Читать книгу Single Dad In Her Stocking / A Puppy And A Christmas Proposal - Алисон Робертс - Страница 13

EMMA WATCHED IN horror as Max walked out of the room and left her—literally—holding the baby.

And maybe Alice was significantly older and heavier than a newborn but, for a heartbeat, Emma simply froze because this baby wasn’t sick and she wasn’t standing here in the capacity of a doctor. This baby needed feeding and she had just been forced into the position of being a surrogate mother—something she wouldn’t have volunteered for in a million years.

Turning away from watching Max leave, Emma found herself looking at the two small children who were sitting on the couch and staring at her. They both looked scared. That something terrible was happening with their baby sister, perhaps?

‘It’s okay,’ Emma heard herself saying calmly. ‘I think she’s just hungry.’

She could do something about that, she realised, and that was the only thing she needed to think about right now. Anything else, including how this was making her feel, would simply have to wait but, as she moved to sit down, it seemed that the shock of having the baby shoved into her arms was receding enough to make it bearable. She would certainly not have volunteered to take the baby and feed it but, now that it was happening, Emma found that it hadn’t smashed through her walls the way she might have feared that it would. This was someone else’s baby, not her own. A healthy baby that just needed to be fed. Surely she could cope with this?

She chose to sit on the couch beside the other children, not wanting to take over the chair Max had been using. Or maybe she thought it might comfort the infant in her arms to be near her brother and sister. She settled Alice into the crook of her arm and offered her the nipple of the bottle, sliding it into her mouth that was opening for a new wail. Surprised eyes stared up at her and then, mercifully, that little mouth closed over the teat and Alice began sucking vigorously.

In the sudden silence that fell, Emma was aware that the older children were still watching. Max’s father had turned to peer at her from behind the wing of his chair and even the dog had wriggled forwards far enough to see what was happening beyond the safety of being beneath his master’s chair. She could hear the fire behind its screen, crackling softly in this new silence, and then she could hear Max coming back into the room. Or maybe she could feel the change in the atmosphere as he entered—that kind of electricity that charismatic people radiated.

‘That was the builder,’ he said. ‘They’ve fixed the leak in the apartment above mine but it’s going to be a big job to get things fixed and cleaned up. It certainly won’t be happening before Christmas.’

James Cunningham grunted. ‘Can’t say I’m surprised. It’s hard enough to get tradesmen in a hurry at the best of times.’

Max sat down in the other wing chair, his gaze fixed on Alice. ‘You always did make it look easy,’ he murmured. ‘You’re just a natural, aren’t you, Emma?’

Emma said nothing. She couldn’t say anything. Not with that damned lump that had just formed in her throat. Breathe, she told herself. You only need to breathe.

The silence returned and then Max sounded like he was making an effort to break it.

‘Is that your special Christmas tree, Ben?’

Emma glanced sideways to see Ben nod solemnly. ‘You’ve got to have a Christmas tree,’ he told his uncle. ‘It’s a rule.’

‘Oh?’

Emma could understand the note in Max’s voice—as if he was wondering what other ‘rules’ Ben might be holding as sacrosanct.

Ben nodded again. ‘That’s how Father Christmas knows where to leave the presents. It should go near the chimney.’

Emma lifted her gaze to look around the huge room they were in. She wondered what this little boy might think of those paintings in their ornate frames, the ornaments on sideboards and the baby grand piano in the corner. Was he used to this kind of house or was it making this an even more frightening experience for him?

But Ben was sounding worried rather than frightened when he spoke again.

‘Where’s your Christmas tree, Grandpa?’

This time, the silence in the room was filled with a tension that made a knot start to form in Emma’s stomach. There was level upon level of misery here that she could feel as if it was her own. Some of it was her own but she had learned long ago how to shut that away and it was actually quite empowering to find she could hold and feed baby Alice without falling apart in any visible manner. Looking down, she met the fixed gaze of those dark baby eyes on her own and could be confident that all was well in this tiny human’s life for the moment, at least, as she sucked down the rest of her milk. It wasn’t the case for anyone else in this room, was it?

