The Magic of Christmas Read online

  Fun? Fun for himself wasn’t a priority. All he wanted was to see his daughters relaxed and happy. ‘I’m happy, Chlo. I’ve just been incredibly busy…’

  Chloe nodded. ‘I know. It doesn’t matter. We’re doing fine. I know you’re busy.’

  Too busy to laugh. Too busy to unpack the boxes in their new home. Too busy to see Father Christmas. Too busy to give his girls everything they needed.

  Christian gritted his teeth, vowing to somehow make himself less busy.

  ‘It’s now!’Aggie jumped up and down like a yo-yo. ‘That fairy is waving to us. I think it’s our turn.’

  * * *

  Why on earth had she ever thought this would be a good idea?

  Still recovering her breath after her mad dash from the hospital, Lara smoothed a hand over the glittering net and tulle that floated around her pink tights. It wasn’t that she minded the children. She loved the children. She loved the way they stood almost bursting with excitement as they waited, eyes shining, cheeks still pink from the cold. It was the parents that made her despair. She listened to them in the queue, scolding and snapping as if taking the kids to see Father Christmas was just another chore to be ticked off a long list.

  Why did people have children if they found them so irritating?

  Or maybe that was just one of the ironies of life. Once you had something, you no longer appreciated its value.

  Engulfed by a sudden wave of nostalgia, she tried not to dwell on the fact that this would be the first time in her life that she wouldn’t be with her own family for Christmas. Her parents had decided to spend the festive period at their cottage in France and her brother was in Australia with his girlfriend.

  And it was no good telling herself that she’d be joining him in a matter of weeks. It still felt wrong, not being with her family for Christmas.

  Lara felt a flash of sadness.

  Things were changing. Her family was changing. She was the only one who had stayed the same.

  Would she ever find a man that she wanted to spend a lifetime with? Would she ever have her own children?

  Two would be a nice number. Two little girls, exactly like the ones who were next in the queue. Even at a glance she could see that they were entirely different personalities. The elder was quiet and serious and the other was fizzing like a bottle of lemonade that had been shaken until it was ready to explode.

  They were gorgeous.

  She watched them for a moment with amusement and then looked at the father.

  And froze in panic.

  Oh, no, no no!

  It was Christian Blake—looking nothing like his usual self, which was why she hadn’t immediately recognised him. Only an hour ago he’d been wearing a blue scrub suit and a distant, forbidding expression. Now there was no sign of the ruthlessly efficient consultant.

  This afternoon he was definitely the man and not the doctor.

  And an incredibly sexy man.

  He’d swapped the scrub suit for a pair of jeans and a chunky sweater that brushed against his strong jaw. His boots looked comfortable and well worn and he wore a long black coat that seemed to emphasise his powerful physique. The younger of the two girls was clinging to his hand and leaping around like a kangaroo on a hot surface.

  So not only was he married, he also had two perfect children. And they’d picked this particular day to see Father Christmas.

  Pinned to the spot with shock, Lara stifled a whimper. What was she going to do? If her wings had been real, she would have flown up into the rafters and hidden from view.

  She wasn’t supposed to be here.

  But how would she have guessed that a consultant from her department would pick this day to bring his children to visit Santa in his grotto? She’d left him dealing with a patient with a fractured femur. What was he doing here?

  Unsure what to do, she waited helplessly for the inevitable recognition. Perhaps her make-up disguised her features; perhaps she looked different in a tutu and tights; perhaps—

  ‘Hello again, Lara.’ His eyes—those sharp, sexy blue eyes that never missed anything—slid down her body, lingering on the bodice of her white tutu before sliding over the net and tulle to her shimmering tights.

  Her entire body heated under his blatantly masculine scrutiny and Lara wondered which was more embarrassing—being caught moonlighting or being caught moonlighting half-naked. It was a step up from being caught pole-dancing, she thought weakly, but not much.

  He dragged his gaze from her legs back to her eyes and they stood for a moment, staring at each other.

  Lara opened her mouth to break the tense silence, but no sound came out. Even breathing seemed a challenge.

  ‘Daddy?’ The girl in the pink coat tugged at his hand. ‘Why are you staring at the fairy?’

