the train engine more tightly.
‘It’s almost bedtime but why don’t we have a quick practice now? Maybe Daddy could record it on his phone and we could send it to Gran and Aunty Marion.’
‘I’ll get your kit-ar,’ Poppy offered.
‘No.’ Oliver glared at her. ‘That’s my job.’
Happiness had been restored yet again, thanks to Emma’s way of dealing with problems.
No. Maybe it was being created rather than restored.
That was certainly the case for Adam, he realised much later that night as he held Emma in his arms yet again.
She was asleep but he pressed a gentle kiss to the top of her head and the pressure seemed to bounce back in a shaft that went straight to his chest, where it encased his heart and squeezed it tightly.
Was this what happiness felt like?
But this was something he’d never felt before and he knew there had been times he’d been happy. His childhood had been a happy one. He’d been secure and loved and he’d had friends and he’d loved school and his music lessons. It had been Old Jock who’d taught him to play the bagpipes and he’d been so proud that Christmastime when his pupil had been chosen to be the lone piper for the school production. He’d never said anything to Adam in the years since he’d stopped playing but he knew how happy the old man would be if he confessed that he was ready to pick up his pipes again.
Thank goodness Emma had been there and had known what to do the other day. Jock had been very lucky. He might have still survived his cardiac arrest but it had to be thanks to good-quality CPR that he’d come through without any neurological damage.
Gratitude added another layer to Adam’s sense of wellbeing and his breath came out in a soft sigh.
It wasn’t just Jock who was lucky that Emma had come to Braeburn.
His children were as happy as he’d ever seen them. Maybe it was partly due to the festive decorations that seemed to be creeping into every corner of the house. Today’s addition had been big tartan bows at intervals all the way up the bannisters on the stairs. Or maybe it wasn’t the decorations so much as his giving permission to have them?
Had he shut happiness out of the house without intending to? Had it just become a habit because he’d lived with his grief and his guilt for so long?
That he was letting go was thanks to Emma, too. She’d come here with her music and songs and … and her sheer joie de vivre and she’d given them all something that could never have been wrapped and put under a Christmas tree.
What was it that was creating this feeling that was almost euphoria?
Part of it was the kind of excitement he remembered from when he’d been a child. On Christmas morning when he would tiptoe downstairs before anyone else was awake to see if the magic had happened and there were mysterious, brightly wrapped parcels under the tree.
Part of it was hope. The kind of hope he’d felt when he’d persuaded Tania to marry him and come to live in his own little patch of the world? He’d thought that he’d never feel that kind of hope again. The one that suggested that he’d found all that he needed to keep him happy for the rest of his life. He’d been wrong that time but the hope had never been this strong, had it? It was time to put it all behind him. Time to take off the wedding ring that symbolised his entrapment in the past?
And Adam knew that part of it was also love. Maybe the biggest part. The kind of love he’d felt when he’d held his newborn babies for the first time. That almost desperate urge to protect them. To hold them and cherish them. For ever. He felt that urge about Emma now and it made him stroke her skin very lightly. Over her shoulder and along her collar bone. She had a tiny scar that interrupted the perfection of her smooth skin. Funny place for a scar—almost exactly where someone would have a central line inserted for a major medical procedure. He’d have to ask her some time how it came to be.
Emma shifted in his arms and made a tiny sound. She would wake soon. Maybe they would make love again. Even the thought of it stirred desire but Adam didn’t want her to wake just yet because he knew she wouldn’t sleep in his arms again tonight. She would creep back to her own room so that the children wouldn’t know she hadn’t been there all night.
To protect him—in case they said something at school and then the whole village would know what was going on in the McAllister house?
Maybe it was to protect them—so that they wouldn’t get ideas that Emma might be in their lives for ever?
If they asked, he might tell them that he hoped she might be but hope wasn’t something to give lightly. He’d seen it in his mother’s face tonight. And his sister’s.
In the way they’d looked at each other as if they knew what was going on between him and Emma.
He would have seen it in his own face in the mirror all those years ago, when he’d been getting dressed for his wedding.
Hope was fragile. Like a glass bubble that could shatter all too easily. He hadn’t intended ever trying to hold one himself again but it had formed without him really noticing.
And now it was here.
And it was huge.
The days were passing in a blur.
There was so much to do. Emma had never been so busy in her life but she was loving every minute of it. Final rehearsals for the school’s Christmas production that would happen on Christmas Eve were in full swing. The junior-school trip to the recording studio had happened yesterday on the last day of school and the CDs were due to arrive today. There had been a picture of them all in the newspaper and already there were apparently orders coming in and people waiting to download the amateur production. Women in the village were not only smiling at Emma, they were talking to her. This was the most exciting thing that had happened in Braeburn since …
They never said what else had happened that was so exciting but Emma had to wonder if it had been when their beloved doctor had brought his beautiful young wife home to his village.
Funny how a ghost could cast such a shadow but it wasn’t the only shadow Emma was aware of today.
The arrangements were all in place. Poppy was spending the day with Jeannie and Oliver was with Ben. Their mothers would take them to the play practice later and Caitlin had offered to take Poppy to her dance class, where they were also doing a final rehearsal for their upcoming appearance, and Adam would collect her. He would also take Oliver to his music lesson tomorrow morning to prepare for the junior pipers’ display. The Christmas Eve school production wasn’t just a nativity play from the youngest pupils. It was more like a talent show. A celebration of everything the village children had accomplished for their year.
Nobody seemed to mind that Emma was skipping town for a day and a night. She would be back in time. The knowing looks and veiled comments she’d received had let her know that they thought she was really going to Edinburgh to do some Christmas shopping. The way Mrs McAllister used to. And didn’t the bairns deserve something special? Their poor father never had the time to go far afield to create Christmas surprises but Emma was good at surprises, wasn’t she?
Oh, yes … the shadows were gathering and, as she sat alone in the train on the way to Edinburgh, they formed a black cloud that threatened a storm.
Had she made a terrible mistake in trying to create a perfect Christmas for the McAllister family? For herself?
She hadn’t intended falling in love with Adam but it had happened. And, if this was going to be her last Christmas, how magical was it to feel this happy?
This loved.
She hadn’t intended to give Adam any more than the reminder of what it was like to let a woman close. To help him step forward from his grief. She hadn’t expected him to fall in love with her. Not that he’d said anything but she could feel it in every touch.