Evergreen: The Callaghan Green Series

by Annie Dyer

  “I can remove them from the approved babysitter list.” He raised a brow.

  He knew the answer to that. Not happening. Anything to have some rare alone time.

  “How about a story first?” Killian sat her next to him. “Let Mummy find her morning head.”

  Eliza giggled. She took after her father and liked mornings. I was hoping that this didn’t carry on to when she was a teenager so I could enact revenge.

  “’Anta book.” She pointed at the bedside table where The Jolly Christmas Santa was parked from last night. It had been her favourite for the last few weeks, since the Christmas trees had gone up in the shops and Christmas songs had been on.

  “Okay. Let’s read this, then brush your teeth and wash your face, then we’ll see if he’s been.” Killian settled her closer, now in full dad mode, which unfortunately was a complete turn on.

  “Then pwesents?”

  “Then you have to wake up Uncle Seph, Auntie Ava, Uncle Max and Uncle Jackson. And Uncle Shay. And Auntie Maven, Auntie Lainey, Auntie Immy and Auntie Catrin. When they’re all in the kitchen, you can open any presents Santa has left.” Killian’s voice contained just the right amount of evilness.

  “Maybe not Payton. Or Jacks.”

  “Disagree. They need the practice. Maybe Payts needs a bit more sleep but Owen doesn’t. But she can start with Seph first.” He opened the book and started to read the story, pointing out the pictures and asking her questions about colours and the characters.

  I closed my eyes for a few more minutes, listening to the lull of his voice and the sweet sound of our daughter as she spoke back to him and asked questions.

  By the time they’d finished, my mood was less black and I was ready to face what would be a busy day.

  “Are you ready for teeth and face, Ellie?” Although she was Eliza, it had been shortened to Ellie by Margot, one of the twins, and it had stuck.

  She didn’t have a choice in the matter, which she knew because on the odd occasion where she’d refused, she’d found she had a mother who was far more stubborn.

  Teeth done, face washed, something warmer than pyjamas, and with Killian wearing sweatpants which meant we would be heading back to the bedroom and leaving Eliza with her Uncle Seph in the next two hours, we headed into the kitchen and the big family area with the tree, now surrounded with more presents than there had been last night.

  Plus a pair of my eldest brother’s jeans, his underwear and a T-shirt that I didn’t want to touch.

  “Looks like someone got lucky.” Killian had Eliza on his shoulders, which was great as I did not want her touching my brother’s clothes.

  “Can’t we say he was covered in fleas or something and had to strip. That would sit far better in my mind.” I caught sight of the sofa, the cushions disturbed and flattened. “Eliza, shall we go and wake up Uncle Max? But we have to do it very carefully and let Auntie Vic sleep longer.” I had a sudden inkling as to why they might’ve christened the room, and if Victoria was pregnant she deserved to stock up on sleep now.

  Max, however, did not.

  “I can see pwesents.” Eliza looked up at me, still clutching Killian. Her fingers were about to tangle into his beard.

  “We can only open them when everyone who wants to be up, is up.” It seemed a fair thing to say. I knew my dad and Marie would sulk if they weren’t awake when Eliza started to yank off paper, and that Payton and Ava would be the same. Seph would be devastated if he didn’t see her face when she unwrapped the toy kitchen he’d bought for her – although we’d already had words about how the hell we were going to get it back home. He was meant to hire a van, which we’d probably need to do to get the toyshop full of gifts to London.

  “Unkie Max?” She pointed towards the hall.

  “Let’s wake Uncle Max. But no jumping on Auntie Vic.” I glanced at Killian who just raised his brows.

  He was just as understated now as he had been back when we first met, when I was a teenager and he’d started hanging round with Maxwell at university. Some days I did wonder how he coped with my frenetic kind of crazy, but he never tried to dampen it.

  Killian was my rock, my anchor and, without doubt, my soul mate, if I believed in such things. As much as I knew he adored me, I knew I adored him more – although he’d shake his head and laugh at that if I was to tell.

