A Yorkshire Christmas (5 page)

But now Dani wanted him to have Molly at his house for four whole days… hell, was it even legal? What if he lost his custody rights because he’d violated the terms of their arrangement?

A cold sweat prickled between his shoulder blades and he grabbed a couple of boxes of sugary cereal and tossed them into the trolley. He’d phone his solicitor as soon as he’d dropped Claire off. He couldn’t risk jeopardizing his custody agreement, not even for Dani. But he knew it wouldn’t really matter what the man said, because he couldn’t say no to Dani, and he certainly wouldn’t let his daughter down. She had nowhere else to go; Dani’s friends weren’t exactly maternal, and her parents had decided, despite their heartfelt pleas to the court years ago, that they’d prefer to pretend their granddaughter didn’t exist.

So Molly would be with him. He’d have his daughter to himself for four whole days… a prospect that filled him with both elation and terror.

He found Claire at the checkout; she’d added two bottles of wine to her trolley and was perusing the Sainsbury’s Home Magazine by the till, a picture of a burnished turkey surrounded by golden roasted potatoes on its cover.

She glanced up and saw him, looking almost guilty as she stuffed the magazine back in the rack, almost as if he’d caught her looking at porn. Then her gaze caught sight of his trolley, overflowing with every conceivable food item, and her mouth parted slightly in surprise.

Noah glanced down at the boxes of cereal, the dozen apples, the three bunches of bananas. The loaves of bread and packs of chicken breasts, bags of pasta and rice, and jars of sauces. All right, so he’d gone a bit overboard. But he knew his cupboards were empty; he actually knew how to cook, but he rarely had the time or inclination to whip up a meal for one.

“Expecting company?” she asked.

Before he could help himself, he answered, “Yeah. My daughter.”

Her gaze widened but she didn’t reply, just started helping him put it all on the conveyor belt. Her own things, he saw, were already bagged and paid for, everything returned neatly to her trolley.

Panic was starting to sour his gut and chill his mind as he began to bag all the food he was buying. Dani had said she’d bring Molly over tonight, and his house was a complete tip. He wasn’t even sure if he had clean sheets. And the animals needed tending, and his television didn’t even work, and
shit
. Four days. What was he going to do?

“Breathe,” Claire murmured, and put the marshmallows he’d been holding into the bag as he stared blankly into space. “It’ll be okay.”

“She’s never stayed with me before,” he explained tersely, and even that was just the tip of the iceberg of his sad and tired history. He closed his eyes briefly, then snapped them open and with his jaw tight, he began to lob the food into the bag.

*

Claire covertly watched
Noah as she helped him bag the groceries, wondering just what the history between him and his ex was. She had no right to ask or even wonder, and she shouldn’t even want to. Good Lord, if Noah Bradford having a daughter wasn’t the biggest red flag that had ever been waved in front of her.

Look, a man with a daughter, a man you’re attracted to, who would make a good husband, is a good father. Here’s your happily-ever-after, Claire, all neatly packaged and tied with a bow. Go for it.

No, she would not be drinking that Kool-Aid again. Not in a million years. And in any case, they’d known each other for about five minutes. She was ridiculous to be
thinking
of anything with Noah Bradford, even in the negative. He was a helpful stranger, nothing more.

Noah paid for his groceries, his expression grim, and they walked out in silence back to the Land Rover. Claire thought she could piece enough of the story together from Noah’s phone call; his ex had asked him to take care of their daughter unexpectedly, for Christmas. His terse words echoed through her mind.
‘It’s Christmas, Dani. It’s an important holiday. Of course she can stay with me.’

Noah Bradford cared about his daughter, even if he’d said he didn’t see her all that much.

Noah loaded all their bags into the back of the Land Rover, and Claire climbed into the passenger seat. It was all so weirdly, cozily domestic. And yet not.

She glanced around the car, noticing the travel cup that had the dregs of what looked like very old coffee still in it, as well as something called malt loaf with its packaging torn open and then wrapped haphazardly back up, stuffed next to the travel cup. Maps, boots, gloves, and a coil of rope littered the backseat. She heard the back slam and then Noah climbed in next to her, smelling cold and clean, his expression still grim and tense as he glanced at the clock on the dash.

“Are you in a hurry?” she asked, knowing that he was, and he gave a brief nod.

“My daughter’s being dropped off in about an hour.” Claire thought of the mess of his kitchen, and couldn’t quite keep from wincing. Noah noticed and let out a laugh that managed to sound both wry and despairing. “I know. I’m not exactly ready.”

“I could help you,” Claire said, the words out of her mouth before they’d truly formed in her head.
No, Claire. You don’t want to do that. You can’t want to do that.

And yet, helplessly, she did.

Noah slid her a wary glance, as if trying to assess the sincerity of her offer. “You don’t have to do that,” he said gruffly, and Claire told herself to accept the rebuff, to shrug and say something meaningless, but instead more words came, words she hadn’t meant to say, to mean.

“I don’t mind. You’ve certainly helped me out today. And frankly, I think you need it. Your kitchen was a complete mess.”

He let another laugh, this one sounding genuine. “Thanks for the honesty.”

“My pleasure.”

He didn’t reply, and Claire waited, willing herself not to beg.
Say yes. Want me. Need me.

She turned towards the window, hating that she’d fallen into her old pattern less than twenty-four or even twelve hours of getting off the plane. Did desperate men with daughters
look
for her?

No, you just have a homing instinct for them.

“Well, if you don’t mind,” Noah finally said, his gaze straight ahead on the snowy road. He sounded reluctant, like he didn’t want to need her help, but knew he really did.

And ruthlessly, resolutely, Claire popped the entirely inappropriate bubble of excitement and happiness that rose inside her at the thought.

