About the Authors

CAROLINE ANDERSON has the mind of a butterfly. She’s been a nurse, a secretary, a teacher, has run her own soft-furnishing business, and is now settled on writing. She says, “I was looking for that elusive something. I finally realised it was variety, and now I have it in abundance. Every book brings new horizons and new friends, and in between writing books I have learned to be a juggler. My teacher husband John and I have two beautiful and talented daughters, Sarah and Hannah, umpteen pets and several acres of Suffolk that nature tries to reclaim every time we turn our backs!”

Award-winning author JESSICA HART was born in West Africa, and has suffered from itchy feet ever since—travelling and working around the world in a wide variety of interesting but very lowly jobs, all of which have provided inspiration to draw from when it comes to the settings and plots of her stories. Now she lives a rather more settled existence in York, where she has been able to pursue her interest in history, although she still yearns sometimes for wider horizons. If you’d like to know more about Jessica, visit her website www.jessicahart.co.uk

National bestselling author JULES BENNETT has penned over forty contemporary romance novels. She lives in the Midwest with her high-school-sweetheart husband and their two kids. Jules can often be found on Twitter chatting with readers, and you can also connect with her via her website, julesbennett.com

Falling for the Single Dad

Caring for His Baby

Caroline Anderson

Barefoot Bride

Jessica Hart

The Cowboy’s Second-Chance Family

Jules Bennett

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09768-0

FALLING FOR THE SINGLE DAD

Caring for His Baby © 2007 Caroline Anderson Barefoot Bride © 2007 Jessica Hart The Cowboy’s Second-Chance Family © 2017 Jules Bennett

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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Version: 2020-03-02

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Table of Contents

Cover

About the Authors

Title Page

Copyright

Caring for His Baby

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Barefoot Bride

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Coming Next Month

The Cowboy’s Second-Chance Family

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Epilogue

About the Publisher

Caring for His Baby

Caroline Anderson

PROLOGUE

CRISIS in night. Please contact us ASAP.

Harry Kavenagh stared at the message handed to him by the hotel receptionist, and felt a cold chill run through him. No. Not now. He wasn’t ready.

He’d never be ready—not for this.

Still staring at the words, he rammed the fingers of his other hand through his hair, rumpling the dusty, sweaty strands even further. So what now? He turned the paper over, looking for more information, but there was nothing.

‘When did they call?’ he asked.

‘This morning, sir. Just after you went out.’

Fingers suddenly unsteady and his heart thudding in his throat, he called the number from his room. Five minutes later he was in a car on the way to the airport, his mind still reeling.

He couldn’t believe it was actually happening. Stupid. He ought to be able to. It had been his idea, after all. They’d wanted to turn off the machine weeks ago, with his agreement, but he’d seen enough loss of life. Too much. So he’d begged them to reconsider—exhausted, perhaps a little drunk and stunned by what they’d told him, he’d haggled them into submission.

They’d kept their side of the bargain. And now he had to keep his.

He swallowed, staring out of the window, not seeing the bombed-out buildings, the shattered lives all around him. A shell exploded a few streets away, but he barely noticed. It all seemed suddenly terribly remote and curiously irrelevant, because in the space of the next few hours, his whole life would change for ever.

She was tiny.

So small, so fragile looking, her fingers so fine they were almost transparent under the special light. She needed the light because she was yellow. Jaundiced, apparently. Quite common in slightly prem babies. Nothing to worry about.

But Harry worried about it. He worried about all of it. How on earth was he supposed to look after her? She was just a little dot of a thing, so dainty, no bigger than a doll. Small for dates, they’d said. No wonder, under the circumstances.

He didn’t want to think about that, about how he’d failed her mother. How he’d brought her here to London to keep her safe and then failed her anyway.

‘How are you doing?’

He looked up at the nurse and tried to smile. ‘OK. She was screwing her face up a minute ago. I think she might have a nappy problem.’

‘Want to change it?’

He felt his blood run cold. No. His hands were too big. He’d hurt her…

‘She won’t break, you know,’ the nurse teased gently. ‘You’ll be fine. I’ll help you.’

