Single Dad in Her Stocking by Alison Roberts

Author:Alison Roberts
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2019-09-10T15:20:11+00:00

* * *

James Cunningham didn’t approve of the Christmas tree in the drawing room.

Not that he’d said anything, but Emma could sense his shock when he’d walked in when she was helping Ben tie his homemade stars to the branches of the tree that Max had brought inside and set up on one side of the fireplace under Ben’s direction.

‘It has to be close to the chimney,’ he’d told them. ‘So that Father Christmas doesn’t have to go looking for it. He doesn’t have time to do that when he’s got so many chimneys he has to go down.’

When James came into the room, Max was holding Tilly up to put her fairy/angel on the top of the tree and Emma had her arms around Ben, gently guiding his small fingers as he tried to tie a bow in the string that they had threaded through the hole in one point of his star.

Max’s father had frozen—just for a heartbeat—and, for Emma, it felt as if the world stopped turning for that instant in time as well. She could see what James was seeing. A man with a small girl in his arms, smiling as he watched her stretch out to put the skirt of the angel over the uppermost branch of the tree. A woman almost cradling an older child and a baby asleep in a pram to one side. The fire was crackling softly beside them and it didn’t matter that the small number of homemade silver stars, even with the tin soldiers Ben had chosen and the angel for the top of the tree that had been Tilly’s choice, still left the tree looking virtually devoid of decorations—this was a snapshot of a family Christmas and all it needed now was the grandfather looking on from the comfort of his leather chair, with his cute dog at his feet.

And Emma could feel something expanding inside her chest. She knew it wasn’t physically possible that her heart could be changing size but that was what it felt like. It was getting rapidly bigger. Too big, because it was starting to crack. And bleed...

This... This feeling of family and Christmas. Of having different generations coming together to celebrate something special. Of having children dependent on her for as much love and protection that she could offer and having a partner that she could share the journey with...

She still wanted this. She wanted it so badly it was making her heart ache as much as if it had really split open.

And, maybe, Max’s father was aware of a similar sense of yearning. Or loss, perhaps. Because, after that single heartbeat of time, he turned on his heel, snapping his fingers for Pirate to follow him out of the room and his spoken words were only for his dog.

‘Sorry,’ he muttered. ‘I forgot. It’s time for your walk, boy.’

Pirate hesitated for a moment, as if he was also contemplating the scene in front of him and would rather stay, but then turned and followed his master out of the room.

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