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anyone who might pose even the smallest threat was going to be regarded with deep suspicion.

      How on earth was Emma coping with that side of village life?

      ‘What sort of peaky?’

      Joan McClintock removed her hat. Adam obediently took it and placed it on his desk as she began unwinding her hand-knitted scarf from around her neck.

      ‘I don’t feel quite right,’ his patient said vaguely. ‘A wee bit giddy in my head when I stand up sometimes.’

      Adam’s nod was brisk. Blood pressure first, then. Possibly an ECG to check for an arrhythmia. At the very least a review of the medications Joan was taking. It was unlikely he’d be finished within the fifteen-minute slot that Eileen would have allocated in her appointment schedule but he would have to try.

      ‘I saw the bairns in the square yesterday,’ Joan told him as he helped her off with her thick coat. ‘Watching the decorations go up on the tree. It’s such a blessing they don’t remember, isn’t it?’

      ‘Aye.’ The agreement was as terse as Adam could make it without causing offence. A warning that discussing his private life was not an option. ‘No, you don’t need to take off your cardigan, Joan. We can just roll up your sleeve for me to do your blood pressure.’

      It was a blessing that his children couldn’t remember the dreadful Christmas of three years ago. Had Emma been given the story in lurid detail, as she’d done her chores in the village over the last few days? December wasn’t just about a season of goodwill in Braeburn. It marked the season of remembrance for Tania McAllister.

      His mother was lucky she was in Canada. She was getting a reprieve from being the unspoken centre of attention when family was being celebrated. Away from a village where Christmas had a distinct flavour of being a shrine to someone who had been elevated to the status of a saint.

      Dear Lord … if they only knew the truth …

      But he hadn’t known so why should they? Oh, they’d all seen how she’d escaped the village more and more often but, while eyebrows had been raised about her time away from the children, it had been accepted as part of a glamorous woman’s life and it had been forgiven and forgotten after her tragic death.

      What none of them knew was that she probably hadn’t been alone on any of those trips away.

      He’d only found out because fate had stepped in and provided the evidence and Adam had made sure that the scandalous information had gone no further.

      Maybe that was the real blessing here. That the village—and therefore his children—would never know.

      It was his burden and that was only fair, wasn’t it? If he’d been a better husband, Tania wouldn’t have needed anyone else. And it was a burden he was getting used to carrying. In many ways it was getting easier and he could hope that some time in the future he’d be able to cope with this particular time of year. Enjoying it was too much to ever hope for but another few weeks and things could get back to normal. A normality he would never have chosen, of course, but he could live with it.

      He had no choice.

      ‘That English lassie was wi’ them.’ Joan only just managed to wait until Adam was removing the stethoscope from his ears. ‘I hear she’s made friends with Caitlin McMurray at the school?’

      His grunt was intended to express a lack of interest in his temporary nanny’s social life. Why did some people assume that a monosyllabic response simply needed more effort on their part?

      ‘I hear she’s been singing.’

      ‘Aye.’ Adam was still having difficulty getting used to the sound of Emma singing. She did it all the time. When she was busy with some mundane task, like doing the dishes or sorting laundry, and a session of songs with the children was already a favourite part of their evening routine. She probably thought the nursery wing was far enough away from the rest of the house for him not to notice but she was wrong. He’d heard her late last night, too, well after the children were sound asleep. Alone in her room, playing her guitar and singing softly.

      It wasn’t that he didn’t like the sound. It was just … different. Nothing like normal.

      ‘She’s no’ a teacher.’ Joan clicked her tongue. ‘What’s she doing at the school every day?’

      It was the tone that did it. Adam was jolted out of his automatic defence mechanisms by the unexpected urge to defend his new employee. ‘She has been a music teacher and she plays the guitar. The school’s piano is apparently broken and the children want to learn carols. Now … stand up, please, Joan. I’m going to take your blood pressure again to see if position makes any difference.’

      Joan levered her ample frame out of the chair. ‘We knew about the piano. The committee’s talking about whether to use the hall fund to replace it, but if we don’t fix the hall it’s going to get condemned and what would we do without the village hall? Where would the children put on their Christmas play?’

      Adam resorted to his customary grunt and put the earpieces of his stethoscope into place to signal an end to the conversation. As he held the disc over Joan’s elbow and pumped up the cuff, he took a quick glance at the clock on his wall and remembered the number of people in the waiting room.

      It was going to be a long day.

      The conversation stopped as soon as Emma entered the general store that was between the greengrocer and the bakery. She lifted her chin and put on her brightest smile.

      ‘Good morning. I’m looking for some coloured paper. Do you have the kind that’s sticky on the back?’

      The blank stare made Emma reconsider her decision to shop in the village instead of driving for half an hour to get to the nearest larger town. It wasn’t easy to keep the smile on her face.

      ‘I want to make paper chains,’ she explained. ‘For Christmas decorations.’

      The women exchanged heavily significant glances.

      ‘Christmas decorations?’ one of them murmured. ‘In Dr McAllister’s hoose?’

      The subtext was in capital letters. You couldn’t really celebrate Christmas in the McAllister house. Not without being duly reluctant anyway. Even the children were all too aware of that and it wasn’t fair. She’d taken them to watch the big tree in the square being decorated yesterday and Poppy’s eyes had been huge.

      ‘I love Christmas trees,’ she’d whispered. ‘They’re so pretty.’

      ‘We’ll make your Christmas tree just as pretty at home, you’ll see.’

      ‘We don’t have a tree at home,’ Oliver had said. ‘Gran says it’s because it makes Dad sad.’

      ‘It makes me sad,’ Poppy had said, ‘not having a tree.’

      Emma had lain awake last night, mulling this over. She was here for the children, wasn’t she? And she was here for Christmas.

      And Christmas was for children.

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