A Christmas Miracle. Amy Andrews

THIRTEEN

       CHAPTER FOURTEEN

       CHAPTER FIFTEEN

       CHAPTER SIXTEEN

       CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

       CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

       Extract

       Copyright

       CHAPTER ONE

      TRINITY WALKER WAS having a bad day. In a life that had been punctuated by bad days, it was a drop in the ocean. Sadly, they were beginning to have an accumulative effect.

      She was twenty-four years old but she suddenly felt ancient.

      She’d just needed three more days. Come Monday her government payment would be in the bank and Oscar would be walking through the school gates for the first time.

      She could finally get some order to their lives.

      Regular child-free hours to dedicate to a job that would bring in regular money for things like rent instead of relying on government support and a variety of other dodgy alternatives.

      Couch surfing, shonky hostels, single room rentals in share houses and the occasional night—like last night—sleeping rough in her ancient Mazda, was no life.

      Not for her or her five-year-old.

      Every now and then she’d get lucky and land a job with some form of accommodation attached. A room, sometimes a small flat or bedsit. It never usually lasted though. More often than not it was Oscar’s health issues that ended the job and therefore their housing. Yesterday it had been Terrible Todd.

      Her big, ugly, bearded, tattooed boss who drove a motorbike and reeked of cheap cologne and engine grease. Todd had announced that he did, after all, want her to pay for the accommodation.

      Just not with money.

      He’d felt they could come to an arrangement. She’d walked.

      Bastard.

      Bloody hell, why even bother with a permanently stressed-out, exhausted single mother who wasn’t even that much to look at? She was five feet four, her long dark brown hair was so fine it hung limply down her back and she was somewhat on the thin side.

      And not the sleek, glowing, deliberate thin of a catwalk model. The stringy, wrung-out thin of a woman who’d been stressed and struggling to make ends meet for the last five years. She’d used to be passably pretty back in her size twelve days, but even a fairy godmother would baulk at Trinity’s current state.

      Hell, it had been so long since she’d even thought of herself as a sexual being it always surprised her when someone else did.

      Someone like Terrible Todd.

      And here they were. With nowhere to go and no money to pay for anything much until Monday. Homeless again.

      Homeless.

      The word cast a sinister shadow as a cold hand crept around her heart. Fear over the welfare of her child, always present, threatened to overwhelm her.

      Seriously, when was she going to ever catch a freaking break?

      Maybe she could impose on Raylene again for the use of her couch tonight. Just one night. They could go after dinner and be gone by breakfast so Raylene, who was also doing it tough, wouldn’t have to feed them.

      ‘Look, Mummy! Look at all the ducklings. They’re hungry.’

      Trinity broke free from the sticky tendrils of anxiety. She was sitting on a park bench about two metres from Oscar, keeping an eye on him near the pond’s edge, but had mentally tuned out.

      ‘Yes, darling.’ She smiled.

      Her own belly growled in hunger as she also smiled at the old man standing next to her son at the pond’s edge. He’d brought the bread with him about ten minutes ago and Oscar had followed him from the slippery dip like the freaking Pied Piper.

      The elderly gentleman had said hello to her and had looked down and smiled at an eager Oscar as he’d asked the man politely if he could watch him feed the ducks.

      ‘Watch me?’ The old man’s fuzzy eyebrows had drawn together before he’d given a hearty belly laugh. ‘Goodness, young man, you can help me.’

      Oscar had beamed and for a moment, Trinity had almost burst into tears. It was utterly ridiculous. She didn’t cry. She was not a crier. Tears didn’t put a roof over her kid’s head or food in his belly. But she was feeling so damn low after her brush with Terrible Todd, such a simple act of human kindness had restored her faith in people.

      She thought the elderly gentleman might be about eighty. There was a slight stoop to his shoulders and his clothes hung a little as if he might have lost some weight recently but Trinity could tell he once used to be a large man.

      A giant next to Oscar that was for sure.

      Her heart filled with love for her little guy. He was everything to her. Her stars and moon. Her reason to keep striving, to wake up every morning and eke out a survival when everything seemed so hopeless. A dear little boy who had changed her life.

      Who had saved her from a life going nowhere.

      It made her sick thinking about the number of times she’d nearly lost him. Born at twenty-six weeks, with tiny lungs and a major heart condition, he’d had an uphill battle. Six months in the NICU including two major heart operations. Another three months in the children’s hospital until he was finally discharged home on sub-nasal oxygen. Then the next few years being knocked flat by every cold and flu bug going, in and out of ICU.

      Trinity had been scared out of her wits for nearly five years.

      Although he hadn’t been sick for over six months. She hoped that it was a sign and not just flu season being over. That he was finally growing out of his chronic lung condition as the specialists had predicted, that his lungs were finally growing big enough to cope.

      She really hoped so. He’d frightened her out of nine lives already.

      A group of three teenage boys who should, no doubt, have been in school, were climbing all over the play equipment behind her. They were far too big for it, laughing too loud, talking too loud.

      The bread all gone, Oscar ran back and started chattering at her, his voice high and excited. The old man walked by, nodding his head at her and saying, ‘See you later, alligator,’ to Oscar who laughed as if it were the funniest joke in the world.

      ‘In a while, crocodile,’ he called out after the man’s disappearing back, hopping from foot to foot.

      Trinity smiled, pulling his skinny little body hard against hers. His wispy white-blond hair tickled her face as a lump rose in her throat. Just three more days.

      She could do this.

      A shout interrupted the hug and they both turned to investigate. The teenagers had bailed up the old man. They were shoving him none too gently from all directions and the old man was not taking it quietly.

      ‘What are they doing, Mummy?’ Oscar said, anxiety trembling through his voice. She’d heard that anxiety too often during his hospitalisations.

      The man stumbled and almost fell and a surge of red-hot fury flashed through Trinity’s veins. How dare they? This was a suburban