Evergreen: The Callaghan Green Series by Annie Dyer

Author:Annie Dyer [Dyer, Annie]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Published: 2020-10-21T16:00:00+00:00

16

A dining experience with a Michelin starred chef – From Grant to Marie

Maxwell

Knowing exactly what my siblings – Seph and Ava at least – were like, I left it until everyone had gone to bed to put my presents under the tree. One year, Ava had managed to find her presents, unwrapped them, and wrapped them back up. Seph broke one of Marie’s gifts by shaking it, thinking it was for him, when it was an ornament instead.

That hadn’t gone down well.

Someone had already been under the tree, arranging presents, and by the looks of things, resticking tags. I found Vic’s pile, an array of wrapping paper, a lot of it looking book shaped.

Claire’s pile was next to Eliza’s mountain, five stockings nearby for Eliza and her cousins because Santa had been redirected here, so the twins had been persuaded. They had put in a call for two Christmas days, but Nick had soon explained exactly why that wasn’t happening and had somehow managed to get them into bed early at the same time.

This had been the first year I’d been around kids on Christmas Eve since Ava, Seph and Payton were small. The house had been filled with excited voices all day, even Teddy, although he was too young to know exactly what was going on, had known it was something different. Eliza had learned enough from the twins to be too excited and tears before bedtime did happen.

I sat down on the sofa and picked up the night cap I’d poured, watching the fading embers, aware that I needed to go to bed as I had a feeling it was going to be an early morning.

I wanted that early morning in my own house. Wanted a Christmas soon where an excited child would wake us up and demand to find out if Santa had been. Patience had never been my strength and when we’d first started trying for a baby, we’d kind of thought it would take a while, the idea being that Vic might be pregnant when we got married and that would be okay, but we’d been more than right. It was taking a long time.

“You’re still up.” My wife-to-be’s voice rang in from the doorway. “You’re not unwrapping presents are you?” Her tone changed, becoming accusatory.

I swung round to see her, wrapped in a silky dressing gown, her hair down and glasses on. The power of speech left me.

I’d been waking up with Victoria Esme Davies every day for the best part of two and a half years and my reaction each time I saw her was still the same: sheer encompassing awe.

“Max, you look like you’ve taken drugs. How much whisky did you drink? Has Seph been baking again?”

Her dressing gown slipped open a little, exposing cleavage that I’d been lost in on more than one occasion.

“No, and you’re the only thing I want to unwrap. Come here.”

Her smile was teasing. “I might not be your present this year. I might’ve gotten you something else.

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