So he changed her nappy—extraordinarily complicated for something so ordinary—and by the end of the day and a few more goes he’d mastered it, even managing to grip those tiny little ankles between his fingers without snapping her legs when he lifted her up to swap the nappies over or wipe her unbelievably tiny bottom.

Such soft skin. Such astonishing perfection, all those little fingers and toes, the nails so small he could hardly see them. She was a little miracle, and he was awed beyond belief.

And terrified.

The nurse—Sue, her name was, according to her badge—brought him a bottle and helped him feed her again, and she brought it all up all over him. Panic threatened to choke him, but Sue just laughed and cleaned her up, lent him a fresh scrub top and handed her back.

‘Make her slow down. She’s feeding too fast—tip the bottle up a bit more so she doesn’t get so much air. And wind her in between.’

In between what? And wind her? How? He’d never winded a baby in his life, and he was damned if he knew where to start.

With that, or with any of it.

He felt faintly hysterical, but that was probably lack of sleep and shock. He stifled the urge to laugh, but then his eyes prickled and he felt the panic rise again.

What on earth had he done?

The old Chinese proverb rang hollow in his ears. If you save a life, it belongs to you.

He stared down at her, this tiny girl who apparently was his, her transparent fingers wrapped around his little finger with incredible strength, and the panic receded a little, replaced by wonder.

She was amazing. Beautiful. Scary as hell, but astonishing.

And his.

Officially registered this morning as his daughter, in the presence of the registrar of births, marriages and deaths just round the corner from the hospital.

He’d registered her mother’s death at the same time, armed with more forms and certificates from the hospital, and then he’d gone back there and asked to see Carmen’s body, so frail, so young, but finally at peace. And he’d told her about the baby, and promised her he’d do for the baby what he’d failed to do for her—to keep her safe. So now, in every way that mattered, she was his.

‘Get out of that, Kavenagh,’ he murmured, but strangely he didn’t want to. He couldn’t imagine walking away from her. Just the thought of abandoning her to fate made him feel so fiercely protective it scared him.

Together with everything else today.

God, he was knackered. Maybe if he just propped her up on his chest and leant back…

‘Harry?’

He opened his eyes a crack, blinking at the light, and Sue’s face came into focus. ‘Why don’t you go and have a lie-down? There’s a room here for parents—nothing flashy, just a few beds and a separate area with a TV and little kitchen, but you could sleep for a while.’

Sleep. Oh, yes. Please. He had to get some sleep. It had been weeks since he’d slept properly, with the constant shelling and rocket fire going on all night, but this had tired him more than any of that.

He nodded, realising that the baby was back in her crib under the light and that everything was being taken care of.

‘Will she be all right?’ he asked, as if his presence actually made a blind bit of difference, but the nurse just smiled and nodded.

‘Sure. I’ll look after her for you, I’m on till nine, and I’ll hand her over to the night staff before I go. Come on, I’ll show you the parents’ room.’

A bed. Crisp white sheets, a slightly crackly pillow and almost instant oblivion…

‘You’ll be OK.’

He stared down at Sue, wishing he could believe her. She’d spent the last few days telling him he could cope, showing him not just how to change nappies and hold feeding bottles, but bath and dress and simply cuddle his tiny daughter, and he’d begun to believe that maybe—just maybe—he’d manage. Till now.

She was so small, his little doll, but she was tough, like her mother—fierce and determined, and for something so tiny she had a blood-curling scream. He’d become almost confident, in the safe environment of the special care baby unit, surrounded by the bleeps and clicks of the equipment, the hurried footsteps, the laughter and the tears. But now…

‘We’re always here if you have a problem. You can ring at any time. You will cope, Harry,’ Sue said again, as if by repeating it she could make it true, and stretching up on tiptoe, she kissed his cheek and went back inside, leaving him on the outside of the doors, stranded.

What was he supposed to do now? Where could he go? His flat? It was nothing more than a crash pad, really, and it didn’t feel like his any longer, but stupidly until now he hadn’t even thought about where he’d take the baby. Just not there. It didn’t seem right. But where?

