Silver Christmas (4 page)

Chloe hugged her again, and Jennifer felt the
girl's tears wet her shoulder. Owen appeared in the open doorway,
staring at them, his expression unreadable.

She had to make peace with him. She'd blamed
him for what had happened because it made her feel better, but she
had to take responsibility for her own decision. Although he must
accept his part in what happened as well.

For Chloe's sake, they needed to be
friends.

• • •

Owen returned the business calls he had to make from
the estate office, and rose from his chair as his dairy manager
called his name from the outer office.

"The guys from the grocery chain are here,"
Ned said as Owen walked through to join him.

"Okay, this'll be interesting. I think they
need us more than we need them. We should be able to negotiate a
good profit margin." The market for quality goats' cheese had
exploded recently, and the supermarkets couldn't get enough of
it.

Owen strode into the yard and extended a hand
to the party of two men and a woman who were climbing out of a car.
Once they'd introduced themselves, he showed them the goat shed
where the mated does were housed, and the separate enclosure for
the male goats, all the while giving the group the history of the
Rosemoor Dairy goat herd and their company principles of being
totally organic and sustainable, sourcing everything from the local
area.

Yet even as he talked and answered questions,
a tiny part of his mind was back in the farmhouse with Jennifer.
She'd been here three days now, and had spent most of the time on
her laptop or phone searching for a new job. It didn't sound as
though she was short of offers. She had the two zoo positions in
the bag if she wanted one of them—good for her, but both were too
far away for his liking.

He wanted her close. If he were honest with
himself, he wanted her here, at Rosemoor Farm with Chloe and him.
He tried to kid himself he was only thinking of what was best for
his daughter, but he knew that wasn't the whole truth. It annoyed
him, but Jennifer still attracted him as she had since the day he
first set eyes on her.

Owen walked the visitors across the yard,
turning up his coat collar against the bitter winter wind whistling
through the bare tree branches and cracks in the farm buildings. At
the entrance of the dairy, he waited while they put on disposable
white coveralls. He hung around while Ned explained how the goats'
milk was piped directly from the dairy to the cheese-making
facility next door, so there was minimum risk of contamination.

As Ned opened the door to the huge old
Jacobean barn to reveal the state-of-the-art stainless steel room
inside that housed the clean area, he smiled at the visitors'
gasps.

"It's like a magic trick," one of them said.
"Old on the outside and high-tech inside."

Owen laughed along with them, enjoying their
surprise as he always did when people first saw the Rosemoor Dairy
cheese production area. It had been his idea to put it inside the
old barn, so they didn't have a modern building spoiling the look
of the farm.

After the door closed behind the visitors,
Owen turned, knowing he should return to the estate office to deal
with the pile of work on his desk, but he really wanted to go back
to the farmhouse and see Jennifer. As he hesitated, one of the
dairy hands walked over.

"Mr. Bramwell, a cat has made a nest in the
hay store. I need to shift some bales with the tractor, but I don't
want to disturb it. Looks like it's about to have kittens."

Owen welcomed the diversion, knowing the
prospect of kittens would thrill Chloe. She adored all animals,
especially baby ones, and long may that last. He dreaded the day
she switched her attention to teenage boys. They were bad news.
He'd been one and could speak from experience.

He followed the lad across the yard to the
open-fronted barn where they kept the large round bales, and
crouched to peer in a gap. Snuggled in the warm, dry nook was a
tabby cat with an unmistakable swollen belly.

He was fairly sure he hadn't seen this cat
before, so goodness knows where it had come from. "We need to move
you, girl, or you're going to get squashed."

Owen knew just the place for her. Grabbing
one of the old towels they used for the goats, he laid it on the
hay-strewn cement floor. He pushed his arm into the gap between the
bales, wincing as teeth and claws dug into his hand while he tried
to ease the cat out.

"Ow! Come on, Miss Scratchy, I'm trying to
help you."

When he finally extracted the uncooperative
tabby from her hideout, he wrapped her in the towel and picked her
up, careful of her bulging belly. He strode towards the farmhouse,
eager to put her down and stop being a pincushion.

