Twins For Christmas: A Little Christmas Magic / Lone Star Twins / A Family This Christmas

‘Heavens, no …’ Emma almost smiled at the question but there was something in Adam’s tone that she couldn’t place. Did he want her to have a boyfriend? So that those boundaries were clearly flagged? What would happen when he knew the truth?

‘I love Jack dearly,’ she said quietly, ‘but definitely in the brother category. And he’s happily married now with his first baby on the way. No … he’s even more special now because he became a doctor and then a specialist in oncology. He kept Mum going for a lot longer than she might have had otherwise and she had a good quality of life until … the end.’

And he’d been her primary physician ever since her own diagnosis. How many people were lucky enough to get a doctor who cared so much? Who was so determined to succeed?

‘How long ago did you lose your mother?’

‘Just last year.’ Emma met his sympathetic gaze. The boundary lines were totally invisible now. It felt like she was sitting here talking to a friend, not her employer. ‘And I miss her terribly. You’re very lucky to have your mum as part of your life.’

‘I know. But she does too much. It’s not fair …’ For a heartbeat, as Adam held her gaze, it seemed like he was going to say something else. About his mother? About her?

Something that might reveal he was feeling the extraordinary connection that had Emma slightly stunned?

No. Emma couldn’t tell if it was relief or disappointment that coursed through her as Adam frowned and looked away. Normal service was being resumed. Maybe a breathing space was a good idea. For both of them. Or maybe she’d just been imagining that connection.

He held up his paper chain.

‘Will this be long enough, do you think? When it’s joined to yours?’

By the time breakfast was ready the next day, the paper chains were back in place as though nothing had happened last night.

Poppy and Oliver had bounced back to normal in the delightful way children could. Not only was Adam apparently forgiven for his outburst, the twins were impressed that he had fixed the paper chain himself.

‘All by yourself?’ Poppy asked.

‘Emma showed me what to do.’

Emma looked up from where she was spooning porridge into bowls and grinned at him. ‘I expect you could have worked it out all by yourself,’ she said generously. ‘Coffee?’

‘Please.’ It made him feel good to remember their time together last night. Talking about things he would never normally share. Feeling as if he was in the company of someone he could talk to about anything at all. Adam began to smile back at her but he was aware of the intense scrutiny of the children so he smiled at them instead.

‘It makes your mouth taste funny after a while, doesn’t it? Licking the sticky paper?’

‘Aye …’ Oliver nodded solemnly as he climbed onto his chair. ‘It does at that.’

Adam’s mouth twitched into a wider smile at the adult turn of phrase from his small son but then it faded as he caught the glance slanted in his direction as Oliver reached for his glass of milk. There was a hint of wariness in those brown eyes that were so like his own. Ollie was on his best behaviour, wasn’t he? Just in case …

And that hurt. How often had his children tiptoed around him? he wondered. To stop him being cross.

Or sad.

The resolution to put the years of mourning behind this family and move forward had seemed more of a mountain to climb when he’d woken this morning after a somewhat disturbing dream that had included the new nanny but Adam had gathered it back and shored it up.

Things were going to change around here.

And Christmas was the perfect time to start.

‘Tonight,’ he told his children, ‘when I get home from work, we’re going to have an expedition.’

‘What’s an exposition?’ Poppy looked at the bowl Emma put in front of her. ‘I don’t like porridge.’ She frowned. ‘It’s icky.’

‘Not when you put a little bit of cream and some brown sugar on it. Here, I’ll help you.’

‘An expedition is an adventure,’ Adam told his daughter. ‘And when I get home, we’ll get the ladder out and go up into the attic.’

Oliver stopped making roads through his porridge with his spoon. ‘The attic? Where the ghost is?’

‘There’s no such thing as ghosts,’ Adam said firmly. ‘It’s where the box of Christmas decorations is. We’re going to find it and then decorate your tree.’

Poppy’s gasp was one of pure excitement. She had to climb off her chair, onto her father’s lap, throw her arms around his neck and plant a kiss—sticky with brown sugar—in the middle of his cheek.

