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‘I like the park with Daddy. And with Kat. And I like Kat baking with me. And I like it when Daddy is happy.’
He was spinning madly. Wildly. He could feel himself, but he couldn’t do anything to stop it. He would never know how he managed to make any kind of response.
‘And...what would you like for Christmas?’ he choked out, not that Jamie seemed to notice.
His little son was too caught up in his own thoughts.
‘The only thing I want for Christmas is for Kat to be my mommy.’
Everything seemed to stand still. Logan wasn’t even sure if his brain was working.
The simplicity, and impossibility, of the request rocketed through him.
When he’d wondered how Jamie would feel about Kat being a bigger part of their lives, he hadn’t anticipated this. How did he even begin to answer such a wish?
‘Jamie, I can’t...’
And even though he’d forgotten the accent, and the fact that he was Santa and not Jamie’s daddy, none of it mattered. Because Jamie was staring at him earnestly.
‘Daddy loves Kat. Kat loves me. Daddy loves me. Kat loves Daddy.’ He ticked them off in his little hands as though he was forty, not four.
‘Jamie...’
‘Nana says they do,’ he continued blithely. ‘I heard her tell Gramps.’
Logan felt a pang of compassion for his mother. She would be mortified if she knew Jamie had overheard her.
But that didn’t make it true. He and Kat had an agreement. No strings, no hassle. And it had been working just fine for them so far.
Hadn’t it?
Suddenly he couldn’t be sure any more.
‘I tell you what, ch... Jamie,’ he corrected just in time. His son would realise his true identity immediately if Santa slipped up and called him champ. ‘I can’t make any guarantees, but what if I promise to see what I can do?’
Jamie swivelled his head and fixed him with a bright, trusting gaze. But Logan was even more aware of Kat’s shocked, deeply unhappy expression.
‘You’re Santa,’ Jamie declared confidently. ‘You can do it.’
It took all of Logan’s not inconsiderable acting skills—and he was never more relieved that he was a doctor, not an actor—to carry on after his young son clambered down from his knee and the remainder of the kids took their turns.
He barely knew what he was saying to them, his mind still locked firmly on Jamie, and on Kat.
Less than an hour ago he’d been acknowledging that Kat had changed his life. That things he’d thought impossible a few months ago were starting to feel real. Like opening up his life—and Jamie’s—to someone new.
No, not just to someone. To Kat.
But it had taken his four-year-old son for him to finally acknowledge exactly what he’d meant by that. Exactly how much he wanted Kat in his life. In their lives. Making them better, fuller, happier. And how was it that even his mother had seen it before he had?
Still, his mind whirred with exactly where he was supposed to go from here.
The next hour passed in a blur. It felt like an eternity before he was able to politely excuse himself, go and change and return to Jamie, but he knew he must have done all right when the ward manager thanked him profusely afterwards.
Still, a part of him knew that once he collected Jamie from her, Kat would dart off. She would do everything she could to avoid having a conversation with him about what she’d overheard Jamie say.
And when, indeed, that was exactly what she did, it was almost like a triumph to realise that he could read Kat Steel precisely as well as he’d imagined that he could. That he could knew her better than she knew herself. That she wanted to be with him—and with Jamie—as much as he’d thought she did.
Perhaps all he needed to do was to convince her how much he wanted them to be a family? Kat and him and Jamie.