He looked down at his tiny girl in the shockingly expensive baby carrier he’d bought that morning, and his heart squeezed. She was staring up at him intently, her almost black eyes fixed on his face, and he found himself suddenly calmer.

He knew what to do, and it was more than time he did it. He should have done it years ago.

‘Come on, my little Kizzy,’ he murmured softly. ‘We’re going home.’

CHAPTER ONE

SOMEONE was moving in.

It had been weeks since the last tenants had left, but there was a car on the drive and the lights were on.

Emily craned her neck and tried to catch a glimpse of the people, but she couldn’t see through the trees. Not clearly enough, anyway. The branches kept drifting softly in the light breeze and blocking her view, and every time she shifted, so did the leaves.

And she was turning into a curtain twitcher, for heaven’s sake!

She snapped the curtain shut and turned her back on the window, tucking up Freddie and smiling down at him. Gorgeous. He was just gorgeous, and she wanted to scoop him up and snuggle him.

Except he’d wake in a foul mood and the sweet little cherub would turn into a howling, raging tyrant. The terrible twos were well named, and he wasn’t even there yet, not for five months!

She grinned and tiptoed out, blowing him a kiss and pulling the door to, just a little, before checking on his big sister. Beth was lying on her back, one foot stuck out the side, her tousled dark hair wisping across her face.

Emily eased the strand away from her eyes and feathered a kiss over her brow, then left her to sleep. There was a film on television starting in a few minutes that she’d been meaning to watch. If she could get the washing-up stacked in the dishwasher, she might even get to see it.

Or not.

She hadn’t even stepped off the last stair before she saw a shadow fall across the front door and a hand lift to tap lightly on the glass.

Her new neighbours?

She sighed inwardly and reached for the latch. She’d have to be polite. It wasn’t in her to be anything else, but just for tonight it would have been nice to curl up in front of the television and be utterly self-indulgent. She’d even bought a tub of Belgian chocolate ice cream…

‘Em?’

‘Harry?’

Her hand flew to her mouth, stifling the gasp, and then her eyes dropped, dragging away from his to focus on…

A baby?

She blinked and looked again. Yes, definitely a baby. A tiny baby—very tiny, hardly old enough to be born, held securely against the broad chest she’d laid her head against so many times all those years ago.

‘Oh, Harry!’ She reached out and drew him in, going up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek and somehow resisting the urge to howl, because if there was a baby, then there was a woman, and if there was a woman…

She let him go before she did something silly. ‘Gosh, it’s been so long—how are you?’ she asked, her voice not quite her own, her eyes scanning his face eagerly.

‘Oh—you know.’

No, she didn’t, despite seeing him on the television almost on a daily basis. She didn’t have the slightest idea, but his mouth was twisting in a parody of a smile and he looked exhausted.

Actually, he looked a great deal more than exhausted. He looked fantastic. Tall, bronzed, his striking pale blue eyes crinkled at the corners from screwing them up in the sun in all the godforsaken trouble spots he spent his life in. He needed a shave, and his hair was overdue for a cut, the dark strands a little wild. Her fingers itched to touch them, to feel if they were still as soft as she remembered, but she couldn’t. She didn’t have the right. Apparently, while she hadn’t been looking, he’d given that to some other woman.

He turned a fraction, so his head was blocking out the light and she could no longer see his eyes, so she glanced down and her heart jerked against her chest. The tiny babe was all but lost inside the big, square hands that cradled it so protectively, the little head with wild black hair sticking out from under the edges of the minuscule hat cupped securely by long, strong fingers.

Such a powerful image. Advertising had recognised the power of it decades ago, but here it was now, standing in her hallway, and she felt her knees weaken.

Her resolve was turning to mush, as well.

‘You’re back,’ she said eventually, when she could get her brain to work. ‘I saw the lights on. I didn’t think it would be you.’ Not after all these years. Not after last time…‘Are you alone?’

‘Yes. Just me and the baby.’

