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Authors: Emma Darcy

Merry Christmas (Mills & Boon Vintage 90s Modern) (6 page)

BOOK: Merry Christmas (Mills & Boon Vintage 90s Modern)

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“Miss...Miss Palmer?” Kimberly called hesitantly.

Miss Palmer
...a stranger.

Meredith had automatically veiled her thoughts and it was an effort to lift her lashes and summon a smile. “Yes?”

. Kimberly searched her eyes worriedly. “You were looking so sad. Did I say something wrong?”

“No.” Meredith’s smile turned wry. “It’s just...I wish I could have been there to cheer you on when you won the swimming championship.”

“Mum always used to come and watch me.”

Mum
... It was like a stab to the heart. But Denise Graham wouldn’t be there to watch her adopted daughter windsurfing. The past was gone and Meredith silently berated herself for brooding over it. She had to concentrate on the future.

“I’m sure she was very proud of you,” she said as warmly as she could.

Kimberly shifted uncomfortably. “It’s sort of weird. I know you’re my real mother...but Mum was Mum...and you look so young...”

“Are you worried about what to call me?” Meredith put in helpfully.

It triggered an instant appeal. “Uncle Nick said maybe your first name...if that was okay by you. It feels a bit stodgy, calling you Miss Palmer.”

“Try Merry.” The special name slipped out before Meredith thought better of it.

“Merry... short for Meredith,” Kimberly mused. “Is that what your friends call you?”

She hesitated, glancing quickly at Nick Hamilton. He looked back at her quizzically. The name had no relevance to him. Somehow that painful truth goaded her to say to their daughter, “Only one other person has ever used that name for me.”

“Your mother?” came the quick guess.

“No.”

“Who then?” Curiosity piqued.

There was almost a savage, primitive satisfaction in relating how it had been, knowing that Nick Hamilton was listening, unaware she was speaking of him. “It was your father, Kimberly. Your real father. When he met me he said it was like all the Christmas lights in the world switching on inside him and when he asked me my name and I told him, he shook his head and said...”

Suddenly she choked, the memory so vivid, and here she was, all these years later, sitting with the heart-wrenching outcome of the one love affair of her life... with a daughter she didn’t know and the lover who didn’t know her.

“What did he say?” Kimberly prompted avidly, caught up in the story about her real father, her eyes begging to be told.

She had to go on. Impossible to retract or retreat. Meredith was intensely conscious of Nick Hamilton listening...sitting very still and listening as she forced the words past the lump in her throat.

“He said...not Meredith. Merry. It has to be Merry. I laughed and asked him why...”

“Yes?” Kimberly urged.

Meredith took a deep breath to steady her voice. “It was Christmas time, you see. Just as it is now. And he looked at me, his eyes sparkling so much it felt like I was in a shower of beautiful fireworks. I’ve never forgotten the moment or the reply he gave me.”

She paused, fighting back tears.

Kimberly was breathlessly hanging on hearing it all.

Nick Hamilton remained still and silent.

“Merry...” she repeated softly, hugging the poignant memory to herself as she turned her head away from both of them and stared out across the endlessly shifting waters to the old stone fort that had once served as a prison. History, she thought. It’s past history. Old history. Forgotten history. Only she remembered the words. She could still hear them, just as they had been spoken, and the long echo of happy pleasure furred her voice as she added, “...
Because you’re my Merry Christmas.
”

CHAPTER SEVEN

LIKE all the Christmas lights in the world switching on inside him
...

Nick found himself captivated by that image, realising it was uncannily accurate. He sat staring at the woman who’d conjured it up, wishing he could read her mind, wishing she was not such a disturbing enigma to him.

He hadn’t even tried to define what he felt when he’d spotted her amongst the crowd. She’d been standing still, her whole being concentrated on him, an energy force that zapped across the distance between them and set off a host of electric charges through his nervous system. The impact had stunned him for several seconds.

She was still affecting him. Not only was the physical attraction disconcertingly strong, his mind was being continually teased by the sense of recognition. He figured the only way to deal with that was to wait for her to reveal more about herself, hopefully something that would explain the inexplicable to him.

Whoever Kimberly’s real father was, he’d undoubtedly been a smooth-tongued bastard to come up with that apt and evocative description. It was all too clear that lover boy had taken his
Merry Christmas
and left her pregnant, the fanciful words just so much tinsel when it came to a test of integrity and commitment.

Looking at the sad wistfulness on her face, the memory of him lingering in her mind, Nick had no trouble believing she’d fallen for the guy like a ton of bricks. Then the harsh realities of being left with a baby must have fallen on her like a ton of bricks.

She couldn’t have been much more than a kid; innocent, naive, trusting, caught up in romantic excitement, falling in love for probably the first time. The odd part was, she didn’t sound bitter about the lover who hadn’t stood by her. It was almost as though she cherished the memory.

