His Christmas Angel. Michelle Douglas

      ‘Until Christmas?’

      ‘Christmas!’

      ‘I can’t take them home because Rufus will eat them. I’ve kept them locked up in the laundry of the old place—’ she nodded across the yard ‘—while it’s between tenants, but it’s so tiny, and it’s mean keeping them there for such long periods. They won’t be any trouble, I swear.’

      He looked sceptical, and she didn’t blame him. ‘You don’t need to do anything. I’ll come over every evening to feed them.’

      ‘You will?’

      ‘Then I’ll lock them up in your laundry for the night.’

      ‘You’ll come over every evening?’

      ‘Every evening,’ she assured him. ‘So all you need to do is let them out of the laundry each morning. That’s it.’

      ‘That’s it, huh?’

      ‘That’s it.’ She shrugged, then slanted him a grin. ‘Though even if you say no I’ll still be here each evening. I’m Alec’s home-care help.’

      ‘Home-care help?’

      ‘It’s a community-based programme designed to help people stay in their own homes longer by helping them out with housework, meals and stuff.’

      ‘You do that?’

      She shrugged, abashed by the warmth in his voice. ‘I love it.’

      ‘How long have you been doing it?’

      Her eyes slid from his. ‘Ten years.’

      There was a long silence. Finally Sol asked, ‘How long have you been helping Alec?’

      ‘Two years.’

      ‘Two years?’ He jerked around to face her fully. ‘He’s been sick for two years and he never told me?’

      ‘He’s being looked after.’

      ‘Yeah, but—’

      ‘But what? You’d have come home, seen he was getting the right kind of care, then left again.’

      He raked a hand through his hair. ‘How long has he got?’

      ‘You’re a better man than I if you can get a straight answer to that one,’ she sighed.

      He stared back out at the yard and Cassie’s chest ached. Why did it have to be such hell sometimes? Who had decided Sol should draw the short straw where family was concerned—the shortest of short straws—when Brian had had so much?

      She froze that thought. Brian was dead. He didn’t have anything any more.

      ‘Why didn’t you let me know, Cassie? You could’ve rung or written.’

      ‘It was Alec’s choice. His decision to make.’ Her hands twisted together in her lap.

      ‘And?’

      His eyes didn’t leave her face. It was almost frightening the way he could still read her. ‘And you didn’t answer the last time I wrote to you.’

      His eyes darkened, then shuttered, and something inside Cassie squeezed painfully.

      ‘I would’ve come back for this.’

      But her wedding hadn’t been important enough? It was as if he’d wiped Schofield from his mind completely. And her with it. ‘You left this town and all of us in it far behind.’ And maybe it had been for the best. ‘I never thought you’d come back. Ever. I didn’t try and get in touch with you because I thought hearing from me, hearing from anyone in Schofield, would be just about the last thing you’d want.’

      His hands clenched into fists as he turned and stared at her. ‘Then you were wrong.’

      ‘You could’ve let me know that ten years ago.’

      He stared back out at the yard and Cassie shivered. She’d never seen his eyes so dark…so…

      Her mouth went dry. ‘Why have you come back, Sol?’

      He shrugged. ‘Curiosity, I guess.’

      He met her eyes, but the darkness still lurked in them and Cassie knew he was lying. She just didn’t know why.

      CHAPTER TWO

      ‘IT’S pretty hot, Alec. Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer a salad?’

      ‘Sausages, mash, peas and carrots,’ Alec repeated. ‘I don’t care how hot it is.’

      ‘Okay, okay.’ She pulled the sausages out of the fridge. ‘Catch.’ She tossed him a carrot. ‘Peel that while I take care of the potatoes.’ She smothered a grin at his grumbling. She knew he liked her being here, bossing him about, not treating him like an invalid. ‘Where’s Sol?’

      ‘Out.’

      ‘Out?’ she parroted stupidly, then bit her lip to stop herself from asking, Out where?

      ‘Why’d you have to go and rile him up earlier?’

      Indignation slugged through her. ‘I did no such thing.’

      ‘Humph.’

      Or had she? She popped the sausages under the grill. ‘Maybe being home has riled him.’

      ‘Humph.’

      ‘You have to admit he can’t have many fond memories of living here.’

      Alec didn’t even humph this time. He stayed silent.

      ‘Do you like having him back?’ She probably shouldn’t have asked but she couldn’t help it. Alec had not been a kind father. In fact, at times he’d been downright mean. That was what alcohol had done to him. But, as she’d told Sol earlier, Alec hadn’t had a drink in over two years. He’d changed. He’d mellowed. And she sensed he regretted the past.

      She sliced the carrot. It didn’t mean he was glad to see Sol, though. Maybe he resented the reminder of a past that filled him with shame?

      ‘It’s good to see the lad,’ Alec mumbled.

      She tried to school her surprise. ‘Good.’ His words made her fiercely glad and fiercely angry all at the same time. ‘Have you told him so?’

      ‘Humph.’

      She turned the sausages. ‘I think you should tell him.’ She met his eyes. ‘Don’t you let him leave like he did last time.’ That would be too awful for words.

      The older man’s eyes dropped. ‘He hasn’t come back to see me.’

      She had an uncanny feeling Alec was right. ‘Maybe not,’ she agreed. ‘But all the same—’

      ‘Go on, tell me I deserve it.’

      ‘Okay, you deserve it.’ A shaft of pity spiked through her as he hunched in his wheelchair. ‘But you’ve an opportunity with him now that you never thought you’d get again. Make the most of it.’

      He glanced at her. ‘You think there’s a chance?’

      ‘There’s always a chance.’ She set a place for him at the table. ‘Just don’t let him leave like he did last time.’

      Maybe Alec didn’t deserve a second chance with Sol, but she knew if her mother had given her one she’d have jumped at it.

      Maybe Sol was different. Maybe he—

      No. She and Sol were two of a kind. Or they always had been, and ten years couldn’t change him that much.

      She dropped into the seat opposite. ‘Tell me, Alec, do you have a Christmas tree?’

      

      Cassie bounded up the back steps and into the kitchen.