Free A Mommy for Christmas by Caroline Anderson

easy.’
    â€˜Kate? I was joking. There’s no way on God’s earth I’d give my kids up. Although it has been suggested.’
    Her eyes flew back to his, wide with shock. ‘Why? Who by?’
    He shrugged. ‘Friends? My mother, even, at one point. I think she still believes it would be better for them in some ways.’
    â€˜No!’
    So much emphasis on such a tiny little word, scarcely audible over the indrawn breath, and yet…
    â€˜No?’
    â€˜Not unless…’
    â€˜Unless?’
    She gave a tiny shrug. ‘Unless there’s no choice. Adoption isn’t always bad. Sometimes it can be a miracle. But—not just because you don’t want them.’
    â€˜But I do want them,’ he assured her, ‘so it won’t ever happen. Not while there’s breath in my body. I love my kids to bits, and I’d go to the ends of the earth before I’d give them up or let anything bad happen to them.’
    Her shoulders dropped, and she smiled and stood up, tugging her jumper down unconsciously, still ill at ease. ‘Good. Right, now I have to go—things to do before tomorrow. And I’m sorry I was so hard on you. If there’s anything I can do—you know, if you have a problem, if things don’t go right…’
    â€˜I thought I had to sort it unless it was a matter of life or death?’ he said wryly, and he saw something very human and rather desperate going on in her eyes. As if she was torn between her role as his boss and the warm and caring woman he was beginning to realise she hid under that crisp exterior.
    â€˜It’s only an offer of help in an emergency, so don’t push it,’ she said, dragging back control of the situation, and he smiled and held her coat for her.
    â€˜Thank you—and thank you for the curry,’ he said quietly. ‘It was a good idea, and I really enjoyed it.’
    She looked up, her eyes soft, and her lips curved up in a warm, genuine smile. ‘My pleasure. Your turn next time.’
    There was going to be one?
    â€˜Done,’ he said quickly before she changed her mind.
    â€˜And next time I promise I won’t bully you.’
    He grinned and reached for the doorknob. ‘I’ll hold you to that,’ he said, and for a second he found himself contemplating kissing her goodnight.
    Not a proper kiss. Just a peck on the cheek, a brush of his lips against that soft, baby-smooth skin.
    He yanked the door open, held it until she’d started her car, then shut it firmly. It was cold out there, a definite nip in the breeze, but inside him a fire was starting to smoulder, and it was the last thing he needed.
    He cleared up the kitchen, washed up the dishes and went to bed.
    Â 
    There was ice on the windscreen the following morning, and he had to scrape it off before he could take the kids to the childminder, and then he got caught in the traffic and so, of course, he was late.
    Kate was going to skin him, and all the ground he’d made up the night before would be down the pan.
    Oh, well, he thought, at least he’d find out how sincere she’d been about helping him through this, but when he arrived on the ward he found her talking to the police, and she turned to him with relief in her eyes, his lateness apparently not the first thing on her mind.
    â€˜Ah, Mr McEwan. The police would like to talk to you about Peter Graham, the man in the fight.’
    â€˜Oh, right. Sure.’
    â€˜If you’re happy without me?’ she said, and left them as if she couldn’t get away quick enough. Things to do?
    Or something else?
    He spoke to the police, told them what little he knew, accompanied them while they spoke to the patient and then sent them away when the patient became distressed.
    â€˜Did they get what they needed?’ Kate asked, her eyes not nearly as casual as her voice, and he looked at her keenly. She looked away. Interesting.
    â€˜Not