Just? Just? She nearly laughed out loud. There was nothing just about a baby, most especially not one that tiny. She wondered how long it would be before his wife joined them and rescued him. Later tonight? Tomorrow? Although she hadn’t heard that he was married, but then he hadn’t stayed in touch with her or her brother Dan, and she didn’t keep her ear that close to the ground.

Liar! her conscience shrieked. Weekly checks on the Internet, avid scanning of the news, hanging on every word of his news reports…

‘So where’s the baby’s mother? Does she trust you?’ she asked, just because she couldn’t stand the suspense another minute.

His smile twisted, and there was a little flicker of what could have been panic, but his eyes were sombre and there was something in them she just couldn’t read. ‘No mother,’ he said expressionlessly. ‘It’s just us—me and the baby.’

Hope leapt in her chest, and she squashed it ruthlessly. Quite apart from the fact that there was a story here he wasn’t telling her, another go-round with Harry Kavenagh was absolutely the last thing she needed for her peace of mind, but his reply answered why he was here, anyway, and there was no way she was getting suckered into that one! He could cope with the baby on his own, thank you very much!

She pulled back, both physically and emotionally, trying to distance herself from him so she didn’t get drawn in, but then the baby started to fuss, and a flicker of what was definitely panic ran over his face, and she had to steel herself against him.

‘So—what can I do for you?’ she asked, trying not to sound too brisk but giving him very little encouragement at the same time.

He looked a little taken aback—perhaps she’d been too brisk after all—but his shoulders lifted and he smiled a little tiredly. ‘Nothing. I’m staying here for a bit, so I just came to see who was here, to introduce myself—say hello to your parents if they were still here. I wasn’t sure…’

Was it a question? She answered it anyway, her mind still stalled on his words. I’m staying here for a bit…

‘They’re in Portugal. They live there part of the year. Mum was homesick, and my grandmother’s not very well.’

‘So you’re house-sitting for them?’

‘No. I live here,’ she told him. And then wished she’d said ‘we’ and not ‘I’, so he didn’t feel she was single and available. Because although she might be single again, she was very far from being available to Harry Kavenagh.

Ever again.

The baby’s fussing got louder, and he jiggled her a bit, but he wasn’t doing it right and she looked tense and insecure. Emily’s hands itched to take the little mite and cradle her securely against her breast, but that was ridiculous. She had to get rid of him before her stupid, stupid hands reached out.

She edged towards the door. ‘Sounds hungry. You’d better go and feed her—her?’ she added, not sure if the baby was a girl, but he nodded.

‘Yes.’

Yes, what? Yes, she’s a girl, or, yes, he’d better feed her/him/it? She opened the door anyway, and smiled without quite meeting his eyes. ‘I hope you settle in OK. Give me a call if you need anything.’

He nodded again, and with a flicker of a smile he went out into the night and she closed the door.

Damn. Guilt was a dreadful thing.

She walked resolutely down the hall, got the ice cream out of the freezer, contemplated a bowl and thought better of it, picked up a spoon and the tub and went into the sitting room, put on the television and settled down cross-legged on the sofa to watch her film.

Except, of course, it had started and she’d missed the point, and anyway her mind kept straying to Harry and the baby, so tiny in his hands, and guilt tortured her.

Guilt and a million questions.

What was he doing on his own with a baby? Was she his? Or a tiny orphan, perhaps, rescued from the rubble of a bombed out building…

And now she was being completely ridiculous. The baby was days old, no more, and the paperwork to get a baby out of a war-torn country would be monumental, surely? There was always the most almighty fuss if a celebrity tried to adopt a baby, and she was pretty sure he counted as a celebrity.

Unless he’d kidnapped her?

No. He had the slightly desperate air of a man who’d had a baby dumped on him—one of his girlfriends, perhaps, sick of his nonsense and fed up with trying to compete with the more exciting world he inhabited? Maybe she’d thought he needed a dose of reality?

Or perhaps she was dead, had died in childbirth…

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’

She put the ice cream back in the freezer, hardly touched, and stood at the kitchen window, staring out at the house next door.