Kimberly heaved a huge, sentimental sigh over the romantic story. “I think that’s lovely,” she softly gushed. “Thank you for telling me, Merry.”

Her mother’s face lightened as she swung her attention back to his niece...her daughter. “It was the best Christmas of my life until now. Meeting you today is the most wonderful thing that’s happened to me since.”

“But you must have had good times in between.” Kimberly was appalled at the idea of twelve Christmases going by with not much to say for them. They had always been a big deal for her. “Don’t you have a family to go to?” she asked in concern.

A sad shake of the head. “My mother died when I was eight. My father remarried when I was twelve. He was swept off rocks by a big wave while fishing and drowned when I was fourteen.” She grimaced. “Which left me with my stepmother.”

“You didn’t like her?” Kimberly popped in.

“We didn’t get on very well.” The reply was clearly understated.

Kimberly flashed a pointed look at Nick. The message was loud and clear. She didn’t want a stepmother. If he was thinking of marrying Rachel he’d better take notice.

Rachel, however, had never been further from Nick’s mind and the idea of marrying her had slipped into limbo. His thoughts were constantly revolving around the woman sitting opposite him.

Having shot him her warning, Kimberly persisted on the subject with her
real
mother. “I bet she didn’t want you with her.”

“You’re right,” came the ready concession. “She made me feel like leftover baggage from her marriage to my father. The last straw for her was my getting pregnant at sixteen. She called me a lot of nasty names but none of them was true.” Her expression softened. “I loved your father, Kimberly. He was the only one.”

The warm feeling in her voice curled around Nick’s heart and squeezed it. An irrational jealousy burned his mind. The guy who’d let her down didn’t deserve being loved and cherished. He’d had something precious and wasted it. Something in Nick fiercely rebelled at that man being
the only one
in Merry’s life.

Merry... Damn it! The name had an insidious attraction. Nick silently vowed not to use it. It might give Kimberly a happy sense of being linked to her real father, which was fair enough, but Nick instinctively recoiled from using
his
special name for her. Meredith, he thought, forcefully stamping on the strong appeal of
Merry
.

“What happened?” Kimberly’s question snapped Nick’s attention back to her. She was frowning, looking puzzled, worrying over her mother. “I mean...he shouldn’t have left you. How could he? Especially when you were going to have his baby.”

No wool pulled over Kimberly’s eyes, Nick thought with approval. She’d gone straight to the crux of the matter. It would do Meredith good to see the past from a less rosy-eyed, emotional perspective.

“Sometimes things happen that we have no control over, Kimberly.”

The rueful reply twisted him up again. “What things?” he demanded, more harshly than he meant to. His insides writhed with embarrassment. Meredith Palmer’s personal past was none of his business. It was okay for Kimberly to ask about it but he should be keeping his mouth shut.

Those soul-tugging green eyes fastened on his and he had the weird sensation they were drawing on his mind, looking for an answer that would make sense to him.

“He was twenty-two,” she said quietly. “When he found out I was only sixteen, he thought he should wait until I was older. We parted on the understanding of contacting each other at Christmas each year.”

“But when you found out you were having me, didn’t you tell him?” Kimberly queried. “Wasn’t that more important than waiting for the next Christmas?”

Nick felt a sense of release as Meredith Palmer turned her gaze to his niece. It was like a cobweb of tingling threads being withdrawn. So conscious was he of the extraordinary effect, he barely heard her reply.

“I tried. Circumstances had changed for him. He’d gone overseas and I had no way of making contact.”

“What about when the next Christmas came?” Kimberly pressed. “Did he write?”

A wistful shake of the head. “Not to my knowledge. If he wrote, the letter went astray.”

Kimberly was visibly distressed by the tragic outcome of that possibility. She searched for a way around it. There was none, yet the pleading for some other resolution was in her voice as she cried, “He didn’t ever come back to you?”

It was wrong for him not to. So obviously, hurtfully wrong. Kimberly needed some mitigation for his abandonment of her mother. It was all too plain to Nick that to her young, trusting mind, a love such as Meredith had described, should have an answer. He should have come. But that emotional certainty didn’t change anything. It only raised a tension that tore at all of them.

Meredith Palmer summoned a wry smile in an effort to dissipate it. “Time moves on and people move on, Kimberly. They meet other people.”

The philosophical reply didn’t satisfy. Nick found it too tolerant and forgiving. Kimberly heaved another sigh, this one of deep discontent. She didn’t like the story left dangling in no man’s land.

“But you’re so beautiful, Merry!” she protested. “I don’t see how he could forget you.”

Nick saw the flicker of pain on Meredith Palmer’s face and suffered a wave of guilt for having encouraged this line of questioning. Of course she would feel obliged to answer Kimberly, wanting her daughter’s sympathy and probably frightened of condemnation. But on their part, shouldn’t curiosity take second place to compassion? God only knew how rough a time she’d been through. They should let the past rest and get on with the present.

And the future.

