A Yorkshire Christmas (8 page)

“I’ve never cut down a tree myself,” Claire said. “Or seen someone do it. This is definitely something I can’t miss.”

Ten minutes later, she’d driven her car back to Holly Cottage, and then piled into Noah’s Land Rover to head back to Ayesgill Farm, where they picked up an old, weathered toboggan and a coil of rope to get the tree back to the house.

“And now,” Noah said, “time to find the perfect tree.”

Molly skipped ahead of them as they walked in the opposite direction of Holly Cottage, across the fields towards a dark crescent of pine trees, little more than a smudge on the horizon.

“Thank you,” Noah said in a low voice as they followed Molly, their boots sinking deep into the soft, melting snow. “You’re helping smooth the way with Molly, and I really appreciate it.”

“It’s no bother,” Claire answered. Far from it.

“And yet you said you wanted a quiet Christmas by yourself,” Noah reminded her. “I’m aware that snowball fights and cutting down Christmas trees isn’t exactly that.”

“No,” Claire said after a moment.

She turned her head to gaze out at the white, rolling fields, the sky above a pale, fragile blue. The air was so cold and crisp it hurt to take a breath. Or maybe something else was making her hurt—memory and desire, twined together.

“You can bow out at any time,” Noah said. “Molly obviously loves having you here, but I know I need to figure this out on my own. Don’t—don’t feel obligated.”

She turned back to him, trying to smile, to keep it light. “Even though you rescued me more than once?”

Noah took her question seriously, his gaze resting on her. “Even so. I know it’s hard to say no to a kid, but she’s not your responsibility.”

Ouch. Claire tried not to flinch. It was stupid to feel hurt, because, of course, Molly wasn’t her responsibility. She’d met the girl that morning. And she barely knew Noah, had no idea what was complicated about his relationship with his ex or his daughter.

Yet already she knew she was starting to fall.

“I’m having fun,” she finally told Noah, her voice deliberately, painfully light. “I’ll let you know when I’m not.”

“Okay,” he said, and seemed relieved that she wasn’t being guilted into going along with him.

If only he knew the truth, she thought with something between a sigh and a wince. If only he knew how much she really wanted to be here, to belong. Wasn’t that what she’d always been looking for? A real home. A real family.

A real Christmas.

*

Noah snuck a
sideways glance at Claire and wondered what she was thinking. He hated the thought that she’d come along because she pitied him, because she’d already seen how awkward his relationship with Molly was. He wanted to believe that she really was having fun, but he was afraid to believe it, because
he
was having fun. He couldn’t even remember when he’d last enjoyed himself like this. He’d started a snowball fight, for crying out loud. He’d done it for Molly’s sake, wanting to see her smile and hear her laugh, and yet he’d enjoyed it for his own sake, too.

Enjoyed seeing Claire’s cheeks fill with color, hear the surprising sound of her laugh, high and clear. He was attracted to her, and probably had been since they’d first met. She was beautiful, in the elegant, restrained way of rich women. Yet when she’d laughed her cool composure had broken like a shell and he’d seen something real and warm underneath, something that interested him far more than Claire’s cool beauty.

Dani had had that too, he reminded himself. Dani had had the rich girl thing going, and yet she’d also been real and warm and fun.

At first.

But it was stupid to compare Claire and Dani, stupid even to worry about it, because nothing was going to happen between him and Claire. She was here for a week, as she’d been at pains to remind him back by her car. And he didn’t have room in his life for a woman anyway. Keeping the farm afloat took up all his energy and effort.

Molly had almost reached the trees, and Noah quickened his pace, his sheathed saw slung over his shoulder. Claire matched him, and they exchanged wry smiles as Molly pointed at a pine tree that had to be at least twenty feet high.

“I don’t think that’s going to fit in the sitting room, Moll,” Noah said. “We’d have to cut it in half.”

“What about this one?” She pointed at another, more reasonably-sized tree, and Noah gave it a thorough examination.

“A little scrawny, don’t you think?”

It quickly became a game, as he’d hoped it would, with all of them thinking of more and more ridiculous reasons to reject a tree. Noah had his eye on a straight Scots pine, and when they’d considered and rejected at least a dozen trees, he pointed it out to Molly with the air of someone who had finally hit the jackpot.

He saw Molly’s face light up as she clasped her hands to her chest and he wondered, disbelievingly, if it were really this easy.

Molly was only eight years old. Did he win her loyalty, her
love
, by kidding around with snowballs and cutting down Christmas trees? Could it be that simple?

He realized he had no idea what kind of Christmases Molly had had before this. He had no idea, really, what kind of mum Dani was. He knew she had plenty of financial resources, with a well-to-do life funded by her parents, but did she tuck Molly in at night? Did she bake cookies with her? It just about killed him that he didn’t know the answers to these questions. It was even worse that there was nothing he could do about it.

But if this Christmas visit with Molly went well, maybe he could ask for their custody arrangement to be changed. Just the thought made everything in Noah lurch with both alarm and hope. Thanks to the power of Dani’s parents, it had taken him a year to be able to see Molly at all. The first time he’d laid eyes on her, she’d been almost three years old.

The injustice of the court’s verdict felt like a hole burning through his chest, and, with effort, he shoved the emotion away. He didn’t want to spoil this afternoon by revisiting the sins of his past.

“Shall we cut it down?” he asked.

