Merry Christmas (Mills & Boon Vintage 90s Modern) Read Online Free PDF

anxiously, imagining the guilt her daughter might feel if there’d been arguments.
    He shook his head. “She wanted to think about it. Work out what it meant to her.”
    A lot of inner turmoil there, Meredith thought, though it was a relief to learn there had been no open conflict for which Kimberly might blame herself.
    “Then her world came crashing down,” Nick Hamilton continued, “and there were so many changes for her to take on, I guess she clung to what was safely familiar rather than pursue what probably seemed like an intangible dream.”
    “So you didn’t talk to her about it?”
    “I thought it better not to. She had enough trauma losing one set of parents, let alone two.” He grimaced. “She kept it to herself until a few days ago.”
    Holding such a big secret all that time...holding it in reserve, Meredith thought, and wondered how often her daughter might have fantasised about another life as she tried living with the man who had been legally appointed her guardian, a man who was only an uncle by adoption. Or did Kimberly instinctively feel more closely bonded to him...her real father?
    Was there an innate tie of blood, whether it was known or not? Would her daughter feel she was a total stranger or would there be an instant, intuitive link between them? The need to know pounded through Meredith, bringing a wave of excitement, of almost unbearable anticipation. It was difficult to contain it but she sternly told herself she had to while a meeting was still not settled.
    She watched the only man she had ever loved place the sandwiches he was intent on toasting under the griller and tried to imagine what he was feeling about Kimberly’s request, coming virtually out of nowhere. He would not have been prepared for that, either. But Nick Hamilton was no dodger of delicate issues. He faced them and dealt with them according to his sense of rightness. It was that very quality of character Meredith had implicitly believed in when she had found herself pregnant.
    “You think a rich college boy is going to stand by you?” her stepmother had mocked. “He skipped out fast enough when I told him your age. A guy like that doesn’t want to be shackled to a sixteen-year-old country girl who was no more than a Christmas vacation fling to him.”
    He hadn’t skipped out . Meredith hadn’t thought it then and she didn’t think it now.
    It had shocked him when her stepmother had confronted him with how young she was. Meredith had let him assume she was older, knowing she could easily pass for nineteen and desperately wanting to go with him wherever he wanted to take her. She’d argued to herself that love had nothing to do with age.
    But Nick had faced the issues squarely and laid them out to her. She still had two more years of school plus tertiary education after that, if she wanted it. There was so much more for her to do and experience and think about before tying herself to anyone or anything. She should be free to make the choices that would best suit her. The love they felt for each other could be recaptured when she was older. He didn’t feel right about taking up her life while she still had so much in front of her.
    He had given her his address and suggested they send each other Christmas cards if they both wanted to keep the connection going. No commitment. But there was no harm in maintaining a friendly communication once a year. When she was twenty-one...
    “Isn’t eighteen old enough?” she’d protested, devastated at the thought of waiting so many years before they could be lovers again.
    “It wouldn’t be fair,” he’d answered ruefully. “Any more than it would be fair of me to stay on here, Merry. The more deeply we get involved the harder it will be to part.”
    He’d gone that very day, the day after her stepmother had discovered them making love on the back veranda and created such an ugly scene, accusing Nick of taking advantage of a girl who was barely past being a minor.