Christmas Eve: Doorstep Delivery. Sarah Morgan

married again, Dad?’

      Patrick felt the conversation spiralling out of control. ‘Marriage is a big thing,’ he said carefully, ‘and when you’ve been wrong once, it makes you wary about doing it again. But maybe one day. If I know someone really, really well.’ He wouldn’t be making the same mistake he’d made with Carly. No more whirlwind relationships. Trying not to think about the girl he’d met in Chicago, he concentrated on his son. ‘Do you want me to get married again?’

      ‘It would be nice to have someone on our team who can cook.’

      ‘I can cook.’ Patrick picked up the books again. ‘Just wait until tomorrow.’

      Alfie looked unconvinced. ‘Will you poison us? Uncle Daniel said the emergency department is always full on Christmas Day of people being poisoned with salmon—something, but I don’t get how a turkey can turn into a fish.’

      ‘Salmonella. It’s a bacterium. And I’m not going to poison you.’ Patrick dropped a kiss on his son’s head. ‘Time to wake Posy from her nap.’ He lifted his head as the doorbell sounded. ‘Ah—that will be the lady who wants the kittens.’

      Alfie gulped and the guilt was suddenly back in his eyes. ‘I’ll get the door. You get Posy.’

      Hayley stood on the doorstep, trying to look the way a competent housekeeper was supposed to look.

      Fingering the advert in her pocket, she suddenly felt nervous. Must like children and be able to cook turkey. What exactly was this family expecting? A cross between Mary Poppins and a celebrity chef?

      Thumps and childish shrieks came from behind the door and suddenly it was tugged open and a young boy stood there. There was a large blob of chocolate on his sweatshirt.

      ‘Hi.’ He gave her a tentative smile and then glanced nervously over his shoulder. ‘You’ve come about the advert?’

      ‘Yes.’ Hayley took an instant liking to him. ‘You must be Alfie. You look exactly the way you sounded on the phone.’ Sweet, bright, bouncy, straightforward—nervous?

      ‘I wasn’t sure you’d come.’

      Hayley wondered why he was nervous. Was he scared his new housekeeper was a dragon? ‘I’ve been dying to meet you.’ She gave him a friendly smile. ‘I spoke to your dad briefly—is he in?’

      The anxiety in the child’s eyes bordered on panic. ‘Yes. But there’s something I need to—’

      ‘Alfie?’ A deep male voice came from behind him and a man strolled towards the door, a little girl in his arms. ‘Is it the lady who rang about the advert?’

      ‘Sort of.’ Throwing Hayley a desperate look, Alfie shrank to one side and Hayley frowned slightly, disturbed that he seemed to be afraid of his father.

      Hoping that she wasn’t about to spend Christmas with a family even more dysfunctional than her own, she turned to introduce herself and gave a gasp of shock.

      It was him!

      Here. And every bit as good looking as she remembered in a rough, male I-can-kill-a-lion-with-my-bare-hands sort of way.

      The smile started inside her and spread to her lips. What a fantastic coincidence! She wouldn’t even have to take the trouble to track him down. He lived right here, in this beautiful barn with two beautiful children, and—

      Her thoughts came crashing to a halt.

      He lived with two beautiful children?

      His two beautiful children?

      Oh, God, he had children.

      He wasn’t an indecently handsome sex god, he was a faithless rat.

      The shock was like a fist punching her hard in the stomach. Hayley gave a whimper of disbelief. Please let it be a mistake. Please. Don’t let them be his children. Let him be looking after them for someone else.

      No, no no…

      But even as she stared in horror at her fantasy man, the little girl burrowed sleepily into his shoulder.

      ‘Want to go back inside, Daddy,’ she mumbled, and Hayley felt her happiness evaporate in an instant.

      All that was left of her bright, shiny new life was the bitter, grey sludge of melted dreams.

      So much for her fantasy man.

      So much for imagining that he’d been thinking about her.

      No wonder he hadn’t contacted her.

      He had another life. A family.

      What now? How on earth was she going to get out of this mess she’d made for herself?

       Hi, there, I came to find you but you’re not the man I thought you were, so I’m going home now. And, by the way, I hope you trip and bash your head on something really hard.

      A cold sweat of panic drenched her skin. What if his wife was in the house? Dear God, how was she going to face the woman? There was no way she’d ever threaten anyone’s family.

      Horrified, Hayley started to back away but her feet shot in different directions and she ended up flat on her back in the snow.

      ‘Ow.’ Pain mingled with humiliation as she stared up at the grey winter sky. And then she was being hauled to her feet—easily, as if she weighed nothing, the strength in his muscular grip making her feel light and feminine.

      ‘Hayley?’ His tone was guarded and his sexy blue eyes held a glimmer of disbelief. ‘What are you doing?’

      ‘Well, obviously it isn’t that easy to walk in the snow,’ she said defensively, and he frowned slightly.

      ‘I meant—what are you doing here?’ he said gently, and Hayley realised that he hadn’t yet worked out that she was the one who had answered his advert for a housekeeper.

      What a nightmare.

      How was he going to react when he discovered that his dirty little secret was supposed to be spending Christmas with them?

      Looking at the two vulnerable children clinging to him, she felt a flicker of anger. It would serve him right to have a moment of panic. It might make him think twice before he did the same thing again.

      He reached out a hand and touched her hair and all her violent thoughts faded away. Hayley gazed up at him for a moment, completely disorientated by his touch, oblivious to the snow that had managed to find its way inside her clothes. ‘What are you doing?’

      ‘Removing a pine cone from your hair.’ He held up the small brown cone that was dusted with snow. ‘I thought it might be uncomfortable.’

       Nowhere near as uncomfortable as realising that your dream of the future had just crashed and burned.

      ‘Dad? What’s going on?’ Alfie’s puzzled enquiry drew nothing more than a lift of an eyebrow from his father.

      He showed no sign of guilt. His handsome face wasn’t shifting into a sheepish look. He wasn’t sending her silent messages. He was as relaxed as if he’d just opened the door to a carol singer.

       Maybe he had affairs all the time. Maybe that was why he’d been so good at it—lots of practice.

      The thought made her want to stuff a handful of freezing snow down the front of his trousers. She was sure that Diana, her stepsister, would have slapped his face at this point and then turned and stalked away. But Hayley had never hit anyone in her life and really effective stalking required good balance so that was out of the question.

      But the thing that was really keeping her rooted to the spot were the two children hovering close to Patrick—was that his name or had he lied about that, too? It wasn’t their fault that their father was fuelled by high-octane testosterone levels and a superstud sex drive. They