The Loving Gift

CHAPTER TWO

‘I'M TELLING you, Wellington, he almost met his Waterloo after that stupid stunt,’ Jade muttered as she poured the cream from the top of her milk into a saucer, giving a snort of disgust as the cat merely looked up at her with pitying eyes before turning his attention to the treat she had put down in front of him.

Jade watched the avid lapping of that delicate pink tongue for several seconds; Wellington certainly had the right idea, concentrating on his drink to the exclusion of all else certainly beat working yourself up into a temper because of the stupidity of some totally insensitive man!

Wellington had appeared on the doorstep of her rented cottage only her second day here, immediately earning his name, completely snowy white except for the four totally black feet that gave him the appearance of wearing Wellington boots.

In the beginning Jade had assumed the friendly cat had wandered over from one of the cottages close by, but after several days of returning home to find him sitting on the doorstep waiting for her she had found out from a neighbour that the cat belonged to no one, that the old lady who had once owned him had died some time ago and the cat hadn't let anyone near him since then, living wild.

Two strays together, Jade had thought ruefully. Whether he had sensed some need in her that matched his own, or whether he had just decided she looked soft-hearted enough to feed him without demanding too much in return, she didn't know. But, whatever the reason, he had made the cottage his home the last few months, and when the time came for Jade to leave she didn't know what she was going to do about him. Wellington had become her constant companion, her confidant, someone she could talk to without fear of judgement or rebuttal, and she believed that in his own feline way he had come to care for her too, curling up to sleep on the foot of her bed every night, like a sentinel on guard. But at the same time she knew she couldn't take him back to be cooped up in her rented apartment in London, and there was no way she could afford to buy a house of her own out of town.

But there could be no doubt that Wellington had attached himself to her, and she to him.

His drink finished to his satisfaction, he now strolled across to stretch himself out in front of the fire Jade had lit when she came in, proceeding to wash himself with leisurely strokes of his tongue, pausing in the task to look up at her enquiringly as he sensed her gaze upon him.

She quirked mocking brows. ‘So, you're finally ready to listen now, are you?’ she derided, putting the milk bottle away in the fridge before joining the cat in front of the fire, taking with her the cup of tea she had just poured for herself, knowing she had been right about his readiness to listen to her now as he contentedly began to wash again. ‘You're very definite about your priorities, aren't you, boy?’ she teased, absently stroking that silky fur, receiving a rasp of the pink tongue over her hand for her trouble.

She leant back against a chair, giving a pained sigh. ‘I have had the most awful afternoon, Wellington.’ She shook her head, thinking back to what had transpired after Simon had interrupted that conversation in the store-cupboard.

She had stared at ‘Father Christmas’ with wide, horrified eyes, noticing as she did so that her slap to the side of his face had knocked the flowing white beard slightly askew, some of it having parted with his cheek completely, revealing a face that, although very similar to Simon's in features, was obviously younger than the other man's, something that was unmistakable now that his face was more fully revealed.

Before she could say a word, ‘Father Christmas’ had burst into speech. ‘She slapped my face, Pen!’ he told the other woman excitedly before once again giving that triumphant laugh. And he didn't seem able to stop.

Jade looked from Penny to Simon, wondering why one of them didn't step forward and slap ‘Father Christmas's’ face again—this time for hysteria. But the couple just looked on bemusedly, and so it was left to Jade to take the initiative before the whole thing turned into more of a farce than it already was.

Because her victim was more of a moving target this time, her aim wasn't quite so good, and instead of making contact with the man's cheek she caught the side of his eye. To her horror, this only seemed to fuel his excitement!

‘My God, I'll probably have a black eye from that one,’ he cried excitedly. ‘Penny, Simon, do you realise what this means?'

Jade had more than a good idea; the man behind the Father Christmas suit was ever so slightly insane. No one in their right mind could possibly be pleased at having their face slapped, not once but twice! This man's disturbed state of mind might also explain Penny's ashen face when she had realised it wasn't her husband beneath the disguise, for it was obvious now that that was the reason Penny had looked so distressed when ‘Father Christmas’ came into the room. Simon, she could see at a glance, was as sober as he always was.

‘I was attracted to her on sight,’ ‘Father Christmas’ was rambling on. ‘But now I know I'm going to marry her!'

Marry her? The man was definitely certifiable!

Penny was the first one to recover her voice. ‘David, can't you see you're distressing her?’ she soothed. ‘Jade isn't used to—no woman is, I'm sure—–’ she added with brisk dismissal ‘—to six foot two Father Christmases proposing marriage to her at their first meeting!'

