A Christmas Miracle

She was wearing some kind of sloppy V-necked T-shirt that dwarfed her shape and fell off her right shoulder. He noted absently there was a hole in her sleeve as his gaze was drawn to the exposed flesh. Her skin was pale, and the hollow between her collarbone and the slope where neck met shoulder was pronounced.

He loved that dip. Hell, he loved all the dips and hollows on a woman’s body.

Suddenly it was gone as she yanked the sleeve up. Reid blinked at the action and the direction of his thoughts. Bloody hell. What was he thinking? He dragged his gaze back to her face but she wasn’t looking at him; her eyes were planted firmly downwards on a book she’d obviously been reading.

Good one, man.

‘I...just came to check everything’s okay.’

‘It is.’ Cool and pleasant replaced by stiff and formal.

He glanced at Oscar again. ‘You know, you guys don’t have to share the same room. There’s enough for one each.’

‘I know. It’s what we’re used to. We don’t mind.’

Reid nodded. He hoped she’d start to feel comfortable enough to open up to him about her past. To let the apron strings out a little on Oscar.

‘Okay. Well... I also wanted you to know that you don’t have to hide away up here. Pops and I usually watch some television together each night. We have three TVs and subscribe to a couple of streaming services so there’s something for everyone. I also have a stack of DVDs if you’d prefer and you’re more than welcome to use the computer if you want to go online for any reason.’

She’d slowly shrunk back into the bed head as he spoke, clearly overwhelmed. Reid rubbed his forehead. ‘What I’m trying to say is that you have the run of the house. Help yourself to whatever you want, whenever you want. Mi casa es su casa. Okay?’

She nodded. ‘Okay.’

But she didn’t look convinced.

CHAPTER FIVE (#ud827195a-41fb-53f9-b4af-ce3daefd948a)

‘MI CASA ES su casa.’

Trinity turned the expression over and over in her head during the course of the weekend. She kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the camera crew to pop out from a cupboard and tell her she’d been punked.

Reid’s offer had been outstandingly generous and she understood that he wanted her to feel comfortable in his house, but that was going to take a little while. Who knew the luxuries of a fridge full of food and a pillow top mattress would be so difficult to adjust to?

But the street kid in Trinity was never far away. That person had been baptised in the ill will people wrought, not their generosity. She desperately wanted to be able to take a breath and relax but she didn’t want to get too used to going to sleep with a full belly and waking up without a sore back in case it all came crashing down.

Two months. That was all she needed. Reid was making it possible for them to have a place of their own by Christmas.

But even if it only was for a few days it was worth it for how happy Oscar was. He hadn’t stopped smiling since he’d walked into Reid’s house and Trinity swore he actually had some colour back in his cheeks.

For however long it lasted, she was glad that Oscar could have this bright interlude in his otherwise grey existence. They were used to doing it tough and they would again if this bubble burst tomorrow but, for now, it was a little bit of magic she couldn’t deny him.

Or herself.

Like her and Oscar and Eddie heading over the road to the pond the last two mornings to feed the ducks. The rest of the weekend filled up with the cricket. And, right now, it was a spot of soccer.

The afternoon shadows were growing long across the back yard as she sat on the porch swaying gently in Eddie’s old white wrought-iron love seat, watching him kick a ball to Oscar.

It was surreal and she had to pinch herself.

The old man was good with Oscar. Infinitely patient and encouraging and Trinity had watched Oscar’s confidence in himself grow in just three days. Oscar hadn’t had any male role models and, in Eddie, she couldn’t have picked a better one for her son.

A foot fall behind her raised the hairs on the back of her neck. Quickened her pulse.

Reid.

Living on the streets had heightened Trinity’s senses to danger. But this was different. Her heart didn’t beat faster from fear of being threatened or harmed, it was from...awareness.

A sexual one. A primal one. An acknowledgement deep in her cells of a man.

She hadn’t seen a lot of him over the weekend and it’d lulled her into a false sense of security. He’d worked Saturday morning then spent a couple of hours watching cricket with his grandfather and Oscar before disappearing into the room with the computer that Eddie called the office.

This morning he’d done a bunch of yard work. With his shirt off. His tattoos did indeed extend further than his arms. In fact his entire back was inked from the wings that stretched across his shoulder blades to the barbed wire in the small of his back.

The real estate between the meaty slabs of his pecs and his collarbones was also decorated but the rest of his torso was ink free. Who needed ink when there were flat, bronzed abs on display? And a tantalising trail of hair arrowing south of his belly button?

Trinity had tried very hard not to look at that trail and where it went. She’d mostly succeeded.

After lunch he’d gone next door and done their yard work too, also sans shirt. What the elderly couple who had apparently been Eddie’s neighbours for thirty years thought of Reid’s big, bare-chested, tattoo-riddled frame she had no idea but, according to Eddie, Reid had been helping them out since he’d moved back in.

A frosty bottle appeared in front of her and she started even though her street-kid senses had tracked every millimetre of his progress towards her. ‘Beer?’

Trinity shook her head as Reid—smelling freshly showered, and clad in a T-shirt and denim cut-offs—stepped around her and plonked himself down on the other end of the love seat. She tensed as it rocked and protested under his weight, the steady rhythm disrupted. It didn’t feel right to be sitting so close to him. Sure, a whole other person could fit between them but she was excruciatingly aware of the type of chair they were sitting on.

‘Come on,’ he said, waggling it at her. ‘You don’t want me to drink alone, do you?’

She quirked an eyebrow. ‘That hasn’t stopped you the last couple of nights.’