Buch lesen: «Christmas Miracle: Their Christmas Family Miracle»

CHAPTER ONE

‘WE NEED to talk.’

Amelia sat back on her heels and looked up at her sister with a sinking heart. She’d heard them arguing, heard her brother-in-law’s harsh, bitter tone, heard the slamming of the doors, then her sister’s approaching footsteps on the stairs. And she knew what was coming.

What she didn’t know was how to deal with it.

‘This isn’t working,’ she said calmly.

‘No.’ Laura looked awkward and acutely uncomfortable, but she also looked a little relieved that Amelia had made it easy for her. Again. Her hands clenched and unclenched nervously. ‘It’s not me—it’s Andy. Well, and me, really, I suppose. It’s the kids. They just—run around all the time, and the baby cries all night, and Andy’s tired. He’s supposed to be having a rest over Christmas, and instead—it’s not their fault, Millie, but having the children here is difficult, we’re just not used to it. And the dog, really, is the last straw. So—yes, I’m sorry, but—if you could find somewhere as soon as possible after Christmas—’

Amelia set aside the washing she was folding and got up, shaking her head, the thought of staying where she— no, where her children were not wanted, anathema to her. ‘It’s OK. Don’t apologise. It’s a terrible imposition. Don’t worry about it, we’ll go now. I’ll just pack their things and we’ll get out of your hair—’

‘I thought you didn’t have anywhere to go?’

She didn’t. Or money to pay for it, but that was hardly her sister’s fault, was it? ‘Don’t worry,’ she said again. ‘We’ll go to Kate’s.’

But crossing her fingers behind her back was pointless. Kate lived in a tiny cottage, one up one down, with hardly room for her and her own daughter. There was no way the four of them and the dog could squeeze in, too. But her sister didn’t know that, and her shoulders dropped in relief.

‘I’ll help you get their things together,’ she said quickly, and disappeared, presumably to comb the house for any trace of their presence while Amelia sagged against the wall, shutting her eyes hard against the bitter sting of tears and fighting down the sob of desperation that was rising in her throat. Two and a half days to Christmas.

Short, dark, chaotic days in which she had no hope of finding anywhere for them to go or another job to pay for it. And, just to make it worse, they were in the grip of an unseasonably cold snap, so even if they were driven to it, there was no way they could sleep in the car. Not without running the engine, and that wasn’t an option, since she probably only had just enough fuel to get away from her sister’s house with her pride intact.

And, as it was the only thing she had left, that was a priority.

Sucking in a good, deep breath, she gathered up the baby’s clothes and started packing them haphazardly, then stopped herself. She had to prioritise. Things for the next twenty-four hours in one little bag, then everything else she could sort out later once they’d arrived at wherever they were going. She sorted, shuffled, packed the baby’s clothes, then her own, then finally went into the bedroom Kitty and Edward were sharing and packed their clothes and toys, with her mind firmly shut down and her thoughts banished for now.

She could think later. There’d be time to think once they were out of here. In the meantime, she needed to gather up the children and any other bits and pieces she’d overlooked and get them out before she totally lost it. She went down with the bags hanging like bunches of grapes from her fingers, dumped them in the hall and went into the euphemistically entitled family room, where her children were lying on their tummies watching the TV with the dog between them.

Not on the sofa again, mercifully.

‘Kitty? Edward? Come and help me look for all your things, because we’re going to go and see Kate and Megan.’

‘What—now?’ Edward asked, twisting round, his face sceptical. ‘It’s nearly lunch time.’

‘Are we going to Kate’s for lunch?’ Kitty asked brightly.

‘Yes. It’s a surprise.’ A surprise for Kate, at least, she thought, hustling them through the house and gathering up the last few traces of their brief but eventful stay.

‘Why do we need all our things to go and see Kate and Megan for lunch?’ Kitty asked, but Edward got there first and shushed her. Bless his heart. Eight years old and she’d be lost without him.

They met up with Laura in the kitchen, her face strained, a bag in her hand.

