Once Upon A Christmas Night.... Annie Claydon

to look, Greg knew what it was. The Christmas card was for his father, the picture on the front a wishful representation of a family—father, mother and their five-year-old son—under a Christmas tree. It was almost painful to watch his younger self, so absorbed in this task, so careful with the picture and the wording inside the card, because Greg knew what was to come.

      The lavishly wrapped presents from America had been no substitute for his father’s arrival, but the child had believed all the excuses that Christmas. It had taken years of broken promises to finally squash Greg’s faith and make him realise that the time his father gave so freely to the company and the people he worked with was doled out like a miser’s shilling to his family.

      ‘It’s not your fault.’ Greg breathed the words to his younger self, wondering if there was any way he could comfort the boy. Apparently not. His own memories still tasted of the bitterness of dreams that had never been smashed but had just dissolved under the weight of reality.

      The boy was growing, though, almost before his eyes. Finding his way in the world. A first kiss on a sun-strewn hillside in Italy, where he had been holidaying with his mother’s family. The letter to his father, telling him that he was going to medical school, which had gone unanswered. The party that his mother and stepfather had thrown for him before he’d left home. The hard work, the weary nights and the smile of a woman he’d saved. She’d been the first, and from then on he’d known that this was what he was supposed to do.

      Greg was reeling from the vivid clarity of the thoughts and memories flashing in front of him. Faces, dreams. The soft touch of a woman’s skin. Jess. She’d been the last, delicious taste of the life that he’d left behind. Maybe not a perfect life, there had been the usual mistakes, the usual disappointments, but it had been his and he had a singular affection for it.

      Finally, the parade of images slowed. Stopped. It was last Christmas, in the dark, deserted courtyard outside the hospital, and Greg could see himself, talking to Jess. Although he couldn’t hear what they were saying, he knew well enough. Knew what was coming, too, and he held his breath, afraid that in some way he might alter history and divert their path away from that sweet outcome.

      She must have been as back-breakingly tired as he was, but she still shone. Still wore that red sparkly headband that had brought a little Christmas cheer into an A and E department that had been in a state of siege after a cold snap, accompanied by snow, had filled the waiting room, and a flu bug had thrown the holiday rota into chaos.

      Greg saw himself grimace. They’d got to the goodbye. Jess had worked for him for two years, and was leaving soon, to take up a post in Cardiology. It was what she wanted to do and he was pleased for her but even now, ten months later, the sudden feeling of loss stabbed at him.

      There it was… Greg watched as his former self leaned forward, a brief kiss on the cheek. Saw her flinch back in surprise as he went to kiss the other cheek, and knew that he’d whispered something about a single kiss not being enough, using his Italian heritage as an excuse for his own craving to feel her skin against his again.

      More talk, their bodies seeming to grow closer by the second, and then he’d caught her hand. Pressed her fingers against his lips, smiling when she didn’t draw back. And then Greg had heedlessly trashed the first of the three rules he’d lived by up until that moment. He’d gone ahead and kissed her, despite the fact that Jess was still a member of his team for another week, and he always, whatever the circumstances, kept it strictly professional at work.

       ‘Think you’re in control of this, don’t you?’

      He murmured the warning and his former self took no heed of it. Jess would show him differently, any minute now. Greg watched as she pulled away for a moment and then kissed him back, her hand sliding over the stubble on his jaw and coming to rest on his neck, in the exact place that had suddenly and inexplicably seemed to control the whole of his body.

      She’d torn his breath away, taken everything that he was and made it hers. What was the second rule again? Don’t let your love life get out of control? That had dissolved in the wash of pleasure that had been engulfing him, without anything more than a slight pop. This had been uncharted territory. He’d known no more about Jess’s personal life than she had about his, and if that wasn’t out of control he didn’t know what was.

      It was Jess who had come to her senses. Down-to-earth, dependable Jess, who had always seemed so immune to his charm.

       ‘This might not be such a good idea. We work together… ’

      She’d given him a way out, and he’d stubbornly refused to take it.

       ‘Not for much longer.’

       ‘I suppose I won’t be seeing so much of you after next week. When I take up the post in Cardiology.’

      There had been a gleam of mischief in her smile.

      The third rule had flared and burned in the heat of her touch. Don’t make promises you can’t keep.

       ‘You’ll see me. I’ll find you.’

      He had kissed her one last time, just to let her know that he would. And she had clung to him, to let him know just what his welcome would be like when he did.

       ‘Happy Christmas, Greg.’

       ‘Happy Christmas, Jess.’

      Greg’s eyes opened and he found himself staring at the ceiling. He hadn’t even looked for her, let alone found her. In the week between Christmas and the New Year the call had come, telling him that his father was gravely ill. Instead of going to Jess’s goodbye drinks, Greg had been on the motorway, on his way to his father’s house. Too late, he’d realised that he’d left no message to tell her why he couldn’t be there.

      Days had turned into weeks. Every moment that Greg hadn’t been at work had been spent either on the road or at his father’s bedside. He’d known that he was dying, but somehow it had seemed all wrong when the man who had capitulated to no one gave way to death. Then the will had been read, and Greg’s world had been turned upside down. He’d packed his bags and gone to America to try and sort it all out, knowing that it was too late to seek her out.

      Maybe she’d forgiven him. She certainly hadn’t forgotten him. And maybe now he could do what he’d neglected to do before, and had been regretting for the last ten months. Get to know Jess. Find out whether that kiss had been just an aberration, something that had happened which had never been meant to be, or whether it might, just might have been the start of something.

       CHAPTER TWO

      GREG BREEZED INTO Cardiology as if it was the most natural thing in the world, and he was simply looking for something he’d misplaced.

      ‘Ah! Just what I needed.’ The coffee that he’d bought for Jess was whipped from his hand, and Gerry lifted the take-away cup to his lips.

      Best brazen it out. ‘Thought you might.’ Greg leaned against the reception desk and opened his own coffee.

      ‘So, welcome to Cardiology. And who might you be?’ Gerry’s Irish accent was always broader when he was smiling.

      ‘Feeling neglected, are we?’

      ‘Not me.’ Gerry tipped the coffee cup towards him as if in a toast. ‘I’m easily pleased, though. Maura wants to know when you’ll be coming over for dinner.’

      ‘Soon. I’m on lates at the moment. But I can pop in at the weekend, see the kids. I’ve something for them from America.’ Something that his father’s personal assistant had procured from the toy store. Greg hadn’t needed to ask whether Pat had done the same each time his own birthday or Christmas had rolled