She could hear the baby screaming, and the mother in her was heading down the hall and out of the door, a cuddle at the ready. Fortunately the pragmatist in her stayed rooted to the spot, wishing she had defective hearing and wasn’t so horribly tuned in to the sound of a crying child.

She made herself a drink, went back to the sitting room and had another try at the television. Maybe another programme, something less dependent on her not having missed a huge chunk. She flicked though the channels.

A cookery programme, yet another make-over show, a soap she’d never watched and a documentary on one of the many messy wars that seemed to be going on all over the world.

Which took her straight back to Harry Kavenagh and the tiny crying baby next door…

‘Hush, little one,’ he pleaded, jostling her gently. ‘Have a drink, sweetheart, you must be hungry. Is it too cold? Too hot?’

Hell, how was he supposed to know? He liked his coffee scalding hot and his beer ice-cold. Somewhere in between was just alien to him.

He stared in desperation at the house next door, the lights just visible through the screen of trees.

No. He couldn’t go round there. She’d hardly greeted him with open arms, after all.

‘Well, what the hell did you expect?’ he muttered, swapping the baby to his other arm and trying a different angle with the bottle. ‘You drop out of her life for years and then stroll back in with a baby in your arms—she probably thought you were going to dump the baby on her!’

He tightened his grip on his precious burden and the crying changed in pitch. Instantly he slackened his grip, shifted her to his shoulder and rubbed her back, walking helplessly up and down, up and down, staring at Emily’s house as he passed the window.

The lights were out now, only the lovely stained-glass window on the stairs illuminated by the landing light. Strange. He didn’t remember her being afraid of the dark. Maybe it was because she was alone in the house…

‘Stop thinking about her,’ he growled softly, and the baby started to fuss again. ‘Shh,’ he murmured, rubbing her back again and going into the bathroom. ‘How about a nice warm bath?’

Except she pooed in it, and he had to change the water in the basin one-handed without dropping her, and then it was too hot and he had to put more cold in, and then it was too full, and by the time he got her back in it she was screaming in earnest again and he gave up.

He could feel his eyes prickling with despair and inadequacy. Damn. He wasn’t used to feeling inadequate. ‘Oh, Gran, where are you?’ he sighed a little unsteadily. ‘You’d know what to do—you always knew what to do about everything.’

He dried the baby, dressed her in fresh clothes and tried to put her in the baby-carrier, but she wasn’t having any. The only way she’d settle at all was if he held her against his heart and walked with her, so he did exactly that.

He pulled his soft fleecy car rug round his shoulders, wrapped it across her and went out into the mild summer night. He walked to the cliff top and then down through the quiet residential roads to the prom, strolling along next to the beach and listening to the sound of the sea while the baby slept peacefully against his heart, and then when he could walk no more and his eyes were burning with exhaustion and he just wanted to lie down and cry, he took her home and sat down in the awful chair that the tenants had left and fell asleep.

Not for long.

Not nearly long enough. The baby woke, slowly at first, tiny whimpers turning gradually to a proper cry and then ultimately a full-blown blood-curdling yell by the time he’d found her bottle in the fridge and warmed it and tested it and cooled it down again by running it under the tap because of course he’d overheated it, and by the time he could give it to her she’d worked herself up to such a frenzy she wouldn’t take it.

He stared down at her in desperation, his eyes filling. ‘Oh, Kizzy, please, just take it,’ he begged, and finally she did, hiccupping and sobbing so she took in air and then started to scream and pull her legs up, and he thought, What made me think I could do this? I must have been mad. No wonder women get postnatal depression.

He wondered if it was possible for men to get it. Clumsy, inadequately prepared fathers who’d never been meant to be mothers to their children—men whose wives had died in a bomb blast or an earthquake and left them unexpectedly holding the baby. Or men widowed when their wives died in childbirth. Or even men who’d taken the decision to be the house-husband and main carer of the children. How did they cope?

How did anyone cope?

