His Christmas Angel

And Sol hadn’t had one since he was twelve.

She glanced across at him. Man, oh, man, it was good to have him home. She drank in the sight of him while he stared out at the yard with that shuttered half-gaze she remembered so well. Sol had always been a good-looking boy. But that was what he’d been when he’d left. He had certainly changed since then. He had grown up now.

He was a man. And what a man.

A pulse started to throb at the base of her throat. He was every kind of hunk she could think of and then some. He was going to set the female population of Schofield on its collective head.

His eyes hadn’t changed, though. Still black, still piercing, still kind. And given half a chance they could probably still see right through her. She lifted the kitten clambering up her leg into her lap. She couldn’t give Sol that chance—not even a quarter of that chance. The kitten settled into her lap, purring.

She glanced around the Adams’ back veranda. It and the attached laundry ran the length of the house. She sprang to her feet and walked its length, glancing right and left then swung back, clutching the kitten to her chest. ‘Sol, I need a favour.’

‘Anything.’

A shockwave rippled through her at the promptness of his reply, at its certainty. ‘Is that wise?’ she demanded. He chuckled, and the sound of it washed over the surface of her skin with the velvet warmth of hot chocolate. She wanted to stretch and purr beneath it.

‘I may not have clapped eyes on you for ten years, Cassie Campbell…Parker, but I still know you.’

‘I might have changed.’

He paused. His eyes raked over her and darkened. ‘You have at that.’

Cassie fell back into her chair. She crossed her right leg over her left. Her foot bounced and wouldn’t stop. She set it on the floor, but that set her knees jiggling. She crossed her legs again and let the foot bounce.

‘Lookin’ good, Cassie.’

Her foot stopped mid-bounce. His eyes roved over her face, and her skin flushed everywhere his gaze touched.

‘Real good.’

‘Thank you,’ she croaked. She seized her glass. ‘You’re not looking too bad yourself.’ But she didn’t look at him as she said it. She took swallow after swallow of cold water, but it didn’t cool the heat rising through her.

‘What’s this favour?’

The favour. Right. She set her glass down. ‘Would you babysit my kittens?’

‘Babysit?’

‘Until Christmas?’

‘Christmas!’

‘I can’t take them home because Rufus will eat them. I’ve kept them locked up in the laundry of the old place—’ she nodded across the yard ‘—while it’s between tenants, but it’s so tiny, and it’s mean keeping them there for such long periods. They won’t be any trouble, I swear.’

He looked sceptical, and she didn’t blame him. ‘You don’t need to do anything. I’ll come over every evening to feed them.’

‘You will?’

‘Then I’ll lock them up in your laundry for the night.’

‘You’ll come over every evening?’

‘Every evening,’ she assured him. ‘So all you need to do is let them out of the laundry each morning. That’s it.’

‘That’s it, huh?’

‘That’s it.’ She shrugged, then slanted him a grin. ‘Though even if you say no I’ll still be here each evening. I’m Alec’s home-care help.’

‘Home-care help?’

‘It’s a community-based programme designed to help people stay in their own homes longer by helping them out with housework, meals and stuff.’

‘You do that?’

She shrugged, abashed by the warmth in his voice. ‘I love it.’

‘How long have you been doing it?’

Her eyes slid from his. ‘Ten years.’

There was a long silence. Finally Sol asked, ‘How long have you been helping Alec?’

‘Two years.’

‘Two years?’ He jerked around to face her fully. ‘He’s been sick for two years and he never told me?’

‘He’s being looked after.’

‘Yeah, but—’

‘But what? You’d have come home, seen he was getting the right kind of care, then left again.’

He raked a hand through his hair. ‘How long has he got?’

‘You’re a better man than I if you can get a straight answer to that one,’ she sighed.

He stared back out at the yard and Cassie’s chest ached. Why did it have to be such hell sometimes? Who had decided Sol should draw the short straw where family was concerned—the shortest of short straws—when Brian had had so much?

She froze that thought. Brian was dead. He didn’t have anything any more.

‘Why didn’t you let me know, Cassie? You could’ve rung or written.’

‘It was Alec’s choice. His decision to make.’ Her hands twisted together in her lap.

‘And?’

His eyes didn’t leave her face. It was almost frightening the way he could still read her. ‘And you didn’t answer the last time I wrote to you.’

His eyes darkened, then shuttered, and something inside Cassie squeezed painfully.

‘I would’ve come back for this.’

But her wedding hadn’t been important enough? It was as if he’d wiped Schofield from his mind completely. And her with it. ‘You left this town and all of us in it far behind.’ And maybe it had been for the best. ‘I never thought you’d come back. Ever. I didn’t try and get in touch with you because I thought hearing from me, hearing from anyone in Schofield, would be just about the last thing you’d want.’

His hands clenched into fists as he turned and stared at her. ‘Then you were wrong.’

‘You could’ve let me know that ten years ago.’

He stared back out at the yard and Cassie shivered. She’d never seen his eyes so dark…so…

Her mouth went dry. ‘Why have you come back, Sol?’

He shrugged. ‘Curiosity, I guess.’

He met her eyes, but the darkness still lurked in them and Cassie knew he was lying. She just didn’t know why.

CHAPTER TWO

‘IT’S pretty hot, Alec. Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer a salad?’

‘Sausages, mash, peas and carrots,’ Alec repeated. ‘I don’t care how hot it is.’

‘Okay, okay.’ She pulled the sausages out of the fridge. ‘Catch.’ She tossed him a carrot. ‘Peel that while I take care of the potatoes.’ She smothered a grin at his grumbling. She knew he liked her being here, bossing him about, not treating him like an invalid. ‘Where’s Sol?’

‘Out.’

‘Out?’ she parroted stupidly, then bit her lip to stop herself from asking, Out where?