Читать книгу Single Dads Collection - Lynne Marshall - Страница 91

‘I WANT the biggest tree in the forest.’ Lizzie clapped her hands together and beamed at Jack, her breath clouding the freezing air. She was wearing pink fleecy trousers tucked into pink fleecy boots, a bright, stripy scarf wrapped round her neck, and she was bursting with excitement. ‘The tree has to be big if Santa is going to fit my present under it.’

Bryony chewed her lip and exchanged glances with Jack. ‘You know, sweetheart,’ she said anxiously, ‘I’m not sure we gave Santa enough notice to find a daddy. That’s a pretty big present.’

‘He’ll manage it,’ Lizzie said happily, stamping her feet to keep warm, ‘because I’ve been extra good. Sally stole my gloves in the playground and I didn’t even tell.’

Jack frowned. ‘Someone stole your gloves?’

‘They were new and she liked them.’

Jack looked at Bryony. ‘Another child stole her gloves?’

‘It’s fine, Jack,’ Bryony said hastily, knowing just how protective Jack could be of Lizzie. ‘She’ll sort it out.’

‘You should speak to her teacher.’

‘It’s fine, Jack!’ Bryony shot him a warning look. ‘Now, let’s go and choose this tree, shall we?’

Jack sucked in a breath and smiled. ‘Good idea.’ He took Lizzie’s hand in his. ‘We’ll get you some new gloves, peanut. Any pair you want. We’ll choose them together.’

They walked amongst the trees and Lizzie sprinted up to one and tilted her head back, gazing up in awe.

‘I like this one.’

Bryony looked at it in dismay. ‘Lizzie, it’s the tallest tree here!’

‘I know.’ Lizzie stroked the branches lovingly, watching as the needles sprang back. ‘I love it. It’s big. Like having the whole forest in your house. And I like the way it smells.’ She leaned forward and breathed in and Bryony sighed.

‘It won’t fit into our living room, sweetheart. How about that one over there—it’s a lovely shape.’

Lizzie shook her head, her hand still locked around one branch of the tree she’d chosen as if she couldn’t quite let it go. ‘I love this one. I want this to be our tree.’

Bryony closed her eyes briefly. ‘Lizzie—’

‘It’s a great tree and we can always trim the top,’ Jack said firmly, and Bryony lifted an eyebrow.

‘You’re planning to lop six feet off the top?’

He grinned. ‘If need be.’ He squatted down next to Lizzie, his hair shining glossily black next to the little girl’s blonde curls. ‘The lady likes this one. So the lady gets this one.’

‘You need to learn to say no to her, Jack.’

‘Why would I want to say no?’ He scooped Lizzie into his arms and grinned at her. ‘So you want this tree?’

Lizzie nodded and slipped her arm round his neck. ‘Can I have it?’

‘Of course.’ Still holding the child, Jack slipped a hand into his pocket and removed his wallet. ‘Here we are, Blondie. Merry Christmas.’

Bryony shook her head. ‘I’ll pay, Jack.’

‘My treat.’ His eyes locked on hers, his expression warm. ‘Please.’

She hesitated and then smiled. ‘All right. Thanks.’

Lizzie tightened her arms round Jack’s neck. ‘Why do you call Mummy Blondie?’

‘Because she has blonde hair, of course.’

‘But I have blonde hair, too.’

Jack gave a start. ‘So you do! Goodness—I never noticed.’

Lizzie gave a delicious chuckle. ‘Yes, you did. I know you’re joking.’ She hugged him tight and then looked at him thoughtfully. ‘Jack…’

His eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t tell me, you want to go home and play Weddings?’

‘No.’ She lifted a small hand and touched his cheek. ‘I asked Santa for a daddy for Christmas.’

Jack went still. ‘I know you did.’

‘Well, now I wish I’d asked him to make you my daddy,’ Lizzie said wistfully. ‘I love you, Jack. No one plays Weddings like you do.’

Bryony swallowed hard, the lump in her throat so big it threatened to choke her.

‘Lizzie…’ Jack’s voice sounded strangely thick and his hard jaw was tense as he struggled to find the right words. ‘I can’t be your daddy, sweetheart. But I’ll always be here for you.’

‘Why can’t you be my daddy? I know Mummy loves you.’

Bryony closed her eyes, fire in her cheeks, but Jack just gave a strange-sounding laugh.

‘And I love your mummy. But not in the way that mummies and daddies are supposed to love each other.’

Bryony rubbed her booted foot in the snow and wished an avalanche would consume her. But there wasn’t much chance of that in the forest. So instead she looked up and gave a bright smile.

‘But Santa is going to choose you a great present,’ she said brightly. ‘I know he is, and in the meantime we’d better buy this super-special tree before anyone else does. It’s the best one in the forest and I can see other people looking at it.’