‘I found these,’ she said, giving it to Amelia. ‘The baby’s bottles. There was one in the dishwasher, too.’

‘Thanks. Right, well, I just need to get the baby up and fold his cot, and we’ll be out of your hair.’

She retreated upstairs to get him. Poor Thomas. He whimpered and snuggled into her as she picked him up, and she collapsed his travel cot one-handed and bumped it down the stairs. Their stuff was piled by the door, and she wondered if Andy might come out of his study and give them a hand to load it into her car, but the door stayed resolutely shut throughout.

It was just as well. It would save her the bother of being civil.

She put the baby in his seat, the cold air bringing him wide awake and protesting, threw their things into the boot and buckled the other two in, with Rufus on the floor in the front, before turning to her sister with her last remnant of pride and meeting her eyes.

‘Thank you for having us. I’m sorry it was so difficult.’

Laura’s face creased in a mixture of distress and embarrassment. ‘Oh, don’t. I’m so sorry, Millie. I hope you get sorted out. Here, these are for the children.’ She handed over a bag of presents, all beautifully wrapped. Of course. They would be. Also expensive and impossible to compete with. And that wasn’t what it was supposed to be about, but she took them, her arm working on autopilot.

‘Thank you. I’m afraid I haven’t got round to getting yours yet—’

‘It doesn’t matter. I hope you find somewhere nice soon. And—take this, please. I know money’s tight for you at the moment, but it might give you the first month’s rent or deposit—’

She stared at the cheque. ‘Laura, I can’t—’

‘Yes, you can. Please. Owe me, if you have to, but take it. It’s the least I can do.’

So she took it, stuffing it into her pocket without looking at it. ‘I’ll pay you back as soon as I can.’

‘Whenever. Have a good Christmas.’

How she found that smile she’d never know. ‘And you,’ she said, unable to bring herself to say the actual words, and getting behind the wheel and dropping the presents into the passenger footwell next to Rufus, she shut the door before her sister could lean in and hug her, started the engine and drove away.

‘Mummy, why are we taking all our Christmas presents and Rufus and the cot and everything to Kate and Megan’s for lunch?’ Kitty asked, still obviously troubled and confused, as well she might be.

Damn Laura. Damn Andy. And especially damn David. She schooled her expression and threw a smile over her shoulder at her little daughter. ‘Well, we aren’t going to stay with Auntie Laura and Uncle Andy any more, so after we’ve had lunch we’re going to go somewhere else to stay,’ she said.

‘Why? Don’t they like us?’

Ouch. ‘Of course they do,’ she lied, ‘but they just need a bit of space.’

‘So where are we going?’

It was a very good question, but one Millie didn’t have a hope of answering right now …

It was an ominous sound.

He’d heard it before, knew instantly what it was, and Jake felt his mouth dry and his heart begin to pound. He glanced up over his shoulder, swore softly and turned, skiing sideways straight across and down the mountain, pushing off on his sticks and plunging down and away from the path of the avalanche that was threatening to wipe him out, his legs driving him forward out of its reach.

The choking powder cloud it threw up engulfed him, blinding him as the raging, roaring monster shot past behind him. The snow was shaking under his skis, the air almost solid with the fine snow thrown up as the snowfield covering the side of the ridge collapsed and thundered down towards the valley floor below.

He was skiing blind, praying that he was still heading in the right direction, hoping that the little stand of trees down to his left was now above him and not still in front of him, because at the speed he was travelling to hit one could be fatal.

It wasn’t fatal, he discovered. It was just unbelievably, immensely painful. He bounced off a tree, then felt himself lifted up and carried on by the snow—down towards the scattered tumble of rocks at the bottom of the snowfield.

Hell.

With his last vestige of self-preservation, he triggered the airbags of his avalanche pack, and then he hit the rocks …

‘Can you squeeze in a few more for lunch?’

Kate took one look at them all, opened the door wide and ushered them inside. ‘What on earth is going on?’ she asked, her concerned eyes seeking out the truth from Millie’s face.

