Their First Family Christmas

by Alison Roberts

  It was Jack who was the outsider, wasn’t it? He’d barely got to know Sarah given the whirlwind romance and how determined his brother had been to get down the aisle. He didn’t like admitting it, but he’d resented Sarah sometimes back then, because he’d hardly ever been able to get Ben to himself. And the wedding had been the icing on a cake he was still trying to get accustomed to. He’d been thrilled that Ben was so obviously happy but he hadn’t really been the best best man. He had to search his memory for people he’d been introduced to.

  ‘I think I remember your mother being at the wedding. Curly, grey hair and glasses? Always smiling?’

  Emma flicked the windscreen wipers on. The whirl of moisture hitting the windscreen looked like sleet. Just like it had looked moments before he’d lost control of his bike. Jack suppressed a shiver but Emma was smiling.

  ‘That sounds like Mum.’

  ‘Muriel.’

  ‘That’s her.’

  Jack was pleased to come up with the name. Maybe he hadn’t been too much of a jerk after all. Other patches of the day were still foggy, though. ‘I don’t remember Sarah’s mother being there.’

  ‘No. She’d died a few years earlier. That was a tough time for all of us. Mum still misses her every day. She often watches Lily doing something and gets teary and says how much Joan would have loved to be here, being a grandma.’

  Jack was silent for a few minutes. He had no idea what it was going to be like, meeting this child of his brother. Would he get slammed with knowing how much Ben would have loved being a father? Would the sadness be something he wasn’t ready to handle?

  It was ridiculous but he was increasingly nervous about meeting Lily.

  Again, Emma seemed to sense where his thoughts were heading.

  ‘It’ll be okay, you know. There’s something about Lily that means you can’t be anything but happy when she’s close. You’ll see... Oh, look...’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That’s real snow out there now. I thought that might happen when we got out of the city.’

  Thick white flakes were sparkling in the headlights and Emma sounded as excited as a child about it.

  ‘I can’t remember the last time we had a white Christmas. We don’t usually get real snow until January. Lily will be over the moon if we get to make a Santa snowman. Harry loves snow, too. Even at his age, he has to stand outside with his tongue out to catch the flakes. It’s hilarious.’

  Jack didn’t find the notion amusing in the least. Harry? There was a man in Emma’s life that she hadn’t bothered to mention?

  Well, why wouldn’t there be? Emma was gorgeous. The man that got chosen to share her life would be the luckiest man on earth. And she’d had a year to get over the dreadful time and put her life back together. It shouldn’t feel too soon.

  It shouldn’t feel so completely wrong.

  But hang on... Jack could feel his scowl deepening. She’d kissed him. And it had felt exactly like when they were both single and free to choose the person they wanted to be with, even if they’d both been warned not to choose each other. No. It had felt even better than that. As though they already knew the best and worst of each other but they were still the chosen one. As if there was some special connection that could never be there with anyone else.

  Emma’s head turned briefly with a movement that was sharp enough to suggest she was aware of the scrutiny. Her eyebrows shot up as she caught the force of his glare.

  ‘What? What did I say?’

  ‘You didn’t tell me about Harry,’ he growled.

  ‘Why would I?’

  The flash of anger was a welcome change to the confusion he was grappling with at the thought of Emma being with another man.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know... Maybe you could have warned me that I was going to be meeting the man who’s taken my brother’s place as a father figure for Lily?’

  ‘What?’ The car actually swerved a little and Emma was biting her lip as she focused on the road. Then she let her breath out in a huff of something close to laughter. ‘Are you kidding me? Harry’s a dog. A big, goofy retriever that my mother brought home for me a while after my dad died. He’s nearly sixteen but when it snows, he thinks he’s a puppy again.’

  Jack shrank back into his seat. ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled.

  ‘You think I have time for men in my life when I’ve got a full-time job and an energetic toddler? You think the thought’s even crossed my mind?’

  ‘I’m sure there are plenty of guys who wish it would.’

  Emma shook her head. ‘Not interested.’

  Jack felt himself nodding in agreement. ‘Yeah...I know that feeling.’

  There was a moment’s silence that stretched into a kind of awkwardness. It was Emma that broke it.

  ‘You mean there’s been no one in your life in the last year?’

  ‘No.’ It was embarrassing to admit, so Jack tried to brush it off with a joke. ‘Didn’t you notice how rusty my kissing was?’

  Another silence and then Emma cleared her throat. Her voice still sounded a little rough.

  ‘Actually, no...I didn’t notice...’

  Phew... Had the heating in this car suddenly gone up a level? Were the fans generating some odd kind of electricity that filled the space around and between them?

  He hadn’t lightened the atmosphere at all. He had, seemingly, set a match to it.

  Just as well Emma was ready to defuse things.

  ‘Well...I promise I won’t tell. It would do all sorts of damage to your legendary playboy surgeon status around the Eastern.’

  Jack stared straight ahead. The snow was falling more thickly now. He could see the sheen of it settling on the tarmac of the road. He didn’t like the reminder of who he’d been. It was no wonder Ben had been so keen to try and make him change his lifestyle.

