Joanna Neil - Playboy Under the Mistletoe

She smiled. ‘Of course, he complains that he’s not really ready to celebrate three weeks early while he’s still working, but as a GP he could be tending patients on Christmas morning, so we tend to ignore that and get on with it.’

Ben grinned. ‘Your father has always been a solid, easygoing man, though, hasn’t he? Nothing ever really fazes him. I suppose that comes from taking care of all the folk in the village for years on end and dealing with their quirks and foibles.’

‘That’s true.’ She sent him an oblique glance. ‘What about you? Will you be going back to the manor house to stay with your father?’

He shook his head and his expression became sombre. ‘I don’t think so. That wouldn’t go down too well. My father and I have never seen eye to eye over anything very much.’

‘But you’ll be spending Christmas with him, won’t you?’ She frowned. ‘Now that you’re going home, surely he’ll be glad of the chance to see you again after all this time? Perhaps you’ll be able to forget what went on in the past and try to start over again.’

‘It sounds good in theory,’ Ben said. His mouth flattened. ‘But, truthfully, I don’t suppose he’ll welcome me with open arms. He can be stubborn at the best of times.’

‘I’m sorry. That’s so sad.’ Her green eyes clouded. ‘It’s such a shame to see a family torn apart at the seams when maybe a word or two could put matters right.’

His expression was cynical. ‘Do you really imagine that I haven’t tried?’ He shook his head. ‘I know you mean well, Jassie, but you should give up on trying to reconcile my father and me. I’ve come to the conclusion that it isn’t going to work. I’ve written to him, tried to talk to him on the phone, but he’s brusque and uncooperative, and I have the feeling that I’m wasting my time. It’s not even as if I’m the one in the wrong…well, not totally, anyway…But it doesn’t seem to make any difference to how he thinks and feels.’

His mouth made a flat line. ‘Things were said, on both sides, that should have been left unsaid, and the damage has been done. The wounds they leave behind never truly heal.’

‘I don’t believe in giving up,’ she murmured. ‘Not where family is concerned, anyway. I’d always be looking for an opportunity to put things right.’

His expression softened. ‘That’s because you’re a sweet, generous-natured woman who only ever looks for the good in people. I’m just afraid that before too long you’ll find yourself disillusioned, and that would be a terrible shame.’

She absorbed that, subsiding back into her seat without comment. The only way she had ever been disillusioned had been in her dealings with Ben. Over the years, she’d watched him, wincing as he’d made his mistakes, biting her tongue when she’d wanted to speak out about his various entanglements, wondering if there would ever be a time when he would look at her with the light of love in his eyes.

But that had been asking for the impossible—how would he ever have done that when she’d constantly shielded herself from him for her own protection? Besides, she had long ago given up on that dream world. Life had thrown a spanner in the works when Ben had gone away with Anna.

She could never keep up with Ben. He had been like quicksilver, constantly on the move, rising to challenges as and when they’d arisen. All his youthful energies had been fuelled by rebellion against the hand life had dealt him…losing his mother at a very young age had been a raw deal, the worst, and who could blame him for his confusion and disenchantment with life? No wonder he’d run amok through the village in his tender years and stirred up a storm.

Knowing all that, maybe it was the reason why Jasmine had always looked beyond the vigorous, determined exterior to what lay beneath.

Her feelings for him had never changed. They just became more impossible to manage as time went on.

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