Free The Most Magical Gift of All by Fiona Lowe Page A

holiday. He’d get the bike delivered from Parachilna and he’d take off again on New Year’s Day. He smiled at the thought. A new year and a new start—it held a certain cosmic rightness.
    He ruffled Imogen’s hair. ‘Did you finish your picture? Let’s take a look.’
    She rolled it out on the desk. A bright-yellow sun, a wobbly house and a red stick-figure. ‘Who’s that?’
    â€˜Santa.’ She stared up at him, her brown eyes strikingly similar to Sophie’s. ‘Jack, will Santa find me here?’
    His heart ripped for this little girl whose unstable life meant she had no idea where she was living week to week. He mightn’t be able to take his longed-for trip but he loved Christmas and it would be no problem at all to give Imogen the best Christmas season a kid could have. ‘Let’s write Santa a letter right now and tell him that you’re going to be at Min and Jack’s house.’
    She clapped her hands and snuggled in closer as if her whole body had just relaxed. ‘And Sophie’s.’
    Sophie.
    His fledgling peace shattered like glass and he swallowed a groan against a constricted throat. How could he have forgotten Sophie? The dynamically gorgeous, free-spirited Sophie, who with one look from those chocolate eyes had him hard and wanting. Sharing a house with her would be like the temptation of a Christmas gift under the tree, all wrapped and waiting, and him not being allowed to open it. This situation was the very reason he avoided liaisons in Barragong. In town, he was the doctor. Outside of town he was Jack, and no one in Barragong knew what he got up to and that way no one talked about it. Mary’s departure had given them a field day and he was never giving the town that sort of gossip power again.
    Avoiding Sophie for less than a day had been possible. Avoiding her for a month while sharing a house with her would be totally impossible. He dropped his head onto Imogen’s dark curls. How had his holiday just turned into an endurance test?
    Â 
    A prickly sensation brushed Sophie’s bare arm and she jumped, her fingers batting at the feeling.
    Diana laughed. ‘It’s not a spider, it’s just tinsel. The pin holding it on the ceiling must have fallen down.’
    Leave the tinsel up, Sophie, so Christopher can enjoy it when he comes home. The ghost of her mother’s voice made Sophie shiver and she didn’t try to explain that a spider would have been preferable to the Christmas decoration. She’d been totally unprepared for the hospital’s Christmas-decoration onslaught that had taken place overnight. ‘I’m surprised you decorate.’
    The pregnant nurse stared at her as if she’d just landed from another planet. ‘It’s December.’
    Sophie tried to laugh off her anxieties. ‘I know, but it’s summer here, so hardly Christmassy.’
    Diana spoke patiently as if she was explaining to a child. ‘We mightn’t have cold weather, open fires and snow, but it’s still Christmas.’ She gave an encouraging smile. ‘It’s a great time for you to be here, and just you wait, we’ll get you involved in everything so you’ll have a totally memorable Aussie Christmas.’
    Sophie’s chest tightened and the need to leave pummelled her. You left Asia for this? She breathed in slowly. How dumb had she been, thinking that because December fell in summer in Australia it would mean Christmas wasn’t a big deal? She abruptly closed the file on the computer and jumped to her feet, needing to get out of the walls that seemed to be closing in on her. ‘I have to go, but ring me if Mrs Retallick’s temperature goes up.’
    Without waiting for Diana’s reply, she walked quickly out into the heat, gulped in air and headed for the four-wheel-drive. She turned up the air conditioner full blast, turned up the music full blast, threw the