He changed her, then changed her again when she was sick down her front, then gave her another little try with the bottle and finally put her down in the carrier, shut the door and went upstairs to the bedroom he’d used as a child, leaving her screaming.

He had to get some sleep if he was going to be any good to her.

But the only furniture in the room was a bare, stained mattress, and he couldn’t bring himself to lie on it even if he could ignore the baby’s cries for long enough to get to sleep.

He looked around him critically, taking in the state of the place properly for the first time, and realised that if he was going to live in it, it was going to need a team of decorators to come in and blitz it, new carpets and furniture throughout and probably a new kitchen.

And in the meantime he’d be living there with the baby?

He must have been insane.

He should have let the doctors throw the switch all those weeks ago instead of interfering.

Acid burned his stomach and he shook his head.

No.

Whatever came next, what he’d done so far had been exactly the right thing. The only thing. And it would get easier. It had to. He’d learn to cope. And right now he was going back downstairs, and he’d lift her out of the carrier and lie down on the grubby chair and cuddle her on his chest until they both went to sleep. The rest he could deal with tomorrow…

‘I’m going to get you!’

Emily ran after her giggling son, chasing him down the garden and scooping him up, and straightened to find Harry standing on the other side of the fence staring at her and Freddie in astonishment.

‘Um—hi,’ he said. She smiled back and said, ‘Hi, yourself. How’s the baby?’

Freddie looked at him with the baby on his shoulder, gave his lovely beaming smile and said, ‘Baby!’ in his singsong little voice and clapped his chubby hands in delight.

Now she’d had time to register it, Emily was too busy searching Harry’s exhausted face to worry about the baby. There were deep black smudges under his eyes, and his jaw was shadowed with stubble. She ached to hold him, to stroke that stubbled chin and soothe the tired eyes with gentle fingers—’ Are you OK?’ she asked, trying to stick to the plot, and his eyes creased with weary humour.

‘I’m not sure. I’m so tired I can’t see straight at the moment. We had a bit of a problem in the night.’

‘I heard,’ she said, feeling guiltier still for her less-than-enthusiastic welcome the evening before. ‘Um—look, why don’t you come round and have a coffee? We’re not doing anything, are we, Freddie? And we’ve got an hour before we have to pick up Beth.’

‘Beth?’ he said.

‘My daughter.’

She wondered if he’d notice the use of ‘my’ and not ‘our’. Maybe. Not that it mattered. If he was going to be living next to her for longer than ten minutes, he’d work out that she was alone. Anyway, she didn’t think he was worrying about that at the moment. He was busy looking slightly stunned, and she wondered if she’d looked like that last night when she’d seen his baby for the first time.

Probably. She’d been shocked, because the last time they’d met, they’d both been single and free, and now, clearly, he wasn’t. And as for her—well, she was single again, but far from free, and maybe it was just as much of a shock to him to know she was a parent as it had been to her to realise he was.

Because, of course, if she knew nothing about his private life for the last umpteen years, it was even more likely that he knew nothing about hers.

Or the lack of it.

He gave her a cautious smile. ‘Coffee would be good. Thanks.’

Coffee? She collected herself and tried for an answering smile. ‘Great. Come through the fence—the gate’s still here.’

She opened it, struggling a little because the path was a bit mossy there and the gate stuck, and he grabbed it and lifted it slightly and shifted it, creaking, out of the way.

‘The creaking gate,’ he said, and added, with that cheeky grin that unravelled her insides, ‘It always did that. I used to know just how far to open it before it would rat on me.’

And she felt the colour run up her cheeks, because she remembered, too—remembered how he’d sneak through the gate and meet her at the end of the garden in the summerhouse, late at night after everyone was asleep, and they’d cuddle and kiss until he’d drag himself away, sending her back to bed aching for something she hadn’t really understood but had longed for anyway.

‘We were kids,’ she said, unable to meet his eyes, and he laughed softly.

‘Were we? Didn’t always feel like it. And the last time—’

He broke off, and she took advantage of his silence to walk away from the incriminating gate and back up the garden to the house, Freddie on her hip swivelling wildly round and giggling and shrieking, ‘Baby!’ all excitedly.