Emma looked at the children beside her on the couch. The little boy was still staring at his grandfather, waiting for an answer to his question about the missing Christmas tree. The little girl seemed to sense Emma’s gaze and returned it with such a solemn one of her own that, if her arms weren’t full of baby Alice and her bottle, she would have instinctively wanted to gather this child to her as closely as she could to give her a big hug. James was stroking an imaginary beard as if it might help him find an answer and Max…

Well, Max was looking at her.

As if he knew that she knew why Christmas hadn’t been celebrated in this house for probably decades and why a simple child’s question was creating such tension. As if he had no idea how to defuse it and as if he was trusting her to help in the same way that she had managed to conquer the difficulty he had faced in getting the baby fed.

Just for a heartbeat, Emma could see something she was quite sure she’d never seen before in Max Cunningham’s eyes. Bewilderment, almost. The look of someone who’d lost something very important and had absolutely no idea where to start looking for it. There was something sad in that gaze as well and that made her realise he must know exactly how his nephew must be feeling right now and that could be what was making it so hard for him to find the right thing to say. A tragic history had repeated itself and a small boy had lost his mum just before Christmas.

The squeeze on Emma’s heart was so tight it was painful. Painful enough to set off alarm bells that suggested a potential breach in any protective walls that needed maintaining but she had to ignore that for the moment. She was an adult and she had had plenty of time to develop coping mechanisms she could tap into a bit later. Doing something to try and make these children look and sound a little less sad was far more urgent.

‘Sometimes,’ she told Ben, quietly, ‘things happen that can get in the way of remembering rules. I’m sure your Uncle Max or your Grandpa will know where to find a Christmas tree.’

James leaned forward to pick up a poker and prod the fire, making a grumbling sound that could have been disapproving but Max was nodding as if this was, indeed, the solution.

‘A real one,’ he said. ‘We can go and look in the woods tomorrow, Ben. You can choose a branch and I’ll cut it off. Or, if we can’t find one, we can drive into town and buy one.’

‘How old are you, Ben?’ Emma asked.

‘Six.’

‘That’s old enough to make decorations for the tree, then. Like silver stars. I can show you how to do that.’ She offered a smile. ‘My name’s Emma.’

The little girl was wriggling closer. ‘I’m four,’ she whispered, ‘and I like stars…’

‘You can help too, sweetheart,’ Emma promised. She just had to hope there would be a supply of cardboard and silver foil somewhere in the house.

‘That’s Matilda,’ Max said. ‘But she likes to be called Tilly.’ He was smiling at Emma.

And it was such a genuine smile… Nothing like the charm-loaded curl of his lips with that mischievous edge that had always won him so much attention from women. This time, that automatic hint of flirting that Emma had remembered so clearly was completely absent and it changed his face. It made him look a little older. Softer—as if he was perfectly capable of providing the care and commitment these children were going to need so badly even if he used to say it was the last thing he ever wanted to do.

Alice had finished her bottle and felt sleepy and relaxed. Emma shifted her to an upright position and began to rub her back. Seconds later, the loud burp broke both the new silence and quite a lot of the tension in the room.

‘I’m hungry,’ Ben said.

Emma caught the slightly panicked glance that was exchanged between the two Cunningham men.

‘Maggie’s left a pie in the oven,’ Max told his father. ‘And chips.’

‘I like chips.’ Ben slid off the couch. He stood there, waiting for one of the grown-ups to move as well.

But, for a long moment, nobody did and Emma could understand why. This was it, wasn’t it? The first step into a life that was never going to be the same again for either of these men and it was huge and daunting and they’d been thrown into the deep end. None of it was Emma’s responsibility, of course, but the people who were going to suffer if it turned into a disaster were only children and these children had suffered enough, hadn’t they?

It seemed that Max was thinking the same thing because they both got to their feet in the same moment. He stepped towards Emma and took the sleeping baby from her arms.

‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘I can manage.’

‘I’m here,’ Emma reminded him gently. ‘I may as well help you manage for tonight, yes?’

There was always something about a man holding a baby that tugged at the heartstrings. But there was something else about this particular man holding a baby that actually brought a lump to Emma’s throat. This had to be his worst nightmare, inheriting a ready-made family including a baby, but he was stepping up to the challenge and determined to do his best and that was courageous and kind and…it tugged at her heart so hard she couldn’t look away from his eyes.

She hadn’t remembered them being quite such a dark blue.

Or quite so…intense.

It almost felt as if he was seeing her… really seeing her…for the first time ever.