  Lara clutched at her wand. ‘Hi, there.’ Her voice sounded strangled. ‘I expect your dad is wondering whether I know any good spells. And I wish I did. I could do with a good disappearing spell right now. I don’t really mind who disappears—you or me. Either would be fine.’ Her feeble attempt at humour earned her a raised eyebrow and a sardonic glance that warned her of trouble.

  Panic wrestled with humour and humour won. What were the chances of a consultant from the emergency department turning up to see Father Christmas in the middle of his working day?

  Seeing the absurdity of it all, Lara started to laugh and the older girl looked at her with a question in her eyes.

  ‘Why are you laughing?’

  Lara’s eyes twinkled. ‘Because fairies are happy people,’ she said huskily, wondering what would happen now. It was her afternoon off but she knew that her contract didn’t allow her to work elsewhere. Would she lose her job? She was leaving in a month, of course, but she needed every last penny she could accumulate.

  Merry Christmas, Lara.

  The little girl who had been holding Christian’s hand danced forward, her blonde curls bouncing around her face. ‘Is it our turn now? Is he ready for us?’

  ‘He’s ready.’ Ignoring Christian’s intimidating frown, Lara dropped onto her knees so that she could concentrate on the child. What was the point in worrying? She couldn’t change the fact that he’d seen her. She may as well get on with the job, which was to entertain the children. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Aggie. And this is my big sister, Chloe, and this is my dad. We’re sort of in a hurry because Daddy has to go back to work.’ She leaned forward, her voice a loud whisper. ‘My daddy is very clever. He’s a doctor and he mends people who break themselves.’

  Mends people? Well aware of Christian’s skills in the resuscitation room, Lara decided that it wasn’t a bad description of his job. ‘Right…’ She cleared her throat. ‘In that case, we’d better get you in to see Father Christmas as fast as possible so that your dad can get back to work.’

  Aggie reached out a hand and touched her wings. ‘Are you a real fairy?’

  Lara smiled. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I think you’re probably a girl dressed up as a fairy,’Aggie said slowly, ‘but you’re very pretty.’

  ‘Oh—well—thank you. That’s very sweet of you.’ For the second time in one day Lara was suddenly aware of Christian’s intent masculine appraisal and she blushed and waved a hand. ‘Isn’t life a weird thing? I go through twenty-five years with no one telling me I look good and suddenly I get told twice in one afternoon. It must be my lucky day. And Father Christmas is waiting. Go on through.’ She urged the children forward, intending to follow them, but strong fingers closed around her wrist, preventing her escape.

  ‘And just what,’ he demanded in a cool voice, ‘is an ED nurse doing dressed up as a fairy in a Christmas grotto? I think some explaining is in order, Staff Nurse King.’

  His head was close to hers and she was suddenly engulfed by an explosion of awareness that astonished her. He’s married with two adorable kids, she reminded herself. What was the matter with her?

  Reluctantly, she turned her head to look
at him. His blue eyes held hers for a long moment and she felt the strength in her knees vanish. His eyelashes were long and thick and served to accentuate the sensuality of his amazing blue eyes. Strands of dark hair flopped over his forehead, the beginnings of stubble hazed his jaw and he looked nothing like the cool, forbidding consultant she was used to seeing at work.

  Someone hand the man a stethoscope, she thought desperately. Anything to remind her who he was.

  Lara forced herself to breathe evenly in an attempt to stabilise her churning insides. ‘It’s my afternoon off,’ she croaked, ‘and I thought I’d—I’d—’

  ‘Dress as a fairy?’

  ‘I can explain—sort of.’

  ‘You’re moonlighting.’

  ‘Not exactly moonlighting.’

  ‘You’re doing another job. Are you short of money?’ One eyebrow lifted in sardonic appraisal. ‘Sustaining a gambling habit?’

  She giggled at the thought. ‘No! I’m saving to go travelling! And I love Christmas,’she confessed. ‘I love seeing the children’s faces and I don’t have any of my own, so I borrow other people’s.’

