Twins For Christmas. Alison Roberts

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       CHAPTER EIGHT

      THE MAGIC WAS getting stronger.

      Emma’s gift to Adam had been received so well it seemed that he wanted to unwrap it all over again the following night, and Emma was only too happy to participate, tiptoeing into Adam’s room when the children were fast asleep.

      How amazing that the same gift could be given in both directions.

      And that parts of it could be given to others without them knowing how or why it was happening?

      They were being very careful to make sure the children didn’t realise what had changed between them but the magic was still happening.

      The new connection between Adam and Emma was sending out tendrils that were touching the children. Making them all feel like a family.

      Like when naughty Benji had mistaken the old teddy Poppy carried everywhere now, for a dog toy and had grabbed its leg. Poppy had tried to keep hold of it but ended up pulling off the damaged arm and she had been distraught.

      ‘Emma can fix it,’ Adam consoled her.

      ‘Daddy can fix it,’ Emma said at the same time.

      They looked at each other and smiled.

      ‘You’re good at sewing,’ Adam said. ‘I’ve seen that pretty dress you made Poppy for the play.’

      ‘You’re the doctor,’ she said solemnly. ‘An amputated arm is much more in your line of work.’

      ‘Aye …’ Adam nodded thoughtfully but his eyes held a mischievous glint. ‘I’ll need a scrub nurse, though.’

      ‘I love new jobs.’ It was hard not to grin but Poppy was still sobbing.

      ‘We need a clean sheet,’ Adam told her, ‘so we’ve got an operating table. Ollie? Can you go and bring my doctor bag, please?’

      It was a treat, turning the small disaster into a game that the children were fascinated by. With a clean sheet on the table, Adam pretended to give teddy an anaesthetic with a nebuliser. He’d found masks and gloves for both he and Emma to wear and he seemed more than happy to use up other medical supplies, like the suture kit.

      It might have been a game but watching Adam draw the teddy’s furry fabric together and make the complicated-looking knots of real sutures impressed Emma as much as it did the children. Their father was doing his important, real work at home. For teddy.

      ‘Pay attention, scrub nurse,’ Adam growled at one point. ‘You have to cut the thread now.’

      Emma giggled and, after a startled moment, so did both the children.

      Teddy’s arm got bandaged when the operation was finished and then he got sent off to Intensive Care in Poppy’s bedroom because it was bedtime. Ollie got to carry him because he’d been promoted to orderly.

      ‘I’ll bet they’ll remember that for the rest of their lives,’ Emma told Adam later that night as she lay in his arms yet again. ‘The night Daddy operated on teddy.’

      ‘I think I’ll remember it,’ Adam replied quietly. ‘It was special.’

      ‘Magic,’ Emma agreed happily.

      ‘Aye …’ Adam bent his head to kiss her again. ‘Like you …’

      The newest member of the Braeburn McAllister clan was born in the new light of the day after teddy’s surgery.

      Everyone in the village assumed that was why Dr McAllister was looking so happy. He had a bonny new niece and everybody was fine and his mother would head home in a couple of weeks and life would carry on just the same but better.

      ‘They’ve called the wee lassie Holly—did you hear? Because she’s been born sae close to Christmas.’

      If anyone wondered why that Miss Sinclair seemed to be just as happy as the rest of the family, even though she was no relation to the new bairn, they just gave each other knowing looks. She was always a happy wee thing, wasn’t she? A bit different, mind, with strange clothes and carrying her guitar with her everywhere, but you couldn’t say a word against how she looked after those twins and the way she was getting involved with the school’s Christmas production and even with the fundraising for the hall committee.

      And, oh, my … she could sing like a wee angel, couldn’t she?

      Phone calls and texts and photographs pinged between Scotland and Canada but it was a couple of days before everything came together well enough for a family gathering, courtesy of an online video chat.

      Marion and Holly were back home already with Ian—the proud husband and new father—and Catherine was using her tablet. Adam had set up his desktop computer in the living room. With a fire burning merrily in the grate and the lights СКАЧАТЬ