He quickly inserted, “There could have been other reasons why your real father never came back, Kimberly. Since none of us know, let’s leave it at that, shall we? I’m sure Miss Palmer would like to talk of happier things.”

“Oh!” Kimberly squirmed as her mind flashed through other scenarios, probably remembering last year’s fatal car accident. “Uncle Nick said you run a florist business,” she said in a gush of relief at having seized on a less sensitive subject. “What’s your favourite flower?”

Flower Power
provided bright conversation. Nick sat back and let it flow, discreetly observing the fascinating play of expression on Meredith Palmer’s face, the eloquent body language encompassing the listening tilt of her head, the graceful hand gestures, the concentrated interest, the warm inviting smiles. Her whole being was reaching out to her child with every breath she took, every word she spoke.

Kimberly was entranced.

Nick wondered what it would be like to have all her passionate intensity focused on him. He fought a constant battle against a tightening in his loins. Desiring a woman so much on such little acquaintance was a new experience and he wasn’t sure he liked it. Being in control was second nature to him. Around this woman, the laws of nature didn’t seem to apply.

Again he was tantalised by the question of how her image had been branded on his subconscious and why it emerged in his dreams. She
was
beautiful, though it was more the power behind the beauty that teased Nick’s mind. Kimberly had a point in blurting out,
I don’t see how he could forget you!
On no acquaintance at all, Nick had found Meredith Palmer so unforgettable she haunted his dreams! Any way he looked at it, that teetered on the supernatural.

He was glad when lunch arrived. Eating was an ordinary human habit. Not that she ate much. Nick forced himself to consume everything on his plate and the lion’s share of the salad, as well. It proved, at least to all outward appearances, he was handling everything with ease.

Occasionally Kimberly called on him to comment on some point of the conversation but Meredith Palmer never once tried to draw him into it. He sensed she was wary of him, guarded, perhaps overconscious of his power to call a halt to this meeting and take Kimberly away from her. Or was she as acutely aware of him as he was of her, and hiding it in case it created a problem in future meetings with her daughter?

He was still speculating on this possibility when Kimberly turned to him, her face transparently eager as she asked, “Uncle Nick, is it all right for Merry to come over to the apartment tomorrow? I could show her all my stuff.”

“Would you like to, Miss Palmer?” he asked, wanting to make her look at him full-on again. For the past hour he’d received no more than brief, courteous glances, frustrating his need to know if he was right about a mutual attraction.

Her eyes met his and his stomach contracted. Hope burned in their luminous green depths, an anguished hope that begged more from him than a casual invitation. “Yes,” she said simply. Then as though belatedly recognising it might be an imposition on his generosity, she flushed and added, “If it won’t inconvenience you, Mr. Hamilton.”

“You’re welcome.” It was the truth. On more levels than he cared to examine. He wanted her. Not in his dreams, but in his flesh and blood life. She held the promise of things that demanded exploration.

“Thank you.”

Her smile was radiant, bathing him in a pulsing glow of happiness. “Call me Nick,” he commanded on a sudden rush of blood to the head. He didn’t want distance between them. He wanted... God! It was almost impossible to clamp down on his rioting feelings but he managed some semblance of it, smiling back at her and asking, “May I call you Meredith?”

The sparkling light in her eyes momentarily receded, as though sucked back to some dark place in her soul. It burst on him again so quickly, the slight falter was erased and Nick was showered with pleasure.

“Yes. Please do.”

The soft lilt of her voice sang through him, stroking chords and striking harmonies that filled him with a glorious sense of well-being. The sense of starting out on a path that had always been waiting for them was overwhelming.

Kimberly reclaimed her attention, working out the details of tomorrow’s visit. Nick didn’t care what was arranged. Something special had started between him and Meredith Palmer. He knew it in his bones. The determination to pursue it as far as it could go was burning in his heart. Tomorrow was the next step.

Meredith...maybe when he’d called her by her full name she’d momentarily remembered the guy who’d called her Merry, but she’d come back to him with a burst of positive signals. Nick was fiercely glad that her one great love had walked out of her life and never returned, elated that he had this chance at something unbelievably unique in his experience.

Surely she could put that man behind her now. Thirteen years had passed. Though she hadn’t forgotten him. But Kimberly had hit the nail on the head. How could he have forgotten her? The man had to be a shallow fool, probably breaking hearts wherever he went on his very convenient trip overseas.

Nick reflected, with some irony, that he’d been twenty-two himself, thirteen years ago. And he’d gone off overseas at the same time, having won a grant for further studies at Harvard University in the U.S.

Strange, the little coincidences in life...the man who’d left her...and the man with her now. Had the two of them met? he wondered. Had he been shown a photograph of Merry?

He couldn’t recall any such incident.

It didn’t really matter.

The woman of his dreams was with him in reality. He didn’t care what had happened before. The future was his to make.

BOOK: Merry Christmas (Mills & Boon Vintage 90s Modern)

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