Lizzie’s eyes widened in panic. ‘Hurry up, then!’

Bryony took Jack’s wallet and went to pay while he opened the boot of the four-wheel-drive and manoeuvred the huge tree inside, with Lizzie jumping up and down next to him.

‘Most of the needles have just landed on the inside of the vehicle,’ he muttered to Bryony as they climbed into the front and strapped Lizzie in. ‘I think we might be decorating twigs when we get it home.’

Bryony glanced at him, wondering if he realised that he’d called her house ‘home’.

‘Are you getting a tree yourself, Jack?’ she asked, and he shook his head, holding the wheel firmly as he negotiated the rutted track that led out of the forest onto the main road.

‘What’s the point? I’m going to be working for most of it.’ He glanced at Lizzie who was listening to a tape through her headphones and not paying any attention. ‘And, anyway, Christmas is for children.’

Bryony gave him a searching look. ‘Are you coming to Mum’s this year?’

Jack concentrated on the road. ‘I don’t know. Sean wants to be with Ally and the kids so I’ve said I’ll work.’

‘You come every year, Jack.’ Bryony frowned. ‘Lizzie would be so disappointed if you weren’t there. All of us would. You’re part of our family. At least come for part of it.’

‘Maybe.’ His shrug was noncommittal and she sighed.

‘I know Christmas isn’t your favourite time of year.’

There was a long silence and then he sucked in a breath, his eyes still on the road. ‘Christmas is for families, Blondie. I don’t have one.’

Bryony bit her lip. ‘Have you heard from your mother lately?’

‘A postcard six months ago.’ He turned the wheel to avoid a hole in the road. ‘She’s with her latest lover in Brazil.’

Bryony was silent and he turned to look at her, a mocking look in his eyes. ‘Don’t feel sorry for me. I’m thirty-four. I certainly don’t expect my mother to come home and play happy families after all this time. I think that’s one game we never mastered in our house. When everyone else was unwrapping presents around the tree, my parents were at different ends of the house nurturing grievances.’

‘Jack—’

‘And that was a good thing.’ He gave a grim smile. ‘If they ever met the rows were so bad I used to run and hide in the garden. Once I was out there all night and they didn’t even notice. I always used to think that was why we had such a big house with so much land. Because no one wanted to live next door to anyone who argued as much as my parents.’

His experience was such a contrast to her own happy childhood that Bryony felt suddenly choked.

‘You used to come to us.’

‘Yeah.’ He gave a funny smile. ‘You were the perfect family.’

Bryony looked at him, suddenly wondering for the first time whether that had made it worse for him. ‘Was it hard for you, being with us?’

He shook his head. ‘It wasn’t hard, Blondie. You always made me feel as though I was Santa himself from the moment I walked through the door. How could that be hard?’

Bryony smiled. She used to stand with her nose pressed against the window, waiting for Jack to arrive. Longing to show him her presents.

‘You were just like Lizzie.’ His voice softened at the memory. ‘I remember the year you had your ballet dress from Santa. You wore it with your Wellington boots because you were dying to play outside in the snow but no one could persuade you to take it off. You were in the garden building a snowman in pink satin and tulle. Do you remember?’

‘I remember tearing it climbing a tree.’ Bryony laughed. ‘I just wanted to keep up with my brothers.’

On impulse she reached out and touched his leg, feeling the rock-hard muscle under her fingers. ‘Come for Christmas, Jack. Please?’

He gave her a funny, lopsided smile that was so sexy she suddenly found it hard to breathe. ‘Better see what Santa produces for Lizzie first,’ he said softly, turning into the road that led to her cottage. ‘I might not be welcome.’

Bryony slumped back in her seat, the reminder that she’d so far failed to solve the problem of Lizzie’s Christmas present bursting her bubble of happiness.

What was she going to do about Lizzie’s present?

At some point soon she was going to have to sit her little girl down and tell her that Santa couldn’t deliver a daddy. Otherwise Christmas morning was going to be a disappointment.

Trying to console herself with the thought that there must be something else that Lizzie would like for Christmas, Bryony realised that Jack had stopped the car.

‘Ready to unload this tree?’ He glanced behind him and winced. ‘I can’t believe you chose a tree that big.’

Lizzie pulled the headphones off her ears and giggled. ‘It wasn’t Mummy, it was you, Jack.’

‘Me?’ He looked horrified as he jumped out of the car with athletic grace and turned to lift the little girl out. ‘I chose that?’

Lizzie was laughing. ‘You know you did.’

‘Well, we’d better get it in your house, then.’

Laughing and grumbling, Jack dragged the tree inside the house and proceeded to secure it in a bucket with his usual calm efficiency.