Fine, you can clean his kitchen, repay the debt, and then you can go home and never see Noah Bradford again.

She was such a pathetic idiot.

He let her off at Holly Cottage, and Claire dumped her food in the fridge before she climbed back into the Land Rover and headed for Ayesgill Farm.

“I’ll get your car tomorrow,” Noah said as they drove back down the lane. “It should be all right overnight. Not many people will be on the road.”

She nodded, still bemused and more than a little alarmed at how quickly their lives had become entwined. He was getting her car. She was cleaning his kitchen. Why didn’t they just move in together?

This is just payback. A favor for a favor. It doesn’t have to be a big deal
. She’d help him clean and then she’d go back to Holly Cottage, open a bottle of wine, pop a meal in the microwave, grade a few exams. Fun, fun, fun.

Night had fallen by the time Noah pulled into the farmyard. Used to the orange electric glow of the urban night, Claire was unprepared for the utter darkness that engulfed her as she stepped out of the Land Rover. Blackness stretched in every direction, broken only by the glow of a single lamp inside the farmhouse, and the diamond pinpricks of stars above.

She tilted her head and gazed at all those stars; she didn’t think she’d ever seen so many before in her life. She took a deep breath of cold, crisp air that came out in a surprised rush as she felt Noah’s hands close around her shoulders.

She lost her balance and swayed into him, her back hitting his chest, her butt curving into his thighs. Noah’s hands tightened on her shoulders and for a moment it felt as if her heart were suspended in her chest before going into free fall.

Noah steadied her, moving her away from him, before he dropped his hands from her shoulders. “Sorry,” he muttered. “I didn’t see you there.”

“Sorry,” Claire mumbled back.

Her heart started beating wildly. Stupid heart. Stupid in so many ways. She felt clumsy and thick-fingered as she went around helping with the bags and bringing them into the house. She could feel how flushed she was, and hoped Noah didn’t notice.

Neither spoke as they transferred all the shopping to his kitchen, and by the time they were both inside with their coats and hats and scarves off, Claire had thankfully regained most of her composure.

“I’ll make a start on the kitchen,” she offered. “If you want to do the upstairs.” He nodded, pointed out the ancient-looking cleaning spray underneath the sink, and then disappeared through the low doorway to the sitting room.

Claire took a deep breath, let it out slowly. Okay. She was here, and she was going to clean. She took all the dirty dishes to the sink, and then emptied the half-full dishwasher. She suspected Noah had just been taking the clean dishes out only as he needed them. She reloaded the dishwasher and then started making piles. She was a compulsive organizer, and she couldn’t not put the papers scattered across the scarred pine table into some kind of order. Newspapers went in the recycling bin; bills went on top of the Welsh dresser that held a lot of dusty Wedgewood china.

As she cleaned, Claire couldn’t help but notice that messy as it was, this was not the typical bachelor pad. The dresser full of china, the drawers of tarnished sterling silver, another stuffed full of papers that looked like they went back twenty years. This was, she believed, Noah’s childhood home, and that made her all the more curious about him. Had he taken on the family farm? Where were his parents? Did he have brothers or sisters?

They were all questions she had no intention of asking.

She sprayed down the counters and mopped the floor, wondering if she should be so bold as to start getting a meal together for Noah and his daughter. No, that would be presumptuous. Pathetic, too, and cringingly embarrassing, if he thought she wanted to be invited, included.

Which of course she didn’t. Besides, she couldn’t cook all that well, even though she liked the idea of it, of providing a meal for people she loved.

Claire pushed away memories of sitting at another table, one made of chrome and glass, doling out green bean casserole to Mark and Brianna. Feeling the fragile bubble of happiness inside her, thinking it was real, that she was actually a part of something.

She would not go down that road again, not even an inch, which meant she needed to leave. Now.

Noah came into the room, doing a double take at the sight of the clean kitchen. “Wow, that’s quite impressive. It’s only been twenty minutes.”

She shrugged. “I kind of like cleaning.”

“That’s lucky for me.”

“Is there anything else I can help with?” Not the question she should have been asking if she really intended to leave as soon as possible.

Noah ran a hand over his hair, then rubbed the back of his neck, a gesture Claire guessed he did whenever he felt uncomfortable. “I suppose… if you didn’t mind running a Hoover around the sitting room…”

“A Hoover?”

“A vacuum cleaner.”

“Oh. Right. Sure.” He dug the vacuum, or Hoover, from a cupboard under the stairs. It looked ancient and judging from the patina of dust covering the machine, Claire doubted it saw much, if any, use.

“I’m just going to blitz the bathrooms,” he said with a sheepish grin and Claire winced, because if the state of the kitchen was anything to go by, she did not want to see what the bathrooms looked like. Noah gave a little laugh, the sound wry. “They’re not that bad, actually.”

“Good to know.”

Okay, enough.
This was getting too weird.
And feeling too normal
. She’d vacuum the sitting room and then she’d go. They’d be even, having done favors for each other. The end.

The sitting room was through a low doorway that even Claire had to stoop under, and looked as lived in as the kitchen. Two sagging sofas framed a large fireplace with a huge wooden beam for a mantelpiece. There were several bookcases stuffed full of tattered Agatha Christies and Barbara Cartlands, and another bookcase held the more expected farming manuals and ordinance maps.

Quickly, she ran the Hoover around the room, chasing the giant dust bunnies that had collected under the sofas and chairs. She was just wrapping the cord around the handle of the machine when she caught sight of a photo, tinted in the sepia-like colors of a generation ago, of a woman with two boys standing in front of her. She had a hand on each of their shoulders, and a scarf covered her hair, hair the same color as Noah’s. Even though the boys could have been no more than nine or ten, she recognized Noah as the younger one, dark-eyed and serious, with a shy, impish smile.