Once Upon a Christmas (23 page)

For a moment he stared down at her and she had a breathless feeling that he was going to kiss her.

‘Your hands are freezing.’

He gave a rueful smile and his hands dropped. ‘Sorry. It’s pretty cold out there.’

‘I made you some soup,’ Helen said quickly, dragging her gaze away from his and hurrying through to the kitchen. Of course he wouldn’t have kissed her. She was imagining things. Why on earth would he kiss her? ‘You might not be hungry, but—’

‘I’m starving,’ he said dryly, hanging up his jacket and following her. ‘Believe me, tramping around the fells for nine hours works up an appetite.’

She heated the soup slowly and Oliver sprawled in one of the kitchen chairs and closed his eyes with a groan.

‘I’m knackered.’

She shot him a sympathetic look. ‘Did you find them?’

His eyes opened and he yawned. ‘Eventually. But they weren’t where they said they were so that caused some problems.’

‘Why were they walking in this weather? There’s snow on the ground.’ Helen stirred the soup slowly and Oliver laughed.

‘Because the snow makes the landscape beautiful, my little city girl. Plenty of people ‘round here like to walk and enjoy the hills at this time of year.’

Helen smiled ruefully and poured the soup into a large earthenware bowl. ‘I’m sorry. I must seem like an alien to you. I was born in London, I went to university in London and I’ve worked there ever since.’

Oliver gave a dramatic shudder. ‘It’s a wonder you’re even remotely sane,’ he teased, sniffing appreciatively as she placed the bowl on the scrubbed pine table in front of him. ‘At least they taught you to cook in London. Smells delicious.’

Helen cut two large slices of bread and Oliver looked at her in surprise. ‘That looks home-made.’

‘It is.’ Helen gave a shrug. ‘Not much else to do here in the country when it’s snowing outside. I had to find a way of amusing myself and Bryony’s cupboards are very well stocked.’

Oliver gave a slow, sensual smile that made her insides tumble. ‘We country folk have all sorts of exciting ways of passing the time when the weather is bad.’ He picked up the spoon, his eyes twinkling wickedly. ‘If you’re good, I’ll teach you a few.’

Her tummy did a somersault.

He was flirting with her again and she didn’t know how to handle it.

Unsettled by her reaction to his good-natured teasing
and feeling totally flustered, Helen flicked on the kettle and generally busied herself around the kitchen.

‘So do lots of people go walking in the fells in the middle of January?’ She couldn’t imagine the appeal and she found it hard to understand that some people would choose to be out in that weather.

‘Plenty.’ Oliver tore the bread with his fingers. ‘And if they’re well equipped, that’s no problem. Unfortunately the group today didn’t have what they needed to survive in this weather. Snow changes things. You can’t see the paths. Landmarks look different. It’s easy to get lost.’

‘But you didn’t get lost.’ She couldn’t imagine Oliver Hunter lost in any situation. He was the sort who others would depend on. Someone who would always lead.

‘We have satellite navigation equipment, which helps us pinpoint our exact position.’ He looked at her hopefully. ‘Is there any more soup?’

Pleased that he was enjoying it so much, she poured the remainder into his bowl. ‘But presumably you didn’t always have that technology.’

‘Before satellite navigation we used compasses and good old-fashioned local knowledge.’ Oliver helped himself to more bread. ‘And, believe me, you can’t beat old-fashioned knowledge. Most of us were brought up in these hills. When Tom and I were kids we used to play a game. We’d identify a fixed point, usually miles away, and then we’d walk to it, memorising landmarks on the way. Then we’d return by the same route, using the landmarks to stop ourselves getting lost.’

Helen looked at him blankly. ‘What sort of landmarks?’

Oliver shrugged. ‘A rocky outcrop in a funny shape. A
huge boulder with a stream running nearby. Sometimes it was just a patch of sheep dung.’

‘And did you ever get it wrong?’

Oliver grinned. ‘Never. We had far too much pride to get lost. And by the time we were teenagers we knew the local area so well that we could have walked it with our eyes shut. It was good training for mountain rescue. I’m intimate with an enormous number of boulders between here and Keswick.’

