Christmas at Jimmie's Children's Unit Read Online Free

in your own backyard.’
    There was more than anger in his eyes, there was fear, as well, but his tone had tightened Kate’s nerves and she was in no mood to be conciliatory.
    ‘Well, I’d hardly be chatting to him in your backyard, now would I?’ she demanded. ‘You were “oot,” he told me, and Juanita sent him to play. As it happens, I found him in my front yard, and because there’s only a low brick fence that a crawling infant could get over, and a front gate that doesn’t shut properly, I brought him around the back to suggest if he goes adventuring he should use the backyard.’
    She considered setting her hands on her hips and giving him a good glare but the shadows she saw again in his eyes had killed her anger. This man had suffered pain. Was still suffering it? Was his move to Australia part of a healing process?
    It’s none of your business, her head warned, but having known pain—strong emotional pain—she couldn’t help but wonder.
    ‘Adventures! It’s all he thinks about,’ Angus muttered, still angry in the aftermath of anxiety but not seething any more. ‘Some fool gave him a book that has a story about a boy and his dog that go on adventures and he’s been mad for them ever since.’
    He looked at the woman he’d been yelling at only minutes earlier and caught a hint of a smile she’d tried to hide.
    ‘It isn’t funny,’ he snapped, not sure it was the smile or his reaction to it that had riled him.
    She looked up at him, really smiling this time.
    ‘It’s a little bit funny,’ she pointed out. ‘Four years old and he’s trespassing on my property and telling me it’s a terrible mess. I’m sorry I didn’t call out to Juanita to tell her he was with me, but it was a matter of a minute or two to show him the backyard where I knew he’d be safe. Take a look—could you get a better place for an adventure? And wouldn’t you be more worried about him if he wasn’t off having adventures? If he did nothing but sit around in front of the television all day?’
    Angus sighed. Of course he’d be worried if Hamish wasn’t always pushing himself to see more, do more, learn more. But did he want to admit it to this woman?
    ‘I guess so,’ he said, although reluctantly, ‘and I know he misses the dog. Apparently we can visit him in quarantine but I haven’t sorted out a vehicle yet so can’t get to the quarantine station.’
    ‘Well, that’s easily fixed,’ his neighbour replied. ‘I’m on call at the weekend, so feel free to take my car. I’ve got a sat nav you can use so you won’t get lost.’
    Angus stared at her. Every cell in his body told him not to get more involved with this woman, but she wasn’tinviting him to dinner, nor showing any signs she felt the slightest interest in him as a man; she was simply being neighbourly.
    So why was he so hesitant to accept her offer?
    ‘Or not,’ she added with a shrug that showed little concern over his rudeness in not replying. ‘Now, I’ve got to get inside, I’ve some stripping to do.’
    Stripping?
    It had to be jet lag that had his imagination working overtime, seeing that slight body slowly revealed as she eased off her clothes!
    She started towards the back of the house, pausing to remove a key from under a lichen-covered Buddha, then as she straightened she turned back towards where he still stood, puzzled and disturbed, in her backyard.
    ‘I’ve just remembered,’ she said, ‘there’s a gate down the back between the two properties. Dad let the hedge grow over it when the house you’re in was sold for rentals years ago, but if you hack away at the hedge and free the gate, Juanita will be able to get in here more easily if she needs to find the adventurers.’
    ‘That’s the first place burglars would look for a spare key,’ he muttered, ignoring her advice about gates and hedges but finally getting his legs to work and moving towards her rather than the side gate.
    Now she laughed.
    ‘No way. They look