Alison Roberts - Twins For Christmas - A Little Christmas Magic / Lone Star Twins / A Family This Christmas

She’d seen that smile so often in the last few days. Everyone had and it was contagious. There was so much laughter in this house now and even people in the village seemed to be smiling more.

‘Are you trying to upstage me, Adam? Creating havoc in the village so nobody’s got time to talk about my wee Holly? Whose crazy idea was it to take our donkey into the hall?’

‘ Emma’s ,’ the twins chorused.

Oliver pushed past Poppy to take centre stage. ‘Aunty Marion—can you come and see our play? I’m going to be Joseph and I get to lead Jemima until we get to the stage and I’ve got a … a rib that Emma made out of a sheet—’

‘Robe,’ Adam supplied.

‘And I wear a stripy tea towel on my head and Emma’s made a special rope thing to hold it on and …’

And Marion was laughing again. ‘I can’t come this time, pet. I have to be here to look after wee Holly. But next year we’ll all be back in Braeburn and we’ll all come and see the play.’

‘But Jemima won’t be in it next year.’

And I won’t be here, Emma thought. She had to dip her head and swallow hard.

‘I think I need to meet this Emma,’ Marion declared. ‘Where is she?’

‘She’s here.’ Adam turned away from the computer and held out his hand. ‘Come over, Emma. Come and meet my sister and our new niece.’

She couldn’t not respond to that outstretched hand. To the invitation in those eyes and the smile she was coming to love more and more. With the children standing in front of them, nobody would notice that Adam caught her hand when she got close enough, would they? Or that he laced his fingers through hers and kept holding it as Emma smiled at the screen.

‘Hi, Marion. Congratulations. I’ve seen the pictures of Holly and she’s just gorgeous.’

Adam squeezed her hand and it was automatic to look up and return his smile. Hard to look away quickly enough to avoid making it obvious that her relationship with her employer had undergone a radical change recently.

Marion looked away from the screen for a moment, her face a question mark. Was she exchanging a significant look with her mother? But then she was smiling again, possibly even more widely than before.

‘I hear you can sing,’ she said. ‘That you—and the children of Braeburn school—are about to become rich and famous.’

Emma laughed. ‘I don’t think so. But a local radio station got hold of the story about us making a CD of Christmas carols as a fundraiser. They’ve organised a bus to take us all into a recording studio and they’re going to make it available as a download so lots of people can buy it. With a bit of luck, we’ll be able to fix up the hall and get a new piano for the school.’

The twins were feeling left out.

‘I’ve got a train, Aunty Marion. It’s on the floor by the tree, see?’

‘No, I can’t see it, pet.’

‘I’ll get the engine and show you.’ Oliver wriggled between Adam and Emma and they had to break their handhold.

‘And I’ve got a bear.’ Poppy held it up and pressed it against the computer screen. ‘Benji pulled him and the arm felled off but Daddy and Emma poperated it and it’s all better now.’

‘Good heavens … that’s my old bear,’ came Catherine’s voice.

‘We found it in the attic when we went up to hunt out the Christmas decorations,’ Adam explained. ‘You don’t mind, do you? Ollie’s train was the one I had when I was his age. I’d forgotten it was even there.’

‘Of course I don’t mind.’ Catherine’s eyes were suspiciously bright. ‘It’s wonderful that you found things to use again. Oh … I wish I was there with you. You all look so happy.’

If they hadn’t noticed anything significant in the glance Adam and Emma had exchanged before, they would surely pick up on something this time as Adam turned to Emma and smiled.

‘We are,’ he said.

‘But what on earth did you do to the bear to fix it?’

‘A poperation,’ Poppy shouted. ‘I told you.’

‘An operation .’ Emma was laughing. ‘Daddy got a special needle and thread from his doctor’s bag and sewed teddy’s arm back on.’

‘I growled at Benji,’ Poppy added. ‘And he looked sad.’

‘Is Benji going to be in the play, too?’ Marion asked.

‘‘Course not.’ Oliver was back with the train engine. ‘He’s a dog. ’

‘Maybe he could pretend to be a sheep?’

‘No.’ Adam shook his head. ‘Don’t go putting ideas in their heads, Miri. You’re as bad as Emma. We’ve got more than enough going on right now. I’m helping to shift hay bales into the hall tomorrow. Bryan from the pub is making a manger.’

The connection crackled and the picture pixelated for a moment. By the time it cleared, baby Holly was crying and it was hard to hear conversation.

‘We’d better go,’ Adam said. ‘It’s very late for you. We’ll try again on Christmas Day, aye? Children—come and blow a kiss to your wee cousin.’

With a chorus of ‘Miss you’ and ‘Love you lots’ the call ended. For a moment the blankness of the screen seemed to dampen the atmosphere in the room.

Emma groaned. ‘Oh, no … we forgot to sing the carol for the baby.’

The twins were good at speaking in unison. ‘Deck the halls with boughs of holly …’

They were also good at looking equally disappointed.

‘Never mind. We needed to practise a bit more anyway. We’ll be extra-good at it for Christmas Day.’

But Poppy’s lip wobbled and Oliver hugged 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?