Twins For Christmas: A Little Christmas Magic / Lone Star Twins / A Family This Christmas. Alison Roberts
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position, though, because he’d never felt this way about any of the women who’d come to live here and look after his children before.
About any women he’d met in the last few years, come to that.
Maybe it was part of the ripple effect. The step forward. Something had been unlocked when he’d agreed that three years of grief was more than enough. Perhaps his body was following his heart and finally waking up again.
Three years of being celibate wasn’t natural for anyone. It didn’t mean that he had to fall for someone who happened to be in the near vicinity. It didn’t mean he had to fall for anyone.
No. The last time that had happened had ended up almost ruining his life. He wasn’t going to let it happen again.
Ever.
The solution, Adam decided over the next few days, was to focus on his work.
His priority in life was his children, of course, but work came a close second. It had been his father, the first Dr McAllister, who’d built up this small general practice. Without it, the villagers would have to travel fifteen miles or so to the nearest town and a lot of them would find that difficult enough to make their health care precarious, especially in the middle of a harsh Scottish winter.
People like old Mrs Robertson, who needed dressings changed on her diabetic ulcers every couple of days and was on the list for this afternoon’s house calls. And Joan McClintock, who had a phobia about getting into any vehicles smaller than a bus and was only happy when things were within walking distance. She was in the waiting room again this morning, as his somewhat disconcerting working week drew to a close.
At least here Adam could stop thinking about the Christmas tree in his living room sporting a rainbow of brightly painted balls that had only been the starting point for the hand-made decorations that Emma seemed to have unlimited inspiration about. Like the gingerbread stars she had baked last night and the children had helped to decorate with brightly coloured sweets.
It was probably just as well that the gingerbread was destined to be only decorative if Emma’s baking skills were on a par with her cooking. The meals this week had been a fair step down from what his mother had left in the freezer. Not that the children had complained about the rather burnt sausages and that peculiar shepherd’s pie. Everything Emma did was wonderful in Poppy’s eyes and Oliver wasn’t allowed to go and play with the clockwork train until he’d finished his dinner so even the carrots were disappearing in record time these days.
Adam found himself smiling as he walked through the waiting room. Miss McClintock looked surprised but nodded back at him. Old Jock, who was sitting in the corner, disappeared further under the brim of his cap. The smile faded. Old Jock—the farmer who owned the land behind his where the skating pond was located—was as tough as old boots. What was he doing in here, waiting to see the doctor?
And had he really thought that work was the solution to forgetting about the ripples disrupting his personal life?
It didn’t help that Caitlin McMurray, the schoolteacher, came rushing in with a wailing small child even before he could call Joan McClintock into the consulting room.
‘It’s Ben,’ she said. ‘He jammed his finger in the art cupboard.’
‘Come straight in,’ Adam told her. ‘Eileen, could you call Ben’s mother, please, and get her to come in?’
‘I can stay with him for a bit.’ Caitlin had to raise her voice over the crying. ‘Emma’s practising carols with the children and the senior teacher’s keeping an eye on everything.’
Adam eyed the handkerchief tied around Ben’s finger. There was blood seeping through the makeshift dressing.
‘Let’s have a look at this finger, young man.’
‘No-o-o … It’s going to hurt.’
Distraction was needed. ‘Did our Oliver tell you about the train he found in our attic?’
‘Aye … but we didn’t believe him.’ Ben sniffed loudly. ‘He said it’s got a tunnel and a bridge even.’
‘Well, it’s true. It’s a bonny wee train. I played with it when I was a wee boy, too.’ Adam had the finger exposed now. A bit squashed but there were no bones broken. The pain was coming from the blood accumulating under the nail and that could be swiftly fixed with a heated needle.
‘And he says he’s bringing a donkey to the Christmas play.’
Adam raised his gaze to Caitlin’s. ‘Did the committee agree, then?’
‘Aye. And that’s not all. Have you heard about the recording?’
‘What recording?’
‘Moira Findlay heard about the children singing the carols and she came to listen. She says that Emma’s got the voice of an angel and she’s ne’er heard small children singing sae well. That’s when we got the idea.’
‘Oh?’ Adam struck a match to get the end of a sterile needle hot enough. Ben was watching suspiciously.
‘We’re going to make a CD of the carols. To sell and raise funds to help fix the village hall. Or get a new piano for the school. Maybe both. She’s amazing, isn’t she, Dr McAllister?’
‘It does sound like a grand idea. Moira’s a clever woman.’
‘Not Moira …’ Caitlin laughed. ‘I mean Emma. How lucky are we that she came to be the twins’ nanny?’
‘Look at that, Ben … Out the window … Was that a … reindeer?’
The split second it took for Ben to realise he’d been duped was enough to get near his nail with the needle and release the pressure. A single, outraged wail and then Ben stared at his finger and blinked in surprise.
‘Not so sore now?’ Adam swabbed it gently with some disinfectant. ‘We’ll put a nice big bandage on it and you can get back to singing your carols.’
With Emma.
‘I hear she sings like an angel,’ Joan McClintock informed him minutes later. ‘Eileen says she might be joining the choir.’
‘I don’t know that she’ll have time for that,’ Adam said. ‘And she’s only here until my mother gets back from Canada.’
‘Och, well … we’ll see about that, then, won’t we?’ The nod was knowing.
‘Aye. We will.’ Adam reached for the blood-pressure cuff. ‘Now, let’s see if that blood pressure’s come down a wee bit. Are you still getting the giddy spells?’
Even Old Jock had something to say about Emma when it came to his turn.
‘I’m losing my puff,’ he told Adam. ‘And it’s no’ helping with the pipes. Yon lassie o’ yours saw me sittin’ down after I was playin’ in by the tree, like I always do at Christmastime. She tol’ me to come and see you.’
‘I’ll have a listen to your chest,’ Adam said. ‘Your dad had problems with his heart, didn’t he? We might do a test on that, too.’
‘Aye.’ Jock took his cap off. ‘You do what you need to, lad. That lassie said you’d find out what was ailin’ me.’
How could a complete stranger weave herself into the lives of other people so quickly? It seemed like the whole village was being touched by Emma’s arrival in Braeburn. Maybe she didn’t have a gypsy streak after all, because the sort of magic she was creating was more like that of a fairy.
A Christmas fairy.
And magic wasn’t the only thing she was weaving. On Saturday afternoon, when it had stopped raining, they had taken Jemima down into the orchard so that Oliver could practise leading her, with Poppy riding. Not only had their little donkey proved herself very co-operative, Emma had spotted the greenery amongst the bare branches of an old apple tree.