Brad opened the front door as the biting wind whirled around them. He grabbed her hand. ‘I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t we get a coffee to go and just head back to my flat? It’s freezing.’
Cassidy nodded as she pulled the door closed behind them and checked it was secure. They hurried over to the car and reached his flat ten minutes later, with coffee and cakes from the shop round the corner from him.
Although it was only four o’clock, the light had faded quickly and the street was already dark. ‘Look!’ screamed Cass. ‘It’s the first one!’
Brad dived to rescue the toppling coffee cups from her grasp. ‘What is it?’ His head flicked from side to side. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’
‘There!’ Her eyes were lit up and her smile reached from ear to ear. He followed Cassidy’s outstretched finger pointing to a flat positioned across the street above one of the shops. There, proudly displayed in the window, was a slightly bent, brightly lit-up Christmas tree.
‘You have got to be joking. It’s only the seventh of November. Why on earth would someone have their Christmas tree up?’
He couldn’t believe the expression of absolute glee on her face. She looked like a child that had spotted Santa. ‘Isn’t it gorgeous?’
And there it was. That horrible twisting feeling inside his stomach. The one he was absolutely determined to avoid this year. That same empty feeling that he felt every year when he spent the whole of the Christmas season thinking about what he’d lost, what had slipped through his fingers.
He felt the wind biting at his cheek. Almost like a cold slap. Just what he needed. This year was going to be different. He’d done everything he possibly could. It was time to try and get rid of this horrible empty feeling. He’d spent last Christmas in Australia, the one before that in the US, following up some useless leads as to Alison and Melody’s whereabouts.
This year would be different. That was part of the reason he’d come to Scotland. A country that had no bad memories for him. A chance to think of something new.
Cassidy’s big brown eyes blinked at him in the orange lamplight. She’d pulled a hat over her curls and it suited her perfectly. ‘I really want to put my tree up,’ she murmured. ‘But it’s just too early.’ She looked down at the bustling street. ‘Only some of the shops have their decorations up. I wish they all had.’
This was it. This was where it started. ‘Christmas means different things to different people, Cass. Not everyone loves Christmas, you know?’
He saw her flinch and pull back, confusion in her eyes. There was hesitation in her voice. ‘What do you mean? Is something wrong? Did something happen to you at Christmas?’
He hesitated. How could he tell her what was currently circulating in his mind? He wasn’t even sure he could put it into coherent words. Melody hadn’t disappeared at Christmas, but everything about the season and the time of year just seemed to amplify the feelings, make them stronger. Most importantly, it made the yearning to see his daughter almost consume him. He blinked. She was standing in the dimmed light, her big brown eyes staring up at him with a whole host of questions.
He should tell her about Melody, he really should. But now wasn’t the time or the place. A shiver crept down his spine as the cold Scottish winter crept through his clothes. A busy street filled with early festive shoppers wasn’t the place to talk about his missing daughter.
And no matter how this woman was currently sending electric pulses along his skin, he wasn’t entirely sure what he wanted to share. He wasn’t sure he was ready.
‘Brad?’ Her voice cut through his thoughts, jerking him back to the passing traffic and darkened night.
He bent forward and kissed the tip of her nose, sliding his arm around her shoulders. ‘Don’t be silly, Cass. Nothing happened to me at Christmas.’ He shrugged his shoulders as he pulled her towards him, guiding her down the street towards his flat. ‘I’m just mindful that lots of the people we see in the hospital over Christmas don’t have the happy stories to share that you do.’
She bit her lip, cradling the coffee cups and cakes in her arms as she matched his steps along the busy street. ‘I know that. I didn’t just materialise onto the medical unit from a planet far away. I’ve worked there a long time.’
But her words seemed lost as his steps lengthened and he pushed open the door to the close ahead of them.
Cassidy took off her bright blue parka and put it on the sofa. She’d seen something in his eyes. Almost as if a shadow had passed over them, and it had made her stomach coil. Was there something he wasn’t telling her?
She pulled the coffee cups from their holder and opened the bag with the carrot cake inside. This was exactly what she needed right now. The sofa sagged next to her as Brad sat down. He was still rubbing his hands together.
‘I can’t believe how cold it is out there.’
She smiled at him. ‘Get used to it—this is only the start. Last year it was minus twelve on Christmas Day. My next-door neighbour is a gas engineer and his phone was ringing constantly with people’s boilers breaking down.’ She picked up the cup and inhaled deeply. ‘Mmm. Skinny caramel latte. My favourite in the world. I haven’t had one of these in ages.’ She took a tiny sip then reached for the moist carrot cake.
‘So I take it the fact you have a skinny caramel latte counteracts the effects of the carrot cake?’
She winked at him. ‘Exactly.’ She raised her eyes skywards. ‘Finally, a man on my wavelength. They cancel each other out. And it’s a skinny caramel latte with sugar-free syrup. Which means I can enjoy this all the more.’ She licked the frosting from the carrot cake off the tips of her fingers.
‘With this...’ she nibbled a bit from the corner. ‘...a girl could think she was in heaven.’
‘I can think of lots of other ways to put a girl in heaven,’ the voice next to her mumbled.
Cassidy froze. Her second sip of coffee was currently stuck in her throat. You couldn’t get much more innuendo than that. Should she respond? Or pretend she hadn’t heard?
There was no denying the attraction between them. But did she really want to act on it? After a month in his company, what did she really know about Brad Donovan? She could give testimony to his medical skills and his patient care. He was amenable, well mannered and supportive to the staff.
But what did she really know about him? Only little snippets of information that he’d told her in passing. Stories about home in Australia, living in Perth and his training as a doctor. Passing remarks about childhood friends. He’d told her he had no wife or girlfriend.
So what else was it? What had made that dark shadow pass in front of his eyes? Why had he hesitated before answering the question? Or had she just imagined it all? Maybe there was nothing wrong, maybe something had caught his
eye at the other side of the road, momentarily distracting him and stopping him from answering the question.
In the meantime, she could still feel that underlying buzz between them. Whenever he was near, she had visions of that night in his flat, pressed up against the wall in her sci-fi costume, wishing things could go further than they had.
Every time he touched her at work, even the merest brush of a hand was enough to set off the currents between them. It didn’t matter that her head told her this wasn’t sensible—he came from the other side of the world and would likely return there; her body was telling her something entirely different. Her imagination was telling her a whole host of other things...
He gave her a nudge, passing her the package he’d wedged under his jacket.
She stared down at the still-wrapped parcel in her hands, turning the brown paper package over and over.
‘Are you going to open it?’
She picked at the tape in one corner. It was old, the stickiness long vanished, and it literally fell apart in her hands, revealing some white envelopes underneath. She pulled them out. Only they weren’t white, they had yellowed with age, all with US postal stamps.
Her eyes lifted to meet his. Brad leaned forward, touching the pile of envelopes and spreading them out across the table. ‘There must be at least twenty of them,’ he said quietly. His fingers stopped at something. There, among the envelopes, was something else. A photograph. Brad slid the envelope that was covering it away and Cassidy let out a little gasp.
She leaned forward and picked up the black-and-white print. ‘It’s my gran!’ she gasped. His head met hers as they stared at the photograph of a beautiful young woman with a smile that spread from ear to ear, wearing a beautiful coat with a nipped-in waist. Her head was turned to the side and her eyes were sparkling as she looked at the man standing next to her in a US army uniform.