Single Dads Collection - Lynne Marshall Mills & Boon e-Book Collections

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really,’ she said.

      Her eyes danced and anticipation fizzed through him. He didn’t need a second bidding. He seized the present and tore off the paper. He stared for a moment and then started to laugh. She’d given him the largest box of assorted chocolates and sweets he’d ever seen with a big Beware sticker plastered across the front. The accompanying note read: Please eat in moderation! Somehow she’d taken a bad memory, a moment of awfulness, and had turned it into something he could laugh about.

      As he made a move to kiss her cheek, a second item fell out, wrapped in bubble-wrap. Intrigued, he unrolled it, and then a grin spread across his face. In his hand he held a finely wrought pewter figurine of a boxer.

      Nicola grinned back at him. ‘I couldn’t resist.’

      Verity stared from one to the other. ‘I sense there’s a story there.’

      ‘Perhaps,’ Nicola conceded. ‘Though maybe it’s more of a private joke.’

      Her tact touched him, but he had no such qualms. ‘Very private,’ he declared, ‘as I have no intention of ever telling anyone how you managed to flatten me when I gave you a boxing lesson.’

      Dee promptly held her hand up and Nicola high-fived her. ‘What can I say?’ she said mock modestly. ‘Horse-riding and boxing—it appears I’m a natural at both.’

      When Dee and Verity had turned away, caught up in admiring Keith’s gift to Verity—a lovely opal bracelet—Nicola nodded towards the tree again. That was when he saw a second present sporting his name on the gift tag in Nicola’s handwriting. ‘That one is from Ella and Holly.’

      He glanced at his daughters and then ripped off the paper to find a photo frame—obviously decorated by them, no doubt with Nicola’s assistance. While he instantly loved the haphazard stars and lopsided flowers painted on the frame, it was the photo that caught his attention, and held it.

      Ella and Holly didn’t just smile from the frame and they didn’t just giggle—their entire faces and bodies glowed and roared with laughter. It spoke of their youth and their innocence, and there was no shadow of the past sixteen months there—it was a moment of straight-down-the-line exhilaration.

      And it stole his breath.

      He suddenly realised why this Christmas—why making it so perfect for Ella and Holly—had become so important for him. He’d been searching for optimism, for hope for the future, and an assurance that they would all be okay.

      He held that assurance in his hand.

      He met Nicola’s gaze. ‘Thank you.’

       CHAPTER NINE

      NICOLA paused in the doorway to the living room and drank in the stillness and silence of the Christmas night. The children had all gone to bed a couple of hours ago, and it appeared that the rest of the household had retired too.

      It had been a big day.

      It had been the most amazing Christmas she’d ever had.

      It was getting late, but she was still too keyed up to sleep. Perhaps she just wasn’t ready to let it all go yet. Sinking into the largest of the sofas, she slid sideways so she half-sat, half-lay across it, her head resting on its arm. So much fun had taken place in this room today. Her lips curved upwards as she remembered it all. And at the centre had been Cade.

      Always Cade. The thought of him warmed her blood.

      ‘I thought you’d gone to bed.’

      Before she could haul herself upright again, her feet were lifted so that she lay full length on the sofa. She couldn’t help groaning her appreciation at the cushioning softness that cradled her or the warmth of Cade’s hands at her ankles.

      With a small sliding caress, he released them and hunkered down on the floor with his back against the sofa. He smelled of soap and the single malt Scotch that he drank. It took an effort of will not to reach out and push her fingers through his hair.

      ‘I still feel a little too keyed up to sleep,’ she admitted.

      He glanced at her, the blue of his eyes a caress against her face. ‘You could’ve settled in with one of those romance novels.’

      ‘Ah, but then I’d be up all night devouring it.’

      He opened his mouth, but then his eyes stilled, his gaze seemingly arrested by her lips—arrested and absorbed. It made her blood chug and it chased her tiredness away in the time it took the lights on the Christmas tree to wink on and then off. And the longer he stared, the more she remembered the feel of his lips on hers and the taste of him, and the yearning, the craving, built inside her until she had to cover her mouth with her hand to stop him from looking at her like that.

      He jolted away from her, his gaze shooting to the Christmas tree. She closed her eyes and tried to get her breathing back under control. ‘I …’ She swallowed. ‘It’s been a great day. You must be over the moon. You gave Ella a Christmas she’ll remember for ever, and Holly had a ball. Not to mention the rest of your family.’

      ‘And you?’

      When he turned back it was almost as if that earlier moment hadn’t happened. Her heart burned in protest even as her common sense told her it was for the best. ‘I’ve had the best Christmas ever.’ Her voice emerged on a husky whisper. She couldn’t help it. ‘What about you? Did you enjoy today or were you too preoccupied with making sure everyone else had a good time?’

      He lifted his tumbler, breathed in the fumes, but he didn’t drink. ‘I had a great day.’ He started to lift the tumbler to his lips and then paused and offered her the glass.

      She wrinkled her nose and shook her head. ‘I’m not a fan of whisky.’ Not even the gorgeous single malt Scotch that had been Verity’s gift to Cade. ‘I prefer something sweeter.’

      He took a sip and his eyes suddenly gleamed. ‘Something sweeter, huh?’

      ‘I’m fine, Cade. I don’t want anything, honestly.’

      ‘I noticed you didn’t stuff yourself senseless at lunch like the rest of us and then spend the afternoon nibbling on all the assorted goodies.’

      ‘I ate my fair share, thank you very much!’ She just hadn’t gone back for seconds. And she hadn’t picked too much between meals—other than a couple of handfuls of cherries. She was still intent on slimming down.

      She had slimmed down.

      Today had shown her just how much she’d always comfort ate at Christmas … and how much she comfort ate full stop. She didn’t want to do that any more.

      ‘Yet you have a sweet tooth.’

      ‘That I’m doing my best to control.’ She wasn’t given to pats on the back—not for herself—but she couldn’t help feeling she deserved a big fat pat on the back for that. There had been moments when that self-control had been sheer torture.

      ‘You have a sweet tooth,’ he repeated, ‘and it’s Christmas.’

      She didn’t trust that gleam in his eye. ‘So?’

      He slid across the floor and seized her jar of chocolate sultanas and lifted them in her direction. Her mouth promptly watered. No amount of self-control could prevent that.

      She tried to distract herself. ‘Harry and your mother wouldn’t let me tidy up.’ Presents still sat in festive stacks about the room.

      ‘Absolutely not. That’s what Boxing Day is for.’

      He said it exactly the same way Verity had.

      He shook the jar. ‘Nicola, these are unopened.’

      The sound of chocolate sultanas tinkling against glass sounded

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