David. At least she could put a name to the man now, and from the similarity between him and Simon she would say his surname was Kendrick. David Kendrick. No wonder Simon had never spoken of having a brother; David was definitely the ‘black sheep’ of the family!

And, if anything, Penny was understating her reaction to David's claim that he was going to marry her; she was more convinced than ever that the man in the Father Christmas suit was in need of medical help!

‘But, Penny, can't you see it's like a sign?’ he was insisting now. ‘And she didn't just slap me once, but twice!'

Penny eyed Jade uncertainly, obviously alarmed by the pallor of her cheeks. ‘David, I don't think you should persist in this just now.'

Jade had had enough, couldn't take any more today. ‘I think I should be going now, Penny—–'

‘You can't go!’ David pounced, grabbing both her hands in his, holding her captive. ‘I've only just found you—do you have any idea how long I've been waiting for you to come into my life?’ he prompted eagerly, continuing to talk before she could even attempt an answer to his question. ‘Do you think I'm going to let you walk away from me now, when all I know about you is that your name is Jade and you're great with kids?'

And that he intended marrying her. Incredible, absolutely incredible. And the day had progressed so normally until his advent into her life, too!

‘David, I really think it might be better to leave this just now,’ Penny intervened again, shooting Jade nervous glances.

‘But I can't,’ he insistently refused, keeping a firm grip on Jade's hands. ‘It's like a sign, Penny,’ he repeated firmly. ‘A blessing—–'

‘If I read all the signs correctly just now, Jade is getting ready to shout “escaped lunatic”!’ Penny stepped forward to pointedly release Jade from the steely grasp. ‘David, there has to be a better place and time for this,’ she told him firmly.

‘The poor girl will come to no other conclusion than that you have a few screws loose if you continue to talk in this way,’ Simon put in softly.

If he continued…? Jade was already convinced the man had a serious problem!

David looked perplexed. ‘But you both know the significance—–'

‘Yes, yes,’ Penny quickly silenced him, shooting Jade an embarrassed smile. ‘Why don't we all discuss this later over dinner? You are staying to dinner, aren't you, David?’ The normally practically assured woman looked less than certain for once.

David's expression gentled as he gazed at the other woman. ‘Longer than that, if I'm welcome?’ He looked a little shame-faced.

‘Of course you are.’ Penny blushed her pleasure. ‘The kids will be overjoyed to see you.'

‘I've missed them.’ David's voice was husky with emotion now.

Jade was a little puzzled by the hesitant pleasure in Penny's face, at Simon's emotional smile as he looked on—but she was even more concerned about the thought of dinner tonight, not least because she had completely forgotten that she was supposed to be dining at the Kendricks’ this evening! The first week she had arrived here Penny and Simon had invited her over to dinner on a Friday night, a practice that had continued, and as today was a Friday… She had no intention of meeting David Kendrick ever again, and certainly not over a cosy family dinner tonight!

‘Maybe I should give dinner a miss for tonight?’ she hastened to excuse herself. ‘You all sound as if you have quite a lot of catching up to do, and so—–'

‘My dear, most of the talk will be about you, if I read my little brother correctly,’ Simon drawled in an amused voice, blue eyes twinkling teasingly. ‘So you might as well come along as arranged and avoid all that unnecessary ear-burning!'

It was her face that burnt now. Penny and Simon really were the nicest couple—she could believe that again now she knew Simon hadn't turned into a drunken lecher!—and she had greatly appreciated those weekly dinners with them in the past, but she really would rather not spend any more time in David Kendrick's company than she had to.

He seemed to sense her impending refusal, giving a wry smile. ‘I really haven't “escaped” from anywhere—although I understand if at the moment you think perhaps I ought to have done!’ he acknowledged ruefully. ‘But if anyone opts out of dinner tonight it really should be me; I'm the unexpected guest.'

And, as he very well knew, a very welcome one!

Jade frowned her irritation at his deliberate manipulation of the circumstances; she would look very petty now if she still insisted on refusing the invitation.

‘I'll be around at eight o'clock as usual,’ she finally answered Simon, completely ignoring David Kendrick, hoping that the way that she swept from the tiny room was regal and didn't show how she really felt—like a frightened rabbit!

David Kendrick had had a very determined glint in his eye as she turned to leave, and she seemed to be the purpose he was determined on.

