Free A Little Christmas Magic by Alison Roberts Page B

must have been terrified and it was all because he hadn’t known what to do with that dreadful surge of feelings that had been unbearable.
    ‘It was very late by the time I got back. My mother was asleep upstairs with the children and it was the early hours of Christmas Day. The day I would have to tell my bairns that their mummy wasn’t coming home.’
    ‘I’m so sorry, Adam.’ The words were a whisper and when he looked up again there were tears rolling down the side of Emma’s nose.
    ‘It’s not your fault.’ He wanted to reach out and catch one of those tears with his thumb and wipe it away. He wanted to go upstairs and kiss his children and tell them he was sorry and that they would never see him like that again. He would do that. Soon. Even if they were asleep. And then he’d do it again tomorrow.
    ‘None of this is your fault,’ he told Emma. ‘It’s me.’
    ‘It’s me who’s tried to force you to bring Christmas into the house. I’m so sorry. For your loss and for the hurt I’ve caused. I was thinking about the children and
their
Christmas and I lost sight of how much it might hurt you.’
    Emma was clearly not a practised whisky drinker. She took a gulp that made her cough and splutter and Adam had to resist the urge to pat her on the back.
    To smile even.
    ‘I’ll get rid of everything,’ she offered. ‘I’ll explain to the children that you’re not ready to celebrate Christmas yet. That we can go and see the tree in the village and we don’t need to have one in the house. We can take the paper chains to school and I’m sure Caitlin will let us put them up in the classroom. And I’ll—’
    Adam reached out and put his hand over hers. Only because she wasn’t looking at him and he wanted her to stop talking.
    It worked. Emma went very still but Adam didn’t take his hand away from hers. It felt tiny and soft and warm under his and he liked it.
    ‘No,’ he said softly. ‘What you can do is show me how to make a paper chain. I want to fix this one so it’s right for when the children come down in the morning. And tomorrow I’ll go up into the attic and find the box of decorations for the tree.’
    ‘Oh …’ There was a sparkle in those blue-grey eyes that looked like more than the remnants of tears. And her hand moved under his. Turned and twisted so that her fingers were grasping his palm.
Squeezing
it. ‘Really? You’ll let us have a real Christmas? In the
house
?’
    ‘Aye.’ It was impossible not to catch a little bit of that childlike enthusiasm. The sheer joy that was breaking through. ‘Three years of grief is enough, I’m thinking. We’ll do this for the children.’
    ‘Oh …’ Emma jumped to her feet and Adam found himself standing up, too. Had he guessed that she would stand on tiptoe and throw her arms around him?
    ‘
Thank
you, Adam. Thank you
so
much …’
    ‘I’ll talk to the hall committee too, about Jemima being in the play. I still think it’s a bit daft but if they know it’s for the children—for the first real Christmas they’re going to celebrate since their mother died—they might just come on board.’
    She was beaming up at him. Impossible not to smile back. She was so loving, this gypsy waif of a woman. So full of joy.
    It was he who should be thanking her. He knew that but somehow the words wouldn’t form themselves. Instead, he felt his arms go around her. How long had it been since he’d felt the soft curves of a woman like this?
    Three years—that’s how long. He’d actually forgotten how
good
it could feel.
    He smiled back at her and she stretched up even more and kissed him on the cheek. Except that he moved his head somehow and it was the corner of his mouth that her lips brushed.
    And, heaven help him, for a heartbeat he wanted her to do it again. To kiss him.
    And not on his cheek.
    Maybe Emma had sensed the longing. She sprang away from him. ‘I’ll get the sticky paper,’ she said. ‘There’s plenty left.’
    Oh