Man…

Those eyes… So dark they looked bottomless. You could fall into eyes like that and get totally lost. And, just for a heartbeat, that was exactly what Max wanted to do. The rollercoaster of emotions he was currently riding was proving even more overwhelming than he’d feared it would be.

His heart had gone out to his nephew and nieces the moment he’d seen them but he was little more than a stranger to them and, oddly, that hurt. There was so much stuff that had come with the children and he wouldn’t have even known how to make up a bottle if Maggie hadn’t helped. He might have failed in feeding Alice if he hadn’t forced Emma to help so he could add a sense of failure into the mix. He was worried about how his father was coping, especially after that question about the Christmas tree. They hadn’t put a tree up in this house since his mother had died, leaving a huge pine tree undecorated and a shattered family that barely noticed the showers of dead needles that came weeks later.

On top of that, there were feelings of heartbreak for these children. Part of him just wanted to gather them all into his arms and somehow let them know that he was going to protect them for ever, but he could sense their shyness and knew he would make things worse if he tried to force closeness. He felt gratitude to Maggie for all her extra work and, currently, he was just so, so glad that Emma was here in the house. Trying to convince her that he was up to this task was giving him a lot more courage than he might have otherwise found in the face of such a daunting challenge.

There was also the way she’d been looking at him after Ben had asked about where the Christmas tree was. It had made him think that she knew the answer to that innocent question, which was not unlikely given that she’d spent time with Terry and Jenny. Jenny wasn’t a gossip by any means but she was one of the villagers who all knew the Cunninghams’ history and she was a woman who loved to chat. Max didn’t mind if Emma did know because there was also something in that look that gave him the impression that she understood how much it might hurt and, in turn, that was giving him the oddest feeling of connection. Something that was disconcerting because he’d never associated a feeling like that with any woman. It had to be just another side effect of this strange situation. It was also something that was irrelevant because the children were the only people that mattered right now.

‘What’s first?’ he asked. ‘Shall I feed the children?’

‘How ’bout you and your dad sort some of their things out? Find things like pyjamas and toothbrushes? You could put Alice in her pram for the moment while she’s asleep. Show me where the kitchen is and I’ll sort out the pie.’

‘And chips.’ The small voice came from right beside Max’s leg and he looked down to find Ben standing close by. ‘And sauce. Red sauce.’

‘Is that a rule?’ Max asked. ‘Red sauce for chips?’

Ben nodded. He was holding out his hand towards Matilda. ‘Come on, Tilly,’ he said. ‘It’s time for tea.’

‘It is,’ Emma said, as Matilda slid off the couch. ‘And after that it will be bath time and…what happens after bath time?’

‘Storytime,’ Ben said. ‘And…and then…’

His small mouth wobbled as it turned down at the corners. It was painfully obvious that the prospect of bedtime in this new, scary house was too much even for a very brave child who was doing his best to look after his younger sister himself. The squeeze in Max’s chest was so sharp it made the back of his eyes prickle. He bent down so that he could say something quietly, just for Ben.

‘It’s going to be okay,’ he whispered. ‘I promise.’

Ben’s eyes were a dark blue. Like his father’s had been. Like all the Cunningham men, for that matter. They were also far too serious for a six-year-old boy.

‘It’s a new rule,’ Max added gravely. ‘And I try very hard to never break rules.’

Having so much to do to start getting the children settled into what was going to be their new home was helpful for the next few hours. Having Emma there to answer the questions James and Max kept coming up with was also very helpful.

‘Should we put Alice’s cot in the same room as Tilly and Ben?’

‘It might be better to put it in your room to start with. That way, if she wakes up, she won’t wake up the others.’

‘But…what will I do with her if she does wake up?’

Emma’s smile was kind enough not to make Max feel inadequate in any way. ‘Give her a bottle of milk. Change her nappy. Cuddle her.’

Ben and Matilda ate enough of their dinner for Emma to be looking pleased when Max went to tell her that he had unpacked the suitcases to find pyjamas.

‘Shall we go up those big stairs?’ She made it sound like an adventure. ‘I know where there’s a bath that’s got feet.’

Ben shook his head. ‘A bath doesn’t have feet,’ he told Emma. ‘It can’t walk.’

