Read Christmas at Candlebark Farm for Free Online Page A

task!’
    She loved her baby already. Her hand curved around her stomach. It wouldn’t be flat for too much longer. Soon there would be ample evidence of the baby growing inside her, and she couldn’t wait. ‘I want this baby with every fibre of my being.’ She couldn’t wait to hold it in her arms, to count all its fingers and toes, to touch the down on its head. ‘That’s what will get me through the colic and the sleepless nights and the hormone swings and…and everything!’
    She glared at Luke, but couldn’t prevent her heart from sinking just a tiny bit when she watched the bond that had started to form between them dissolve utterly.
    He stood, his face shuttered and his eyes more black than brown. ‘Looks like you have everything under control, then.’
    She folded her arms. ‘I do.’
    She did!
    â€˜Good. I don’t have time to…waste.’ He seized his hat and jammed it on his head. ‘There’s work to be done.’ With that, he strode out through the back door.
    Keira stared after him. ‘Well, why didn’t you just say you don’t have time to mollycoddle pregnant women?’ she muttered. It was obvious that was what he’d meant. Well, she didn’t need mollycoddling. She hadn’t asked him to mollycoddle.
    Still, she couldn’t help feeling she’d just thrown his kindness back in his face with a considerable lack of grace. And now she had a whole day to kill, with nothing to do.
    She cleared away the breakfast things and then spied the shopping list she’d made earlier. Much earlier. Right. She shoved it in her pocket. The supermarket in Gunnedah wouldbe open, and she’d do just about anything to avoid a repeat of last night’s bout of illness—even if that meant drinking something as odd as liquorice tea.
    Â 
    Keira’s natural buoyancy reasserted itself as she negotiated her way down Gunnedah’s main street. How could it not? The town overflowed with a festive spirit that was nowhere to be seen at Candlebark.
    Christmas carols spilled out from the shops and onto the street. Fake snow and tinsel festooned every shop window. Santa displays abounded—Santa in a sleigh, Santa in his workshop with his elves—so did angels and stars. She stopped by a shop window containing a nativity scene, stared at the baby Jesus in the manger. Her hand crept across her stomach. ‘Oh, Munchkin, you just wait till next Christmas. We’re going to have so much fun!’
    This time of year always reminded Keira of her mother. Carmel Keely had adored Christmas—adorning every room of their apartment with Christmas decorations, baking for weeks beforehand, always grumbling that their ginormous tree was far too big for their apartment, which it was, but never replacing it. And every year she, her mother and her grandmother had sat down to a full Christmas dinner with all the trimmings. It had always been a special day. Her mother had made sure of that. And this year Keira knew she’d miss her mother and her grandmother just that little bit more than normal.
    She wondered what Luke and Jason did for Christmas. Then frowned. It was kind of hard, imagining Luke being festive.
    She chewed her bottom lip, drawing to a halt as she recalled the expression on his face when he’d told her that his wife was dead. Her heart burned. Poor Jason. She knew from experience how hard this time of year could be. Luke had to try and make Christmas special for his son all on his own now.
    Just like you’ll be doing.
    Yeah, but she’d chosen that path. Luke hadn’t.
    With a heart that had started to feel heavier with every passing second, she recalled how she’d all but told Luke to butt out and keep his opinions to himself this morning. After he’d held her hair back and had mopped her face…and made her lemon and hot water…and given her morning sickness remedies. He was