Meredith Webber - Orphan Under the Christmas Tree

Lauren shifted her attention away from Tom—too distracting—looking around the room, feeling so ridiculous she wondered if she could make up some story to explain her groan and he’d go away and she’d find an excuse to just not go to the tree raising.

Except she had to go!

As her eyes came back to rest on Tom’s face, he lifted one eyebrow, a trick she’d tried and failed to master in her youth, and she knew he deserved an honest answer.

‘You’ll think I’m stupid,’ she began, then was furious with herself for being feeble enough to utter such an inanity. ‘No, I am stupid. And pathetic, and ridiculous, and I’ve got myself into a tizz over nothing so best you just slope off to wherever you’re going and leave me groaning into my hands.’

Lauren didn’t do stupid. That was the first thought that came into Tom’s head as he listened to her castigate herself. Of all the women he’d ever known, she was the most sensible, practical and level-headed, guided by what had always seemed a boundless store of common sense and a determination that bordered on ruthless—at least, where keeping the women’s refuge open was concerned. As far as he knew, in her private life she was just that, private—she lived alone and seemed to like it that way—but stupid? Never!

‘I’m not going,’ he announced. ‘Not until you tell me what’s got you frazzled like this. Is it Christmas? Does your family make a big deal of it, so you have relatives who bore you stupid descending on you for weeks at a time, and people arguing about who’s doing the cake and the best stuffing for the turkey?’

That won a smile, but it was wan and he realised that, subconsciously perhaps, he’d been worried about Lauren for a while. She was still as beautiful as ever, having good bone structure so tiredness didn’t ravage her features as it did some people. But she was pale, and the dark shadows beneath her eyes had deepened so they had a bruised look.

The smile had dried up while he was thinking about her looks, and she was frowning at him now.

Quite ferociously, in fact, so the words, when they came, seemed to have no meaning—certainly nothing to connect them to a ferocious frown.

‘I want to ask you out,’ she said, her eyes, a golden, greeny-brown and always startling against her golden blonde hair, fixed on his, no doubt so she could gauge his reaction.

Challenging him, in fact!

‘Okay,’ he managed, though battling to process both the invitation and the fierceness of it, which made the slight start of pleasurable surprise he felt quite ridiculous. ‘When?’

‘Tonight,’ she said. ‘In fact, right now—we should be leaving any minute.’

‘But it’s the great tree raising do tonight,’ he reminded her. ‘We’re both going anyway. The entire hospital staff was invited.’

No reaction beyond another, barely suppressed groan, so he took a wild guess.

‘Do you mean after the tree raising? Dinner somewhere perhaps?’

He was speaking lightly, but inside he was a mess of confusion, though why he couldn’t say. Perhaps because Lauren looked so unhappy, while her lips, usually full and with a slight natural pout, were pressed together, suggesting the tension she was feeling had increased rather than decreased after she’d shot out the invitation.

‘I suppose we could eat afterwards,’ she mumbled, and Tom had to laugh.

‘Now, there’s a gracious invitation,’ he said, but no glimmer of humour lightened Lauren’s face. If anything, she was looking even more grim!

He stood up and walked around the desk, squatting beside her and looking directly into her face, putting his hand on her shoulder—the lightest of touches but showing her without words that he was there for her.

‘Tell me,’ he said softly, and to his astonishment tears welled in her eyes, overflowed, and slid silently down her cheeks.

She made no attempt to brush them away so he pulled out his handkerchief, checked it was reasonably clean, and dried them for her.

‘I am being stupid,’ she muttered angrily. ‘I have to go because of the refuge—it’s been the main fundraising focus for the Christmas raffle and I’ll be getting the cheque and heaven knows—well, you know too—the refuge needs it, and if Cam and Jo hadn’t just become engaged I’d have asked Cam, but it would start too much talk in the town, and then there’s Mike but he seems quite interested in that new young probationary policewoman, and the school teachers have all gone home for the holidays, so—’

‘So you’re stuck with me,’ Tom finished for her. ‘That’s okay, I get the picture. You need a man tonight. That’s fine. Do you want anything special? A bit of panting? Lusting? Public displays of affection? Kisses, or just hand-holding?’

She knew Tom was only teasing, but hearing it put like that Lauren wanted nothing more than to shrink to mouse size and crawl into a hole and hide. How embarrassing! How could she have asked him?

And trust Tom to make a joke of it!

But wasn’t that for the best? At least he wasn’t getting any false ideas. So why did that thought make her feel weepy again?

She hauled in a deep, steadying breath, and watched as he straightened up.

‘I just need you to be there, that’s all,’ she said, cross with herself for making such a mess of things.

‘But obviously with you!’ he said quietly, and she, who hadn’t blushed since she was fourteen, felt heat flooding into her cheeks.

Mortified, she pressed her hands to them to cool them, or hide the vivid colour, and nodded.

‘No worries!’

But that was Tom! Nothing ever worried him—or seemed to …

He put his arm around her shoulders and looked into her face.

‘Now,’ he said gently, ‘I know you’re beautiful enough without it, but all my ladies go for a little make-up when they have to cover the signs of tears. I wouldn’t like to think the entire population of Crystal Cove sees you’ve been crying about having to go out with me. It would do my reputation no manner of harm, so into the washroom with you. We’ve ten minutes or so before we have to leave.’

He turned her and gave her a little push towards the washrooms, catching up with her to hand over her big tote, which she’d left beside her chair, passing it to her with such a warm smile her stomach turned over.

Was she stupid to be doing this? Stupider than she usually was over men?

Was he stupid to be doing this?

Tom took himself off to the men’s washrooms and splashed cold water over his face.

He’d been attracted to Lauren from the first time he’d seen her. Then working with her on the board of the refuge, he’d got to know her as a person and become, he thought, a good friend. So her refusal to go out with him had worked out for the best, he’d decided, because Lauren Cooper was a woman who deserved the whole deal as far as love was concerned and he didn’t do love.

Oh, he understood it existed. It even worked for a lot of people, but to him it was the most destructive force on earth and he’d decided at an early age that he would avoid it at all cost. The women with whom he’d enjoyed affairs over the years had always understood there’d be no ‘happy ever after’ scenario ahead of them. He was always honest, explaining right at the beginning that he enjoyed women and their company, enjoyed the physical pleasure of affairs, and hoped the enjoyment was mutual, but that he wasn’t looking for anything long term, particularly not marriage.

A few had asked why, and a few more had thought they’d change his mind, but on the whole they’d parted amicably enough and he remained on friendly terms with many of the women.

Lauren, however, was different …