Christmas Child

She didn’t ask what he wanted, she knew. She slid rashers of bacon and tomato halves under the grill, opened a carton of orange juice and put bread in the toaster. Putting a mug of fresh coffee down on the table in front of him, she avoided his eyes. This pretence was beginning to embarrass her and she would have thought that he, more than anybody, would have wanted to cut through to the nitty-gritty, get the details of the divorce settled.

She turned back to the cooker. Perhaps she should be the one to get real, tell him what she’d wanted to say before Fiona had turned her away. That when the divorce came through she would claim nothing in the way of a settlement, that she hoped they could remain friends. Distant friends.

But when he said, ‘You’re pretty capable around the kitchen these days,’ the warmth of his approval made her feel as if her insides were melting.

Reality could wait. It was good to feel as if they were back in the old days, as if they were friends, even if it was only down to paying lip service to this special day. Even opposing armed forces had been known to call a truce on Christmas Day.

‘You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!’ she quipped, dividing the bacon and tomatoes equally onto the plates she’d put in the warming oven. ‘I even fathomed out how to change a fuse. And unblock a drain.’ She handed him his plate and slid into the chair opposite him. ‘And I know you’re not going to believe this, but I can even use the washing machine without constantly referring to the book of words!’

Was she trying to tell him that she could manage on her own, that she’d changed, that she was no longer a complete idiot where the practicalities of ordinary day-to-day living were concerned? Maybe. Whatever, he didn’t appear to take her new independence amiss, emphasising his acceptance when he asked, ‘You’re working again?’

‘Yes, but I don’t take on as much as I used to. Just enough to keep me solvent without touching capital. I couldn’t work full-time before Chloe was born—’ she didn’t know why she was saying all this, her tongue was running away with her and she couldn’t stop it ‘—because there was so much to do around the cottage, and the garden—’

‘Yes, I know. Emily told me. And I was relieved to hear that you got that retired farm worker in to do the heavy stuff—digging, painting ceilings, that sort of thing.’

He’d finished eating, was looking at her with unreadable eyes and Mattie’s stomach flipped over. He’d kept close tabs on her through the past six months. Emily had relayed all the little details. It could only mean that he did still care something for her, that he had felt some sense of responsibility when she’d believed he’d washed his hands of her entirely.

It made her feel warm all over, so warm and relaxed that when he said, ‘You’ve made an enviable home here. How did you find it?’ the warmth over-flowed into a low gurgle of laughter.

‘Believe it or not, before I left London I bought that second-hand elderly Ford and a map. I meant to head north.’ She wasn’t going to say that she’d intended to get as far away from him as she could without leaving England. She wouldn’t risk shattering this easy, relaxed mood. ‘I reached Dorchester before I realised I was going the wrong way. I couldn’t bear the thought of turning round, so I stayed. I found the cottage through a letting agency.’

His mouth twitched and his eyes were dancing with laughter. ‘That figures! You mean to go north and you end up almost as far south as you can get—your sense of direction was always nil. Instruct you to turn left, and you invariably made a right! Matts,’ he said, serious now, ‘I worry about you, I really do. Put you behind the wheel of a car and anything can happen.’

Mattie’s eyes glowed. She didn’t have to pretend to be happy now. He’d said he worried about her. It had to mean she still did mean something to him. The feelings he’d once had for her, based on friendship, long association and male lust, weren’t completely dead.

Hope, long atrophied, began to bloom. Maybe things between him and Fiona hadn’t worked out—which would explain why he didn’t mind spending Christmas away from London. Maybe he wanted his wife back. Why else had he gone to the trouble of providing a tree if it hadn’t been to impress her?

She would never be the love of his life, she knew t

hat, but maybe, for Chloe’s sake, they could make their marriage work.

If he did want her back, could she forgive his infidelity?

The answer to that was a sobering ‘Yes’. She had loved him for so long that she would do anything, forgive anything, to be part of his life again.

Her eyes followed him; was she reading too much into this? He had left the breakfast table and was taking something from the dresser. Hope was such a scary thing, it could be so easily shattered. She was going to have to ask if he wanted her back in his life. Find out what had happened between him and Fiona. She couldn’t bear not knowing.

But he forestalled her. He put a large brown envelope down on the table in front of her and stood behind her. ‘For you. Happy Christmas, Matts.’

There was a flatness about his voice that worried her. A sense of foreboding settled around her heart and her fingers shook slightly as she lifted the flap and withdrew the documents.

She was holding the deeds to the cottage, in her name, and she was glad he was behind her and couldn’t see the sheer desolation in her eyes.

‘How generous.’ Her voice was hard and tight. Of course he didn’t want her back. He wanted her here, out of his way. He was salving his conscience by making sure she had her own roof over her head.

She’d been such a fool to hope it had been otherwise. Worse than a fool. A total wimp, willing to do anything to stay with a man who didn’t want her.

Despicable!

‘Not at all.’ She heard the tug of his indrawn breath. ‘When I heard you’d fallen in love with this place and were happy making a home here, I contacted the owner and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Knowing you, I didn’t expect you’d have the common sense to have a watertight lease drawn up. I didn’t want you, or the child, to be thrown out on a landlord’s whim.’

‘How thoughtful.’ The acid in her tone would have etched through rock. She pushed the deeds back into the envelope, stood up and moved away from him. She was on her own now. She had to be strong.

But she didn’t feel strong. She felt nauseous. His presence had turned her into a child crying for the moon, always wanting something she could never have.

‘Mattie.’ His voice flowed over her, tugged at something deep inside her. She turned unwillingly. While he was here she would never get back to being the sane and sensible woman who had made a whole new life for herself. Somehow she would have to make him go.

‘Do you really want a divorce?’