"Come and open my back door for me, would
you?" he called over his shoulder to the young dairy hand.

The lad did as he asked, and Owen toed off
his dirty shoes in the hallway before walking through the kitchen
in his socks. Jennifer was sitting at the kitchen table in front of
the stove, swamped in one of his thick cable-knit sweaters, staring
at her laptop screen with a pen held above a pad of paper.

She rose as he entered, her eyes wide. "Is
the cat injured?"

"No. Pregnant."

"Ah. We need somewhere warm and enclosed to
put her."

"I was thinking of the linen closet in my
parents' old bathroom. Chloe and I don't use the room much since it
only contains a bathtub and we both prefer showers."

"Do you have a box and old pet bedding we can
use?" Jennifer said, eyebrows raised in question.

"Dog towels in a heap in the cupboard in the
mudroom, and there should be a cardboard box from the organic veg
company on the washing machine."

While Jennifer dashed to the mudroom, Owen
went upstairs to the bathroom, pushed open the door, and headed for
the linen closet. The hot water tank inside kept the small closet
toasty, even in the winter. Jennifer caught up with him and set the
cardboard box on the floor of the closet, and placed folded towels
topped with a sheepskin pad inside for their feline visitor.

Owen crouched and carefully deposited the cat
on her bed. He half expected her to bolt, but she circled and
scratched at the sheepskin, yowling.

Jennifer knelt at the cat's side and ran her
hand over the creature, talking softly as she felt her belly. "It's
all right, girl. You'll be fine."

Owen leaned a hand on the door frame and
watched, transported back to the first time he saw Jennifer when
she was an intern for the local vet, and they came to check over a
horse his father was about to sell.

When she'd stepped out of the vet's pickup,
Owen had been mesmerized by the sway of her body as she walked, and
the way her golden hair slid over her shoulders. He'd always had an
eye for a pretty girl, but Jennifer had knocked his socks off.

His gaze drifted from the cat to Jennifer
kneeling beside it, her wrist and hand pale and delicate within the
thick knit of the oversized sleeve of the sweater he'd loaned her.
He vividly remembered the feel of those slim fingers in his, the
first time he'd reached for her hand, unsure if she would pull
away, and his sense of triumph when she didn't.

He wanted to touch her now, to rest his hand
on her shoulder near the short blond hair that curled on her
neck.

Owen closed his eyes and rubbed his face. He
needed to get a grip and be realistic. Jennifer had come back for
Chloe, not for him. Ten years ago, she'd made it perfectly clear
she didn't love him and didn't want to be with him. She'd even
abandoned her baby so she didn't have to marry him.

Jennifer rose to her feet and tried to step back.
Owen was so close behind her she should have felt her personal
space invaded, yet she didn't.

She glanced over her shoulder at the darkly
shadowed curve of his jaw, and his strong hand braced against the
door frame. Memories she'd thought forgotten flooded back, the
touch of his hand on her face, the feel of his arms around her,
drawing her back against his chest.

Looking down, she concentrated on the
pregnant cat, trying to push memories of Owen from her mind. She
didn't want to have feelings for him; it complicated things and
made her vulnerable. When Owen turned on the charm, he was a master
at getting what he wanted—as she knew to her cost.

Her teenage pledge to focus on her studies
and not let boys distract her until she'd qualified as a vet was
forgotten when she met Owen. She'd nearly lost herself in their
passionate relationship, nearly lost sight of her dreams. Being
close to Owen clouded her judgment. Because of that, she'd had to
make the terrible choice between her career and her baby—and had
made the wrong choice.

"Excuse me." Her sharp tone got an immediate
result. He stepped back quickly, looking confused as if he didn't
know what he'd done to annoy her.

"Is there a problem?"

"Not right now. I want to go get my medical
bag from the car just in case, though," she said, purposely
misunderstanding him.

Jennifer hurried out into the cool air,
drawing in deep breaths to calm herself as she grabbed the bag from
the backseat of her car. When she went back inside, Owen had put
the kettle on to make a pot of tea.