‘We’ve come for lunch,’ Kitty said, still sounding puzzled. ‘And then we’re going to find somewhere to live. Auntie Laura and Uncle Andy don’t want us. Mummy says they need space, but I don’t think they like us.’

‘Of course they do, darling. They’re just very busy, that’s all.’

Kate’s eyes flicked down to Kitty with the dog at her side, to Edward, standing silently and saying nothing, and back to Millie. ‘Nice timing,’ she said flatly, reading between the lines.

‘Tell me about it,’ she muttered. ‘Got any good ideas?’

Kate laughed slightly hysterically and handed the three older children a bag of chocolate coins off the tree. ‘Here, guys, go and get stuck into these while Mummy and I have a chat. Megan, share nicely and don’t give any chocolate to Rufus.’

‘I always share nicely! Come on, we can share them out—and Rufus, you’re not having any!’

Rolling her eyes, Kate towed Amelia down to the other end of the narrow room that was the entire living space in her little cottage, put the kettle on and raised an eyebrow. ‘Well?’

She shifted Thomas into a more comfortable position in her arms. ‘They aren’t really child-orientated. They don’t have any, and I’m not sure if it’s because they haven’t got round to it or because they really don’t like them,’ Millie said softly.

‘And your lot were too much of a dose of reality?’

She smiled a little tightly. ‘The dog got on the sofa, and Thomas is teething.’

‘Ah.’ Kate looked down at the tired, grizzling baby in his mother’s arms and her kind face crumpled. ‘Oh, Amelia, I’m so sorry,’ she murmured under her breath. ‘I can’t believe they kicked you out just before Christmas!’

‘They didn’t. They wanted me to look for somewhere afterwards, but …’

‘But—?’

She shrugged. ‘My pride got in the way,’ she said, hating the little catch in her voice. ‘And now my kids have nowhere to go for Christmas. And convincing a landlord to give me a house before I can get another job is going to be tricky, and that’s not going to happen any time soon if the response to my CV continues to be as resoundingly successful as it’s being at the moment, and anyway the letting agents aren’t going to be able to find us anything this close to Christmas. I could kill David for cutting off the maintenance,’ she added under her breath, a little catch in her voice.

‘Go ahead—I’ll be a character witness for you in court,’ Kate growled, then she leant back, folded her arms and chewed her lip thoughtfully. ‘I wonder …?’

‘What?’

‘You could have Jake’s house,’ she said softly. ‘My boss. I would say stay here, but I’ve got my parents and my sister coming for Christmas Day and I can hardly fit us all in as it is, but there’s tons of room at Jake’s. He’s away until the middle of January. He always goes away at Christmas for a month—he shuts the office, gives everyone three weeks off on full pay and leaves the country before the office party, and I have the keys to keep an eye on it. And it’s just sitting there, the most fabulous house, and it’s just made for Christmas.’

‘Won’t he mind?’

‘What, Jake? No. He wouldn’t give a damn. You won’t do it any harm, after all, will you? It’s hundreds of years old and it’s survived. What harm can you do it?’

What harm? She felt rising panic just thinking about it. ‘I couldn’t—’

‘Don’t be daft. Where else are you going to go? Besides, with the weather so cold it’ll be much better for the house to have the heating on full and the fire lit. He’ll be grateful when he finds out, and besides, Jake’s generous to a fault. He’d want you to have it. Truly.’

Amelia hesitated. Kate seemed so convinced he wouldn’t mind. ‘You’d better ring him, then,’ she said in the end. ‘But tell him I’ll give him money for rent just as soon as I can—’

Kate shook her head. ‘No. I can’t. I don’t have the number, but I know he’d say yes,’ she said, and Amelia’s heart sank.

‘Well, then, we can’t stay there. Not without asking—’

‘Millie, really. It’ll be all right. He’d die before he’d let you be homeless over Christmas and there’s no way he’d take money off you. Believe me, he’d want you to have the house.’