Helen shook her head. ‘It’s so different from my childhood.’

‘Tell me about your childhood.’

Helen settled herself in the chair opposite him. ‘It will sound very boring to you, I’m sure.’ She frowned slightly. ‘My dad was a lawyer in a London firm. I went to a girls’ day school. Mum stayed at home and managed Dad’s life.’

‘No brothers or sisters?’

‘No.’ Helen gave a lopsided smile. ‘I would have loved a sister, actually.’

Oliver nodded. ‘I always imagine that it must be pretty hard to be an only child. All that weight of parental expectation on your head.’

Helen nodded, thinking of her parents’ ambitions for her. ‘And the trouble is when you disappoint them there’s no one else to take the attention away from you.’

‘I can’t imagine you ever being a disappointment.’

Helen sighed. ‘My parents really wanted me to marry David,’ she said simply. ‘They were totally crushed when it all fell through. Embarrassed, humiliated, angry.’ She rubbed her forehead with shaking fingers, suddenly realising that the sanctuary she’d found was only temporary.
At some point she was going to have to face people again. ‘Their reaction was one of the reasons I escaped up here. I could have stayed at home, but they were both so distraught by what had happened that it made the whole situation even more stressful.’

Oliver looked at her keenly. ‘You’re talking as if the whole thing was your fault.’

And that was part of the problem, of course. She’d gone over it a million times in her head.

‘Well, I must have had something to do with it.’

‘For crying out loud, he was the one who rang you from the airport!’ Oliver’s tone was incredulous. ‘He was a total coward. The only good thing about the way he behaved was that it surely showed you that you had a narrow escape.’

‘Escape?’ Helen looked at him. Up until now she’d just been trying to cope with the shock. Trying to adjust to the fact that her future was no longer the way she’d planned it.

Oliver sighed. ‘Would you really want to marry a man who would treat you like that?’

Helen bit her lip. ‘I don’t suppose it’s his fault if he had second thoughts.’

‘It’s his fault that he didn’t stand his ground and face you. He was totally cowardly and he didn’t think about your feelings at all. Just himself.’

It was true, of course. David had only been thinking about himself.

‘What would you have done?’

‘If I’d changed my mind about getting married?’ Oliver let out a long breath. ‘Well, that’s hard to say because I wouldn’t make a mistake like that, but if I did then I would definitely have told you face to face.’

Of course he would.

Only a coward would do it the way David had and Oliver Hunter was certainly no coward.

This man wouldn’t run from anything.

‘My mother thought he was the perfect man.’

Oliver’s mouth tightened. ‘So why didn’t she marry him instead of you?’

Helen smiled. Sometimes she had been a little exasperated, seeing her mother fawn over David.

‘She had my best interests at heart. I suppose she worried about me. Her idea of a perfect life was to find a rich man and marry him. She gave up work as soon as she met my dad. She basically ran Dad’s life. She wanted the same for me.’

‘What about her own life?’

Helen frowned. ‘Well, Dad was her life.’

‘And that’s what you wanted for yourself?’ It was Oliver’s turn to frown. ‘Would you have given up work?’

Helen was silent for a moment. ‘David wanted me to, but I loved my job. To be honest, we’d reached the point where we couldn’t discuss it. It made him angry. My mother was hoping that once the fuss of the wedding was over, I’d come to my senses and resign.’

‘You’re a brilliant nurse, Helen. Why would you want to give it up?’

‘Sitting here with you, I don’t want to give it up,’ she confessed, ‘but back in London, surrounded by people giving me advice, it isn’t quite so easy.’

‘Then we need to make sure you don’t go back to London.’

She laughed. ‘What, you mean hide here with you forever?’

‘Now, there’s a thought.’

Her smile faded. For some ridiculous reason that she couldn’t begin to understand, the prospect of hiding here with Oliver filled her with excitement and warmth.

