Chloe sighed. ‘It’s “best”, not “bestest”.’
Aggie ignored her. ‘My list is quite long so I hope you’re not in a hurry, although it doesn’t really matter if you are because I can talk very quickly.’ She snuggled a little closer to Father Christmas, her smile wide and her gaze trusting. ‘It’s not all for me. Some of it’s for other people. So I hope I can have a bit more time because I’m doing the talking for three and that’s a lot of people. Is that OK with you?’
Father Christmas blinked several times and his mouth twitched under his thick white beard. ‘That’s fine with me.’
‘I have a list here. Do you want to read or shall I just tell you?’
‘Aggie, just stop talking,’Chloe breathed, folding her arms across her chest and sending a mortified glance towards her father. ‘She never stops talking. No one else has a chance of speaking!’
Lara watched the girls and felt envy slide through her body. Christian Blake had a noisy, loving family. Two gorgeous children.
One day, she promised herself. One day maybe she’d find a man with no flaws and it would be her queuing to see Father Christmas with her two wonderful children.
Or four, she thought with humour, if the psychic turned out to be right. Mindful of the queue building outside, she stepped forward. ‘Let’s hear your list, Aggie.’
‘OK. Well, I’d really, really like a pet but I know I probably won’t get that because Daddy always says that, if I can’t even keep my bedroom tidy, how am I ever going to clean out a cage?’ Aggie peeped at her father hopefully but the measuring look that Christian gave her in return was sufficient for Lara to know that pets was a subject that had been discussed and dismissed on many occasions. ‘No pet, then,’Aggie murmured, subsiding in her seat, ‘but if I really can’t have a pet then there are other things…’ She read out a lengthy list, ignoring Chloe’s worried glance towards the clock on the wall. Then she handed the list to Father Christmas. ‘I’ll give you this so that you don’t have to remember it all in your head. It’s in order, but just to remind you, my best thing would be the bike. And help unpacking the rest of the boxes in my bedroom because since we moved to our new house I can’t find any of my favourite toys, which seems a terrible waste.’
Father Christmas nodded slowly. ‘Well, I think I got all that. What about your big sister? What does she need?’
Chloe flushed. ‘Nothing.’
‘Go on, Chlo,’ Christian urged quietly. ‘What do you want, sweetheart?’
Lara glanced towards him, surprised by the warmth of his voice. At work in the emergency department he delivered instructions and commands in a detached, almost cold tone. He was reassuring to patients when the situation demanded it, but no one would have described him as touchy-feely. In fact, some of her colleagues had commented that Christian Blake was a machine, completely incapable of feeling emotion.
But she knew now that they were wrong.
Christian Blake wasn’t incapable of feeling emotion.
‘I know what she wants,’ Aggie whispered, kneeling up on the seat so that she could whisper in Father Christmas’s ear. ‘What she wants is for Alex Gregg to ask her to dance at the school disco. Can you fix that?’
‘Aggie!’ Visibly embarrassed, Chloe turned to her father in horror. ‘Can’t you stop her talking? All she ever does is talk!’
Aggie’s eyes were wide. ‘You do want that, you know you do! And there’s something else.’ Undaunted by her sister’s quelling look, Aggie smiled happily up at Father Christmas. ‘Just one more thing, and it isn’t for me.’
Father Christmas stroked his beard. ‘Who is it for this time?’
‘My dad.’
Christian tensed. ‘Aggie, I don’t need anything,’ he said swiftly. ‘And that’s enough now. It’s someone else’s turn to talk to Father Christmas.’
‘No. It’s your turn but I know you won’t ask for yourself.’ Her chin set at a stubborn angle, Aggie turned back to Father Christmas. ‘Daddy needs a new wife. You see, our mummy left us.’
A shocked silence descended on the grotto.
Stunned by that unexpected revelation, Lara couldn’t speak or move.
Then Father Christmas cleared his throat. ‘She left you?’
‘Yes.’ Apparently unaware of the tension around her, Aggie continued. ‘So now we don’t have a mummy and that makes it really hard at home. We have nannies or housekeepers but they’re not the same and daddy works so hard in the hospital and that’s why we haven’t unpacked the boxes yet. What he needs is a miracle. I read about them in a book. A miracle is something amazing that changes everything. If I’m extra-good between now and Christmas, could I have a small miracle?’
Father Christmas appeared to have been struck dumb, so Lara stepped forward, blinking back the tears that had somehow sprung into her eyes.
‘The thing about life, Aggie,’ she said softly, trying to keep the choke out of her voice, ‘is that you never know where the next miracle is going to come from.’
‘Well, I don’t care where it comes from but I know it has to come soon. My friend Katherine at school—her mummy went to heaven and now she has a new mummy but I don’t know where she came from. I want to get Daddy a new wife. I want to do an advert like we do for the nannies, but he won’t do an advert.’
‘She needs to be gagged,’ Chloe muttere