‘Hmm.’ It was tempting to take the children and dogs off for a walk but Emma had a sudden vision of them all getting lost in the Scottish highlands. She could imagine the activation of the local search and rescue team as the snow started falling thickly and what Adam’s face would be like if she put his children into such danger.
Maybe it was fortunate that the leaden sky overhead decided to release the first fat raindrops on top of them.
‘Let’s get Jemima tucked up into her nice warm stable. I’ve got something special we can do inside.’
‘What?’
‘It’s a surprise.’
It was certainly Oliver that the donkey was willing to follow. He didn’t even need to hang onto her halter as he led her into the straw-covered stable. They closed the bottom half of the door so she could see out but the mournful braying started even before they got back to the house.
‘She’s lonely again,’ Poppy said. Her bottom lip quivered.
‘Oh … look.’ Emma wanted to distract Poppy. ‘That’s a holly hedge. Let’s pick some.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s what you do at Christmas. We need branches that have lots of lovely red berries. Let’s see how quickly we can find some and get inside before it really starts raining.’
The rain was pouring down by the time they reached the warmth of the kitchen again. The dogs left muddy paw prints over the flagstone floor and curled up close to the fire that Emma stoked. She cleared the table and produced the packets of coloured paper she had purchased in the village the day before and showed them how to cut strips and make interlocking loops by sticking the ends together.
‘Do lots of different colours,’ she said. ‘And make them really long. I’ll find something to stick them up with and we’ll make the kitchen so pretty it will be a lovely surprise for when Daddy gets home.’
The task was a novelty that the children loved. The strips were a bit wobbly and the loops a variety of sizes but it didn’t detract from the overall effect as the simple decorations grew. Emma cleaned up the lunch dishes and found a big bowl to arrange the holly branches in. She sang the Christmas carol the children had never heard about the little donkey and Poppy made her sing it again and again as she tried to learn the words.
Then she searched cluttered drawers until she found some drawing pins and tape that she could use to hang the paper chains. This required some effort, moving the table and then standing on a chair on top of it but by the time daylight had faded completely they were able to stand back and admire the team effort.
Rainbow chains linked all four corners of the room, dipping between the beams to give graceful curves to the lines. The whitewashed ceiling made the colours seem even brighter and the transformation from ordinary to festive was very gratifying. Who wouldn’t love it?
The sound of singing was the last thing Adam needed when he stepped into his home after a long and difficult afternoon. The happy sound was totally inappropriate when he’d just left people who were suffering—like poor Aimee Jessop, who looked like she might lose yet another bairn.
The clock had stopped, he noted. Because he’d forgotten to wind it.
At least Bob wasn’t limping as much but it had been Emma who had decided to take him to the vet to have his dressing changed and receive instructions on how to care for the dog. Had Jim, the vet, made some comment about how it was just as well it wasn’t going to be left entirely in Adam’s hands?
And it had been Emma who’d made him feel like he wasn’t doing enough for his children, too. The way she’d said how much she loved being with them this morning. He loved being with them, too, but how many others would realise that?
He’d promised to spend the afternoon with them today and look what had happened.
A premature labour at only twenty-seven weeks for poor Aimee. Four weeks longer than the previous two pregnancies and she’d really begun to hope that this time she would get to take her baby home. He’d tried to keep her calm until the ambulance arrived and he couldn’t have let her go to the hospital alone. Not when her husband was out on the oil rig for another two weeks.
Not even noticing the muddy streak Benji’s paw left on his trousers, Adam kept moving. Maybe a wee dram of whisky before his tea would help. And some time with the children. He could read them a story before bed.
The words of the song were audible now. ‘“Little donkey, little donkey, on the dusty road …”’
Maybe the children would prefer to hear songs than a story.
Adam stepped into the kitchen. He was expecting warmth and the smell of hot food. The loving greeting his children always gave him and the prospect of winding down in the comfort of his favourite part of his house. He wasn’t expecting to be hit in the face with a blinding kaleidoscope of colours.
‘What in heaven’s name is going on in here?’
‘Daddy …’ Poppy flung her arms around his legs. ‘We’ve made decorations. Aren’t they bee-yoot-i-ful?’
Adam took another upward glance at the desecration of the ancient, oak beams.
‘And we’ve learned a song all about Jemima.’
‘It’s not about Jemima.’ Oliver was right beside his sister now. ‘It’s about another donkey. The one that Mary was riding to get to Bethlehem.’
Christmas again. How did it manage to accentuate the worst of life in so many ways? Impossible not to think about a donkey carrying the pregnant Mary. With a full-term pregnancy that everybody knew ended up with a healthy baby, despite less than adequate birthing facilities. Unlike poor Aimee who had access to the best of modern care but now had a scrap of a bairn who was on life support in a neonatal intensive care unit in Edinburgh.
Adam tried to push the concern away. To focus on his own healthy children. Tried to centre himself by a glance around the room below ceiling level. At least that looked relatively normal. Or did it?
‘What …’ he actually had to swallow before he could find any more words ‘… are those?’
The children had fallen strangely silent. Even Poppy, who could never be called a quiet child. It was Emma who answered.
‘They’re Advent calendars. You get to open a little door every day until Christmas Eve and there’s a new picture and a little chocolate. Very little and the children haven’t eaten them all from the doors that already needed to be opened. They saved them. For you.’
She sounded nervous, Adam realised. He looked over the twins’ heads and looked at her properly for the first time since he’d come into the room. He still hadn’t got used to the way she looked, with that air of being a stray gypsy waif, but he was certainly letting go of the idea that she could be unreliable or unable to commit to anything. She’d thrown herself into being his children’s nanny with her heart and soul, hadn’t she? They loved her.
And she loved them. The way she’d said how much she loved being with them this morning had touched his heart in the way that only total honesty could.
And now she was looking at him with eyes that looked too large for her thin face. With a glow that was telling him that she was doing this to make his children happy.
Because she already loved them.
And because it was Christmastime.
There was a hopeful expression in those eyes, too, that was a plea that he wouldn’t spoil it all by being cross.
He found himself unable to look away. Adam got a sudden vision of what it would be like to be seeing himself through her eyes and he didn’t