CHAPTER SEVEN

      IT WAS the most magical day.

      They’d all gone upstairs to wash and dress, and Jake had called her back and asked her to help him.

      ‘I could do with a shower, but I don’t want to get the new cast wet and I didn’t do so well yesterday. Could you tape this bag over my arm?’

      ‘Of course,’ she said, putting Thomas on the floor, and he handed her the bag and some tape, and then shucked off his robe so he was standing in front of her in nothing more than snug-fitting jersey boxers that sent her heart rate rocketing. Until she saw his bruises, and they took her breath away.

      ‘Oh, Jake—you’re black and blue!’

      He smiled wryly. ‘Tell me about it. Still, I’m alive. It could have been worse. And it’s better today.’

      She wasn’t convinced, but she stuck the bag on his arm and stood back, trying not to look at him and not really succeeding, because her eyes were relentlessly drawn to his taut, well-muscled chest with its scatter of dark curls, to the strong, straight legs with their spectacular muscles and equally spectacular bruises. ‘Can you manage now?’ she asked, trying to sound businesslike and obviously failing, because his right eyebrow twitched.

      ‘Why?’ he asked, his voice low and his eyes dancing with mischief. ‘Are you offering to wash my back?’

      ‘On second thoughts,’ she said and, scooping Thomas up, she left him to it and concentrated—barely—on dressing her children and making breakfast for them all before she put Thomas down for a nap and they wrapped up warmly and went out into the snow.

      The snowman was huge—probably not the biggest in the world, but huge for all that—and Jake had found his old ski hat and scarf and they’d raided the fridge for a carrot—and two sprouts for his eyes, ‘because,’ Kitty said, ‘they’re too disgusting to eat.’ Edward found a twig that looked like a pipe to stick in his mouth. Then, when the snowman was finished, standing in pride of place outside the breakfast room window so he could watch them eat, they came back inside, hung their coats in the boiler room to dry, and settled down by the fire in the drawing room to watch a film while they warmed up.

      She flitted between the film and the kitchen, making sure everything was set in motion at the right time like a military operation and laying the table in the breakfast room, because, as Jake said, the dining room was too formal for having fun in. Not to mention too beautiful for Thomas to hurl his dinner across the room or for Kitty to ‘accidentally’ shoot peas off the edge of her plate for the dog to find, and anyway, it was a long way from the kitchen.

      So she put out the crackers and the cutlery and the jolly red and green paper napkins with reindeer on, and a big white pillar candle they’d bought in the supermarket standing on a red plate. In between doing that and checking on the meal, she sat with her family and Jake, squeezing up next to Edward, while Thomas sat wedged between him and Jake, and Kitty had found herself a little place on Jake’s lap, with his arm round her and her head on his shoulder and her thumb in her mouth. The next time she came in he had Thomas on his lap instead, standing on his leg and trying to climb over the arm of the sofa.

      ‘I think he’s bored,’ Jake said softly, and Thomas looked up at her and beamed and held up his arms, and she scooped him up and hugged him.

      ‘Hungry too, probably.’

      ‘Is it lunchtime yet?’ Kitty asked hopefully. ‘I’m starving!’

      ‘Nearly.’

      ‘Can I help?’

      Could he? Could she cope with him in the kitchen, that strong, hard, battered body so close to hers in the confined space?

      She nearly laughed. What was she thinking about? It wasn’t confined, it was huge—but it had seemed confined this morning, while he was making her tea and she was in the pyjamas he’d teased her about and he was in a robe with melted snow on the shoulders and dripping off his hair and those curiously sexy bare feet planted squarely on the tiled floor.

      And now she knew what had been under that robe, it would be all the harder …

      ‘I don’t really know what you can do,’ she said, but he followed her anyway, and he managed one-handed to make himself very useful. He helped lift the turkey out of the dish, entertained Thomas while she warmed his lunch, and then blew on it and fed him while she made the gravy and put everything out into the serving dishes he’d found for her.

      ‘Lunch!’ she called, sticking her head round the door, and they came pelting down the hall and skidded into the breakfast room.

      ‘Oh, it looks really pretty!’ Kitty said. Jake lit the candle and she carried in the turkey and knew how Tiny Tim’s mother must have felt when Scrooge gave them the goose.

      The food was delicious, and the children piled in, eating themselves to a standstill, and still there was enough there to feed an army.

      ‘I hope you’ve got a nice line in leftover recipes,’ Jake murmured as he carried it out to the kitchen and put it on the side, making her laugh.

      ‘Oh, I have. I can turn anything into a meal. Have you got any brandy to put over the pudding?’

      ‘I have—and holly. I picked it this morning. Here.’

      He turned off the lights, and she carried in the flaming pudding by candlelight, making the children ooh and aah. Then, when they couldn’t manage another mouthful, they cleared the table and put on their warm, dry coats and went back out in the garden for a walk, with Rufus in his smart new tartan coat and Thomas snuggled on her hip in his all-in-one suit. When the children had run around and worked off their lunch and the adults had strolled all down the long walk from the house towards the woods, they turned back.

      And, right in the middle of the lawn outside the bay window, Kitty stopped.

      ‘We have to make snow angels!’ she said. ‘Come on, everybody!’

      ‘Snow angels?’ Jake said, his voice taut, and Millie looked at him worriedly. Was this another memory they were trampling on? Oh, dear lord—

      ‘Yes—all of us! Come on, Jake, you’re