Still she hesitated, searching Kate’s face for any sign of uncertainty, but if she felt any, Kate was keeping it to herself, and besides, Amelia was so out of options she couldn’t afford the luxury of scruples, and in the end she gave in.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Absolutely. There won’t be any food there, his housekeeper will have emptied the fridge, but I’ve got some basics I can let you have and bread and stuff, and there’s bound to be something in the freezer and the cupboards to tide you over until you can replace it. We’ll go over there the minute we’ve had lunch and settle you in. It’ll be great—fantastic! You’ll love it.’

‘Love what?’ Kitty asked, sidling up with chocolate all round her mouth and a doubtful expression on her face.

‘My boss’s house. He’s gone away, and he’s going to let you borrow it.’

‘Let?’ Millie said softly under her breath, but Kate just flashed her a smile and shrugged.

‘Well, he would if he knew … OK, lunch first, and then let’s go!’

It was, as Kate had said, the most fabulous house.

A beautiful old Tudor manor house, it had been in its time a farm and then a small hotel and country club, she explained, and then Jake had bought it and moved his offices out here into the Berkshire countryside. He lived in the house, and there was an office suite housing Jake’s centre of operations in the former country club buildings on the far side of the old walled kitchen garden. There was a swimming pool, a sauna and steam room and a squash court over there, Kate told her as they pulled up outside on the broad gravel sweep, and all the facilities were available to the staff and their families.

Further evidence of his apparent generosity.

But it was the house which drew Amelia—old mellow red brick, with a beautiful Dutch gabled porch set in the centre, and as Kate opened the huge, heavy oak door that bore the scars of countless generations and ushered them into the great entrance hall, even the children fell silent.

‘Wow,’ Edward said after a long, breathless moment.

Wow, indeed. Amelia stared around her, dumbstruck. There was a beautiful, ancient oak staircase on her left, and across the wide hall which ran from side to side were several lovely old doors which must lead to the principal rooms.

She ran her hand over the top of the newel post, once heavily carved, the carving now almost worn away by the passage of generations of hands. She could feel them all, stretching back four hundred years, the young, the old, the children who’d been born and grown old and died here, sheltered and protected by this beautiful, magnificent old house, and ridiculous though it was, as the front door closed behind them, she felt as if the house was gathering them up into its heart.

‘Come on, I’ll give you a quick tour,’ Kate said, going down the corridor to the left, and they all trooped after her, the children still in a state of awe. The carpet under her feet must be a good inch thick, she thought numbly. Just how rich was this guy?

As Kate opened the door in front of her and they went into a vast and beautifully furnished sitting room with a huge bay window at the side overlooking what must surely be acres of parkland, she got her answer, and she felt her jaw drop.

Very rich. Fabulously, spectacularly rich, without a shadow of a doubt.

And yet he was gone, abandoning this beautiful house in which he lived alone to spend Christmas on a ski slope.

She felt tears prick her eyes, strangely sorry for a man she’d never met, who’d furnished his house with such love and attention to detail, and yet didn’t apparently want to stay in it at the time of year when it must surely be at its most welcoming.

‘Why?’ she asked, turning to Kate in confusion. ‘Why does he go?’

Kate shrugged. ‘Nobody really knows. Or nobody talks about it. There aren’t very many people who’ve worked for him that long. I’ve been his PA for a little over three years, since he moved the business here from London, and he doesn’t talk about himself.’

‘How sad.’

‘Sad? No. Not Jake. He’s not sad. He’s crazy, he has some pretty wacky ideas and they nearly always work, and he’s an amazingly thoughtful boss, but he’s intensely private. Nobody knows anything about him, really, although he always makes a point of asking about Megan, for instance. But I don’t think he’s sad. I think he’s just a loner and he likes to ski. Come and see the rest.’

They went back down the hall, along the squishy pile carpet that absorbed all the sound of their feet, past all the lovely old doors while Kate opened them one by one and showed them the rooms in turn.