‘And now I have to spend the whole evening in his company,’ she wailed to Wellington as they still sat in front of the glowing fireplace, only to look down and find he had gone to sleep somewhere in the middle of her tale. ‘A lot of help you are!’ she muttered, getting up to leave the cosily warm lounge with long strides to enter her much cooler bedroom; the radiators that heated the tiny cottage were warmed by the coal fire, and as that had only been alight a short time…

It was only one of the things she had found strange to adjust to when she moved into the cottage, being what she had always considered a ‘townie', with all the modern conveniences that conveyed; central heating had been taken for granted back in her flat in London. Having coal delivered, lighting the fire each day, keeping it alight, were all alien to her. She usually found that the cottage had just reached an acceptable temperature when it was time to go to bed, but then the fire would go out during the night and she would get up to a freezing cold bedroom! Still, the cottage did have its advantages, the major one being that the cottage was so pretty that you quickly forgot about the lack of heating and the dozen or so other little quirks it had. A thatched cottage, with all of its original beams still intact, was still the sort of home ‘townies’ dreamt about.

And, despite what she had heard about villages, the neighbours were all so friendly; unobtrusive, but helpful if they should be needed.

Not that Jade ‘needed’ them very often, preferring, apart from her inevitable involvement with school mothers, to keep herself to herself. The locals seemed to accept that being from London made her prefer it that way. Although she wasn't actually from London originally, what was left of her family—and that wasn't a great deal—still lived in the Yorkshire town she had grown up in. But she rarely returned there now.

Usually she looked forward to these Friday evening dinners as her only social outing of the week, a time when the three of them had mutually agreed not to discuss work but to simply enjoy each other's company. But tonight that was marred by the presence of that man.

David Kendrick. What was he really like under all that make-up and disguise? Simon's brown hair, which was thinning a little on top, was cut more for practicality than style; would his brother's be the same? Their eyes, she knew, were the same deep blue, just as their voices were very similar, but the rest of David Kendrick was an enigma. For all she knew, there might not have been any padding under the Father Christmas costume! Even as the slightly ridiculous idea came to mind, she knew, by the slenderness of his hands and the cotton pads in his mouth to make his cheeks look fatter, that David Kendrick had probably needed more padding than his brother to play the role.

He was probably handsome as the devil, and with a charm to match—and he had claimed he intended to marry her!

Marriage wasn't something she contemplated with anyone, let alone when suggested to her by a complete stranger who had made her seriously doubt his sanity by his strange behaviour!

Maybe he wouldn't be handsome, after all; maybe he had a permanent squint, or acne? There had to be something wrong with him—besides his tendency towards insanity—for him to still be single in the early to mid-thirties he must be to be Simon's ‘younger’ brother. Insanity certainly wouldn't exclude a reasonably eligible man of that age from the marriage market, not if some of the married couples she had observed were anything to go by!

Oh, well, she didn't have the time to speculate about him any more, had to get ready if she wasn't to be late for dinner. And within a few minutes of her arrival at the Kendricks’ all her questions would be answered anyway. Hopefully David Kendrick would also have either sobered up or become sane again by then!

It was as she went to pull the curtains over her tiny bedroom window that she noticed the falling snow for the first time; no wonder Wellington had opted for a comfortable night in front of the fire instead of his usual round of girlfriends.

The snow couldn't have been falling very long, but already there was a white covering of it on her pathway, although only a light dusting of it on the garden itself. But the flakes were quite large, and if it continued to fall at this rate…

She only needed the lightest of excuses not to go to dinner tonight, and surely falling snow could be classed as a little more than that?

But, even as a sense of relief at being spared the ordeal washed over her, she saw the headlights of an approaching vehicle coming towards her driveway. Almost instantly she recognised the vehicle as the silver-coloured Range Rover Simon occasionally used to transport the children to and from school during bad weather; the Kendricks certainly weren't going to take any chances of her opting out of this evening's plans! Or maybe Simon had made the two-mile trip from his house to her cottage at his brother's request; from what she remembered of David Kendrick, she had a feeling he could just be persistent enough to do that.

‘It's all right for you,’ she muttered to Wellington as she passed him on her way to answer the knock on the door. ‘You're assured of a nice, comfortable evening.’ As she had expected, the cat just ignored her grumblings, too sleepy and warm to even twitch an ear at the sound of her voice.

Jade gave an impatient sigh, wrenching open the cottage door.

Outside, the snow falling on hair so dark it was almost black, was the most lethally attractive man she had ever seen…

The dark hair lightly brushed the collar of the black leather jacket that was zipped half-way up the powerful chest, a chest that tapered down to a narrow waist and muscular thighs beneath tailored black trousers. There could be no doubt about it, David Kendrick had needed plenty of padding beneath the Father Christmas costume, for the rounded waistline at least, although his shoulders looked wide enough to fill the suit without any help.

