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‘Me, too.’
‘Sure you won’t come over for a drink later on?’
Rachel pulled a face and giggled. ‘And face the daunting Philip Caprice after what you’ve told me about him? Er, I’ll take a rain check, thanks, Lisi!’
Lisi packed up their presents in a carrier bag and wrapped Tim up warmly in his little duffle-coat and the brand-new bobble hat and matching scarf which Santa had brought him. She kissed Rachel and Blaine goodbye and they set off home in the crisp air.
Although it was only just past four, it was already pitch-black and there was a curious silence which had descended over the whole village. But then it was Christmas Day. Everyone was inside, making merry with their families—falling asleep after their big lunches, or playing games or watching weepie films on television.
She let them in and thought how cold the house was. Better light a fire. She drew the curtains and knelt in front of the brand-new toy railway track and began to push one of the trucks around it with her finger. ‘Choo-choo,’ she chanted. ‘Choo-choo!’
‘Me, Mum-mee! Me play with the train!’
She smiled. ‘Go on, then, and I’ll light the fire.’
She efficiently dealt with the logs and paper until the blaze was spitting and glowing. She put the big fire-guard in front of it, and went into her bedroom to change.
She had just stripped off her dress and was standing in her bra and pants when there was a knock at the front door and she glanced at her watch in horror. He couldn’t be here! Not yet. But who else would it be on Christmas afternoon?
Saying a few choice words underneath her breath, she dragged on her dressing gown and opened the front door to find his tall figure dominating her view, blotting out the moon completely. He was carrying presents, but she barely gave them a second glance. Not only had he demanded this visit—he didn’t even have the courtesy to be on time!
‘You’re early!’ she accused.
He thought that no woman had the right to look as sexy as that—not when she was wearing an old flannelette dressing gown which had clearly seen better days—but Lisi did. Maybe it was something to do with the fact that he knew only too well what fabulous curves lay beneath its rather shapeless covering. Or because, for once, she had let her hair fall free and unfettered, spilling in abundant ebony streams to her waist. He had only ever seen it loose once before and he felt the blood begin to sing in his veins as he remembered just when.
‘And a very happy Christmas to you, too,’ he replied sardonically. ‘I left my parents slightly ahead of schedule because they predicted snow—’
‘Where?’ asked Lisi, theatrically peering at the sky and then at the ground. ‘I don’t see any snow!’
He tried to take into consideration the fact that she had obviously been changing. ‘My apologies,’ he murmured. ‘And now, do you think I can come inside? It’s getting pretty chilly standing here.’
She held the door open ungraciously, but as she closed it on the bitter night she reminded herself that she had vowed there would be no unpleasantness. Not in front of Tim. And especially not today, of all days.
Philip lowered his voice. ‘Have you told him?’
She bit her lip. ‘Not yet.’
He looked at her in disbelief. ‘Hell, Lisi—it’s been a week!’
She shook her head. ‘I just couldn’t work out how to do it—it’s not something you can come out with very easily and explain to a child of three. ‘‘By the way, darling—you know that strange man who turned up on the doorstep on your birthday? Well, he’s your daddy!’’’
‘There’s no need to make it sound so—’
‘So like the truth?’
He sighed. ‘So when are you going to tell him?’
‘Not me, Philip. Us. You, mainly.’
‘Me?’
‘Yes, you! I’ll leave you to do the talking—I’m sure you’ll put it in the most diplomatic way possible.’ Hot tears stung at her eyes and she turned away before he could see them. ‘I just haven’t got a clue what to say. Tim!’ she called. ‘Tim!’
‘Is it Faver Chrissmas ’gain?’ squeaked a little voice and Tim came pelting out and almost collided with the tall figure in the hall. He looked up at him with huge aquamarine eyes.
So like Lisi’s eyes, thought Philip. ‘Hello,’ he said.
‘You’re Mum-mee’s friend!’ announced Tim triumphantly.
‘That’s right! And I’ve come to have tea with you both—if that’s okay with you?’
