Read A Yorkshire Christmas for Free Online Page B

meal for people she loved.
    Claire pushed away memories of sitting at another table, one made of chrome and glass, doling out green bean casserole to Mark and Brianna. Feeling the fragile bubble of happiness inside her, thinking it was real, that she was actually a part of something.
    She would not go down that road again, not even an inch, which meant she needed to leave. Now.
    Noah came into the room, doing a double take at the sight of the clean kitchen. “Wow, that’s quite impressive. It’s only been twenty minutes.”
    She shrugged. “I kind of like cleaning.”
    “That’s lucky for me.”
    “Is there anything else I can help with?” Not the question she should have been asking if she really intended to leave as soon as possible.
    Noah ran a hand over his hair, then rubbed the back of his neck, a gesture Claire guessed he did whenever he felt uncomfortable. “I suppose… if you didn’t mind running a Hoover around the sitting room…”
    “A Hoover?”
    “A vacuum cleaner.”
    “Oh. Right. Sure.” He dug the vacuum, or Hoover, from a cupboard under the stairs. It looked ancient and judging from the patina of dust covering the machine, Claire doubted it saw much, if any, use.
    “I’m just going to blitz the bathrooms,” he said with a sheepish grin and Claire winced, because if the state of the kitchen was anything to go by, she did not want to see what the bathrooms looked like. Noah gave a little laugh, the sound wry. “They’re not that bad, actually.”
    “Good to know.”
    Okay, enough. This was getting too weird. And feeling too normal . She’d vacuum the sitting room and then she’d go. They’d be even, having done favors for each other. The end.
    The sitting room was through a low doorway that even Claire had to stoop under, and looked as lived in as the kitchen. Two sagging sofas framed a large fireplace with a huge wooden beam for a mantelpiece. There were several bookcases stuffed full of tattered Agatha Christies and Barbara Cartlands, and another bookcase held the more expected farming manuals and ordinance maps.
    Quickly, she ran the Hoover around the room, chasing the giant dust bunnies that had collected under the sofas and chairs. She was just wrapping the cord around the handle of the machine when she caught sight of a photo, tinted in the sepia-like colors of a generation ago, of a woman with two boys standing in front of her. She had a hand on each of their shoulders, and a scarf covered her hair, hair the same color as Noah’s. Even though the boys could have been no more than nine or ten, she recognized Noah as the younger one, dark-eyed and serious, with a shy, impish smile.
    She stared at the photo for a long moment, transfixed by the expressions on all of their faces: the mother’s carefree smile and strangely sad eyes, the older boy looked proud and yet also defiant, and Noah, with his dark, quiet looks. She could almost feel the joy and pride radiating from his boyish self, as if he knew there was nothing better than standing next to his mother.
    She heard Noah’s steps on the stairs and she jumped away from the photo as if she’d been scalded, fumbling with the vacuum before she shoved it back inside the cupboard under the stairs amidst the jumble of boots and buckets and folding chairs. Dusting her hands on the back of her jeans, she turned to him with a bright smile.
    “I’ve done the vacuuming, sorry, Hoovering. I think I’ll just head back now.”
    “Of course, you’ve been brilliant, thank you.” He hesitated, and then said, “I can run you back in the car but I don’t want to miss—”
    “Your daughter, of course.” She hesitated too, because she wasn’t sure what was worse: offering to walk, or waiting and meeting his daughter. “I can walk,” she said, her voice coming out more firmly than she felt. She didn’t want to play pretend happy families for even one second, and she didn’t want to endure the girl’s suspicion or hostility either.