Bryony gazed upwards and shook her head in disbelief. ‘It’s bent at the top.’

‘It’s perfect,’ Lizzie sighed, and Jack nodded solemnly.

‘Perfect.’

Bryony rolled her eyes, forced to accept that she was outnumbered. ‘OK. Well, we’ve got it now, so let’s decorate it.’

They spent the rest of the afternoon draping the tree with lights and baubles until it sparkled festively. Lizzie produced a pink fairy to go on top of the tree and Jack lifted her so that she could position it herself.

Then Jack went into the garden and cut boughs of holly from the tree and they decorated the fireplace.

Bryony produced mince pies and they sat on the carpet, admiring their decorations and enjoying the atmosphere.

Bryony smiled as she looked around her. ‘I feel Christmassy.’

‘That’s because of the size of the tree,’ Jack told her, his handsome face serious as he bit into a mince pie. ‘Any smaller and you wouldn’t be feeling the way you’re feeling now.’

But watching him and Lizzie fighting over the last mince pie, Bryony realised that the warm Christmassy feeling that she had in the pit of her stomach had nothing to do with the tree and everything to do with the three of them being together. They felt like a family.

But they weren’t a family.

Jack didn’t want to be part of a family.

Watching Lizzie climbing all over him, dropping crumbs over his trousers and the carpet, Bryony wondered if he realised that he actually was part of a family.

Whether he liked it or not, he was a huge part of her life. And she couldn’t imagine it any other way, even if ultimately she found a daddy for Lizzie. And just thinking of how she was going to tell Lizzie that Santa hadn’t managed to produce a daddy on Christmas Day filled her with overwhelming depression.

Suddenly needing to be on her own, Bryony stood up. ‘I need to get ready. Toby’s picking me up at seven,’ she said brightly, ‘and I don’t want to smell like a Christmas tree.’

She half expected Jack to say something about her going out with Toby. After all, he’d been less than enthusiastic about her other attempts to date men. But he just smiled at her and carried on playing with Lizzie.

Feeling deflated and not really understanding why, Bryony ran herself a deep bath and lay in a nest of scented bubbles for half an hour, telling herself that she was going to have a really great evening with Toby.

She was going to wear the black dress again.

And it was nothing to do with Jack’s comments about her having good legs, she told herself firmly as she dried herself and dressed carefully. It was just that the dress suited her and she knew that Toby was planning to take her somewhere special.

She spent time on her make-up and pinned her hair on top of her head in a style that she felt suited the dress.

Finally satisfied, she walked out of her bedroom and into the kitchen, where Jack was making Lizzie tea and playing a game of ‘guess the animal’.

‘You’re a tiger, Jack.’ Lizzie giggled, watching with delight as he prowled around the kitchen, growling. ‘Do I have to eat sprouts? I hate sprouts. Can I have peas instead?’

‘Never argue with a tiger,’ Jack said sternly, putting two sprouts on the side of her plate. ‘Eat up. They’re good for you.’

Lizzie stared at them gloomily. ‘I hate things that are good for me.’

‘He’s only given you two,’ Bryony said mildly, turning to lift two mugs out of the cupboard. When she looked back the sprouts had gone. Lizzie and Jack were both concentrating hard on the plate, neither of them looking at her.

‘All right.’ Bryony put her hands on her hips, her eyes twinkling. ‘What happened to the sprouts?’

Lizzie covered her mouth and gave a snort of laughter and Jack tried to look innocent.

‘Did you know that tigers love sprouts?’

Lizzie smiled happily. ‘If Jack was my daddy I’d never have to eat sprouts.’

Jack shot Bryony a rueful look and ran a hand over the back of his neck. ‘Lizzie, angel, we’ve got to talk about this.’

But before he could say any more, the phone rang. Bryony picked it up, expecting it to be her mother ringing about the babysitting arrangements for that evening.

It was Toby and when she finally replaced the receiver she was silent.

‘What’s the matter?’ Jack was feeding Lizzie the last of her fish fingers. ‘Is he going to be late?’

‘He isn’t coming.’ Bryony looked at him, thinking that Jack didn’t look that surprised. He just carried on feeding Lizzie. She frowned. ‘She can feed herself, Jack.’

‘I know she can, but we’re playing zoos,’ he said calmly, ‘and at the moment I’m feeding the tigers. So why is your date off?’

‘Because Sean sent him over to Penrith to pick up some equipment for the team and it’s taken him ages to sort it out and he’s still there.’ She frowned. ‘Why didn’t he tell Sean that he had a date?’

Jack stabbed the last of the fish fingers, not looking at her. ‘Well, I suppose it was important.’

‘It sounded pretty routine to me,’ Bryony muttered, facing the fact that yet another date had turned into a disaster, this time before the guy had even turned up on her doorstep. She was jinxed. Or was she?