  ‘I’m not that person anymore,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Really?’ Emma had slowed the car and had her head tilted forward as she peered into the worsening visibility. She still slid a sideways look in his direction, though. ‘Who are you now, Jack?’

  He closed his eyes. ‘I’m not sure I know.’

  The silence felt sympathetic this time. Encouraging. For a heartbeat, Jack was sitting in an African desert again, with those gut-wrenching sobs being torn from his soul. Thinking about Ben. And Christmas. And the chill of such well-remembered British winters.

  He’d come back here for a reason. He hadn’t realised just how important that reason was until now. His words came out in the wake of a heartfelt sigh as he felt drowsiness overtaking him.

  ‘Maybe I had to come back here to find out.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  IT WAS RIDICULOUS how nervous Emma was becoming at the thought of Jack meeting Lily.

  Since he’d fallen asleep, there had been no conversation to distract her and on the final stretch of the drive it was easy to channel that nervousness into making sure they got there safely. The snow was lying thickly enough to obliterate road markings and even footpaths now and the streetlights as they passed through the village were no more than a faint glow behind an almost solid screen of drifting flakes.

  Emma’s childhood home was on the far side of the village where residential streets gave way to farmland. A whitewashed cottage with square, latticed windows and a slate roof, set amongst old trees, it was blending in so well with the landscape right now that if it wasn’t as familiar as a body part, she might have driven right past it.

  The windscreen wipers ceased their movement as she turned the engine off and, for a moment, Emma watched the snow trying to settle on the glass. The childish wonderment that something so solid looking could fall so softly and silently had never worn off.

  It was just as silent inside the car and Emma assumed that Jack was still asleep
, but when she turned her head, she found that he, too, was watching the melting flakes on still warm glass. He mirrored her action almost instantly and when his gaze met hers, Emma realised he was just as nervous as she was.

  Somehow, that made her feel a whole lot braver.

  If he was nervous about meeting Lily, that meant it was important to him and whatever happened today could well change the direction of his life.

  He was lost.

  How heartbreaking had it been to hear him admit that he wasn’t sure who he was anymore?

  He needed something to anchor him. Or someone. Could that someone be his little niece?

  Was it too dangerous to hope that it might be herself?

  Emma needed some serious magic to happen today and so far, so good.

  Her mother knew how important this meeting was. Emma had called her when she’d been getting changed to warn her that she was bringing an unexpected guest and, even though Muriel Matthews didn’t know the extent of Emma’s feelings for Jack, she knew he would be welcomed into the family because of his connection to Lily and Sarah.

  The weather was cooperating, too. The setting of a small Scottish village softened by the first fall of snow was a picture postcard background.

  And it was the best day of the year for magic.

  So Emma smiled at Jack.

  ‘Merry Christmas,’ she whispered. ‘Welcome home.’

  Jack opened his mouth but seemed lost for words so Emma didn’t let the moment linger, reaching for the door handle.

  ‘Let’s get inside before we freeze to death.’

  The snow was thick enough to crunch and squeak beneath their feet as she led him round to the back door. Across the porch and then into the kitchen. It would be the warmest place in the house because, at this time of the year, the Aga stove was always well stoked. She hadn’t expected her mother to be up already and waiting for them but there she was, rugged up in her dressing gown and slippers, standing beside the scrubbed wooden table, pouring hot milk into mugs of her famous chocolate syrup.

  Muriel only glanced up, smiling as if the stranger in her house was such a frequent and welcome visitor he was part of the family.

  ‘Jack,’ she said warmly. ‘I’m so glad you chose today to come.’

  Harry seemed to be on board with the plan to make Jack welcome, too. He climbed a little stiffly out of his basket in the corner and, after nudging Emma’s hand in an affectionate welcome, he paused to wag his tail at Jack before trudging back to his bed.

  Muriel had a more focused glance for Emma. ‘You must be totally exhausted, love. I was really worried about you driving.’ She handed her the mug of hot chocolate as Emma sank down onto one of the kitchen chairs. ‘As soon as you’ve had this, go and get your head down for a couple of hours.’

  She handed Jack the other mug. ‘I’m sure you need some sleep, too. There’s not much rest to be had in an emergency department and you’ve been hurt, haven’t you?’ Her face creased. ‘I was so sorry to hear about that.’

  Jack smiled and thanked Muriel as he sat down but he was looking dazed. His glance kept roving. Up at the old beams in the ceiling, across to the antique blue and white china that was Muriel’s pride and joy, displayed on a hutch dresser that had belonged to Emma’s great-grandmother. Down to the flagged stone floor that had the ability to draw heat from the Aga and across to Harry in his basket, who noticed the glance and thumped his tail once as acknowledgement. He turned his head, to look through the arched wall opening into the living room, where a bare tree was standing by the fireplace, its trunk secured in a bucket of sand. There were boxes of decorations on the hearth of a fire that had been set, ready to light, and there were gifts, as well, in a haphazard pile at the other end of the hearth.

  Emma had followed that glance.

  ‘I can’t go to bed,’ she said. ‘I need to get the tree sorted and the presents underneath.’