Telling herself that it was just because he was providing a convenient bolthole, she turned the subject back to him. ‘Didn’t your parents worry about you? Didn’t they have expectations?’

‘My dad was a climber,’ Oliver told her. ‘He trained as a doctor, but all he ever wanted to do was climb. He was always disappearing for weeks at a time to try out a new route on some rock or other. He said that climbing was the most fun that anyone could have, and he encouraged the three of us to climb the moment we could walk.’

‘And your mum didn’t mind?’ Helen looked at him curiously. It was so different from her own background that she found it hard to even imagine what it must have been like to be a child in the Hunter household.

‘Mum loved Dad for who he was, and climbing was part of who he was,’ Oliver said simply. ‘Of the three of us, Tom was probably most like Dad. Bryony and I were happy to mess around on the fells here. Tom wanted the big stuff. He and Dad climbed together in the Alps and the Himalayas.’

‘Didn’t your mum worry?’

‘I’m sure she worried herself sick.’ Oliver gave a wry smile. ‘But she would never have stopped any of us doing what we wanted to do. It was always our decision. She
probably worried more about Tom than me. I think she had a few pangs when he went to the Himalayas.’

Helen winced. ‘I’m sure she did.’

‘Mum was very good at letting us follow our own paths,’ Oliver said thoughtfully. ‘I think she realised that if she tried to stop Tom, he’d do it anyway and then there’d be a rift between them. So she just made sure that he had the very best equipment and that he climbed with people he could trust. At one point we all thought Tom would spend his life climbing. Then suddenly he announced he wanted to be a doctor and that was that. He put the same energy into that as he had into his climbing.’

‘He seems young to be a consultant,’ Helen observed, and Oliver grinned.

‘Don’t tell him that. He’s arrogant enough as it is. Much as it pains me to admit it, my brother is a bit of a hotshot.’

His pride in his brother was obvious and Helen thought again what a thoroughly nice man he was.

‘So, Miss Helen Forrester.’ Oliver stood up and lifted his plate and bowl from the table. ‘That’s my life history.’

‘Sit down. I’ll clear up.’ Helen tried to take the dirty plates from him but he hung onto them firmly.

‘You cooked it,’ he reminded her, and Helen bit her lip.

‘But you’ve been out all day, and—’

‘So?’ Oliver’s tone was questioning. ‘Why does that mean you should be the one to clear up?’

She flushed slightly. ‘You’ve had a hard day, and—’

A muscle flickered in his hard jaw. ‘Is that what he used to say to justify sitting on his backside while you ran ‘round after him?’

The directness of his question caught her by surprise.
‘Yes. No. I mean, his job was much busier than mine and—’

‘Helen.’ Oliver interrupted her and this time there was no trace of amusement in his voice. ‘Don’t make excuses for him. And for your information, I don’t expect you to clear up after me. While we’re living together we share the load.’

Gently but firmly he removed the plates from her fingers and put them in the dishwasher. Then he turned and pushed her towards a chair.

‘Your turn to sit down while I make us both a coffee.’

She did as she was told. ‘Bryony always used to talk about the mountains,’ she said, suddenly eager to change the subject. She didn’t want to dwell on David. ‘She really missed them when she was in London.’

Oliver nodded. ‘Most people who are born here end up coming back. The mountains are in the blood.’

Helen took the coffee he handed her with a smile of thanks. ‘I certainly don’t feel as though London is in my blood,’ she confessed ruefully. ‘It’s been my home all my life, but I’m not missing it at all.’

But perhaps that was because of everything that had happened.

Oliver sat down opposite her and shot her a curious look. ‘Are you not? Well, perhaps we’ll convert you to our rural, heathen ways after all. And tomorrow you’ll find out what it’s like to work in a small GP practice. I hope you like it.’

Helen felt a frisson of anxiety. She was sure she’d like it. But what if she didn’t have the necessary skills? Oliver teased her about being a city girl, but what if she just didn’t fit into his practice?

She gave herself a sharp talking-to.

He’d been so kind to her and he needed help, she reminded herself firmly. And she’d help him or die in the attempt.