‘Did Faver Chrissmas bring you lots of presents?’
‘Not lots,’ said Philip gravely. ‘Some.’
‘I got lots!’
Philip smiled. ‘Do you want to show me?’
Tim nodded excitedly and eyed the brightly wrapped parcels in Philip’s arms with interest. ‘Who are those presents for?’ he asked coyly.
Philip laughed. ‘They’re for you. We’ll open them when Mummy has changed out of her dressing gown.’ He shot Lisi a questioning look and she realised that she had been standing there just gawping.
‘I’ll go and get changed.’ She nodded, wondering just how he had always had the knack of seeming to be in charge!
She shut the bedroom door behind her, her heart thundering just with the knowledge that he was here, such a short distance away, and that she was standing in her underwear and looking at it critically in the mirror.
A functional peach-coloured bra and knickers which didn’t even match—but who cared? She certainly wasn’t planning for him to get a glimpse of them.
But you would like him to, wouldn’t you? taunted a mischievous voice in her head, and she shook her head at her reflection in the mirror.
She still wanted him, yes—but things were complicated enough as they were. Resuming a physical relationship with him would only add to those. She gave a wry smile as she pulled on a pair of old blue jeans and an ice-blue sweater. Who was she kidding? As if a few short hours in someone’s arm could be defined as a relationship.
She raked the brush through her hair, tempted to tie it back—but decided that she couldn’t leave him sitting out there waiting for her for much longer, so she left it loose.
She walked back into the sitting room to find that he was playing trains with Tim, and when he looked up his eyes were quietly smouldering.
‘Is—everything okay?’ she asked.
He steeled himself against the impact of her beauty, and jerked his head towards the roaring fire instead. He stood up and came to stand beside her, lowering his voice into an undertone so that only she could hear. ‘Do you usually leave Tim here on his own, while you titillate yourself in the next room?’
For a moment she didn’t quite get his drift, and when she did her mouth set itself into a mulish line. So he thought he could walk back into their lives and start criticising her skills as a mother, did he?
‘I was hardly titillating,’ she answered icily, gesturing to her casual clothes with an angry, jerking motion. ‘Just getting changed out of a dress which Tim had liberally smeared with chocolate.’
‘Lisi, he was alone in the room with a fire—for heaven’s sake! Do you really think that’s safe for a three-year-old?’
The injustice of it stung her. ‘I’ll go and put the kettle on,’ she said, between gritted teeth, and marched out to the kitchen.
He followed her, as she had known he would, but remained standing in the doorway so that he could keep an eye on the toddler who was still engrossed in his new train-set.
He saw the fury in the stiff set of her shoulders. ‘Listen, I wasn’t meaning to be judgemental,’ he said softly.
She clicked the kettle on and turned round, her eyes spitting pale blue fire. ‘Like hell you weren’t!’
‘I was only just pointing out—’
‘Well, don’t!’ she said, in a low, shaking voice. ‘Do you think I’ve brought him up in a house which has a fire and not taught him that he is never to go near it?’
‘Listen—’
‘No, you listen! What do you think it’s like as a single parent living with a little boy? Have you ever stopped to think about it?’
‘Actually, no—but then it wasn’t number one on my list of priorities. Until now.’
She met the quizzical green stare fearlessly. ‘Even taking a bath has to be planned with all the attention you would give to a military campaign!’ she declared. ‘As for going to the bathroom—well, you don’t want to know!’
He glanced back towards Tim and then at her again. It had never occurred to him. Why should it? People rarely considered the practical problems of child-rearing unless they were contemplating taking the plunge themselves. He sighed. ‘You’re right. I had no right—’
‘No, you didn’t!’ she agreed furiously. ‘You have only to take a look at him to realise that he is a happy, contented little boy. The world is full of dangers, Philip—and I have had to teach him about them all. Never to talk to strangers. Never to approach a dog that might bite him. The fact that the roads aren’t safe—’ She saw him flinch, and wished she hadn’t chosen an example which would remind him of Carla. ‘I’m sorry.’
