Page 1 of A Merry Little Christmas
CHAPTER ONE
‘Katja, come and look. It’s snowing!’
At the sound of twelve-year-old Will’s call, I gave the pasta a stir, turned down the heat on the hob and hurried through to the sitting room.
Will was standing with his Uncle Caleb by the window looking out, and I paused for just a second in the doorway, thinking how alike they looked with the glow from the Christmas tree picking out the chestnut strands in their wavy, dark brown hair.
Caleb turned and gave me that smile of his – the one that always made my heart flip with happiness. He beckoned me over. ‘It’s just started. The snow. If it carries on like this, we could be making snowmen tomorrow.’
I joined them at the window. ‘It’s magical,’ I murmured, as I gazed out at the snowflakes swirling around on the night breeze. Caleb and I exchanged a smile as he slipped his arm around me.
‘School might be closed tomorrow.’ Will looked at us hopefully. ‘The last time it snowed a lot we all got the day off.’
‘I think it might have to snow heavily all night for that to happen, mate,’ said Caleb, laying his free hand on his nephew’s shoulder.
‘You never know. It just might,’ I added, snuggling my head into Caleb’s shoulder and thinking how wonderful it felt to be standing by the glowing fir tree with its aroma of Christmas – which Will had decorated with his mum, Caleb’s sister Penny – knowing that this year, I’d be celebrating the festive season with Caleb.
For a while, I’d worried that I was falling for Caleb too fast. I’d gone through a truly horrible split from my ex, Richard, earlier in the year, and it had seemed like a miracle when I’d met Calebso soon after that. He’d made me smile again and my feelings for him were growing all the time, but then I’d started to wonder if maybe the relationship was moving too quickly. I didn’t want to jeopardise what we had by rushing in...
When I’d suggested this to Caleb, he’d been his typical understanding self, saying that we had all the time in the world and we could go at whatever pace I wanted.
But I’d seen the slight puzzlement in his eyes when I hadn’t invited him to Sylvia and Mick’s Hallowe’en wedding. My reasoning was that I hadn’t yet introduced him to one of the most important people in my life – my Granny Olga. She was one of Sylvia’s best friends so she would be at the wedding, and I wanted their eventual meeting to be special, not at somewhere like a wedding, with lots of people milling around...
Deep down, though, I’d known it was just an excuse.
The more I was falling for Caleb, the more I was starting to worry that he might break my heart, just like Richard had. Not that he’d ever given me any reason to think he might. But I’d been having these horrible nightmares where I was falling from the top of a skyscraper and everything was disintegrating around me. The dreams left me exhausted during the day, and I’d begun to worry about what they meant. Were they a sign that I was on another path to destruction?
I actually went as far as researching what was happening to me – the dreams were so vivid, like nothing I’d ever experienced – and I discovered that fear of losing control of your life was usually at the root of nightmares where you felt yourself in danger.
It all made sense. When Richard broke my heart, I’d felt as if I was indeed spiralling out of control. But surely, with Caleb in my life, I could start leaving the chaos behind?
I’d returned from the wedding determined to forget all notions of holding back in my new relationship. And now, a fewweeks later, I couldn’t wait for us to celebrate our first Christmas together.
Tonight, we were looking after Will while his mum, Penny – separated from husband Tom since Will was six – had a rare night out with her friends.
I really liked Penny and I’d told her I’d happily babysit for her any time she needed me, whether or not Caleb was there.
‘What’s top of your list for Santa?’ Caleb was asking.
Will looked at him askance. ‘ForMum,you mean.’
I gasped. ‘You don’t believe in Santa anymore?’ I joked.
‘Not since I was aboutthree,’ said Will, grinning. ‘I want a new games console.’
‘With some new car racing games, no doubt?’ I asked, knowing how mad Will was about cars of all shapes and sizes.
Penny had given him a notebook in the hope that he would start using it to record how he was feeling (she worried that his shyness kept him from making friends) but according to Caleb, the only thing Will was recording in that notebook were the makes of cars parked out in the street, which he could see from his bedroom window! Caleb was of the opinion that Will’s shyness was just a part of him and nothing to worry about, and having been shy at school myself, I was inclined to agree.
‘Can we go out in the snow?’ begged Will. ‘It might be gone by tomorrow.’
Caleb looked at me and I shrugged and smiled.
‘Come on, then. Get your wellies on. Coming, Katja?’
‘How about I get the pasta ready? Ten minutes?’
‘Ten minutes,’ promised Caleb, and I forgot about the pasta for a moment as I ushered them out into the back garden, all muffled up in their winter gear, laughing as I watched them fooling around and attempting to make snowballs from the rather scanty layer on the ground.
