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

On impulse, he closed the fingers of his right hand over the ring and gave it a tug. It didn’t budge. He tried twisting it and it moved a little. Enough to make him get up abruptly and startle the dogs, who followed him curiously into the bathroom where he lathered his hands with soap until he could move the ring more freely. It took some effort to get it over his knuckle but—suddenly—it was off.

He was holding the symbol of his past and his failed marriage and the tragedy of losing his wife and … And he had no idea what to do with it now. The thought of taking it up the back of Old Jock’s farm and hurling it into the pond was appealing. Just as well it was so late and the pond was frozen over anyway. Back in the library to shut down the computer, Adam dropped the ring into a drawer of his desk.

Walking up the stairs to bed, he was again aware of Emma’s absence and this time it came with a yearning ache because he was going to his bed alone. He paused for a moment, in the spot where he’d first heard the haunting notes of that song coming from her room late at night, catching his breath as he realised how much he was missing her.

His left hand was curled, his thumb rubbing the empty place where the ring had been. There was nothing there to touch. Nothing to hide.

Or should that be nowhere to hide?

It wouldn’t be long before someone noticed that he’d taken his ring off. Eileen’s sharp eyes didn’t miss a thing. There would be talk, of course, but he suspected that the consensus of the village women would be that three years’ mourning was more than enough. He had done his duty and upheld the myth that the marriage had been too perfect to move on from and he’d done it for long enough to ensure that the children were protected. They would always have their ‘angel’ mother but they deserved more than that in their lives. Someone real, who made their lives more joyful.

Would the villagers go further and speculate how much influence Emma’s presence had had on his decision?

Probably.

Did he mind?

If he did, he’d get used to it—the way he had got used to carrying the burden of the truth alone. Maybe—hopefully—he’d have to, because he had made more than one decision tonight. He was going to ask Emma to stay in Braeburn longer and he was pretty confident that she would agree. He’d had the strong impression today that she didn’t really want to go. She’d seemed reluctant to even go to that job interview in the end. And it was good that she had gone because it gave her options. And if she chose to stay, it would be because she really wanted to.

If she did want to stay, he could start hoping for something more permanent. Not just for the children—he wanted that for himself as well.

The hotel in Edinburgh was a lovely old sandstone building that had been close enough to the hospital to make it the ideal place for Emma to spend the night and sleep off the effects of the drugs she’d been given for her procedure.

Not that she’d slept particularly well. Despite being only two days before Christmas, the hotel was very quiet, which should have been a bonus but it made Emma feel lonely. She missed the sound of children nearby. Even more, she missed being near Adam. So much that it was a physical ache that had nothing to do with the holes that had been bored into her hip bone. She longed for the sound of his voice. The way his presence filled a room. Just a shared look would have been enough—to see the warmth in those gorgeous, dark eyes and the promise that always seemed to be there now.

Oh … help. It was going to be very hard to leave, wasn’t it?

At least she could distract herself with some Christmas shopping this morning. She wanted to find something special for Poppy and Oliver. And for Adam. Something that they’d keep for ever and it would remind them of her?

She needed something for Jack as well. He’d gone to a lot of effort to ensure she didn’t have the results of this test as a dark cloud hanging over her future for any longer than was absolutely necessary and, as usual, he’d done his best to make the procedure as painless as possible. A bottle of really nice Scotch, perhaps? She could give it to him later because they’d arranged to meet in the hospital café for a coffee before she drove back to Braeburn. Just a quick check, Jack had said—to see that there were no complications from the test. And the results of the blood tests would be back by then, although the examination of her bone marrow would take up to seven days. From past experience, however, Emma knew that the preliminary results could arrive within forty eight hours and, so far, they’d always been an accurate prediction of what lay ahead.