LITMIR.BIZ

      Jamie really didn’t want to do this.

      But he’d had the best part of two days to come up with a reasonable excuse, and he hadn’t found one. Plus, part of him wanted to be able to handle Christmas again without making his family miserable. For the last three years, he’d chosen to work over the festive season rather than join in with the family celebrations, and he used work as an excuse not to see them very often in between.

      He felt guilty for not spending time with them; but whenever he was with them, it was always so obvious how much they were trying hard not to say the wrong thing. He knew they worried about him, but he found it suffocating when they wrapped him in cotton wool. Being in a family situation reminded him so much of what he’d lost, and Christmas magnified it to the point where it was too much to handle. He knew he needed to make the effort. Just… This was going to be painful. Like picking at a scab. Bit by bit.

      Facing Christmas.

      The time of year he dreaded.

      His doubts must’ve shown on his face, because she said gently, ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’

      No. He wasn’t sure at all.

      She took his hand and squeezed it briefly. ‘Look, we don’t have to walk around the Winter Festival. We can, I dunno, go back to the high street and grab something to eat, or get a takeaway and go back to mine to chill out with some old comedies on TV—and then you can meet George.’

      ‘George?’ That got his attention. He was sure Anna had said she didn’t have a partner. Or did she have a child? Was she a single mum? He hadn’t heard any rumours on the ward, but then again he always closed his ears to gossip. ‘Who’s George?’

      ‘George the Gorgeous Goldfish.’

      He looked at her, not quite sure he’d heard that correctly. ‘George is your goldfish?’

      ‘Gorgeous goldfish,’ she corrected. ‘Yes.’

      It was so incongruous that he couldn’t help smiling. ‘George the Gorgeous Goldfish,’ he repeated.

      ‘That’s right. Obviously it’s not quite like having a dog, because he doesn’t stick his chin on my knee and look up at me with big brown adoring eyes, and he doesn’t want to go for walks in the park or play ball. But I talk to him and he likes my singing.’

      Singing to a goldfish.

      That definitely wasn’t what he’d expected to hear her say.

      It was so surreal that he found himself smiling and walking into the park with her.

      And then somehow they were right in the middle of the Christmas fair, strolling up and down the path lined by little wooden pop-up shacks selling food, drink, Christmas decorations and every kind of gift you could think of, from candles to cosmetics to jewellery to hand-knitted Christmas jumpers. There were fairy lights draped over the roofs of the shacks, and garlands of greenery.

      ‘I hope you’re hungry,’ she said, ‘because I’m ravenous. I didn’t get time for lunch.’

      ‘It’s four in the afternoon,’ he pointed out.

      ‘Which is too early for dinner, but I need a Christmas cookie and a hot chocolate right now to keep my blood sugar level.’ She grinned at him. ‘Which I admit is just a terrible excuse, because I love hot chocolate and cookies.’ She found a hot drink stall, tucked her arm into his and queued up. ‘This one’s on me,’ she said.

      He accepted a coffee; she dithered about having extra cream on top of her hot chocolate, but then said, ‘No, because I’ll have another one later, laced with cream liqueur.’

      Just how long did she intend to spend at the fair? he wondered, but didn’t ask.

      Next was a cookie in the shape of a star, studded with chips of butterscotch. ‘Perfect,’ she said after the first bite. ‘You have to try this, Jamie.’ She broke off one of the arms of the star and handed it to him.

      He had no real choice but to eat it.

      When was the last time he’d eaten something and really tasted it, instead of it being simply fuel? This was delicious: buttery and sugary, zinging along his tastebuds. ‘It’s good,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’

      ‘And now—shopping,’ she said. ‘I need some stocking-fillers.’

      ‘You’re not buying your Secret Santa present for the ward, are you?’ he asked.

      ‘I’ve already got that,’ she said. ‘Though you might find something here.’

      ‘But then you’ll know whose name I drew when they unwrap it,’ he pointed out.

      ‘True,’ she said. ‘OK. We’ll do this methodically. We’ll go all the way along each row and back up again, and then I’ll decide what I’m getting. I have four sisters-in-law.’

      He blinked. ‘You’re one of five?’

      ‘The middle one,’ she said. ‘Two older brothers, a younger brother and a younger sister. All married, and all with children.’

      Was it his imagination, or did a shadow just cross her face? He knew she wasn’t married and he was pretty sure she didn’t have children. But was that by choice?

      ‘And I got to be best woman at my sister Jojo’s wedding to Becky,’ she said with a smile. ‘Which was so cool. How about you?’

      ‘Youngest of three. Two older sisters,’ he said. ‘Both married with children.’

      ‘Being an aunt,’ she said, ‘is fabulous, because I get pictures drawn for me all the time and there’s always someone to play games with or read stories to or cuddle.’ She smiled. ‘We had the best family holiday ever, this summer—we all stayed at a villa in Tuscany, with Mum and Dad. And, even though we’ve got very different interests between us, we’ve also got enough in common to get on really well together. I know they always say the middle child is the peacemaker, but fortunately I don’t have to be.’

      He’d guessed right from when he’d first met Anna that she was part of a huge family; she had that confidence about her, that surety of being loved by everyone and being able to talk to anyone. She clearly adored her family, and it made Jamie feel guilty for pushing his away. He did love his parents and his sisters and his nieces and nephews; but he hated how everyone seemed to alternately

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