The dogs caught the excitement. Benji barked and chased his tail over by the fire and staid old Bob’s tail was waving like a flag. Even studious little Oliver was grinning widely.

Adam could almost taste the sweetness of the sugary kiss Poppy had bestowed but when she returned to her own chair he looked across to where Emma was sitting with her own bowl of porridge. He might have expected to see her beaming at him with that infectious joy she had but, instead, her smile was poignant and there was a sparkle in her eyes that reminded him of when they had been full of tears.

She knew how much of an effort he was making here. That things were going to change and that this was going to be the best Christmas he could manage for the twins.

The memory of that butterfly’s-wing touch of Emma’s lips on the corner of his mouth came flooding back. And that peculiar moment when he’d caught her gaze after she talked about her mother and he’d had the disconcerting notion that he was actually falling into those blue pools. And that merged into a remnant of his dream that he couldn’t quite catch and probably didn’t want to anyway, but something was hanging in the air between him and Emma.

Yes. Things were changing. Had he thrown a pebble into a still pond and the ripples were only just beginning?

That was disturbing. Adam fed his crust to the dogs and drained the last of his coffee.

‘Time for me to go to work,’ he announced gruffly, careful to avoid any more eye contact with Emma that might add to the alarming impression that he might have started something that could get completely out of control.

‘You won’t forget, will you, Dad?’

‘What’s that, Ollie?’

‘About the adventure. In the attic.’

‘No, son.’ He ruffled Oliver’s hair. ‘I won’t forget. I promise.’

He kissed Poppy and nodded farewell to Emma. And it only took that microsecond of a look to realise that there were other things he wasn’t about to forget either.

However much he wished he could.

CHAPTER SIX

HE’D BEEN WRONG about the ghost in the attic.

Adam realised that the instant he stepped through the hole in the ceiling, even before he turned to help first Oliver and then Poppy to climb off the steep set of stairs cleverly concealed behind a door that had been locked for years.

The light switch he flicked made several bulbs glow but the light was inadequate for the huge space. Despite the shadows, however, his gaze went straight towards that long rack of dresses in the far corner where the roofline sloped sharply towards the small latticed windows. And the stacks of boxes beside it, full of other clothing and shoes and handbags. He could even make out the jewellery case sitting on top.

They represented what had attracted him to Tania in the first place. The beauty. The glamour. In retrospect he was ashamed of how shallow it was to judge people on their outward appearance like that. Look at how he’d judged Emma in her oversized clothes with her musical accessory as a refugee from the sixties. If fate hadn’t stepped in and made it imperative that he give her a chance, he might never have discovered what an astonishing person lay beneath that appearance.

And fate had been responsible for discovering the real reason for more and more of those ‘shopping’ trips that Tania had needed to keep her happy. Had she even worn half those clothes or had they only ever been a mask for her infidelity?

The presence of Tania’s ghost was all he was aware of by the time Emma’s head appeared through the hole.

‘Oof … I feel like I’m climbing a mountain.’

The steps were certainly steep but shouldn’t have been enough to make a young woman like Emma seem out of breath. Adam could feel his frown deepening as he automatically held out his hand to assist her. For a moment he thought she might refuse the offer but then he felt his hand grasped firmly as she climbed the last of the steps.

Like the children, Emma’s eyes widened as she looked around. ‘Oh, wow … This is a real attic. Full of treasure.’

She was grinning at Adam now and she still hadn’t let go of his hand. He could feel the connection and it was warm and as alive as the sparkle in her eyes.

She’d never be able to cover up a lie, would she? Not with the way her emotions played over her face like this. The idea that she might need to lie felt ridiculous. The conviction that Emma would never be unfaithful to a man she loved came from nowhere.

So did the unexpected pang of something that felt like envy. Letting go of her hand didn’t entirely dispel the disturbing sensation. Whoever it was, he would be a very lucky man.

‘Ohh …’ The gasp from Poppy was full of wonder. ‘Look, Emma … It’s a pram.’