  He walked Eliza down to Max’s room, the grandfather clock that Marie had shipped over from New York when she moved here showing that it was just before seven; a pretty reasonable hour to be up on Christmas Day. Next year, we’d be up earlier, either with a teething baby or an excited three-year-old or both.

  Putting Eliza down first, he pressed a finger to his lips to warn her to be silent. “Pretend you’re waking the Gruffalo.”

  Her face beamed with excitement. Max had acted as the Gruffalo a couple of times, her sneaking up on him and him turning around and trying to scare the bejeezus out of her. She’d run away giggling, the sort of giggle that you knew would end in tears before bedtime.

  I hoped Max had that close on his horizon – not the tears before bedtime, but the little girl or boy to read stories to, to look after and care for. He’d done it with Callum, more of a father than a brother to Cal even after our father realised that the office wasn’t the centre of the world. Seeing him with his own was something we all wanted, because we knew how much it would mean to him.

  Killian pushed open the door and peered through first, holding Eliza back, probably checking that everyone was decent. He put his finger to his lips again and opened the door further, gesturing for her to go in.

  I moved as quickly as my pregnant ass would allow so I could see Eliza fully jump on Max’s side of the bed and yell ‘boo!’ at full volume, loud enough for Payton to hear next door.

  “Holy mother of fu…goats!” Max shot upright, Victoria waking up a little more gracefully.

  “Happy Cwistmas.” Eliza tucked herself into his chest. “You need up. Pwesent time.” She pulled at his hair then dug her finger into his arm.

  Max cuddled her and kissed her head, glaring at me hard. “You put her up to this, didn’t you?”

  I shrugged. “I was going to set her on Seph and Shay first, but when we went to see if Santa had been, we found he’d left his pants, underwear and a suspiciously jizzy T-shirt near the tree.”

  “Shi – shine.” He sat further up. “I forgot about those.”

  Victoria was giggling helplessly in bed, her cheeks flushed and she had a glow about her that meant she’d either had a very good night or very good news.

  I looked from my brother to her and back again. “Happy Christmas. What do you think your favourite present will be? Or will it be delayed while it finishes baking?” My spider sense was definitely tingling.

  Max looked at Vic, Eliza completely snuggled up to him.

  Victoria nodded. “I’ll need to explain why I’m not drinking champagne on my wedding day. They’ll work it out from that anyway.”

  “The best present will be here in about eight months’ time.” He gave me a grin that was bigger than I’d ever seen from him before.

  I looked at Vic; she nodded. “The test in the bathroom was mine.”

  Killian stepped towards Max and bent down to do that man thing where there pat each other hard on the shoulder.

  “I’d give you a hug but you’re in bed and it would be weird.”

  Max nodded. “Yeah, we never talk about the one time we did that, do we?”

  They both started laughing and I decided that now was not the time to ask questions, given that Eliza was there, gripping both Max and her daddy with her tiny hands.

  “Congratulations.” I looked at my brother. “I’m so happy for you. And so pleased to watch how you experience sleepless nights, colic, projectile diarrhoea…”

  His grin was bashful rather than shit-eating, which told me a lot. “If it’s a girl, I’m definitely up for investing in that school, K.”

  Killian nodded. “Owen texted me the s
ame thing last night. I think it’s a goer. Best way to save our sanity.”

  Victoria just shook her head. “Max, you need to go and rescue last night’s clothes before Marie finds them. That isn’t something you want to explain.”

  He nodded, looking at me and then Killian, passing Eliza to her father. “You’ll need to leave the room before I can go do that. Don’t need to make K feel inadequate.”

  I snorted, shook my head and shifted. “Do you want to watch Seph be rudely awakened or shall we not wait for you?”

  Max laughed. “I think I can find better ways of spending ten minutes.”

  I popped my head back round the door. “I think you only need three for that.”

  The room where Marie had stuffed Seph and Shay was approximately a thirty seconds fast walk from the kitchen. We stuffed Eliza into her coat and put on her wellies; Killian and I stuffing ourselves into whoevers’ coats were closest.