‘No. This one just stands there but it really does have feet. Like a lion’s paws. Do you want to see?’

Max watched her go up the stairs with a child on each side of her, holding her hands. Ben still had the little Christmas tree in his other hand, he noticed. And Tilly was holding her rabbit by one foot so that its head, with those chewed ears, was bumping on every tread. James was coming down as they reached the halfway curve.

‘Have you got hot-water bottles?’ Emma asked him. ‘It would be good to put them in Ben’s and Tilly’s beds. And put some of their toys there too, so it’ll feel more like home.’

The men didn’t get the distribution of stuffed toys quite right but it was easy enough to fix as the children climbed into the twin beds that were side by side in one of the smallest bedrooms. It was James who agreed to read a bedtime story to his grandchildren while Pirate lay outside the bedroom door. Max was learning how to bath Alice and get her ready for bed. At six months old she was nothing like as fragile as a newborn, of course, but she still felt very small in Max’s hands and it was fiddly enough to get her into her nappy and her stretchy sleepsuit to make him break out in a bit of a sweat.

‘So you’ve put her cot in your room?’ Emma asked.

‘Well…the room I use when I’m staying, yes. It might be a good one for the nanny to use when she gets here.’

‘Have you plugged in the baby monitor?’

‘Yes. And, if I leave the door open, I should be able to hear if Ben or Tilly wakes up too. You don’t think they’ll sleepwalk or anything, do you? What would I do if they did?’

‘If they do get up, they’ll just be looking for comfort,’ Emma told him. ‘Cuddles. You could stay with them until they go back to sleep. Or let them share your bed.’

There was a hint of mischief in Emma’s eyes as she made that suggestion. As if she knew perfectly well that sharing a bed in order to comfort small children was a totally alien concept for Max. As if she was trying to lighten the atmosphere a little too, to defuse some of the tension of the evening. The idea that Emma might be at all concerned for his own wellbeing did make him feel rather a lot better, in fact.

‘Are you hungry?’ she asked. ‘There’s plenty of pie and chips left.’

‘And red sauce?’

The smile he received from Emma felt like a reward for what seemed like a major achievement in caring for the children for the first time. Glancing at his watch, Max was astonished at how much time had gone by. ‘It’s late,’ he said. ‘No wonder I’m starving.’

‘Let’s see if we can get Alice settled properly. Your dad should be back from taking Pirate for a walk by then and we can all have something to eat.’

James came back with the news that, while the snow had settled in places, it seemed to have stopped and the roads were still clear enough to be safe for Emma to drive back into Cheltenham in the morning.

‘And they’re very good about getting the snow ploughs out on our road first,’ he told her as they ate dinner together at the old table in the huge kitchen. ‘One of the perks of being the only local doctor.’

‘Do you do nights as well?’ Emma asked.

It was Max who shook his head. ‘Theoretically, that’s covered by an afterhours service from town,’ he told her. ‘In reality, though, Dad often gets called.’

‘I don’t mind,’ James said. ‘I’ve known these families for a long time. They trust me. Thanks for taking care of Terry today, Emma. Jenny’s still overanxious about his angina.’

‘It was a pleasure.’ Emma sounded as though she meant it.

James stood up to take his plate to the sink. ‘Might turn in,’ he said. ‘It’s been a big day.’ He snapped his fingers and Pirate jumped out of his basket near the Aga. ‘Can you look after the fire, Max?’

‘Of course. Sleep well, Dad.’

The huff of sound was doubtful and the words were an under-the-breath mutter as James left the room. ‘Let’s hope we all get some sleep.’

Emma stacked the dishes into the dishwasher but Max wouldn’t let her do anything else in the kitchen.

‘Maggie will be back in the morning. Being used as a housekeeper or a nanny is not part of your locum contract, you know.’

Emma shrugged. ‘They say that variety is the spice of life. To tell you the truth, I’ve never been in a house like this before and it’s amazing.’ Which it was. Every room she had seen in this old house was beautiful but her favourite so far had to be the kitchen, with its old range and the dresser with the antique china and an ancient scrubbed table that reminded her of outside terraces in Italy because it made her think of generations of extended family gathering to eat together. The time had flown, as well. They’d been so busy with dinner and baths and getting everybody settled into bed that Emma hadn’t had time to worry about how it could potentially be messing with her head and, in fact, now that she did have the time to think about it, she was confident that she could deal with it.