Molly nodded eagerly. Noah cleared some of the snow in front of the pine, unsheathed his saw and then lay down flat on his back. He scooted under the tree, breathing in the clean, pine scent from the tree’s needles, and then started to saw.

Cutting down a pine tree was slow going, especially when the wood was filled with knots. After about ten seconds Molly dropped down to her knees and peered at him through the branches.

“Careful, Molly,” he said. “This thing is sharp.”

“Are you almost finished?”

He let out a laugh. “I’ve barely started.”

“Can I try?”

He considered this for a few seconds. He’d grown up Ayesgill Farm, and had been handling a hammer, saw, and even an axe well before Molly’s age. But Molly hadn’t handled anything like that, and the thought of her getting hurt, of Dani blaming him for it, made his blood run cold.

But this was his life, and he wanted to share it with Molly. He wanted to give her something Dani couldn’t, because God knew he couldn’t afford all the treats and toys Dani could shower her with.

He would give her an experience she would remember, love and laughter that would stay with her for a long time.

“Come here,” he said, and patted the area of flattened snow next to him. Molly scooted under the tree, and for a second he just savored the feeling of having his daughter next to him, both of them breathing in the scent of the pine needles. It was enough to make his throat close up with emotion, his heart beat fast with joy.

“Okay,” he said finally. “Hold the saw like this. Do regular, even cuts, back and forth.” He placed her little hands on the saw and guided her for a few moments, until she’d got used to its motion. He let go, watching her carefully, her lower lip jutted out, her eyes screwed up in concentration.

“This is
hard
,” she panted, but didn’t stop.

After a few minutes he had another turn, and then he scooted out from under the tree to look up at Claire. She’d been watching them, he saw, with a little smile on her face, softening her features.

“Your turn,” he said, and Claire blinked in surprise.

“Me—”

“You didn’t just come along for the ride, did you?” He held out the saw. “You said you’d never cut down a tree before. Now’s your chance.”

“Okay,” Claire said after a moment, and she clambered under the tree too, so all three of them were squeezed together, sheltered by the branches.

“This
is
hard,” Claire exclaimed when she had her turn with her saw.

Her hair brushed Noah’s cheek as she moved and every time she pulled her arm back, her coat was pulled taut across her breasts and Noah couldn’t keep himself from looking, or from a shaft of desire piercing him so sweetly.

He took over again, and then as they got closer to finally felling the tree, he had them do one cut each, taking turns with the saw, guessing who would make the final cut.

He made sure it was Molly, and he saw Claire give him a small, secretive smile, so he knew she understood. The tree was practically hanging by a thread when Molly finally made the last cut, and Noah pulled both Claire and Molly back as he nudged the tree with his boot to make sure it fell away from them.

“Timber,” he announced cheerfully. “Now we’ve got to get this beauty home.”

They all helped to load the tree on the toboggan, and then Noah bound it with rope. He clowned around for Molly’s sake, pretending the toboggan was too heavy to pull, before they started the trek back to Ayesgill Farm. As the farmhouse came in view, the most familiar sight in the world to him with its whitewashed stone walls and slate roof, a curl of bluish-gray smoke snaking up towards the sky from its chimney, he felt a powerful surge of feeling—whether it was love or joy or gratitude, he didn’t know. It was good, of that he was sure. He felt, for the first time in a long while, that he was truly coming home.

*

It was all
so weirdly, wonderfully normal to come into Noah’s house as he unbound the tree. Claire took off her coat and boots, and hung up her and Molly’s gloves and scarves on the rail of the Aga, savoring the warmth that rolled out from the battered beast of a stove for a moment.

“Can we have hot chocolate?” Molly asked hopefully, and Claire thought she remembered seeing some cocoa in Noah’s overflowing shopping cart yesterday.

“I don’t see why not,” she said, and bustled about the kitchen in search of a pan and milk, sugar, and cocoa. Was it wrong to enjoy these little domestic tasks so much, she wondered, or just stupid? Dangerous, maybe. It wasn’t as if this were real. But it was so fun, so lovely to pretend, for just a little while, that this was her life. Her home.

Husband, child. A family. A cozy kitchen, the dog sprawled out on the floor in front of the Aga, so she had to step around him as she made the hot chocolate. Jake seemed used to it.

Molly sat on one of the stools by the kitchen island, a huge rectangle of chopping block that yesterday had been covered with junk mail and dirty dishes, but was now still swept clean.

Outside the sun sparkled on the snow and in the distance she heard Noah wrestling the Christmas tree into the sitting room. All of it together, the sounds, the sights, the smells, made Claire feel as if she’d stepped into a daydream.
A fantasy.

And for a few minutes, maybe an hour, she could enjoy it. Surely that wouldn’t hurt anyone?

The hot chocolate was simmering on top of the Aga and Claire had just located some mugs, giving them a discreet rinse before placing them on the counter in front of Molly, when Noah came in, stamping snow from his boots, his cheeks red from the cold.

“I got the tree inside. Now I just need to figure out how to put it up.”

“Don’t you have a tree stand?” Claire asked, and Molly piped up,

“What about decorations? Ornaments and icicles and a star for the top?”

“I’m not sure I have any of that,” Noah said with a rueful smile, and Molly looked at him in incredulous pity.

“Haven’t you had a Christmas tree before?”

“Not for a long time,” Noah said, and there was a sadness to his voice that made Claire wonder why he hadn’t. Where was his family—the sibling she’d seen in that photograph, his parents?