  “Unkkie Seff?” She looked up at me.

  “Absolutely. And you have to be really, really loud. Creep into his room and then shout and dive on him. It’s the only way you’ll wake him up.” I took her tiny hand in mine and hoped it didn’t grow any bigger. I knew it would, and there would be moments when I’d want to pause her at that age too, but this was precious.

  Just as Seph’s face would be when his niece bounced on him because it was Christmas morning.

  The door was unlocked. There was no reason for either Seph or Shay to lock it, and neither would’ve thought to anyway. I pushed it open, Killian watching with a broad grin on his face.

  “You never tire of being diabolical, do you?”

  “Never. Don’t worry about Seph; he’ll get revenge.”

  Eliza ran through the cabin, ignoring Shay, who was on the pull-out sofa bed, and went straight into Seph’s room. The cabin wasn’t cold, but it wasn’t warm enough to sleep there without wearing something, not that Eliza would care, but I didn’t want to come face to face with my brother’s junk.

  There was a huge giggle followed by a loud yell. Shay bolted upright and squealed, Seph’s yell loud enough to wake a sleeping ER doctor who’d just worked forty hours straight.

  “Happee Cwistmas!” Eliza had definitely turned up her volume button.

  Shay stared at us as if trying to compute exactly where he was or who he was. His dark hair, almost black, was mussed and messy, stuck up like a little boy’s, and his eyes looked bluer than normal. His parents, my step-aunt and uncle, were spending Christmas in Ireland with his mother’s elderly parents. Having the five Green children was going to be too much for them in a small house with no nearby hotels or B & B’s, so they’d all ended up with us.

  “This was all her idea.” Killian nodded at me. “I’d have let you had a nice long lie in.”

  Shay grinned and I understood why he was going to take Seph’s manwhore crown away. As much as he worked, he took relief in brief flings and one-night stands.

  “I can lie-in tomorrow, unless Little Miss has something else planned? The wedding isn’t until the afternoon.” He lay back down again. “Will there be coffee or were we your first victims?”

  By now, Max would’ve cleared up his clothes and made coffee, I’d have put my mortgage on it.

  “Mummy, Unkkie Seph said that bad word.” Eliza walked out of Seph’s room, dragging him with her hand. He had creases down the side of his face and was wearing the tattiest pair of sweats I’d ever seen and an old Manchester City T-shirt.

  “Now I know why you’re single. If this is your morning look, the girls must run screaming from your place.”

  He flipped me the bird. “Next time your daughter’s going to wake me up at the butt crack of dawn, I’ll make sure I’m wearing a suit. Tell me there’s coffee.”

  19

  Four romance novels – from Payton to Lainey

  Marie

  The first Christmas when Ava was old enough to understand what was going on was magical. That morning, Callum and Seph had been first down, desperate to see if Santa had been. By this point, the eldest three knew that Santa wasn’t real, and they also knew that if they spoiled it for the younger ones, Santa wouldn’t visit them again.

  It was a threat I was quite prepared to follow through with and fortunately, one I never did need to carry out. Seph still believed in Santa at the age of ten, when someone at his primary school let it slip. Payton had figured it out the year before, when the sneaky child hid in a small gap between the sofa and the wall to wait up for him. What she’d seen was me and her father unloading bags of gifts and then putting our feet up with a whisky.

  We’d limited presents. They would’ve been easy to spoil and that had happened in the past with the older children, Grant pouring gifts on them to make up for him not being around. The first Christmas, the year when I burned everything, we decided to set up new traditions: the day was for family; no checking emails or the news; TV off, Christmas songs on; presents unwrapped and then a big breakfast, followed by a walk. We played board games before dinner and they carried on or people read while everyone did their job in the kitchen.

  As grown-ups, most of the kids had come home for Christmas. There were the years Ava was in New York, or when we were in Canada, but we always ended up with four or five of them, maybe with boyfriends or girlfriends, and we kept the same routine.

  And I still made up stockings.