She ran towards the part of the attic on the opposite side from where Tania’s effects had been stored. Alongside an antique pram that had probably carried his grandmother and the double model that had been for the twins much more recently, was a smaller cane one. The one that had caught Poppy’s eye had been made for small girls to carry dolls in. Adam had completely forgotten it was up here.

‘Can I play with it, Daddy? Please?’

‘Of course you can, chicken. We’ll take it downstairs and clean all the dust off. I think it might have been Gran’s when she was a little girl like you.’

Maybe it was the delight on Poppy’s face or the warmth he could still feel from Emma’s hand but the presence of Tania’s ghost was receding. Being pushed into the past where it belonged by not only being in the present but thinking about the immediate future when they would all be safely downstairs and he could lock the old door again.

Poppy was squeaking with pleasure as she manoeuvred the cane pram out from behind the bigger wheels of the others. Oliver was not far away from her, peering into a tin trunk in front of a pile of old leather suitcases. His quietness wasn’t unusual but the intent body language was unmistakeable.

‘What have you found, Ollie?’

‘I think it’s a … train.’

It had been some time since he’d let go of Emma’s hand. Odd that he still could feel the absence of it so strongly. Maybe moving further away from her would help. Adam walked towards his son.

‘It is a train. An old wind-up one.’ He lifted the heavy, metal engine from the trunk to hand to Oliver and then reached to pick up something else. ‘These are the tracks that you can clip together. I used to play with it when I was your age, Ollie. And my father played with it when he was a little boy. I’m pretty sure he got it for a Christmas present one year.’

Oliver’s face was solemn. ‘That’s what I’d like for my Christmas present.’

‘You can’t buy these now.’ Emma had come over to look as well. ‘They’re very old and very special. Antiques. Adam, this is extraordinary. Is that a harp over there?’

‘Aye.’ There was a dusty, old cello keeping it company. Music had been in his family for generations. When had it stopped so completely? When his desire to make it had died along with the trauma of Tania’s death?

Oliver was crouching beside the tin trunk with the train engine cradled in his arms.

Adam crouched down beside him. ‘You don’t have to wait till Christmas, Ollie. We’ll take this downstairs, too, and you can play with it whenever you want.’

Oliver looked as though he couldn’t believe his luck. As if something truly magic had just happened, and something squeezed inside Adam’s chest. How easy it was to make children happy but he had never given a thought to the abandoned toys up here. He would never have thought of even unlocking that door if he hadn’t remembered the Christmas decorations.

And he wouldn’t have considered retrieving those if it hadn’t been for Emma pushing him towards celebrating Christmas again.

Right now Emma was plucking the strings of the old harp, sending dust motes flying into the dim light in the attic. And she was singing … just softly. More of a hum really—as though she was in her own world and making music came as naturally as breathing.

Poppy had left the cane pram. She had a sad old teddy bear with an almost severed arm dangling from one hand and she was skipping through the gaps towards that corner.

Adam got to his feet hurriedly. ‘Let’s find those decorations,’ he said. ‘And get downstairs. I can hear Benji crying in the kitchen.’

But it was too late. Poppy had found the rack of dresses and her cry of delight made Emma stop playing with the harp and look up. Adam tried to distract them. He’d had an idea of where the boxes of decorations were and he flipped one open and held up a handful of tinsel and then a huge silver star.

‘Here we are. Look at this star. Shall we put it on top of our tree?’

‘Daddy … are these Mummy’s dresses?’

The shocked look on Emma’s face said it all. The ghost was here again. The tug of nostalgia and the pleasure in finding unexpected gifts for his children vanished. Now he could feel the pain of loss yet again. The guilt. The burden of the lie that kept the mother of his children as a perfect memory.

‘It’s a blue dress. Emma, look. You’re going to make me a blue dress for when I’m Mary in the play, aren’t you?’

‘Um … yeah …’ Emma had started to go towards Poppy but she’d stopped right beside Adam and she gave him an uncertain glance. ‘Come on, sweetheart. We need to go downstairs. It’s nearly teatime.’

But Poppy wouldn’t let go of the folds of the shimmery, blue dress. ‘Why are Mummy’s clothes here, Daddy?’

