Christmas Secrets Collection. Laura Iding

he got the job right the first time. ‘I’ve just realised that this is good practice for when I’m helping those children in there to learn how to dress.’

      And that was just the reminder she’d needed, she told herself when she was sitting in his car a few minutes later.

      It had been absolute agony to try to keep some distance between them on the way down the stairs when she had needed his help every step of the way, but that was what she’d had to do. It had been so wonderful to slip into the light-hearted banter that had been so much a part of their relationship, even in those early days, but that was all in the past.

      She couldn’t believe what the two of them had been doing up in her room. They’d almost been flirting with each other and there was no excuse for that. Dan was a married man and he was married to her sister. To allow anything to happen between them would be the worst sort of betrayal and she just couldn’t be a part of it.

      The trouble was, her love for him hadn’t died when he’d married Zara, no matter how much she’d prayed that it would. Yes, he was the father of the babies she carried and, yes, she would love nothing better than that he would be at her side as together they guided them through childhood and into adulthood, but it wasn’t going to happen.

      ‘Because he’s married,’ she whispered fiercely as he circled the front of the car. ‘He’s married to your sister and the only thing he wants of you is what you’re carrying in your womb—the babies that Zara can’t give him.’

      Something in her expression must have told him that her mood had changed because the atmosphere in the car that could have been too cosy and intimate was all business as he put the key into the ignition.

      ‘So, what do you remember of your accident?’ he asked as he joined the stream of traffic heading back into town.

      Too much, was the first thought that came into her head, but she knew he needed a logical answer from her. She was just overwhelmingly grateful that he hadn’t angrily brushed her suggestion off as the ravings of someone who’d had an unfortunate random accident. He could have accused her of using the incident to get some sort of petty revenge against Zara or …

      ‘Sara?’ She’d almost forgotten he was waiting for an answer, so lost had she become in her thoughts.

      ‘I always walk home the same way … out of the back of the hospital and past that little parade of shops, just in case I need to pick anything up on the way.’ She glanced across briefly and saw the tiny frown pulling his dark brows together, the way they always did when he was concentrating. Afraid she’d lose her train of thought if she looked any longer, she stared straight ahead and continued.

      ‘I’d gone over the crossroads and was just crossing one of those little turnings that seem to lead round to the back of the shops, for deliveries or something … not a real residential road, if you know what I mean?’

      Out of the corner of her eye she saw his brief nod but he didn’t say a word to distract her—she could manage to distract herself without any help.

      ‘I heard a car coming and glanced towards it and I remember thinking that it wasn’t the sort of vehicle I expected to see coming out of there, then I realised that it didn’t seem to be slowing down and I realised that I was too far away from the kerb to get to safety and when I tried to turn away so that the impact wouldn’t hurt the baby, my foot slipped on the wet cobbles and then the car hit me and I went down and my head hit the kerb and … and I woke up in A and E.’

      ‘So, what made you think it might have been Zara?’ he asked, his white knuckles clenched around the steering-wheel testament to the fact that he wasn’t nearly as calm as he sounded. ‘It sounds as if it all happened pretty quickly … too quickly to have seen anything much.’

      Sara knew he was right, but she also knew what she’d seen. ‘Well, I can now tell you from firsthand experience that when it looks as if you’re going to die, there is a split second that’s imprinted indelibly in your mind. It’s so clear that if I were any sort of an artist, I’d be able to draw it for you with the accuracy of a photograph.’

      ‘Tell me,’ he prompted softly. ‘What do you see in the photo in your mind?’

      ‘The cobbles are wet and shiny, and there’s a skinny cat running towards the shadows of a pile of cardboard boxes and his fur’s all wet from the rain, and the light is gleaming off the car as it comes towards me … off the paintwork and the chrome and the windscreen as it’s getting closer … And when I realised that it was going to hit me, I realised that it might hurt the baby … this was before I knew there were two of them,’ she interjected in a crazy non sequitur. ‘But when I put my hand over my bump—as if that would protect it from half a ton of car—the person in the car pressed their foot down on the accelerator and I heard the engine roar in response.’

      Dan muttered something under his breath but the scene inside her head and the emotions she’d been feeling at the time were so strong that she paid him no heed.

      ‘I was staring at it in disbelief, so sure that the person would put the brakes on, but she was staring straight ahead—straight at me—and her hair was long and blonde and down over her shoulders and her face … At first I thought it was my face reflected back at me and that could still be what I saw but …’ She drew in a shaky breath and continued, ‘Her hands were gripped round the steering-wheel … up at the top of the wheel so that her thumbs were nearly touching … and I have the impression that her nails were really long and painted with a dark varnish, but I can’t be sure what colour …’ She closed her eyes for a moment in the hope that it would help her to focus, but it didn’t get any clearer so she went back to her narrative, to the part that still made her feel guilty that it had happened at all.

      ‘Dan, I really did try to get out of its path,’ she assured him fervently, desperate that he should believe that she’d done her best to protect his child, ‘but it was coming at me far too fast and then my foot slipped but the car still hit my leg and I spun round … Actually at the time I thought it was the streetlight that was spinning round me … but I was falling and falling and I couldn’t stop myself and then my head hit the ground and everything went black.’

      He was silent for so long that she wondered if he was ever going to speak to her again. What was he thinking? That she was crazy? That he’d made a monumental mistake in asking her to carry his children in case she passed her craziness on to his innocent offspring?

      ‘So, what part of the car would have hit you?’ he asked, his voice sounding more like a rough growl until he cleared his throat, and tears threatened when she realised that his question meant he hadn’t dismissed what she’d told him out of hand. ‘Would it have been the front, the wing or both?’

       CHAPTER SIX

      DAN and Sara stared down at the broken light on the passenger side of the BMW while the mechanic wiped his hands on a rag so black and oily that it couldn’t possibly be doing any good.

      ‘It’s not the first time she’s brought it in but, then, that’s women drivers for you,’ he added with blatant chauvinism and a knowing wink for Dan.

      Sara didn’t have the breath to argue this slur on her half of mankind. She was still devastated by the evident damage to her sister’s car.

      ‘You say she’s brought it in for repairs before?’ Dan questioned, and from the tone of his voice that fact was news to him.

      ‘Oops! Sorry if I’m dumping you in it, love,’ he said to Sara, ‘but last time it was the back bumper. She said she’d managed to reverse it into a bollard somewhere up near the London Eye.’

      ‘And what did she tell you about this?’ Dan pointed to the recent damage.

      His uncomfortable look in her direction, not quite meeting her eye, made Sara suddenly realise that he thought she