He'd certainly changed in the last ten years,
becoming very domesticated. She wasn't sure he'd even known how to
make a cup of tea ten years ago. Now he could cook dinner. He'd
made them a tuna casserole yesterday evening, and it had tasted
pretty good.

Being a dad was the making of the man, it
seemed. After only a few days here, she had no doubt he adored his
daughter. He'd given up the fast life. It was plain to see his
world revolved around Chloe. This made her even more certain that
no way would she ever take Chloe away from her dad.

"Does the mama cat belong to you?" she asked
him.

"No, Mama Cat's a stranger." He glanced over
his shoulder, a half smile on his lips.

Her heart dipped and dived as more memories
cascaded back. Now that she'd opened the floodgates, she couldn't
stop them. "She's in very good condition, definitely someone's
much-loved pet."

"We can take a photo of her and put up some
flyers in the village. I expect Chloe would like to do that."

"I'm glad it's Saturday tomorrow. I forecast
Mama Cat will give birth tonight or tomorrow. It'll be a good
experience for Chloe to watch."

Owen laughed. "My guess is wild horses
wouldn't drag her away. She'll be camped out in the bathroom as
soon as she gets home from school."

Jennifer watched Owen pour the tea and add
two spoonfuls of sugar to his cup. He glanced her way, the faintest
hint of uncertainty in his eyes. That was new—Owen unsure of
himself. Loving Chloe made him vulnerable, and it touched
Jennifer's heart.

She rounded the table and took one of his
hands between hers. "I don't want you to worry that I'll try to
take Chloe away from you. I'd never do that, Owen. I can tell
you're a wonderful dad. I wouldn't want to damage your relationship
with Chloe or hurt either of you."

Everything seemed to still as she gazed up
into his face, into the deep, rich brown of his eyes, and a wave of
sorrow for what might have been crashed through her.

The sound of a car and people's voices
outside broke the spell, then Owen's arms came around her and drew
her close against his chest. She sank against his warmth,
remembering the feel of him as if he'd held her only yesterday.

"Thank you, Jenn." His voice was full of
relief and pitched low, close to her ear, the sound a caress to her
senses.

For just this once, she allowed herself to
relax and take comfort. She let go of the fear and pain of the
nightmarish months following her shooting, pretending she was safe
and loved, the way she might have been if she'd stayed.

• • •

Owen couldn't stop smiling as he picked Chloe up from
school. She gazed at him quizzically as she climbed in the car.

"What's happened, Dad?"

Your mum isn't going to try to take you
away from me,
he thought, yet that wasn't a topic he wanted to
trouble Chloe with. Instead he said something he knew would bring a
smile to his daughter's face.

"We have a cat at home about to give birth to
kittens."

"A cat? You're joking, right?" Chloe stared
at him as if trying to see into his thoughts, her expression slowly
morphing to a huge grin. "You're not joking."

She let out an eardrum-deadening squeal and
bounced in her seat. "How come we suddenly have a pregnant
cat?"

"We found her in the barn. We'll have to
locate her owners and give her back, so don't grow too attached to
her, okay?"

"But we can keep some kittens, right?
Please?"

"One kitten."

Chloe pouted, but it was obvious her heart
wasn't in it and her grin was soon back. As they pulled up outside
the back door at Rosemoor Farm, she was out of the vehicle the
second it stopped moving, crashing through the back door to greet
an excited Paddy.

Owen shook his head affectionately as he
followed her, picking up her scattered shoes, kicked off in the
entrance hall.

By the time he reached the bathroom upstairs,
Chloe was kneeling on a cushion by the cat's makeshift bed, with
Jennifer at her side.

"Mum says she'll probably have them tonight,"
Chloe said.

The word
mum
rocked Owen like an earth
tremor every time his daughter said it. Even though he'd always
referred to Jennifer as mum when they spoke of her, it had been an
intellectual concept. To hear the name on his daughter's lips, said
so matter-of-factly, made him feel as though he'd fallen into an
alternate reality, one he'd longed for.

"No sleep for us tonight then?" he
quipped.