Page 58 of Only for Christmas

Lucas charmed the woman with one of his smiles. ‘We’d love to,’ he said, touching Sarah’s arm. ‘What about these, honey?’ He held up two small robins, their red breasts adorned with sequins. ‘These would look cute on the tree.’

She frowned at him. ‘What tree? We don’t have a tree.’

He leant close and whispered, ‘Pretend we do. It’s what most regular human beings do at Christmas.’ He straightened, leaving a chill where his warm breath had been. ‘We’ll take them. They look kind of art deco… right, honey?’

The woman laughed. ‘He’s a wonder, isn’t he?’

Sarah rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, he’s certainly something all right.’

Lucas paid for the items and moved her on to the next stall. ‘Another interesting fact. Did you know they played “Jingle Bells” during NASA’s Gemini 6A space flight? It was part of a prank by the astronauts. They sent a message over the radio claiming they’d encountered a strange low-flying object travelling south from the North Pole. Mission Control only realised it was a wind-up when the music started playing.’

‘Goodness, you’re a mine of information.’

They reached a stall selling Christmas cards and he pointed to a vintage design. ‘Queen Victoria was the first official person to send a Christmas card, but commercial cards didn’t come into fashion until 1843. One of the original designs recently sold at auction for thirty thousand pounds. Imagine that?’

Sarah blinked up at him. ‘How on earth did you know that?’

‘I’m living in London now,’ he said, with a shrug. ‘I’ve been visiting museums.’ He moved to the next stall. ‘Hey, look at this.’ Lucas handed her a brass lantern.

It took her a moment to focus her attention on the ornament. She had no idea Lucas knew so much about… well, stuff. The lantern was filled with a snow scene depicting four small golden birds singing in front of a brightly lit cottage. Everything was hand-painted and expertly crafted. ‘It’s beautiful.’

‘It matches the robins we bought. Shall we get it?’

She viewed him cautiously. ‘How come you know so much about Christmas?’

He looked sheepish. ‘I didn’t. I researched ahead of today.’

‘Why on earth would you do that?’

‘To remind you how magical Christmas can be. Letting a little festive spirit back into your life might be what you need to stop feeling so…’ He shrugged. ‘Stuck.’

Sarah could barely speak. ‘You did that for me?’

‘Of course.’ He pinned her with one of his smiles. ‘Now, are we buying this lantern?’

Sarah nodded.

Something odd was happening… she just didn’t quite know what.

Chapter Twelve

Tuesday, 20th December

When Lucas arrived at his sister’s house ready to childmind while his sister and brother-in-law attended a mediation session, he hadn’t expected to find Harper and Paul embroiled in another argument. Their raised voices could be heard even before Max had opened the front door.

Foolishly, he’d assumed they were making progress and had moved past the point of wanting to dismember each other. Apparently not. Today’s argument was about the house sale. Or rather, Harper’s refusal to put the house on the market. Her solicitor was pushing for an interim agreement, whereby Harper and the kids stayed in the house until the boys were in secondary school and allowed Harper time to restart her career and improve her financial situation. Paul’s solicitor was pushing for a quick sale, a division of the assets and the divorce settlement to be finalised promptly. The end result was Harper and Paul yelling at each other and making an already testy situation even more toxic.

Having answered the door, Max ran back into the living room and joined his brother behind the couch. Lucas headed into the kitchen, arriving in time to witness Harper calling her husband a ‘self-centred son of a bitch’ and Paul accusing Harper of ‘sabotaging his efforts to move on with his life’.

So much for mediation. It was full-on war in the Evans household.

It was therefore gone eleven a.m. by the time Lucas had calmed them down and Paul and Harper had left in separate cars to attend their appointment. Good luck to the counsellor, Lucas thought.

He’d given them a stern talking-to before they’d left, feeling like a parent berating his wayward teenagers. Constantly arguing was not going to resolve anything, he’d told them. They needed to stop lashing out, and find a way of reaching an agreement that worked for both of them.

When had he turned into the sensible one?

Having meekly apologised to their sons, kissed them and headed out the door, tails between their legs, the house descended into an uncomfortable silence.

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