‘The children really haven’t been much trouble, have they?’ she said aloud. ‘And the way Ben tries so hard to help look after Tilly is just gorgeous.’

‘Mmm…’

The tone in that sound gave Emma’s heart a squeeze as she pushed the door of the dishwasher closed. It was a note of trepidation. Fear, almost.

She caught his gaze. ‘It’s going to be okay, Max,’ she said softly. ‘You’ll work things out. I know it feels huge and scary at the moment but just take it a day at a time. An hour at a time, if you need to.’

‘Is that your strategy for when you find yourself in totally unfamiliar surroundings in your locum work?’

Emma smiled. ‘Sometimes I’m taking it a second at a time. Oh…did you want some dessert? Ice cream, like the kids had, maybe?’

Max made another huff of sound. ‘I think I need something a bit stronger than ice cream. Do you fancy a small whisky?’

Emma wrinkled her nose. ‘I don’t do whisky. A glass of wine would be nice, though. White, if you have any.’

‘There’s usually something in the fridge. Or there’s rather a large wine cellar downstairs and it’s cold enough at this time of year to be perfectly drinkable.’

The thought of being in a house that had a large wine cellar was as surreal as every other surprise this day had thrown at her. ‘Just a small glass,’ she warned. ‘I’ve got a very early start tomorrow. I’ll need to leave at least an hour to get into Cheltenham in case there’s more snow in the night. More, if I need to put the chains on my tyres. And my shift starts at seven a.m., yes?’

‘You’re onto it.’ Max was heading towards a large fridge. ‘You sound like you could cope with anything, in fact.’

‘It’s part of what I like about locum work. You never quite know what’s round the next corner. I’ve been out to remote islands off Scotland in a boat. I did a stint with an air rescue service in Canada once too, and our agency specialises in insurance company work when an injured or ill traveller needs to get brought back home. I went out to an oil rig in a helicopter once.’

‘Sounds exciting.’

‘I love it. But it can be daunting as well. That’s how I know that sometimes you need to focus on just the next step in front of you and block out the big picture.’

‘I think I’d rather be on the way out to an oil rig than wondering what I’m going to do with unhappy children in the middle of the night.’

Emma took the glass of wine Max had poured for her. Her smile was one of both appreciation and, hopefully, some reassurance. The softening of his features and that hint of a smile told her that it seemed to have helped.

‘Come in by the fire for a minute. I need to make that safe for the night and the whisky’s in there too.’

And maybe he needed a bit more reassurance? Emma could provide that. For the sake of Max and his father. And those beautiful children. She’d been perfectly genuine when she’d told Max that the children hadn’t been any trouble to look after and she was quite hopeful that she wasn’t going to be kept awake tonight by ghosts from the past. Even when she had been helping Max bathe and dress the baby she had been able to keep that door in her own heart firmly closed. These children were like patients. Helping them was just an unexpected—and temporary—twist in her professional life.

It was no great hardship to take a few minutes to sit and sip an excellent wine in front of the fireplace, either. Despite the size of this impressive room, the flames created a flickering light and warmth that made the area directly in front of it seem homely. Almost intimate.

‘So how long have you been working as a locum?’ Max asked when they had chosen to sit at either end of the big couch rather than use the wing chairs.

‘A bit over four years, now.’ She had been offered bereavement leave but Emma had found she needed to get back to the job she loved so much, even though she’d been conscious of how hard it was going to be to work amongst young children and babies for a while. She’d learned to cope faster than she’d expected, however. She’d built those walls and kept going but some of the joy had gone and, as the months wore on, she’d known that if she wanted to move forward with her life and reclaim that joy, she needed to make some big changes. Hearing about someone’s exciting career as a locum had happened at just the right time.

‘If I’d ever thought about it, I would have said you’d be a consultant paediatrician by now.’

Emma tilted her head but didn’t say anything. She could have agreed with him and said that was exactly what she’d been planning on being but, if she told him that, she’d have to tell him why it hadn’t happened and she didn’t want to go there. It was easier to focus on what else he’d just said that implied he’d never given her another thought after the time they’d worked together.

It was inevitable that that took her mind back to their kiss. The one she’d never forgotten…

Max broke the silence. ‘I guess none of us know what twists and turns life has in store for us. We just know that they’re going to happen—usually at what seems to be the worst possible time.’