  Grant thought I was mad, especially as the family was growing exponentially. Six of the kids had partners, two of them had their own children, more were on the way, but I enjoyed making up the stockings with silly bits of things in that I knew they liked. Pens, chocolates, favourite shower gels – little bits of stuff.

  Every year, Grant made me one. He hadn’t a clue what to do that first year. He saw me making them for the kids and apparently, one evening when I was out, sat down with Max, Claire and Jackson and asked them what should go in my stocking.

  He’d gotten better at it since, but I still had some of the things from that first Christmas. The card Max had made, the candle Claire had bought and decorated, the book Jackson had ‘found’ and gifted.

  This year there were presents for me from Eliza and Teddy, and I’d had my first homemade card from Eliza, which I’d keep along with all the others. Next year, there’d be another three babies; Claire’s, Payton’s and a third, which I suspected was Victoria.

  Hoped it was.

  I sat down, nursing a coffee. I’d woken up early enough to see Max slip out of the kitchen with some of last night’s clothes, and when I’d entered, the room looked incredibly tidy. I chose not to think about why, instead flicking on the coffee machine and opting to have a few minutes of silence before the chaos of Christmas morning began.

  It was Lainey who came in first, looking fresh and neat, as she always did. She was a therapist who specialised in using horses, and had lived in the States for the last four years where most of the Green children had been. For various (mainly family) reasons they were moving back to England, my brother and his wife looking at settling back in Ireland when he finally retired.

  Life was good.

  The door opened, framing Maxwell.

  “You finished clearing up last night’s detritus?”

  He managed to look suitably guilty.

  “Pretty much.” A big grin overtook his face. “Vic’s pregnant.”

  I stood up, remembering to put my coffee cup down on the side table and stepped over to him, taking him into a big hug. I knew how much he wanted this, how very desperate he was to have a baby with Victoria.

  “That’s the best news ever. I take it you found out last night?”

  He nodded. “It was her test in the bathroom, so I don’t need to murder anyone today. Although I still think we should drop Seph off at that family of wolves.”

  “There’s a reason he’s in the cabin.” I sat back down and sighed. “He does worry me. Never as much as Callum did, but more than any of the rest of you.”

  “He’s doing okay. He topped t
he charts for billable hours in November, so he’s working hard. And he likes having Shay around.” Max helped himself to coffee. “We’re going to tell people today about Vic, otherwise they’ll guess anyway when she’s not drinking.”

  “What about your guests tomorrow?”

  He shook his head. “Too early for announcements. We’ll head home next week to see the doctor and get it properly confirmed.”

  “Don’t smother her. She’s intelligent and she’ll know how to look after herself.” I narrowed my eyes at him because I knew full well he’d be helicoptering round her for the few months and more.

  “I won’t. I can hear footsteps.”

  We both looked outside where snow had started to fall again. This was the first white Christmas we’d properly had in years, other than when we’d been in Canada, and it did make everything seem that little bit more special.

  The door opened, a cold draught whizzing through. Claire’s tiny girl ran at me, covered in snow.

  “He’s been, Gangan! He’s been!”

  I just about saved my coffee. “Who’s been?”

  “’Anta!”

  I picked Eliza up and put her on my knee, undoing the layers she was packing. “I take it you told Uncle Seph that Santa had been?”

  She nodded, looking serious. “I did.”

  “Happy Christmas, Mum.”

  My youngest son bent down to kiss my cheek, then picked Eliza up off my knee. He had on a house coat that had to be at least twenty years old.

  “Happy Christmas. Where on earth did you find that?” I pulled at the material.

  Seph shrugged. “It was in the cabin.”

  I shook my head. “Probably on its way out to the tip. Make sure you have a hot shower when you’ve taken it off. You don’t know what’s living in it.”

  “You don’t know what’s living in Seph.” Maxwell muttered the words loud enough for Seph to hear and he responded by flicking a finger up at Max.

  More people started to fill the room; the kettle boiled, probably for someone to have tea, and the smell of coffee was strong.