stared for a moment or two and Jack could hear him sigh as he turned back. Holly’s head turned as well. Far enough to catch sight of Jack peering through the curtain.
‘Ooh,’ she squeaked. ‘Who are you?’
Jack had to think fast. ‘Just one of Santa’s helpers,’ he whispered.
‘Are you a … nelf?’
‘Yes.’ Jack nodded. His smile seemed to come from a different place than usual. It felt … softer. ‘That’s it. I’m a nelf.’
‘Why haven’t you got a green hat?’
He was spared having to answer. The photographer was tapping his watch and the next woman in the queue was edging forward with a small boy who had a very expectant smile. It was clearly the next child’s turn to tell Santa what he wanted for Christmas and Holly was distracted by the gentle nudge that was intended to dislodge her from her perch. Not that she was having any of it.
‘He has to be nice to me and Misty as well as Mummy,’ she told Santa hurriedly. ‘That’s ‘portant. Uncle Nathan liked Mummy but he didn’t like us, ‘specially when Misty got sick, so Mummy told him to go away and never come back.’
‘O-kay,’ said Santa. ‘I’ll keep that in mind. But now it’s time for—’
‘Mummy said she wasn’t sad because she loves us so much she doesn’t need anybody else. She said we’re the two best little girls in the whole world and I’m trying to be extra-good even when it’s hard and everybody’s crying because if you’re good, you get want you want for Christmas, don’t you?’
Why was everybody crying? Jack wondered. Was Misty’s case hopeless?
He glanced at Mabel. She was crying.
‘The poor wee pet,’ she whispered.
‘Mummy looks after everybody.’ The voice was wobbling now. ‘Me and Misty and Nanna. But there’s nobody to take care of Mummy, is there? I’m still too little.’
The photographer was talking to Holly’s mother, who nodded and marched forward.
‘Come on, Holly. You’ve had your turn now.’
‘But—’
‘No “buts”. Come on, we’ll go and find that shortbread for Nanna.’
It was a grown-up version of the determination he’d been hearing in Holly’s voice.
‘Merry Christmas,’ Santa intoned, but he didn’t sound nearly as jolly as he probably should. ‘Ho, ho, ho.’
Denise came back. She had a middle-aged woman with her who turned out to be Mabel’s daughter.
The elderly woman was feeling much better. Her daughter said they were going to go straight to the doctor’s on the way home. She thanked Jack profusely for his medical assistance. So did Denise as she dashed back to her duties.
Jack was free at last. He escaped from the back of the grotto. Heading for the stairs, he passed Denise, who’d been stopped by a customer’s query.
The customer was none other than Holly’s mother. Holly gave him a suspicious stare and must have communicated something through the hand she was holding because her mother turned her head to stare at him as well.
The eye contact was like nothing he’d ever experienced in his life. As though they knew each other. Intimately. A prickle of something he couldn’t identify traced the length of his spine. His step faltered inexplicably. He covered the odd blip by glancing at his watch and seeing the time was more than enough incentive to keep moving. He had no choice, if he was going to have any chance of making his meeting on time.
Weirdly, what he was feeling now was a strong sense of disappointment. Because he would never know the end of the story about Holly and Misty and whether they would get what they wanted for Christmas.
No. It felt like more than that.
Almost as though he’d just lost something.
Something ‘portant.
‘He’s not really a nelf,’ Holly muttered. ‘He hasn’t got a hat and he’s too big.’
Lizzie was only half listening because Denise was trying to direct her to where she would find the shortbread she needed to take back to the hospital.
Who was too big?
That astonishingly good-looking man who’d just given her the oddest look? He had the most beautiful eyes she’d ever seen. Chocolate brown and … interested? No. It had been more than the kind of appreciative glance she was used to getting from men. It had been more like he was surprised to see her here. As if he knew her from somewhere else. That thought was just about as strange as whatever bee Holly had in her bonnet about elves.
If she’d met him before she would have most certainly not forgotten the encounter.
Keeping a firm hold on her daughter’s hand, Lizzie went in search of shortbread. Holly was happy and so was she. In a little while their mission would be accomplished and she could get back to where she really needed to be.
Maybe later … much later, when she had a minute or two to herself, she would indulge in remembering those dark eyes. Relive that frisson of something amazing that she’d felt in that heartbeat when his eyes had touched hers.
A secret smile tweaked the corner of Lizzie’s mouth. She’d have to save it for later but there was no reason not to indulge in a harmless little daydream. After all, who didn’t need a touch of fantasy in their lives now and then?
CHAPTER TWO
THIS was payback.
On a cosmic scale. Punishment for the very real pleasure Lizzie had found last night, dreaming about a pair of chocolate-brown eyes.
She had never expected to see them again. Certainly not at close range. But here they were, on the other side of Dr Kingsley’s desk.
‘Who are you?’
Oh … Lord … It was supposed to come out as ‘Who are you?’ and not ‘Who are you?’, as if she remembered him and was desperate to know his name.
He wasn’t smiling. In fact, he was giving her the same kind of odd look he had when he’d passed her in Bennett’s department store yesterday.
‘I’m Jack,’ he told her. ‘Jack Rousseau.’
His voice was as smooth as the rich chocolate his eyes made her think of. Just as dark, too. And there was a subtle hint of a very attractive accent. Rousseau? Was he French?
Lizzie’s mouth went curiously dry and she dropped her gaze instantly. Not that it helped. He had both his hands on the desk, fiddling with the disc of a stethoscope lying on the blotter. Long, shapely fingers and hands, the backs of which were dusted with dark hair. Absolutely masculine hands but they looked