She really didn’t want to think about the last time! It should never have happened, and there was no way it was happening again.

She scooped up the runner beans from the step, shoved open the back door with her hip and went in, smiling at him over Freddie’s head.

‘Welcome back,’ she said, without really meaning to, but she was glad she had because the weariness in his eyes was suddenly replaced by something rather lovely that reminded her of their childhood, of the many times she’d led him in through her parents’ back door and into the welcome of their kitchen.

‘Thanks.’ He reached out and ruffled Freddie’s bright blond curls. ‘I didn’t know you had kids.’

There was something in his voice—regret? She shot him a quick look, filed that one for future analysis and put the kettle on. ‘Yup. Beth’s three, nearly four, and Freddie’s nineteen months. Real or instant?’

‘Have you got tea? I daren’t have too much caffeine. I had so little sleep last night I want to be able to grab every second of it that’s offered!’

She laughed and reached for the teapot, lifting it down from the cupboard and putting Freddie on the floor. ‘Darling, go and find your cup,’ she instructed, and he trundled off, humming happily to himself.

‘He’s cute.’

‘He is. He can be a complete monster, if it suits him, but most of the time he’s gorgeous.’

Harry gave a strangled laugh. ‘I wish I could say the same for this one, eh, Mini-Dot?’

‘Mini-Dot?’ she said, spluttering with laughter, and he chuckled.

‘Well, she’s so tiny. It’s not her real name. Her real name’s Carmen Grace—Kizzy for short.’

‘Oh, that’s pretty. Unusual.’

‘Grace is for my grandmother.’

‘And Carmen?’

His face went still. ‘For her mother,’ he said softly, and there was an edge to his voice that hinted at something she couldn’t even begin to guess at. Maybe he would tell her later. She hoped so, because she didn’t feel she could ask. Not now.

She would have done, years ago, but they’d spent every waking minute together in those halcyon days of their youth and there had been nothing they hadn’t shared.

But now—now she didn’t know him at all, and she didn’t know how much he was going to give her, and how much she wanted to give back.

So she said nothing, just made them tea and found a few chocolate biscuits and put them on a plate. Then Freddie came back with his cup trailing a dribble of orange juice behind him, and she refilled it and mopped up the floor and hugged him, just because he was so sweetly oblivious and she loved him so much it hurt.

He giggled and squirmed out of her arms and ran out into the garden, and they followed him, she with the tray, Harry with the baby—Mini-Dot, for goodness’ sake!—and she led him to the swinging seat under the apple tree.

‘Is this the same one?’ he asked in wonder, but she laughed and shook her head.

‘No, it fell to bits. Dad bought a new one a few years ago, so you don’t have to sit down so carefully any more.’

He chuckled and eased himself down onto the seat, leaning back and resting his head against the high back and closing his eyes. ‘Oh, bliss. This is gorgeous.’

‘Bit of a change from your usual life,’ she said without meaning to, and he cocked an eye open and gave a rusty little laugh.

‘You could say that.’ For a moment he was silent, then he sighed and opened his other eye and turned his head towards her. ‘It takes a bit of getting used to—the quiet, the birdsong, the normal everyday sounds of people going about their daily lives. Crazy things that you wouldn’t think about, like the sound of a lawnmower—when I can hear it over the baby, that is,’ he added, his mouth kicking up in a rueful grin.

She answered him with a smile, then felt her curiosity rise. No. She wouldn’t go there…

‘What happened, Harry?’ she asked softly, despite her best intentions.

His smile faded, and for a moment she didn’t think he was going to answer, but then he started to speak, his voice soft and a little roughened by emotion. ‘I found her—Carmen—sitting by the side of the road, begging. Every day I walked past her on my way from the hotel and gave her money. Then after four days she wasn’t there. The next time I saw her, she’d been beaten up. Her mouth was split, one eye was swollen shut and the other one was dull with pain and despair. She wasn’t expecting anything—a few coins, perhaps, nothing more—but I took her to a café and bought her breakfast, and talked to her. And it was only then that I realised she was pregnant.’

