O Night Divine A Holiday Collection of Spirited Christmas Tales - Kathryn Le Veque Page 0,10

for them.”

She looked at him as if not quite sure what he meant, but she patted his chest sweetly. “You are a dedicated, wonderful father,” she said. “Your children adore you. In their eyes, you can do no wrong.”

Maxton knew she was trying to reassure him and he appreciated that. But the terrible nightmare still had him shaken. At the moment, he could only thank God that it had only been a dream. He pulled his wife against him, kissing her sweetly.

“Thank you,” he murmured. “I am the most fortunate man in the world, Andy. I know that. I do not ever want to betray that good fortune.”

She still wasn’t sure where the self-doubt was coming from, but she didn’t pursue it. Kissing him one last time, she pulled him off the wall. “Come along,” she said gently. “Let us return to bed. It was only a dream, Max. You will have forgotten it by morning.”

Maxton nodded, but he wasn’t so sure.

He wasn’t sure he’d ever forget.

And perhaps it was meant to be that way.

As morning dawned the next day, Andressa awoke to an empty bed. Bright, white light streamed in the gaps in the cloth-covered windows and she rose, collecting her robe and pulling it tightly around her as she peered from the window into the brilliantly white landscape beyond. It had snowed through the night, leaving a winter wonderland for this glorious Christmas day.

Pulling on her slippers, she went to the chamber across the landing only to see that her daughters’ beds were empty. They were already awake. Suspecting they were with their father, she went into the baby’s chamber to see that he was wide awake and simply looking around, chewing on his fingers. Her appearance was met with a big, toothless grin.

Collecting her happy son and changing his swaddling, she wrapped him tightly and took him down to the ground floor where the smaller hall was located, the one used only by the family. Already, she could smell fresh bread and she knew that Maxton was feeding their girls. He did that on many occasions, this man who, last night, had seemed to be so worried that he wasn’t a good father.

As Andressa neared the hall entry, she could hear Maxton’s voice. He was telling his children another story and she was gearing up to berate him for yet another violent tale when she heard his words.

They were anything but violent.

“… and they brought fine spices and gold, as a gift for the baby.”

“Then the gifts weren’t swords, Dada?”

“Nay, sweetheart,” Maxton said softly. “When I told you that, I was making it more exciting, but you know that sometimes Dada tells you stories that are just that – stories. They are just for fun, and sometimes I make them up, but they are stories that make you laugh and they make you smile, and that makes Dada happy. I love to see you smile. But the truth about the birth of Christ is that the Three Magi were just ordinary men who had come to give the baby gifts.”

“And the archangels, Dada? Were they there to protect the baby?”

“They were present,” Maxton insisted. “They were there to admire the baby, but they did not have to protect them from the Magi. Those men had come to worship the baby because he was the son of God, and the animals in the stable were only animals, like the horses and goats that we have. Simply animals.”

“Then nobody wanted to slice the baby?”

“Nobody wanted to slice the baby, at least not that night. All was well in the world. It was a peaceful and beautiful thing.”

As Andressa stood just outside the doorway and listened, she had to smile. Maxton had seriously backtracked on the story he’d told the girls last night and she wondered why. She wondered if that terrible dream he’d awakened from had anything to do with it. She wasn’t sure why she thought that, but something told her that might be the case.

Maxton had told her that his girls, in the dream, had been in danger. He seemed to lament making mistakes as their father and vowing to do better. Andressa grinned and shook her head, thinking that something in that dream must have caused Maxton to retell the story of Christ in a nonviolent, truthful way. That wasn’t something he’d ever done before – gone back on a story he’d told his children.

But this morning, he had.

Andressa was coming to think that it was