth frowned as he pretended to consider the idea seriously. ‘Still, a Christmas truce that starts now means that there should be at least two weeks of peace, so I accept.’

He held out his hand and without a moment’s thought Ella took it.

It didn’t matter that she was wearing gloves this time, the effect of the contact between them was just as strong and just as startling. What was going on here?

His hand tightened briefly around hers and her eyes flew up to meet his. He was frowning again, his gaze flicking from her face to their joined hands and back again before he suddenly released his hold on her.

‘Well,’ he said, his voice rather too hearty for the enclosed space as he turned away to open his door, ‘I hope you know where we’re going to be able to get these things because I haven’t a clue.’

So, what happened there? she mused as he strode off to fetch a parking ticket from the dispenser. It didn’t seem very likely that he had felt the same reaction that she had, there’d certainly been no evidence of it in his expression. Dear God, she hoped he hadn’t seen something in her own face. It would be just too embarrassing if he knew how strongly he affected her.

‘Time for a little self-control,’ she muttered grimly as she found herself watching his long legs eating up the distance as he returned with the ticket in his hand, then deliberately looked away to let herself out of the car. ‘That’s the last time you let your stupid hormones get the better of you.’

‘Ready to go?’ he said as he stuck the ticket to his windscreen and shut the door. The car bleeped obligingly when he pressed the button to lock it. ‘I’m in the mood to spend some money on glitter and glitz, so lead the way!’

Two and a half hours later they were both laden down with parcels, none of which had anything to do with decorating the department.

‘Well, all I can say is thank goodness that shop was willing to deliver!’ Ella exclaimed breathlessly as she struggled to untangle her fingers from various loops and strings. ‘We’d never have been able to carry all those decorations as well as this lot.’

‘You didn’t mind me hijacking you like that?’ he asked with a frown. ‘I did ask you if you’d help me choose some gifts for my brother’s family.’

‘I didn’t mind at all,’ she said with a laugh. ‘How else was I going to be able to get free transport to get this lot home? I’ve actually been able to find something for absolutely everyone on my list, and there’s still two weeks to go till Christmas. That’s an all-time record for me. I’m usually one of those demented souls racing around as the shops are locking up on Christmas Eve.’

‘What? You?’ Seth said with every evidence of amazement. ‘Calmness and order personified actually gets into a flap about buying Christmas presents? I don’t believe it. You’ve ordered me about like a seasoned field marshal barking at his troops. You knew exactly where we needed to go and what we needed to buy.’

‘That was just the decorations and I was only so well organised because I’d made a list of everything we needed. It’s different with presents for family and friends. There are either too many choices or I haven’t got a clue what to get.’

‘Well, I shall certainly be taking all the credit for your inspired suggestions this year. My lot aren’t going to know what’s hit them when they don’t get the usual box of chocolates and bottle of booze.’

He slammed the boot down on the dozens of bags and packages as she let herself into the passenger side and sank into the blissfully comfortable upholstery.





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