Twins for Christmas by Alison Roberts Read Free Book Online Page A

exit from her life. He hadn’t even said goodbye because he hadn’t been able to begin to explain where he was going. Or why.
    She should hate him, but clearly she didn’t. She had agreed with Florence, who thought he was ‘a lovely man’.
    And she thought her pregnancy was a gift.
    And it was twins. Why hadn’t that thought occurred to him when he was judging the duration of her pregnancy by her size?
    Because it was just too ironic?
    Fate had brought him in a very neat circle, here. Back to a place where he had to face his past   and   his future.
    And right in the middle was Kate.
     

CHAPTER SIX
    ‘I T WASN’T HER FAULT , you know.’
     
    ‘What wasn’t, Florence?’ Kate lifted the dressing she had put over the wound on Florence’s head until Rory came back.
    ‘The accident. We came round a bend and there was this car stuck in the road. It had skidded into a truck coming the other way. Nobody was hurt, and they’d got out and were all walking around. Some children had started a snowball fight. Mary had to swerve or she would have hit one of those children.’
    ‘When did you last have a tetanus booster, Florence?’ Rory didn’t seem to be listening.
    ‘Oh, heavens—I can’t remember.’
    ‘We’ll need to give you another one, then. Kate?’
    ‘I’ve got one here.’
    His smile was brief but approving. The nod that followed was thoughtful. ‘Of course you have. You always were the best.’
    Kate tried to suppress the glow his words gave her. She had to remind herself that he’d always treated everybody like that. Made them feel special. Brought out the best in their performance. It didn’t mean anything. Or rather it didn’t mean what she’d like it to mean.
    ‘We weren’t even going fast.’ Florence was apparently distracting herself from the way Rory was probing at her wound. ‘Mary had been worried about the weather before we even left the Castle. She wouldn’t have gone out at all if it hadn’t been for the Christmas party, and she made us leave early. She knew she could handle the road if we took it slowly, and she drives that bus like a professional. Well, she would, wouldn’t she, when she’s been doing it for nearly forty years?’
    ‘What made her start?’ Kate was happy to let Florence cope by talking. ‘Looking after children, I mean?’
    ‘She lost her own.’ Florence clicked her tongue and sighed sympathetically. ‘Her whole family. Husband and two little girls. He’d taken them up for a ride in his new plane. He ran into trouble and then got tangled up in power lines when he tried to make an emergency landing.’
    ‘Mary must have been devastated.’
    ‘Oh, yes. Nearly destroyed her, I think. Though she never says much about it. I know it took years for her to want to face the world again, and she decided she would never marry or have any more children of her own. She says it was because there were too many out there already who needed help, but I reckon she just needed to fill a dreadful gap in her heart.’
    ‘She must be a very strong woman.’
    Something in Rory’s tone made Kate look up from where he was pushing a curved needle through one side of Florence’s impressive cut. She had always loved watching him when he was focussed like this, with that furrow in his forehead, the way his dark hair flopped down on one side—a perfect match for the tangle of unfairly luxuriant eyelashes. He’d often had that shadowing of stubble late at night, too.
    This was the first time she’d noticed it with the knowledge of how it felt against the smoothness of her own skin, however. Just as well her hands were occupied holding Florence’s head still, because the urge to reach out and touch that rough ened skin was almost irresistible.
    Was it the movement of one of her babies that sent such a delicious tingle right down to her toes? Kate sucked in a breath and dragged her gaze away from Rory’s chin. Back to that furrow in his brow which made her recall the note