Adam had to clear his throat. ‘I …’ What could he say? He’d had to get them out of sight and this had seemed the quickest and easiest solution? ‘Maybe I thought you’d want them one day, Poppy.’

He hoped she wouldn’t, he realised suddenly. He didn’t want his daughter growing up to be consumed with keeping up appearances. Better that she didn’t care. That she was happy to wear baggy jumpers and peculiar, bright hats and could shine with an inner joy instead. Like Emma.

‘I want this one now, Daddy. For the play.’

‘It wouldn’t fit you.’

‘Emma could make it fit.’

‘Could you?’ Adam caught Emma’s gaze again.

She still looked uncertain but nodded. ‘I guess so … but …’

‘That’s settled, then.’ Adam wanted to get out of there. As quickly as possible. ‘You and Ollie go downstairs with Emma and I’ll bring the dress down with the other things.’

Emma helped the children down the steps but then her head appeared again.

‘You don’t have to do this,’ she said quietly. ‘I can explain to Poppy. We can find some fabric to make her dress.’

‘They’re only clothes,’ Adam growled. He shoved the rolled-up dress towards her. ‘This one was never even worn—it’s still got its label on it. They’re only clothes,’ he repeated, turning away to pick up a box. ‘I should never have kept them.’

But Emma was still there when he went to put the box down close to the steps. ‘You can still change your mind later.’

‘I won’t.’

‘You might.’ There was a curve to Emma’s lips that suggested sympathy but she wasn’t looking at his face. She was staring at the hand he had curled around the corner of the box of decorations. His left hand.

The one that still carried his wedding ring.

And then Emma was gone and he heard Poppy’s excited voice fading as she went along the hallway, telling Emma that she wanted the dress to be really long so that it floated on the ground.

It took time to get the treasures down the steps, especially when he had to unpack half the tin trunk because it was so heavy. Even in the inadequate light every movement seemed to create a glint on that gold band around his finger—an accessory he never normally noticed at all.

Why was he still wearing his wedding ring? Because everybody assumed that he kept it on as a tribute to a perfect marriage and they would have noticed the moment he’d removed it? A perfect marriage? Good grief … In the short time Emma had been here, it felt like she’d been more of a mother to his children than Tania had been. Guilt nipped on the heels of that admission. It wasn’t something he’d ever needed to acknowledge—not when his mother had always been there to fill in the gaps that his nannies couldn’t.

Or did he still wear the ring because he wanted to punish himself? To keep a permanent reminder of his failure as a husband in clear view?

It was, after all, his fault that his children were growing up without their mother, wasn’t it? Had he been too absorbed in his work or too besotted with his babies to give Tania what she needed?

The ring had served its purpose even if he’d never articulated what that was. There had been times when the truth had been like acid, eating away at him, and he’d been desperate to tell someone. His mother or his sister perhaps. And then he’d touch the back of the ring with his thumb and would know that he couldn’t.

Even the remote possibility that his children could learn the truth about their mother and be hurt by it was enough. This was a burden he had to carry alone. For ever.

He might have been wrong about there being no ghost in the attic but he’d been right when he’d worried about the ripple effect of things changing.

Unusually, he could actually feel that ring on his finger, without touching it with his thumb, late that night as he climbed the stairs to go to bed. They hadn’t ended up decorating the tree after dinner because he’d spent the time before the children went to bed setting up the clockwork train set for Oliver, and Emma had been busy helping Poppy clean the cane pram. And when they’d looked into the box the children had been a little disappointed by the ornaments.

‘They’re all the same colour,’ Poppy had pointed out. ‘They’re all silver.’

Of course they were. Everything Tania had done could have been photographed for a home and garden magazine, including the silver perfection of the family Christmas tree.

‘I could get some special paint,’ Emma had offered. ‘And we could make them all sorts of colours … if that’s all right with Daddy.’

Of course it was all right. How did she always seem to find an answer to everything that would make things better?

Would she have an answer to what he should do about the ring that seemed to be strangling his finger?

