you let the ball go too late,’ he said. ‘I take it you don’t go ten-pin bowling with your partner?’
Johnny hadn’t really been into ten-pin bowling. ‘No partner,’ she said.
He winced. ‘That wasn’t a come-on.’
‘I know.’ She smiled at him. ‘You sounded like someone who wants to help. A friend. And I appreciate that.’
He stilled, and she wondered if she’d gone too far.
But then he smiled. The kind of smile that lit up the whole room, and it transformed him utterly. It was as if he’d stepped out of the shadows he seemed to keep round him. When he smiled, Jamie Maskell was breathtakingly handsome.
‘I’ll help you with the next frame,’ he said.
‘Whatever you do, I’m still going to come last on our lane,’ she warned. ‘But it would be nice to actually do this right, for once.’
‘I can help you do that.’
She looked at him. ‘You’re like me, aren’t you? A fixer at heart.’
‘It’s kind of the definition of a surgeon, fixing things,’ he said dryly.
It was more than that, she thought. He was a fixer who wasn’t going to admit it.
Whatever had made Jamie Thurston put distance between himself and the world—and between himself and Christmas—maybe she could help him with that, the way he was helping her with the bowling.
She thought about it while they chatted with the others in their lane.
She stopped thinking for a little while when Jamie helped her with the bowling, standing close to her but not close enough to be sleazy or awkward. Because then he slid his arm along hers, showing her how to angle the ball correctly. The touch of his skin against his flustered her so much that she nearly forgot to let the ball go.
‘You went slightly to the left,’ he said when she’d knocked six pins down. ‘So this time you need to go slightly to the right.’
Again, he guided her through the procedure. And this time her ball hit the four pins in the middle, and they all went down.
‘There you go. You got a half-strike.’
‘That’s amazing.’ She flung her arms round him and hugged him.
When was the last time anyone had hugged him? When he’d actually let a woman hug him, because he’d pushed his mum and his sisters away, not to mention Hestia’s family and her best friend?
Probably at the funeral.
And now Anna Maskell had ignored all his usual barriers and hugged him. Briefly, because she stepped back almost immediately and said, ‘Sorry. That was a bit over the top. But I don’t think I’ve ever managed to get all the pins down like that before and I got a bit overexcited.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Let me be more appropriate. Thank you for your help, Mr Thurston,’ she said more formally.
‘You’re most welcome, Dr Maskell,’ he replied, equally formally. Though he could feel himself withdrawing again. Going back into the dark little hole where he’d lived for the last three years. But that hug had made him feel odd. As if there was a little flare of light, far in the distance. A light that drew him and beckoned him—if he had the courage to go and find it.
It took enough courage for him simply to exist from day to day. Going in search of a new life still felt too hard. But now he knew it was out there, and the little light wasn’t going to let itself hide again. It stayed put, telling him it would still be there when he was ready to look for it properly.
He managed to focus on the bowling for the rest of the evening. But then it was over, everyone was spilling outside, and his new colleagues all seemed to be heading off in different directions.
He’d walked a few steps when he realised that Anna was beside him. ‘It looks as if we’re going the same way,’ she said. ‘Do you mind if I walk with you?’
‘That’s fine.’
‘Thank you for the bowling lesson,’ she said.
‘Pleasure.’ The word was polite and automatic, but Jamie was shocked to realise that he actually meant it. He’d enjoyed helping Anna, seeing her confidence grow along with her ability.
She’d said that she thought he was a fixer at heart.
He had been, once. Before the thing had happened that he hadn’t been able to fix. And he had to admit that it had been good to feel that way again, however briefly.
‘I was thinking,’ she said. ‘Maybe I can help you.’
He frowned. ‘How?’
‘Christmas,’ she said.
The time of year he really disliked.
‘This isn’t a come-on,’ she added. ‘Just to be clear, I’m not looking to date anyone.’
She’d said earlier that she didn’t have a partner; though Jamie could imagine Anna Maskell right at the heart of a family. A large one. Why didn’t she have a partner, and why didn’t she want to date anyone?
Though it was none of his business and he wasn’t going to ask; if he started asking personal questions, then it was tantamount to an invitation for other people to ask him the same sort of things. Things he didn’t want to discuss.
‘I’m not going to pry,’ she said, echoing his own thoughts. ‘But Christmas is a fairly big thing at Muswell Hill Memorial Hospital, so it’s going to be in your face all the time. Maybe I can help show you that Christmas has its good side, so you don’t feel you have to try to avoid it all the time and it makes life feel a bit less pants at work.’
Maybe he should tell her why he disliked Christmas, so she’d back off.
Then again, he didn’t want to see the pity in her face once he told her what had happened.
‘Show me that Christmas has its good side,’ he echoed.
‘Yes. And, just in case you think I’m pitying you, I will admit that I have an ulterior motive.’
He frowned. ‘Doesn’t that kind of ruin any scheming, if you warn me that you have an ulterior motive?’
‘No,’ she said, ‘because I believe in what you see is what you get.’
He was going to have to ask now. ‘What’s your ulterior motive?’
‘I help you, and you help me.’
Oh, no. He knew exactly where this was going. ‘You mean, if you show me that Christmas isn’t the worst time of the year, then I’ll play Father Christmas for the ward?’
She grinned.