‘Mmm.’ Emma could certainly agree with that. For a long moment, they both sipped their drinks and the silence was companionable. She knew she might be taking a risk that could destroy this pleasant ambience but Emma was curious. There was so much about Max that she’d never known. Would never have guessed.

‘How old were you when your mum died, Max?’ she asked gently.

His glance was swift. Intense. ‘So Jenny did tell you? Or was it Maggie?’

‘They both told me a little. Not much. Maggie told me about your brother. Jenny said something about your mother.’

‘Something about the “Curse of the Cunninghams”, perhaps?’

Embarrassed, Emma dropped her gaze. She’d hate Max to think she’d been gossiping about his family.

‘It’s okay,’ he said with a sigh. ‘I know people like to talk and it’s no wonder it’s all resurfacing now. Here it is, Christmas again, and tragedy number three strikes the Cunningham family.’

‘That should be it, then.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Bad things are supposed to come in threes.’ Emma bit her lip. The tragedies that had befallen this family were nothing to make light of but all she wanted to do was offer…something. Comfort wasn’t possible but perhaps some hope? ‘Christmas will be different this year.’ She offered a smile this time. ‘I’m sure the tree will just be the first of all the rules that Ben knows about.’

Max snorted. ‘Christmas rules are just part of the commercial hype that’s all this season is all about. Reasons to make you spend more and more money.’

‘You think?’

‘I don’t imagine this is the first Christmas you’ve worked so you know about the effects of the kind of stress it creates. People drink too much. Domestic violence goes through the roof. It’s marketed as a promise for peace and love for everyone who bothers to follow all those “rules” but anyone who stands back far enough can see it for what it is.’

There was a defensiveness in his tone that made Emma think he was protesting too much. Because he’d had to—to protect himself? Because it was so much harder if you let yourself sink into what was missing from a celebration of family? She, of all people, could understand that.

‘I don’t believe that,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m not saying it’s not a particularly difficult time for a lot of people but, if you’re lucky, it’s an opportunity to hit pause for a day. To celebrate the things that are really important—like family and friends. And, yes, we do that by buying stuff and eating special food but that’s okay too, because it’s all part of what makes it special. And they’re not “rules”. They’re traditions and every family makes their own. I expect Ben is holding onto the ones he knows about as tightly as he can because he’s lost just about everything else.’

Emma had to stop talking then, so that she could swallow the lump in her throat. She could feel Max’s gaze resting on her.

‘So…why aren’t you with your family, then? You do have one, don’t you?’

Emma nodded. ‘In Italy. We have quite different traditions there. Like the feast of the seven fishes on Christmas Eve—the Festa dei Sette Pesci. And there’s always a nativity scene in the house and someone gets chosen to put the baby Jesus in the crib on Christmas Eve.’ She let her breath out in a sigh. ‘I haven’t been back home for a few years, though.’

‘Why not?’

‘As a locum, it can be one of the busiest times of the year because so many people want time off to be with their families.’ Emma closed her eyes for a heartbeat, ignoring the faint alarm bell in her head. She had, albeit unintentionally, stepped into a private part of Max Cunningham’s life. It was only fair if he knew a little more about her, wasn’t it? ‘Plus, I had a pretty rough Christmas a few years back and I needed some time out. Especially from my family, who would have insisted on talking about it endlessly.’

‘What happened?’

‘Um…well, it started a bit before Christmas, I guess, when the guy I thought I was going to marry walked out on me. But then…someone special died…’

‘At Christmas time?’

‘On Christmas Day.’ Emma gulped in some air. ‘I knew it was coming but that doesn’t necessarily make it any easier at the time, you know?’

‘Oh, yeah…’ Max’s tone was heartfelt. ‘I know.’ It was his turn to take a deeper breath. ‘I didn’t answer your question before. I was eleven when my mum died. My brother Andy was only eight. Not much older than Ben.’

‘Oh, Max… I’m so sorry. That must have been so hard for you all.’

‘I think we were too shocked to think about Christmas that year. It was the next one that was the hardest. Andy wanted it to be like it had been, but it was too hard on Dad. I found him crying and that shocked me so much. I had no idea what to do.’