He shook his head. ‘The cotton-wool remark still holds true. I shouldn’t have said what I did.’
‘No, you shouldn’t!’ She pointed to the kitchen cupboards with an air of frustration. ‘I’ve had all these cupboards child-proofed so that he can’t get into them. I don’t leave bottles of bleach lying around the place for him to find—and there’s a stair-gate at the foot of the stairs! Please credit me with a little more sense and caring, Philip! He has had it drummed into him from the word go that fires are dangerous and must be treated with respect and caution—and that Mummy is the only person who touches the fire.’
He watched her warm the pot and then make the tea. He had been lucky in a way, he guessed. She could have been the kind of mother who didn’t care—who saw Tim as a mistake who had taken away her youth and her freedom. But she had created a home for him, a warm and loving home, he realised.
She was right. You had only to look at the child to see that he was happy and contented and well cared for. Stimulated, too—to judge from his conversation.
‘Can I do anything?’ he asked.
She couldn’t resist it. ‘Better go back in and keep your eye on Tim,’ she said sweetly. ‘I can manage here.’
He nodded, and his gaze swept over her, beguiling her and capturing her in its intense green light. ‘And we’ll tell him?’
Lisi swallowed. She couldn’t keep putting it off. They couldn’t keep putting it off. ‘I have no choice, do I?’ she asked quietly, but noticed that he didn’t bother answering that—he didn’t need to—just turned away and walked back into the sitting room.
She carried the tea-tray through and brought in Christmas cake and mince pies and slices of Stollen.
Philip looked up as she began to unload it all onto the table and gave a rueful smile. ‘Not sure if I can eat again—at least until the New Year.’
She forced herself to be conversational. They were shortly to drop the biggest bombshell into Tim’s life—let him see that his mother and his father didn’t actually hate one another.
‘Did your mother feed you up?’
He nodded. ‘It’s my first Christmas here for years—in Maraban they don’t celebrate it.’
Tim looked up. ‘Where’s Malaban?’ he chirped.
‘Maraban,’ corrected Philip, and his eyes softened as he looked down at the interested face of his son. ‘It’s a country in the Middle East. A beautiful land with a great big desert—do you know what a desert is, Tim?’
He shook his dark head, mesmerised.
‘It’s made of sand—lots of sand—and only the very toughest of plants can grow there.’
‘What telse?’ asked Tim. ‘In Malaban?’
Philip smiled. ‘Oh, there are fig trees and wild walnut trees, and the mountain slopes are covered in forests of juniper and pistachio trees—’
‘What’s st-stachio tree?’ piped up Tim. ‘Like an apple tree?’
Philip shook his head. ‘Not really. A pistachio is a nut,’ he explained. ‘A delicious pale green nut in a little shell—’
‘He’s too young for nuts!’ put in Lisi immediately.
He guessed that he deserved that, and nodded. ‘Oh, and there are lots of animals there, too,’ he said. ‘Jackals and wild boar and rare, pink deer.’
Tim’s eyes were like saucers, thought Lisi. He probably thought that Philip was concocting a wonderful fairy-tale land, and, come to think of it, that was exactly what it sounded like.
‘Do you live there?’ asked Tim.
‘I did. But not any more.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it was time for me to come back to England.’
‘Why?’
‘Tim—’ began Lisi, but Philip shook his head.
‘I used to work for a prince.’
Lisi looked at Tim—now he really did think that this was a story!
‘A real prince?’
‘Uh-huh. Prince Khalim. Only the prince got married and so it was time for me to move on.’
Tim nodded solemnly. ‘Will you play trains with me?’
He met her eyes across the room. Now, they urged her, and Lisi knew that she must begin this particular story. She took time pouring tea, and gave Tim a beaker of juice, and then she went to sit down on the floor next to both of them and cleared her throat.
‘Tim, darling?’
A train was chugged along the track by a small, chubby finger.
‘Tim? Look at Mummy, darling.’