  His eyes slid over her body, lingering on the revealing lines of the silky bodice, which she knew was barely decent. Only a few transparent pieces of net and tulle protected her from his scrutiny and she felt her whole body become warm.

  Their eyes locked and for a moment neither of them spoke.

  The entrance to the grotto felt oppressively hot and suddenly Lara couldn’t breathe properly.

  ‘Daddy?’ Breathless with excitement, Aggie appeared in the doorway. ‘Come on! It’s our turn!’

  It took him a moment to answer. ‘Yes, sweetheart.’ Christian dragged his eyes from Lara’s and finally released his iron grip on her wrist. ‘Let’s see Father Christmas. We can talk about this later.’

  ‘We don’t need to,’ Lara muttered. ‘Honestly, as far as I’m concerned, we can consider the subject closed.’

  But the look he shot in her direction indicated that he considered the subject to be far from closed.

  Wishing her knees would stop shaking, she led him through to the grotto and laughed aloud at the look of naked incredulity that flickered across his handsome face as he took in the metres of red satin and tinsel and the fake snow. She’d had the same reaction when she’d first seen the interior of the grotto. But the children loved it. Aggie was already sitting next to Father Christmas, her eyes sparkling and her list in her hand.

  ‘Aggie, take your feet off the seat,’ Chloe murmured, but her little sister ignored her.

  ‘My feet are clean because these are my absolute bestest shoes.’

  Chloe sighed. ‘It’s “best”, not “bestest”.’

  Aggie ignored her. ‘My list is quite long so I hope you’re not in a hurry, although it doesn’t really matter if you are because I can talk very quickly.’ She snuggled a little closer to Father Christmas, her smile wide and her gaze trusting. ‘It’s not all for me. Some of it’s for other people. So I hope I can have a bit more time because I’m doing the talking for three and that’s a lot of people. Is that OK with you?’

  Father Christmas blinked several times and his mouth twitched under his thick white beard. ‘That’s fine with me.’

  ‘I have a list here. Do you want to read or shall I just tell you?’

  ‘Aggie, just stop talking,’Chloe breathed, folding her arms across her chest and sending a mortified glance towards her father. ‘She never stops talking. No one else has a chance of speaking!’

  Lara watched the girls and felt envy slide through her body. Christian Blake had a noisy, loving family. Two gorgeous children.

  One day, she promised herself. One day maybe she’d find a man with no flaws and it would be her queuing to see Father Christmas with her two wonderful children.

  Or four, she thought with humour, if the psychic turned out to be right. Mindful of the queue building outside, she stepped forward. ‘Let’s hear your list, Aggie.’

  ‘OK. Well, I’d really, really like a pet but I know I probably won’t get that because Daddy always says that, if I can’t even keep my bedroom tidy, how am I ever going to clean out a cage?’ Aggie peeped at her father hopefully but the measuring look that Christian gave her in return was sufficient for Lara to know that pets was a subject that had been discussed and dismissed on many occasions. ‘No pet, then,’Aggie murmured, subsiding in her seat, ‘but if I really can’t have a pet then there are other things…’ She read out a lengthy list, ignoring Chloe’s worried glance towards the clock on the wall. Then she handed the list to Father Christmas. ‘I’ll give you this so that you don’t have to remember it all in your head. It’s in order, but just to remind you, my best thing would be the bike. And help unpacking the rest of the boxes in my bedroom because since we moved to our new house I can’t find any of my favourite toys, which seems a terrible waste.’

  Father Christmas nodded slowly. ‘Well, I think I got all that. What about your big sister? What does she need?’

  Chloe flushed. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Go on, Chlo,’ Christian urged quietly. ‘What do you want, sweetheart?’

  Lara glanced towards him, surprised by the warmth of his voice. At work in the emergency department he delivered instructions and commands in a detached, almost cold tone. He was reassuring to patients when the situation demanded it, but no one would have described him as touchy-feely. In fact, some of her colleagues had commented that Christian Blake was a machine, completely incapable of feeling emotion.

  But she knew now that they were wrong.

  Christian Blake wasn’t incapable of feeling emotion.

