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

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?’

‘Aye … but we didn’t believe him.’ Ben sniffed loudly. ‘He said it’s got a tunnel and a bridge even.’

‘Well, it’s true. It’s a bonny wee train. I played with it when I was a wee boy, too.’ Adam had the finger exposed now. A bit squashed but there were no bones broken. The pain was coming from the blood accumulating under the nail and that could be swiftly fixed with a heated needle.

‘And he says he’s bringing a donkey to the Christmas play.’