was she going to do about Lizzie’s present?
At some point soon she was going to have to sit her little girl down and tell her that Santa couldn’t deliver a daddy. Otherwise Christmas morning was going to be a disappointment.
Trying to console herself with the thought that there must be something else that Lizzie would like for Christmas, Bryony realised that Jack had stopped the car.
‘Ready to unload this tree?’ He glanced behind him and winced. ‘I can’t believe you chose a tree that big.’
Lizzie pulled the headphones off her ears and giggled. ‘It wasn’t Mummy, it was you, Jack.’
‘Me?’ He looked horrified as he jumped out of the car with athletic grace and turned to lift the little girl out. ‘I chose that?’
Lizzie was laughing. ‘You know you did.’
‘Well, we’d better get it in your house, then.’
Laughing and grumbling, Jack dragged the tree inside the house and proceeded to secure it in a bucket with his usual calm efficiency.
Bryony gazed upwards and shook her head in disbelief. ‘It’s bent at the top.’
‘It’s perfect,’ Lizzie sighed, and Jack nodded solemnly.
‘Perfect.’
Bryony rolled her eyes, forced to accept that she was outnumbered. ‘OK. Well, we’ve got it now, so let’s decorate it.’
They spent the rest of the afternoon draping the tree with lights and baubles until it sparkled festively. Lizzie produced a pink fairy to go on top of the tree and Jack lifted her so that she could position it herself.
Then Jack went into the garden and cut boughs of holly from the tree and they decorated the fireplace.
Bryony produced mince pies and they sat on the carpet, admiring their decorations and enjoying the atmosphere.
Bryony smiled as she looked around her. ‘I feel Christmassy.’
‘That’s because of the size of the tree,’ Jack told her, his handsome face serious as he bit into a mince pie. ‘Any smaller and you wouldn’t be feeling the way you’re feeling now.’
But watching him and Lizzie fighting over the last mince pie, Bryony realised that the warm Christmassy feeling that she had in the pit of her stomach had nothing to do with the tree and everything to do with the three of them being together. They felt like a family.
But they weren’t a family.
Jack didn’t want to be part of a family.
Watching Lizzie climbing all over him, dropping crumbs over his trousers and the carpet, Bryony wondered if he realised that he actually was part of a family.
Whether he liked it or not, he was a huge part of her life. And she couldn’t imagine it any other way, even if ultimately she found a daddy for Lizzie. And just thinking of how she was going to tell Lizzie that Santa hadn’t managed to produce a daddy on Christmas Day filled her with overwhelming depression.
Suddenly needing to be on her own, Bryony stood up. ‘I need to get ready. Toby’s picking me up at seven,’ she said brightly, ‘and I don’t want to smell like a Christmas tree.’
She half expected Jack to say something about her going out with Toby. After all, he’d been less than enthusiastic about her other attempts to date men. But he just smiled at her and carried on playing with Lizzie.
Feeling deflated and not really understanding why, Bryony ran herself a deep bath and lay in a nest of scented bubbles for half an hour, telling herself that she was going to have a really great evening with Toby.
She was going to wear the black dress again.
And it was nothing to do with Jack’s comments about her having good legs, she told herself firmly as she dried herself and dressed carefully. It was just that the dress suited her and she knew that Toby was planning to take her somewhere special.
She spent time on her make-up and pinned her hair on top of her head in a style that she felt suited the dress.
Finally satisfied, she walked out of her bedroom and into the kitchen, where Jack was making Lizzie tea and playing a game of ‘guess the animal’.
‘You’re a tiger, Jack.’ Lizzie giggled, watching with delight as he prowled around the kitchen, growling. ‘Do I have to eat sprouts? I hate sprouts. Can I have peas instead?’
‘Never argue with a tiger,’ Jack said sternly, putting two sprouts on the side of her plate. ‘Eat up. They’re good for you.’
Lizzie stared at them gloomily. ‘I hate things that are good for me.’
‘He’s only given you two,’ Bryony said mildly, turning to lift two mugs out of the cupboard. When she looked back the sprouts had gone. Lizzie and Jack were both concentrating hard on the plate, neither of them looking at her.
‘All right.’ Bryony put her hands on her hips, her eyes twinkling. ‘What happened to the sprouts?’
Lizzie covered her mouth and gave a snort of laughter and Jack tried to look innocent.
‘Did you know that tigers love sprouts?’
Lizzie smiled happily. ‘If Jack was my daddy I’d never have to eat sprouts.’
Jack shot Bryony a rueful look and ran a hand over the back of his neck. ‘Lizzie, angel, we’ve got to talk about this.’
But before he could say any more, the phone rang. Bryony picked it up, expecting it to be her mother ringing about the babysitting arrangements for that evening.
It was Toby and when she finally replaced the receiver she was silent.
‘What’s the matter?’ Jack was feeding Lizzie the last of her fish fingers. ‘Is he going to be late?’
‘He isn’t coming.’ Bryony looked at him, thinking that Jack didn’t look that surprised. He just carried on feeding Lizzie. She frowned. ‘She can feed herself, Jack.’
‘I know she can, but we’re playing zoos,’ he said calmly, ‘and at the moment I’m feeding the tigers. So why is your date off?’
‘Because Sean sent him over to Penrith to pick up some equipment for the team and it’s taken him ages to sort it out and he’s still there.’ She frowned. ‘Why didn’t he tell Sean that he had a date?’
Jack stabbed the last of the fish fingers, not looking at her. ‘Well, I suppose it was important.’
‘It sounded pretty routine to me,’ Bryony muttered, facing the fact that yet another date had turned into a disaster, this time before the guy had even turned up on her doorstep. She was jinxed. Or was she?
Suddenly she looked at Jack suspiciously, remembering his attitude to Toby when they’d gone on the rescue. Had he somehow engineered this so that they couldn’t go out? She knew he wasn’t comfortable with the idea of her finding a daddy for Lizzie. And if she found someone, obviously that would affect his relationship because he couldn’t just come and go the way he did at the moment.
Was he the reason Toby hadn’t turned up?
She glanced down at herself with a sigh. ‘All dressed up and nowhere to go,’ she said lightly, giving a shrug. ‘I suppose I may as well go and get changed.’
‘Why?’
Jack stood up and suddenly all she was breathlessly aware of were those sexy blue eyes watching her.
‘Well, there’s no point in wearing this—’ she gestured down to herself ‘—to eat baked beans.’
‘Who said anything about baked beans?’ he drawled softly, walking towards her with a distinct air of purpose. ‘Ring your mum and cancel.’
‘Cancel?’