His Christmas Bride. HELEN BROOKS

reached for the loaf of bread in the bread bin—home-made. She didn’t know how her sister did it, but Melissa insisted she wanted the children to have nothing but good, home-made produce every day. She had just set it on the kitchen table when the doorbell rang. No more than a second later, it rang again.

      Worried it would wake Harry, who was the lightest of sleepers, Blossom galloped to the front door, mentally cursing whoever was standing on the doorstep. Wings she didn’t have!

      ‘Hi there.’

      He had dark hair, the bluest of blue eyes and a tall, lean frame that seemed to go on for ever. Six-foot-four at least, Blossom thought inconsequentially. Maybe six-five. Suddenly she was vitally aware that she was in her oldest jeans, and that her white shirt bore evidence of everything the children had eaten during the day. And she hadn’t stopped to put any make-up on that morning. Or do anything with her hair other than drag it back in a ponytail. ‘Hello,’ she managed weakly. ‘Can I help?’

      ‘I’m Zak Hamilton.’ He extended a tanned hand which emerged from the crisp sleeve of a pristine clean and definitely designer-cut pale blue shirt which had never come within a mile of grubby little hands and mouths. Neither had his immaculate pale-grey trousers, come to that. ‘Greg works for me?’ he added helpfully as Blossom continued to gaze at him.

      Zak Hamilton. Of course. This was the big boss of Hamilton Electronics. She remembered Melissa saying the son had inherited the company six years ago, when the father had died unexpectedly, and that since then it had mushroomed into a huge giant of a success. Zak Hamilton had the Midas touch, Melissa had stated, partly due to the fact that he was intimidatingly intelligent and forward thinking, but also because he wasn’t afraid to take a risk now and again. It had been he who had head-hunted Greg within months of inheriting the firm, making him an offer he couldn’t refuse. She also remembered she’d got the impression Melissa wasn’t very fond of Greg’s boss, although her sister hadn’t actually said so. Greg, on the other hand, couldn’t speak highly enough of him. He sang his praises all the time.

      Pulling herself together, Blossom said, ‘I’m Melissa’s sister, Greg’s sister-in-law.’ And then felt slightly idiotic. Of course she was Greg’s sister-in-law if she was his wife’s sister. Any fool could have worked that out, and this man was no fool.

      ‘Hi, Greg’s sister-in-law.’ He looked amused. ‘Do you have a name as well as that title?’

      Here we go. She just hated telling anyone her name for the first time, but especially this man somehow. ‘Blossom White.’ She waited for the blue eyes to register surprise and for his amusement to increase. Neither happened. Instead he continued to survey her steadily. ‘Melissa and I are twins,’ she added hurriedly. ‘Although we don’t look it. Our mother thought it kind of cute to call the elder twin, my sister, Melissa—which means “bee”—and the younger Blossom. The bee going to the blossom, you know? She thought the elder would look after the younger, I guess.’ The number of times she’d explained this.

      ‘Did it work?’ he asked with what seemed genuine interest.

      ‘Not really.’ It was more the other way round, if anything. Melissa had always been the shy, retiring one whereas Blossom rushed in where angels feared to tread. Well, until Dean, that was. She had changed a lot since then—in her private life, at least. In her work she had to be as loud and confident as ever. Aware he was still staring at her—probably thinking what a gawky mess she was compared to Melissa, who was always beautifully turned out in spite of the children—Blossom said, ‘You’ve come to ask how things are?’ Another daft question in the circumstances.

      He nodded. ‘Greg was going to call, but he hasn’t.’

      ‘I can’t tell you much, except Melissa is having an operation and I’m waiting for Greg to call to say how things went.’

      ‘An operation?’

      He looked concerned, genuinely concerned, and to Blossom’s horror she felt her nose prick and the tears she had banished earlier bank up behind her eyes. ‘They…they think her appendix might have burst or something.’ Don’t cry. Whatever you do, don’t cry. Not now. Not in front of him.

      ‘I’m so sorry; I didn’t realise it was serious.’ His voice was rich, deep, and carried the slightest of accents which she couldn’t place. ‘Can I do anything to help at all?’

      Taking a deep breath, she realised she’d been terribly rude in not asking him in, which wasn’t like her. Mind, she didn’t feel like herself with Melissa perhaps at death’s door. ‘No, everything is under control,’ she lied politely. ‘But perhaps you’d like to come in for a coffee or something?’

      ‘Thanks.’

      He didn’t hesitate. Blossom admitted to being a little taken aback. He must realise she’d had a day of it from the way she looked, surely, and that she wanted nothing more than a hot bath? But perhaps he assumed she always looked like something the cat wouldn’t deign to drag in. ‘You’ll have to excuse the state of me,’ she said somewhat stiffly as she led the way into the sitting room, remembering too late she hadn’t got round to cleaning the playpen after Rebecca and Ella had gone to sleep. ‘The children had a battle with chocolate cake.’ She indicated the state of the play pen with a wave of her hand. ‘As you can see.’

      He nodded thoughtfully. ‘I wondered what it was on your forehead. Obviously the chocolate cake won.’

      Well, that wasn’t very tactful. She forced a tight smile, reminding herself this man was Greg’s boss. ‘I’m not used to looking after four young children,’ she said in a voice that was just off-frosty. ‘And Harry’s something of a handful.’

      He nodded again. She didn’t know if it was a ‘that’s pretty obvious’ nod, or a ‘poor you’ nod, but she rather suspected the former. That being the case—and especially because he was standing there looking like he had just stepped out of a top magazine for the well-dressed man—her voice remained at the same temperature when she said, ‘If you’ll excuse me a minute, I’ll see about the coffee.’ And left the room with as much dignity as she could muster in the appalling circumstances.

      Once in the hall, she shut the sitting-room door firmly behind her and then darted into the downstairs cloakroom. Looking into the small round mirror, she groaned softly.

      It was as bad as it could be. Wild, scarecrow hair, shiny pink face—except for the bits smeared with chocolate cake—and she even had a couple of leaves from the weeping-willow tree lodged in her hair, from when she had romped with Harry and the girls in the garden before tea. She had been trying to tire the four of them out before bedtime but in the event the only person who had nearly collapsed with exhaustion was her.

      ‘Great, just great,’ she muttered at the scowling reflection in the glass. And then she shrugged. What did it matter how she looked with Melissa so ill? Zak Hamilton would have to take her as he found her. She would give him his cup of coffee and then politely make it clear she expected him to leave.

      In spite of herself, though, she found she couldn’t leave the cloakroom without washing her hands and face, and brushing her hair with the brush Melissa kept in the cabinet for when the children needed quickly sprucing up. Looping her hair back into a ponytail that was now sleek and shiny, she quickly checked herself once more and then made her way to the kitchen.

      Instant coffee would have to do. She reached for the jar she had bought herself on her last visit to the house two months before, when she had babysat the children over a weekend while Melissa and Greg had gone to Paris for their wedding anniversary. She had been too shattered coping with the children to bother with the coffee-maker, and she saw now the coffee hadn’t been used since. Melissa was the original earth-mother; ‘instant’ didn’t feature in her sister’s vocabulary. It made up the main content of hers.

      She had just spooned a generous amount into two china mugs festooned with poppies when the telephone rang. Snatching up the kitchen phone, she said breathlessly, ‘Yes?’

      ‘Blossom? It’s