  ‘I know what she wants,’ Aggie whispered, kneeling up on the seat so that she could whisper in Father Christmas’s ear. ‘What she wants is for Alex Gregg to ask her to dance at the school disco. Can you fix that?’

  ‘Aggie!’ Visibly embarrassed, Chloe turned to her father in horror. ‘Can’t you stop her talking? All she ever does is talk!’

  Aggie’s eyes were wide. ‘You do want that, you know you do! And there’s something else.’ Undaunted by her sister’s quelling look, Aggie smiled happily up at Father Christmas. ‘Just one more thing, and it isn’t for me.’

  Father Christmas stroked his beard. ‘Who is it for this time?’

  ‘My dad.’

  Christian tensed. ‘Aggie, I don’t need anything,’ he said swiftly. ‘And that’s enough now. It’s someone else’s turn to talk to Father Christmas.’

  ‘No. It’s your turn but I know you won’t ask for yourself.’ Her chin set at a stubborn angle, Aggie turned back to Father Christmas. ‘Daddy needs a new wife. You see, our mummy left us.’

  A shocked silence descended on the grotto.

  Stunned by that unexpected revelation, Lara couldn’t speak or move.

  Then Father Christmas cleared his throat. ‘She left you?’

  ‘Yes.’ Apparently unaware of the tension around her, Aggie continued. ‘So now we don’t have a mummy and that makes it really hard at home. We have nannies or housekeepers but they’re not the same and daddy works so hard in the hospital and that’s why we haven’t unpacked the boxes yet. What he needs is a miracle. I read about them in a book. A miracle is something amazing that changes everything. If I’m extra-good between now and Christmas, could I have a small miracle?’

  Father Christmas appeared to have been struck dumb, so Lara stepped forward, blinking back the tears that had somehow sprung into her eyes.

  ‘The thing about life, Aggie,’ she said softly, trying to keep the choke out of her voice, ‘is that you never know where the next miracle is going to come from.’

  ‘Well, I don’t care where it comes from but I know it has to come soon. My friend Katherine at school—her mummy went to heaven and now she has a new mummy but I don’t know where she came from. I want to get Daddy a new wife. I want to do an advert like we do for the nannies, but he won’t do an advert.’

  ‘She needs to be gagged,’ Chloe muttere
d, shrinking against her father, her expression acutely embarrassed. ‘It’s the only way. I’m buying her a massive gag for Christmas. And it’s not coming off until she learns that silence is golden.’

  Christian rubbed a hand over his face and gave a slow shake of his head, clearly struggling to calculate the best way of handling the situation.

  ‘What’s gagged?’Aggie looked puzzled, clearly oblivious to the tension that her innocent request had created. ‘I just want something nice for Daddy. What’s wrong with that?’

  Expecting Christian to be furious by his daughter’s very frank and public admission, Lara stole a glance in his direction. But she didn’t see anger. Instead, she saw concern, gentleness and a touch of sadness. A lump settled in her throat as she watched him step forward and lift his little girl into his arms.

  ‘I don’t need a new wife. That isn’t the answer.’ His voice was soft and he stroked a hand over his little girl’s blonde curls. ‘And I don’t understand why you’d think that, Aggie. We’re doing fine, aren’t we? What’s wrong, sweetheart? What’s missing?’

  ‘It’s just that I don’t want you to be lonely. You need your own special friend,’Aggie whispered, sliding her arms round his neck. ‘Chloe has Anna and I have Katherine, but you don’t have anyone all for you. If you had a wife, then you’d have someone.’

  Christian hesitated. ‘It isn’t that simple.’

  ‘You mean because of us? Mummy left because of us, didn’t she?’Aggie’s voice wobbled and she clung to her father like a monkey, her head on his shoulder. ‘It’s my fault because I talk so much. I do try not to talk but then I sort of want to burst.’

  Lara blinked rapidly to try and clear the tears that threatened to obscure her vision. Should she leave the grotto? She knew that Christian Blake was a fiercely private man. He never, ever talked about anything personal. He must be horrified that his little daughter had made such a frank confession in front of a colleague.

  But Christian wasn’t looking at her. In fact, he didn’t even seem aware of her presence. His only interest seemed to be in his little daughter and her feelings.