He could hear the soft sound of her singing again and, as had become a habit, he stopped before turning towards the other hallway and listened for a minute. The song was becoming hauntingly familiar, even though he was sure he’d never heard it before Emma had come into the house.

Was she sitting on her bed, with her guitar cradled on her lap and her head bent as she sang quietly? Did she have the fire going perhaps, with the light of the flames bringing out the flecks of red-gold he’d noticed in her hair sometimes?

The urge to find out was powerful. He could find an excuse to tap on her door, couldn’t he? To reassure her that the blue dress meant nothing perhaps, and that she was more than welcome to cut it up to make Poppy’s costume?

Any excuse would do, if it meant he could be close to her for an extra minute or two.

Because he was starting to feel lonely when he wasn’t?

With a mental shake Adam stepped firmly towards his own room. She wasn’t the first nanny his children had had and she probably wouldn’t be the last. It was just as well this was a temporary position, though, because he’d never felt this way about any of the women who’d come to live here and look after his children before.

About any women he’d met in the last few years, come to that.

Maybe it was part of the ripple effect. The step forward. Something had been unlocked when he’d agreed that three years of grief was more than enough. Perhaps his body was following his heart and finally waking up again.

Three years of being celibate wasn’t natural for anyone. It didn’t mean that he had to fall for someone who happened to be in the near vicinity. It didn’t mean he had to fall for anyone.

No. The last time that had happened had ended up almost ruining his life. He wasn’t going to let it happen again.

Ever.

The solution, Adam decided over the next few days, was to focus on his work.

His priority in life was his children, of course, but work came a close second. It had been his father, the first Dr McAllister, who’d built up this small general practice. Without it, the villagers would have to travel fifteen miles or so to the nearest town and a lot of them would find that difficult enough to make their health care precarious, especially in the middle of a harsh Scottish winter.

People like old Mrs Robertson, who needed dressings changed on her diabetic ulcers every couple of days and was on the list for this afternoon’s house calls. And Joan McClintock, who had a phobia about getting into any vehicles smaller than a bus and was only happy when things were within walking distance. She was in the waiting room again this morning, as his somewhat disconcerting working week drew to a close.

At least here Adam could stop thinking about the Christmas tree in his living room sporting a rainbow of brightly painted balls that had only been the starting point for the hand-made decorations that Emma seemed to have unlimited inspiration about. Like the gingerbread stars she had baked last night and the children had helped to decorate with brightly coloured sweets.

It was probably just as well that the gingerbread was destined to be only decorative if Emma’s baking skills were on a par with her cooking. The meals this week had been a fair step down from what his mother had left in the freezer. Not that the children had complained about the rather burnt sausages and that peculiar shepherd’s pie. Everything Emma did was wonderful in Poppy’s eyes and Oliver wasn’t allowed to go and play with the clockwork train until he’d finished his dinner so even the carrots were disappearing in record time these days.

Adam found himself smiling as he walked through the waiting room. Miss McClintock looked surprised but nodded back at him. Old Jock, who was sitting in the corner, disappeared further under the brim of his cap. The smile faded. Old Jock—the farmer who owned the land behind his where the skating pond was located—was as tough as old boots. What was he doing in here, waiting to see the doctor?

And had he really thought that work was the solution to forgetting about the ripples disrupting his personal life?

It didn’t help that Caitlin McMurray, the schoolteacher, came rushing in with a wailing small child even before he could call Joan McClintock into the consulting room.

‘It’s Ben,’ she said. ‘He jammed his finger in the art cupboard.’

‘Come straight in,’ Adam told her. ‘Eileen, could you call Ben’s mother, please, and get her to come in?’

‘I can stay with him for a bit.’ Caitlin had to raise her voice over the crying. ‘Emma’s practising carols with the children and the senior teacher’s keeping an eye on everything.’

Adam eyed the handkerchief tied around Ben’s finger. There was blood seeping through the makeshift dressing.

‘Let’s have a look at this finger, young man.’

‘No-o-o … It’s going to hurt.’

Distraction was needed. ‘Did our Oliver tell you about the train he found in our attic?’