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He shook his head. ‘It wasn’t hard, Blondie. You always made me feel as though I was Santa himself from the moment I walked through the door. How could that be hard?’

Bryony smiled. She used to stand with her nose pressed against the window, waiting for Jack to arrive. Longing to show him her presents.

‘You were just like Lizzie.’ His voice softened at the memory. ‘I remember the year you had your ballet dress from Santa. You wore it with your Wellington boots because you were dying to play outside in the snow but no one could persuade you to take it off. You were in the garden building a snowman in pink satin and tulle. Do you remember?’

‘I remember tearing it climbing a tree.’ Bryony laughed. ‘I just wanted to keep up with my brothers.’

On impulse she reached out and touched his leg, feeling the rock-hard muscle under her fingers. ‘Come for Christmas, Jack. Please?’

He gave her a funny, lopsided smile that was so sexy she suddenly found it hard to breathe. ‘Better see what Santa produces for Lizzie first,’ he said softly, turning into the road that led to her cottage. ‘I might not be welcome.’

Bryony slumped back in her seat, the reminder that she’d so far failed to solve the problem of Lizzie’s Christmas present bursting her bubble of happiness.

What was she going to do about Lizzie’s present?

At some point soon she was going to have to sit her little girl down and tell her that Santa couldn’t deliver a daddy. Otherwise Christmas morning was going to be a disappointment.

Trying to console herself with the thought that there must be something else that Lizzie would like for Christmas, Bryony realised that Jack had stopped the car.

‘Ready to unload this tree?’ He glanced behind him and winced. ‘I can’t believe you chose a tree that big.’

Lizzie pulled the headphones off her ears and giggled. ‘It wasn’t Mummy, it was you, Jack.’

‘Me?’ He looked horrified as he jumped out of the car with athletic grace and turned to lift the little girl out. ‘I chose that?’

Lizzie was laughing. ‘You know you did.’

‘Well, we’d better get it in your house, then.’

Laughing and grumbling, Jack dragged the tree inside the house and proceeded to secure it in a bucket with his usual calm efficiency.

Bryony gazed upwards and shook her head in disbelief. ‘It’s bent at the top.’

‘It’s perfect,’ Lizzie sighed, and Jack nodded solemnly.

‘Perfect.’

Bryony rolled her eyes, forced to accept that she was outnumbered. ‘OK. Well, we’ve got it now, so let’s decorate it.’

They spent the rest of the afternoon draping the tree with lights and baubles until it sparkled festively. Lizzie produced a pink fairy to go on top of the tree and Jack lifted her so that she could position it herself.

Then Jack went into the garden and cut boughs of holly from the tree and they decorated the fireplace.

Bryony produced mince pies and they sat on the carpet, admiring their decorations and enjoying the atmosphere.

Bryony smiled as she looked around her. ‘I feel Christmassy.’

‘That’s because of the size of the tree,’ Jack told her, his handsome face serious as he bit into a mince pie. ‘Any smaller and you wouldn’t be feeling the way you’re feeling now.’

But watching him and Lizzie fighting over the last mince pie, Bryony realised that the warm Christmassy feeling that she had in the pit of her stomach had nothing to do with the tree and everything to do with the three of them being together. They felt like a family.

But they weren’t a family.

Jack didn’t want to be part of a family.

Watching Lizzie climbing all over him, dropping crumbs over his trousers and the carpet, Bryony wondered if he realised that he actually was part of a family.

Whether he liked it or not, he was a huge part of her life. And she couldn’t imagine it any other way, even if ultimately she found a daddy for Lizzie. And just thinking of how she was going to tell Lizzie that Santa hadn’t managed to produce a daddy on Christmas Day filled her with overwhelming depression.