Suddenly she looked at Jack suspiciously, remembering his attitude to Toby when they’d gone on the rescue. Had he somehow engineered this so that they couldn’t go out? She knew he wasn’t comfortable with the idea of her finding a daddy for Lizzie. And if she found someone, obviously that would affect his relationship because he couldn’t just come and go the way he did at the moment.

Was he the reason Toby hadn’t turned up?

She glanced down at herself with a sigh. ‘All dressed up and nowhere to go,’ she said lightly, giving a shrug. ‘I suppose I may as well go and get changed.’

‘Why?’

Jack stood up and suddenly all she was breathlessly aware of were those sexy blue eyes watching her.

‘Well, there’s no point in wearing this—’ she gestured down to herself ‘—to eat baked beans.’

‘Who said anything about baked beans?’ he drawled softly, walking towards her with a distinct air of purpose. ‘Ring your mum and cancel.’

‘Cancel?’

He was so close now she could hardly breathe, and he gave her that smile that always made her insides tumble.

‘Yes, cancel.’ He put a hand under her chin and lifted her face to his. ‘I’ll cook dinner and you can wear the dress. You don’t need a babysitter.’

Her heart was pumping in her chest and her whole body throbbed with a sexual awareness that was totally unfamiliar. ‘You hate this dress.’

‘I never said I hated the dress.’

Their eyes locked and suddenly all she could think about was that kiss. The way it had felt when his mouth had claimed hers.

She wanted him to kiss her again.

‘You two are looking all funny.’ Lizzie was staring at them curiously. ‘Are you going to kiss?’

Bryony gasped and pulled away from Jack, her face flaming. She’d forgotten that Lizzie was still sitting at the table. ‘No!’ She was suddenly flustered. ‘We’re not going to kiss.’

‘I don’t mind if you do,’ Lizzie said generously, sliding off her chair and carrying her plate to the dishwasher. ‘Sally says it’s yucky when her parents do it, but I think it would be nice.’

‘Lizzie, we’re not going to kiss,’ Bryony muttered, not daring to look at Jack but feeling his gaze on her. She always knew when he was looking at her and he was looking at her now.

‘You blush easily, Blondie, do you know that?’ His voice was a soft, teasing drawl and Lizzie clapped her hands.

‘Mummy only ever goes that colour when you’re here, Jack.’

Deciding that the conversation had gone far enough, Bryony glanced at her watch. ‘And you should be getting ready for bed, Lizzie,’ she said quickly. ‘Do you want Jack to read you a story?’

‘Only if he doesn’t skip bits.’

Bryony risked a look at Jack. ‘Is that OK with you, or do you need to get going?’

‘That depends…’

‘On what?’

He winked at her. ‘What you’re cooking me for dinner—’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t you ever go home and cook for yourself, Jack?’

‘Why would I want to when I’ve got you to cook for me?’ He smiled and held up a hand. ‘Only joking. As it happens, I’m cooking for you tonight.’

‘You’re cooking for me?’

Jack never cooked. He lounged at her table, watching while she cooked. And actually she liked it that way. She found cooking relaxing and there was nothing she enjoyed more than an evening chatting with Jack.

‘I’m cooking for you. A gourmet creation right under your very nose. It’s your turn to be impressed, Blondie.’

‘But I was going out. How can you have the ingredients for a gourmet creation?’

He stooped to pick up Lizzie. ‘I just picked up a few things on my way home, in case I was hungry later.’

‘But you don’t even know where the supermarket is.’ Her eyes teased him. ‘Or are you telling me you finally asked for directions?’

‘No need.’ He displayed his muscles, flexing his shoulders and his biceps. ‘Man is a natural hunter.’

She lifted an eyebrow. ‘You went to the supermarket in your loin cloth?’

‘Of course. But I left my spear outside.’ His eyes gleamed wickedly and she felt herself blush.

It was only as he walked out of the room with Lizzie that she realised that he hadn’t actually answered her question about the food. How did he come to have the ingredients for a gourmet meal in his boot?

And why did he want her to keep the dress on when the last time she’d worn it he’d covered her up?

But the last time she’d worn it she’d been going out with another man.

Bryony plopped down on the nearest kitchen chair and wondered if Jack realised that he was displaying all the signs of a jealous male.

Probably not.

She hadn’t realised it herself until two seconds ago.

But to be jealous you had to care, and Jack didn’t care about her. Not like that.

Or did he?

She sat in silence, her mind running over everything that had happened since the night she’d walked into the pub and announced that she was going to start dating men again.

Jack had sabotaged every date.

Had he done that because of Lizzie? Because he didn’t want Lizzie to have a daddy?

Or had he done it because he hadn’t been able to see her with another man?