She knew it was him by his eyes, navy blue eyes that looked at her as if he were eating her up. And there wasn't a squint in sight!

Just as there wasn't a single mark on the devastatingly handsome face, the nose long and straight, high cheekbones, fuller lower lip that hinted at a passionate nature. As if she needed any hints after his behaviour earlier today! If Penny hadn't walked in on them in the store-cupboard when she had, she might have received conclusive proof of just how passionate he was.

But the sensuality was there in the pleased slant of his mouth, in the blue gaze that didn't leave her face for a moment, and the hard muscles of his body were full of male challenge.

His smile widened, revealing evenly white teeth; God, didn't this man have a single defect? Of course he did, she remembered with some relief, he was more than a little strange!

‘Hello, I'm—–'

‘David Kendrick,’ she finished abruptly, nodding. ‘I know.'

‘I wasn't sure you would recognise me without my disguise,’ he drawled, his voice pleasantly deep without the cotton wool pads he had had stuffed into his cheeks earlier.

Oh, she had recognised him, all right, probably would have done so even without the help of his arrival in the Range Rover; she was never likely to forget the deep blue of his eyes, the only part of him that had really been recognisable beneath the Father Christmas disguise.

‘Penny and Simon sent me over to get you in case the snow put you off coming,’ he offered by way of explanation when she made no effort to continue the conversation.

Green eyes flared with resentment. She was pretty confident that the idea to come and collect her had been mainly David Kendrick's.

‘All right,’ he murmured indulgently, that enticing half-smile on his lips. ‘I had no intention of letting you cry off dinner tonight.'

Jade had to admire his honesty—even if it was what she had already known!

There were a lot of things about this man she could have admired if things had been different. But they weren't, and so she viewed him with the same wariness she did all strangers—more so, because he was even stranger than most!

Her gaze met his coolly. ‘I would have telephoned if I hadn't intended coming,’ she dismissed.

He grinned confidently. ‘Now there's no reason for you to have to do so. And don't worry about being able to get back later tonight; the Range Rover can easily get through any English snowfall.'

Giving the impression that this man had been in places where the vehicle wouldn't have stood a chance of doing that. Jade looked at him speculatively. Yes, he looked like a well-travelled and intelligent man, someone she would normally have found fascinating to talk to. Normally. Unfortunately, the situation wasn't normal; how could it be, when the man was so outrageous?

Her mouth tightened. ‘Would you care to wait in the living-room while I go and change?’ Her tone was distinctly distant.

He smiled, unperturbed by her offhand manner. ‘I thought you would never ask,’ he murmured as he strolled past her into the tiny room behind, pausing to look around him appreciatively at the antique furniture and décor she had deliberately chosen to complement the olde worlde character of the cottage.

‘Hello, boy.’ He went down on his haunches to tickle Wellington on his silkily soft tummy. ‘At least you have the right idea,’ he continued ruefully, still hunched down beside the cat.

Jade mentally acknowledged that a quiet evening spent in front of the glowing fire certainly held more appeal for her than one spent in this man's company. As for Wellington, he was behaving like a complete traitor; usually he ran away to hide when confronted by someone he wasn't familiar with, which was virtually everyone, but with David Kendrick he looked to be in ecstasies, an uncharacteristic look of total stupidity on his face as he still lay on his back, having his tummy stroked.

‘I'll go and change,’ she repeated stiltedly, turning abruptly to leave the room.

When David Kendrick stood up to turn towards her he was holding Wellington in his arms, still tickling him under the chin—and if Jade hadn't known better she would have sworn the silly feline was actually smiling. Damn it, he was smiling!

‘Mind he doesn't scratch you,’ she warned sharply. ‘He has been known to do that without warning.'

Dark brows rose over mocking blue eyes. ‘It's always the ones that look the friendliest that do that,’ he said softly.

Jade felt the colour warm her cheeks at his obvious double meaning. ‘It's a question of watching the eyes,’ she snapped.

His mouth quirked. ‘I'll try and remember that.'

‘Do,’ she bit out, trying not to hurry from the room but knowing she hadn't really succeeded; something about David Kendrick made her very nervous. Which was ridiculous. She was a teacher, for goodness’ sake, a responsible adult in charge of seventeen pupils on a day-to-day basis—and heaven knew, children could be complex enough to deal with on occasion. And yet David Kendrick completely disconcerted her. Maybe it was the fact that he seemed to have come so close so quickly; usually she didn't allow the type of familiarity he had taken for granted from the first. Whatever the reason, and despite the dinner they would be sharing this evening in the company of Penny and Simon, she had no intention of allowing him to come any closer.