A dining room with a huge table and oak-panelled walls; another sitting room, much smaller than the first, with a plasma TV in the corner, book-lined walls, battered leather sofas and all the evidence that this was his very personal retreat. There was a study at the front of the house which they didn’t enter; and then finally the room Kate called the breakfast room—huge again, but with the same informality as the little sitting room, with foot-wide oak boards on the floor and a great big old refectory table covered in the scars of generations and just made for family living.

And the kitchen off it was, as she might have expected, also designed for a family—or entertaining on an epic scale. Vast, with duck-egg blue painted cabinets under thick, oiled wood worktops, a gleaming white four-oven Aga in the inglenook, and in the middle a granite-topped island with stools pulled up to it. It was a kitchen to die for, the kitchen of her dreams and fantasies, and it took her breath away. It took all their breaths away.

The children stared round it in stunned silence, Edward motionless, Kitty running her fingers reverently over the highly polished black granite, lingering over the tiny gold sparkles trapped deep inside the stone. Edward was the first to recover.

‘Are we really going to stay here?’ he asked, finally finding his voice, and she shook her head in disbelief.

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Of course you are!’

‘Kate, we can’t—’

‘Rubbish! Of course you can. It’s only for a week or two. Come and see the bedrooms.’

Amelia shifted Thomas to her other hip and followed Kate up the gently creaking stairs, the children trailing awestruck in her wake, listening to Megan chattering about when they’d stayed there earlier in the year.

‘That’s Jake’s room,’ Kate said, turning away from it, and Amelia felt a prickle of curiosity. What would his room be like? Opulent? Austere? Monastic?

No, not monastic. This man was a sensualist, she realised, fingering the curtains in the bedroom Kate led them into. Pure silk, lined with padding for warmth and that feeling of luxury that pervaded the entire house. Definitely not monastic.

‘All the rooms are like this—except for some in the attic, which are a bit simpler,’ Kate told her. ‘You could take your pick but I’d have the ones upstairs. They’re nicer.’

‘How many are there?’ she asked, amazed.

‘Ten. Seven en suite, five on this floor and two above, and three more in the attic which share a bathroom. Those are the simpler ones. He entertains business clients here quite often, and they love it. So many people have offered to buy it, but he just laughs and says no.’

‘I should think so. Oh, Kate—what if we ruin something?’

‘You won’t ruin it. The last person to stay here knocked a pot of coffee over on the bedroom carpet. He just had it cleaned.’

Millie didn’t bother to point out that the last person to stay here had been invited—not to mention an adult who presumably was either a friend or of some commercial interest to their unknowing host.

‘Can we see the attic? The simple rooms? It sounds more like our thing.’

‘Sure. Megan, why don’t you show Kitty and Edward your favourite room?’

The children ran upstairs after Megan, freed from their trance now and getting excited as the reality of it began to sink in, and she turned to Kate and took her arm. ‘Kate, we can’t possibly stay here without asking him,’ she said urgently, her voice low. ‘It would be so rude—and I just know something’ll get damaged.’

‘Don’t be silly. Come on, I’ll show you my favourite room. It’s lovely, you’ll adore it. Megan and I stayed here when my pipes froze last February, and it was bliss. It’s got a gorgeous bed.’

‘They’ve all got gorgeous beds.’

They had. Four-posters, with great heavy carved posts and silk canopies, or half testers with just the head end of the bed clothed in sumptuous drapes.

Except for the three Kate showed her now. In the first one, instead of a four-poster there was a great big old brass and iron bedstead, the whole style of the room much simpler and somehow less terrifying, even though the quality of the furnishings was every bit as good, and in the adjoining room was an antique child-sized sleigh bed that looked safe and inviting.

It was clearly intended to be a nursery, and would be perfect for Thomas, she thought wistfully, and beside it was a twin room with two black iron beds, again decorated more simply, and Megan and Kitty were sitting on the beds and bouncing, while giggles rose from their throats and Edward pretended to be too old for such nonsense and looked on longingly.