‘Of course you didn’t. You were a child.’

‘I’m not proud of what I did do.’

Emma watched the way Max’s face creased into lines of regret. ‘I’m sure it wasn’t that bad.’

‘I told Andy that Father Christmas wasn’t real. That it had been Mum who’d put all the decorations up and all those presents under the tree and in our stockings and that, now she wasn’t here, it couldn’t happen any more because it would make Dad too sad.’

Oh… Emma could just imagine the serious conversation between two small boys. A fragmented family trying to find a way to be together without it causing too much pain for anyone. It was heartbreaking.

‘So it didn’t happen that year. Or the next. And then we just got used to it. We’d give each other a gift but we never put up a Christmas tree again or did any of the other decorations that Mum used to love—like winding long ropes of artificial leafy stuff like ivy and holly with its red berries between the bannisters on the staircase and hanging little bunches of golden bells on every door so that they jingled whenever they were opened and closed. Andy started doing it all again once he had children of his own, mind you.’ Max drained his glass. ‘Me, I just got more cynical about it all but then, it only really matters for the kids, doesn’t it?’

‘I’m not sure about that,’ Emma said slowly. ‘But it’s certainly a very special time of the year for children. Exciting…and magical, until you know the truth about Father Christmas.’

Max grimaced. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not about to burst the bubble for Ben or Tilly. They’ve got more than enough of real life to get their heads around at the moment.’

‘But…’ Again, Emma bit her lip. This really wasn’t any of her business.

‘But, what?’

‘It’s just that…well…putting up a Christmas tree is only a part of it. And it’s only a decoration if you don’t really believe…’

‘In Father Christmas?’

Emma shook her head. ‘No. In family. In celebrating the bond. Or, in your case this year, perhaps it’s about creating a bond. The new one that’s going to be the foundation for Ben and Tilly and Alice to feel like they belong.’

Max was staring at her. ‘I can’t do that.’

‘You can. You and your dad. All you have to do is love these children and I’m sure you do already.’

‘Yes, but…we don’t know how to do Christmas. It’s been more than twenty years since we even had a piece of tinsel in the house. Dad wouldn’t want it.’

‘Are you sure? It’s been a long time, Max. Sometimes it takes a gentle push to get people past something that’s holding them back. This new family of yours is a gift. It could turn out to be the best thing that could have happened.’

‘The breaking of the curse?’

‘If you like. The start of something new, anyway. Something very special.’

Emma’s tone had softened as she thought about these two bachelor men of different generations sharing their lives with three small children. About the amount of love that would be available within the thick stone walls of this ancient house. She was smiling at Max as she finished speaking. He was holding her gaze with that kind of intensity she had felt before—when it had seemed like he was really seeing her for the first time.

‘You’re right,’ he said softly. ‘This could be the most important Christmas these kids will ever have. It has to be special.’ He still hadn’t broken the eye contact and Emma was starting to feel an odd tingle spreading through her body.

‘You have to help me, Emma. Please…’ The plea in Max’s tone was so heartfelt. ‘I don’t know how to do this by myself. I… I need you…’

The tingle had just reached Emma’s toes.

‘We all need you,’ Max added, as if summoning every power of persuasion he could find. ‘Me and Dad. Ben and Tilly and Alice. Probably Pirate too. Just to be here when you’re not at the hospital. Just to be…well…just to be you… And…and you did promise to show Ben and Tilly how to make stars and we didn’t get time to do that tonight, did we?’

Emma nodded. ‘I did say I’d show them how to make stars.’

But to stay here in this house?

To spend Christmas with a family?

It was terrifying and compelling at the same time. Emma knew she should run a mile but there was something in her way.

Maybe it was a small boy with solemn eyes. A little girl with a bunny that had chewed ears or a baby that had been watching her as if she was the most important person on earth as she’d sucked her bottle. Perhaps it was a man of her father’s generation who loved his little dog but had lost the joy of this season so long ago. Or…maybe it was this man who was looking lost but was so determined to do his best for the entire little family that had just turned up on his doorstep. A man who wanted her to be here. Who needed her…

Christmas… With children. And a baby. How could she possibly cope with saying yes?

But Max needed her. Perhaps everybody needed her because she was outside the tragedy that had brought them together so maybe she could see what needed to happen more clearly. How could she possibly say no?