HELEN BROOKS - His Christmas Bride

‘It was a pleasure.’ Well, parts of it had been. Things such as reading Rebecca and Ella their bedtime story, when the two little girls had been damp and sweet-smelling from their bath and curled up sleepily beside her. Wrestling the rake off Harry when he’d snuck into the garden shed while her back had been turned hadn’t been so hot. Her nephew had been intent on terrorising his sisters with it, and hadn’t taken kindly to his fun being spoilt.

‘Were they good?’ Melissa turned fond eyes on her little brood, who were playing with Greg in the garden while the two sisters had a welcome cup of coffee. Fresh ground, now Melissa was home. She wouldn’t dare to suggest anything else.

‘Angelic,’ Blossom lied stoutly. Some of the time.

‘I bet you can’t wait to get back to your flat and your own way of doing things,’ Melissa said. ‘Peace and quiet for hours on end if you want it.’

Blossom knew her sister didn’t mean a word of it. Melissa couldn’t think of a more wonderful existence than being with her children, and she expected everyone else to feel the same. Surprisingly—and she admitted this with a very real feeling of astonishment—Blossom knew she was really going to miss her nieces and nephew when she left. She loved them very much, of course, she always had, but over the last days she had begun to thoroughly enjoy their company and she hadn’t expected that. They were funny and cute, and naughty and exhausting, but overall so alive, so brimming with wonder and excitement about the most ordinary things. And it kind of rubbed off on her, she’d found.

‘Harry found a stone with a face in it this morning,’ she said vaguely, her eyes intent on the children. ‘He’s wrapped it up as a present for you later, so make a big thing of it when he gives it to you, won’t you?’

‘Of course,’ Melissa said softly, taking her twin’s hand and squeezing it tight as she added, ‘You’re a star, sis, but you don’t have to stay any longer if it’s making things difficult with your work.’

‘It isn’t.’ That was the truth, but even if work had been piling up to the ceiling she wouldn’t have left. She had been shocked at how pale and washed out Melissa was. The doctors had discovered she was severely anaemic on top of having her appendix out. The result of having two sets of twins within twenty months of each other probably. Whatever, she intended to stay at least another week or so, and make sure Melissa had plenty of rest and sleep. She’d try and fit in a talk about not having to be superwoman all the time too if there was a suitable opportunity. The children wouldn’t expire on the spot if they had to have a bought loaf now and again or a microwave ready-meal.

The next morning Blossom let Melissa and Greg sleep in—Greg had looked worse than her sister the day before—while she got the children up, gave them their breakfast and took them to nursery. On her way home she visited the local supermarket and bought a load of convenience foods without the merest shred of remorse. Melissa was going to have to lighten up a bit.

As she drew off the road on reaching the house, and into the pebbled front garden which had been given over solely to parking due to the fact that Greg needed a space the size of a football pitch to park successfully, Blossom saw the silver-grey car parked next to Greg’s people-carrier and groaned softly. Zak Hamilton. Damn it. And she was in her oldest jeans and a cotton jumper that had been washed so often and become so baggy it could pass for a dress. But she had taken the time to apply some mascara that morning and curl the ends of her hair, so that the bob just skimmed her shoulders, having known she was calling in at the supermarket. Overall it was an improvement on the last time they’d met. Not a big one, but something at least. Not that it bothered her what Zak Hamilton thought of her. Not in the least. Not for a second. The very idea!

Ignoring the little voice in the back of her mind that was saying nastily, ‘And pigs fly,’ she parked the car and began to lift the bags of shopping out. Along with the little voice she was determined to pay no heed to, her stomach was fluttering about as though it was host to a flock of butterflies. If butterflies came in flocks? She wasn’t sure about that.

‘Hi again.’ The deep, faintly accented voice was behind her.

She straightened up so quickly she heard her neck snap, but it was more the fact that she caught a carrier bag on something sharp in the boot, tearing it so that a can of baked beans dropped on her foot, that brought forth the exclamation of pain. Turning, she saw Zak Hamilton walking towards her.

‘Want some help with all that?’ he offered, waving a hand at the bags round her feet. ‘You look pretty loaded up.’

She would have liked to say no, but as she wasn’t an octopus it would have been rather silly. She forced a smile, wondering if her toe was broken. ‘Thank you,’ she said politely.

‘You’re very welcome.’

As he bent and picked up several of the bags, she caught a whiff of a deliciously sexy and definitely very expensive aftershave. The torn carrier-bag chose that moment to empty itself completely, and in the ensuing scramble for tins and packets of this and that Blossom got control of her breathing. Until she registered Zak crouching down, trousers pulled tight over muscled thighs as he stuffed some of the food into another bag. He was more sexy than any man had the right to be.

‘I thought Melissa cooked everything from scratch.’ He glanced up at her, a packet of cherry bakewells in his hand, and his eyes so piercingly blue their brightness made Blossom blink.

‘She does,’ Blossom said shortly, wishing he would stand up. When he obliged in the next instant she felt sufficiently in control again to add, ‘But I’m in charge for the next few days until she’s feeling a bit better.’

‘Ah.’ He nodded. ‘I wonder if they’ll get the kids back to the healthy option once they’ve tasted fish fingers and oven chips.’ He grinned at her, eyebrows raised. ‘What do you think?’

‘The odd meal like that does no harm at all.’ Even to herself she sounded schoolmarmish. ‘They’re quite nutritious.’

‘You know that and I know that, but mother love is a strange force,’ he said gravely.

He was laughing at her—again. The difference was this time she found she was having a job not to smile. ‘I wouldn’t know. I’m just the aunty.’ Picking up two bags of her own, she made for the house. There was safety in numbers.

Melissa and Greg were in the sitting room, a tray of coffee and a plate of shortbread fingers on the low oak coffee-table in front of them. Blossom paused at the open door long enough to say, ‘I’m just putting the shopping away,’ before continuing to the kitchen. A cosy foursome? Not on your life.

‘I think I got them out of bed.’

Zak had followed her, and now he dumped his bags on the breakfast bar as she glanced his way. ‘It’s half-past ten, don’t worry about it,’ she said briefly. ‘They’d slept enough.’

‘Greg made the coffee.’ It was faintly plaintive.

There was a message in there somehow, and Blossom raised her eyebrows enquiringly even as she wondered what it was about raven-haired men and pale blue shirts. Killer combination.

‘It’s as weak as dishwater.’ Zak’s eyes were laughing at her.

‘Oh dear.’ That’d teach him to call without warning. ‘I’ll put the shopping away and make some more; the other is probably cold by now, anyway.’ I’m putting shopping away—hint, hint.

He nodded. ‘Want some help?’

Even standing six feet away he was too close for comfort. Not that she thought he was going to try anything. He was far too sophisticated for anything so gauche and clumsy, she knew that. ‘No thanks. I won’t be long.’ Just go before I drop something else. Give me a few minutes to do some deep-breathing exercises.