‘We could sleep up here,’ she agreed at last. ‘And we could spend the days in the breakfast room.’ Even the children couldn’t hurt that old table …

‘There’s a playroom—come and see,’ Megan said, pelting out of the room with the other children in hot pursuit, and Amelia followed them to where the landing widened and there were big sofas and another TV and lots and lots of books and toys.

‘He said he had this area done for people who came with children, so they’d have somewhere to go where they could let their hair down a bit,’ Kate explained, and then smiled. ‘You see—he doesn’t mind children being in the house. If he did, why would he have done this?’

Why, indeed? There was even a stair gate, she noticed, made of oak and folded back against the banisters. And somehow she didn’t mind the idea of tucking them away in what amounted to the servants’ quarters nearly as much.

‘I’ll help you bring everything up,’ Kate said. ‘Kids, come and help. You can carry some of your stuff.’

It only took one journey because most of their possessions were in storage, packed away in a unit on the edge of town, waiting for the time when she could find a way to house them in a place of their own again. Hopefully, this time with a landlord who wouldn’t take the first opportunity to get them out.

And then, with everything installed, she let Rufus out of the car and took him for a little run on the grass at the side of the drive. Poor little dog. He was so confused but, so long as he was with her and the children, he was as good as gold, and she felt her eyes fill with tears.

If David had had his way, the dog would have been put down because of his health problems, but she’d struggled to keep up the insurance premiums to maintain his veterinary cover, knowing that the moment they lapsed, her funding for the dog’s health and well-being would come to a grinding halt.

And that would be the end of Rufus.

She couldn’t allow that to happen. The little Cavalier King Charles spaniel that she’d rescued as a puppy had been a lifeline for the children in the last few dreadful years, and she owed him more than she could ever say. So his premiums were paid, even if it meant she couldn’t eat.

‘Mummy, it’s lovely here,’ Kitty said, coming up to her and snuggling her tiny, chilly hand into Millie’s. ‘Can we stay for ever?’

Oh, I wish, she thought, but she ruffled Kitty’s hair and smiled. ‘No, darling—but we can stay until after Christmas, and then we’ll find another house.’

‘Promise?’

She crossed her fingers behind her back. ‘Promise,’ she said, and hoped that fate wouldn’t make her a liar.

He couldn’t breathe.

For a moment he thought he was buried despite his avalanche pack, and for that fleeting moment in time he felt fear swamp him, but then he realised he was lying face down in the snow.

His legs were buried in the solidified aftermath of the avalanche, but near the surface, and his body was mostly on the top. He tipped his head awkwardly, and a searing pain shot through his shoulder and down his left arm. Damn. He tried again, more cautiously this time, and the snow on his goggles slid off, showering his face with ice crystals that stung his skin in the cold, sharp air. He breathed deeply and opened his eyes and saw daylight. The last traces of it, the shadows long as night approached.

He managed to clear the snow from around his arms, and shook his head to clear his goggles better and regretted it instantly. He gave the pain a moment, and then began to yell into the silence of the fading light.

He yelled for what seemed like hours, and then, like a miracle, he heard voices.

‘Help!’ he bellowed again, and waved, blanking out the pain.

And help came, in the form of big, burly lads who broke away the snow surrounding him, dug his legs out and helped him struggle free. Dear God, he hurt. Everywhere, but most particularly his left arm and his left knee, he realised. Where he’d hit the tree. Or the rocks. No, he’d hurt them on the tree, he remembered, but the rocks certainly hadn’t helped and he was going to have a million bruises.

‘Can you ski back down?’ they asked, and he realised he was still wearing his skis. The bindings had held, even through that. He got up and tested his left leg and winced, but it was holding his weight, and the right one was fine. He nodded and, cradling his left arm against his chest, he picked his way off the rock field to the edge, then followed them slowly down the mountain to the village.

He was shipped off to hospital the moment they arrived back, and he was prodded and poked and tutted over for what seemed like an age. And then, finally, they put his arm in a temporary cast, gave him a nice fat shot of something blissful and he escaped into the blessed oblivion of sleep …