  ‘That can wait.’ Muriel waved her hand dismissively. ‘I was going to do it last night with Lily but when I asked if she wanted to do it now or wait for Mummy, she was very definite about waiting.’

  Emma tensed. What would Jack think about her being referred to as Lily’s mummy? He didn’t seem to have noticed. He was sipping his drink and still staring at the undecorated tree. Was he thinking of putting that gift in his rucksack beneath it?

  ‘Lily’s still fast asleep,’ Muriel said. ‘And she’s far too young to know that we might be doing things a bit differently this year. I think we should all put our heads down for a bit longer. I don’t mind having a wee lie-in for once, myself. It’s not even going to get light until nine a.m. and we’ve got all day to do Christmas things. Jack? I’m sorry we don’t have a spare bed, but the couch in the living room there is very comfortable. I’ve put a pillow and an eiderdown on it. And a hottie. It should be nice and warm.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. He was giving Emma a glance that reminded her of the way her mother had been looking at her. ‘You really do need to get some sleep,’ he said.

  The genuine concern in that look and tone almost undid Emma. Because she was so tired that she could feel herself swaying on her chair?

  ‘Just an hour or two and then I’ll be fine. Do you need anything? Painkillers?’

  Jack shook his head. ‘A bit of sleep is all I need, too.’

  Muriel took their empty mugs.

  ‘There’s a toilet out the back,’ she told Jack. ‘But the main bathroom’s upstairs. We won’t be far away if you need us for anything. Sleep well.’

  * * *

  The couch was huge and soft.

  Jack took off his shoes and the remains of his jacket but left his jeans and T-shirt on. Folding back the old-fashioned eiderdown with its shiny, embroidered fabric revealed the hot water bottle and suddenly Jack had a lump the size of Africa in his throat.

  His mother used to do that. Ben’s hottie had been green and his had been red—like this one. He could remember the lovely warm patch in his bed, and how he would hold the hottie in his arms on the coldest night as he fell asleep.

  There were other things about that house that had the quality of a distant dream. The smell of chocolate in the kitchen. The dog asleep in the corner. The way Muriel had smiled at him...

  Emma’s smile, but older and wiser.

  Full of love...

  It felt like a home, this house, that’s what it was.

  And he hadn’t lived in a real home since he’d been five years old. He’d lived in other people’s homes. In an institution. In medical school digs. In bachelor apartments. In a hut in Africa.

  This wasn’t his home, he reminded himself. This was Emma’s home. And Lily’s home.

  He was only a visitor.

  And he didn’t want to get sucked back into even tiny fragments of a past that was so long ago it had no relevance to his life now. He didn’t want to be reminded of things that had been lost. The protective wall had taken many years to build but it was thick now and he was safely on the other side. Looking over the top could only make things harder.

  Despite the headache that continued to be a dull throb in his skull, Jack knew he would fall asleep the moment his head touched that fat, feather pillow. He eased himself onto the couch, pushing the hottie with his foot so that it flopped to the floor with the sloshing sound of the water moving inside the rubber casing.

  That sound was another peep over the wall because he and Ben had always discarded those red and green hotties when they were too cold to be comforting. They had to pick them up in the morning, though, and take them downstairs. Their little fingers were too small to undo the stoppers so Mum would empty them and put them away. And then they would magically appear in their beds again the next night, all warm and toasty.

  Jack’s last thought before sleep claimed him was that he needed to remember to pic
k the hottie up in the morning. And empty it before Muriel did.

  His sleep was deep and dreamless. Until he began surfacing towards consciousness with the awareness that he wasn’t alone. He kept his eyes shut, however, as he tried to decide whether he was, in fact, dreaming.

  And then he felt it.

  A puff of warm breath on his face.

  And something small and soft on his eyelid that was applying pressure to open it.

  Very cautiously, Jack allowed his eyelid to be lifted. There was a small face only inches away from his own. Big, dark eyes and a tumble of dark curls around them.

  Lily...

  He opened his other eyelid.

  Lily was standing beside the couch, which put her at eye level with him. She didn’t seem at all disconcerted to find a strange man staring at her. She met his gaze solemnly and simply gazed back.

  This was a photograph that had come to life. A living, breathing image that was so familiar because it was so like him. And so like Ben.

  The photograph on Emma’s phone had been enough to stir up those feelings of the bond of family. Of a love that was already there, like a part of his DNA.

  Did Lily feel that connection as well? Surely children weren’t this trusting of people they didn’t know?

  Jack felt he should say something but had no idea what. Was a child this small even capable of conversation?

  Apparently. Sort of.

  ‘’Lo,’ Lily said.

  ‘Hello,’ Jack replied. ‘Does Mummy know where you are?’

  This question didn’t appear to be of any interest. The room was still dark, Jack noted. And Lily seemed to be wearing pyjamas—a fluffy red suit, patterned with white hearts, that had built-in socks and buttons down the front. A warning flashed in his head. What if the others were still asleep and Lily needed something?

  He’d already proved how incompetent he was looking after babies.

  As if the warning signal had been transmitted, he saw the silhouette of that big, shaggy dog appear in the doorway, with the soft light that had been left on in the kitchen behind him. Harry was standing there, watching. Guarding Lily?