How did our Hayley ever get herself a man like that?
Smiling at her own fantasies, she reached towards the doorbell.
Patrick pushed the haphazardly wrapped presents under the tree and looked at his ten-year-old son. ‘Alfie, why are you looking at the clock?’
Alfie gave a guilty start. ‘I don’t keep looking at the clock.’
‘Yes, you do.’
‘Well, it’s Christmas Eve. I—I’m excited.’ Alfie’s gaze slid furtively to the door. ‘Daddy, don’t you wish you had someone to help cook the turkey?’
‘I can cook a turkey.’ Patrick added a strip of sticky tape to a parcel that was bursting out of its wrapping.
‘Last year you said if you ever saw a turkey again it would be too soon.’
Patrick winced. Was Christmas ever going to run smoothly? ‘That was last year. I’ve studied a cookery book. I don’t foresee any complications.’ He tried to look confident. He could perform a Caesarean section in less than four minutes if the need arose. Why did he struggle to cook a turkey?
‘If you had a wife, she could cook the turkey.’
‘That isn’t a reason to get married. These days, women don’t always like doing that sort of thing.’ Patrick extracted himself from under the tree, his wide shoulders dragging through the branches and sending a shower of needles over the pale wooden floor. ‘Why are you talking about wives? We’re going to have a great Christmas. You, Posy and me.’
‘And the kittens.’
‘And the kittens.’ Remembering the kittens, Patrick frowned. ‘That woman who phoned earlier is coming to look at them any moment now. With any luck she’ll fall in love with them and that will solve one of our problems.’
‘The kittens aren’t a problem!’
‘Having four of them is a problem.’ Seeing the forlorn look on Alfie’s face, Patrick felt a flash of guilt and squatted down in front of his son. ‘Alfie, we cannot keep four kittens.’
Alfie fiddled with a bauble on the tree. ‘What if the woman gets here and she doesn’t want the kittens?’
‘Why wouldn’t she want the kittens? That’s why she’s coming.’ Patrick scooped up a pile of discarded books and stood up. ‘Take this lot up to your bedroom, will you? We need to make room for all the new mess you’re going to make on Christmas Day.’
Alfie looked up at him, a flash of desperation in his eyes. ‘Do you promise that whatever happens you won’t be angry?’
Patrick frowned. ‘Alfie, what is going on?’ He forced himself to ask the question that always niggled at the back of his mind. ‘Are you missing Mum? Is that what this is about?’
Alfie rubbed his foot along the groove in the floor. ‘Do you miss her?’
How did you tell a child that divorce had come as a blessing?
‘Your mum and I made a mistake when we got married,’ Patrick said gruffly. ‘It happens. It has nothing to do with you. We both love you.’
‘But you didn’t really love each other.’
Abandoning the books, Patrick squatted back down in front of his son. ‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘We didn’t. Not enough to make marriage work. We’d only known each other a month when we decided to get married.’ He didn’t add that Carly had become pregnant on purpose. ‘We didn’t know each other well enough and it’s important to take the time to get to know someone. I didn’t make your mum happy.’
‘Is that why she was always yelling at you?’
‘She didn’t always yell,’ Patrick said tactfully, but Alfie interrupted him.
‘She yelled all the time. And that day she left—two Christmases ago—she shouted at you because you went to deliver those triplets when she had lunch on the table.’
Patrick knew from experience that there was no point in lying. ‘That’s right, she did. She was upset.’
‘She said she was thinking of getting pregnant again because that way she might at least get to see you in the damn antenatal clinic.’
Patrick pressed his fingers into the bridge of his nose, knowing that this wasn’t the time to lecture on language. He was just relieved that neither of his children appeared to have inherited his ex-wife’s filthy temper. ‘She was very angry with me,’ he said evenly. ‘She’d made plans for a special Christmas, but I was on call at the hospital and I—well, in my job, I can’t always plan.’ Not for a moment would he tell the child that his mother had liked the idea of being married to a wealthy obstetrician, but not the reality. ‘Why are we talking about this now?’
‘I don’t know.’ Alfie shrugged. ‘Because it’s Christmas and Mum left at Christmas.’
‘Christmas can be a difficult time for lots of families,’ Patrick said roughly, watching his son’s face. ‘Is it full of bad memories for you?’
‘No. I like being with you,’ Alfie said honestly. ‘I like the fact that there’s no shouting because you never shout. Does it make me bad that I don’t miss her?’
Was that what had been worrying the child? Guilt that he didn’t miss his mother? ‘It doesn’t make you bad.’ Anger towards his ex-wife shot through him like white heat and Patrick hugged the boy tightly, feeling his heart split in two.
Alfie gave a croak of protest. ‘Daddy, you’re squeezing me!’
‘Sorry.’ His tone gruff, he released his hold. ‘I love you. You know that, don’t you?’ The words came easily, driven by a burning determination to be a better father to his son than his own father had been to him. To feel, and to express those feelings without embarrassment.
‘And I love you.’ Alfie was openly affectionate. ‘And you’re the best doctor in the world, everyone says so. If you have to go to the hospital this Christmas, I’ll come with you. We’re a team. Team Buchannan. Do you think they’ll have chocolates?’
Touched by the hero-worship, Patrick smiled. ‘Stacks of them. Maggie is saving you the best. And, Alfie, I’m not the best doctor in the world.’
‘You are. You’re so cool. You saved Matt’s little sister’s life when she was born—she would have died if it hadn’t been for you. And Jenna’s mum says she’d marry you if you asked her.’
Startled, Patrick lifted his eyebrows. ‘You heard her say that?’
‘Yes. I heard her talking to another mum on the phone. She said you were really hot. But I don’t see how she could have known what temperature you were because you weren’t there and, anyway, it had just snowed. You made me wear a vest. How could you have been hot?’
Patrick let out a long breath and made a mental note to keep his distance from Jenna’s mum. ‘Well—I—’
‘Do you want to get married again, Dad?’
Patrick felt the conversation spiralling out of control. ‘Marriage is a big thing,’ he said carefully, ‘and when you’ve been wrong once, it makes you wary about doing it again. But maybe one day. If I know someone really, really well.’ He wouldn’t be making the same mistake he’d made with Carly. No more whirlwind relationships. Trying not to think about the girl he’d met in Chicago, he concentrated on his son. ‘Do you want me to get married again?’
‘It would be nice to have someone on our team who can cook.’
‘I can cook.’ Patrick picked up the books again. ‘Just wait until tomorrow.’
Alfie looked unconvinced. ‘Will you poison