Emily clicked her tongue in sympathy. ‘Poor girl.’

He nodded. ‘She’d been raped, she told me. She didn’t know the father of her child, it could have been any one of several men—soldiers. She’d didn’t know which side they were on. It didn’t really matter. She was a gypsy. They aren’t highly regarded in Eastern European countries—liars, thieves, lazy—you name it. And two nights before she’d been raped and beaten again. But she was just a girl, Emily, and she was terrified, and she’d lost her entire family.’

‘So you took her under your wing,’ she said, knowing that he would have done so, because he’d always been like that.

He gave a tiny hollow laugh. ‘In a manner of speaking. I moved her into my hotel room, fed her, got a doctor for her, and while I was in the shower she stole my wallet and ran away. So I tracked her down and asked her why. Eventually she told me she was waiting for me to rape her.’

Emily asked again. ‘So what did you do?’

‘I married her,’ he said quietly. ‘To keep her safe. Ironic, really. I brought her home to London and installed her in my flat. I gave her an allowance, paid all the bills and saw her whenever I could. And gradually she learnt to trust me, but she was lonely. Then she started going out and meeting up with people from her country and she was much happier. She was learning English, too, at evening classes, and starting to make friends.’

He fell silent, and she waited, watching him, knowing he would carry on when he’d found the words.

‘She was mugged. She was seven and a half months pregnant and someone mugged her on the way home from college one night. She ran away and crossed the road without looking and was hit by a car. She was taken to hospital, but she had a brain injury, and by the time they got hold of me she was on life support and they were doing brain-stem tests. So much for keeping her safe.’

The horror of it was sickening, and she put her hand over her mouth to hold back the cry. ‘Oh, Harry, I’m so sorry,’ she whispered.

‘Yeah.’ He swallowed. ‘They didn’t know whether to switch off the machine. They’d scanned the baby and it was fine, but they didn’t know how I’d feel. I’d just flown in from an earthquake, I hadn’t slept in days and I was exhausted. I didn’t know what to say. I just knew I couldn’t give up on the baby—not after everything we’d been through. She hadn’t done anything wrong. She hadn’t asked for this, and I’ve seen so many children die, Em, and not been able to do anything about it. And here was one I could do something about. I couldn’t let her go. So I asked them to keep Carmen alive, long enough to give the baby a chance. And last week she ran out of time. Her organs started to fail, and they delivered the baby and turned off the machine. I got there just too late to say goodbye.’

He stared down at the baby on his lap, her mouth slack in sleep, her lashes black crescents against her olive cheeks, and Emily’s vision blurred. She felt the hot splash of tears on her hands, and brushed them away.

‘Harry, I’m so sorry,’ she said again, and he looked up, his eyes haunted, and then looked down again at the precious bundle in his arms.

‘Don’t be. Not for me. I know it’s hell at the moment and I feel such a muppet—I’m not used to being so phenomenally incompetent and out of my depth, but it will get better. I’ll learn, and she’s amazing. So lovely. So much perfection out of so much tragedy and despair. And I’m all she’s got.’

Emily wanted to cry. Wanted to go into a corner somewhere and howl her eyes out for him, and for the baby’s poor young mother, and for little Carmen Grace, orphaned almost before her birth.

‘So that’s us,’ he said, his voice artificially bright. ‘What about you?’

‘Me?’ she said, her eyes still misting. ‘I’m, ah—I’m fine. I’m a garden designer—fitting it in around the children, which can be tricky, but I manage more or less. Get through a lot of midnight oil, but I don’t have to pay for my accommodation at the moment.’

Although if her parents did sell their house, as they were considering doing, that would all change, of course.

‘And their father?’

She gave a tiny grunt of laughter. ‘Not around. He didn’t want me to keep Beth. Freddie was the last straw.’

Harry frowned. ‘So what did he do?’

‘He walked—well, ran, actually. I haven’t seen lightning move so fast. I was four months pregnant.’

‘So he’s been gone—what?’

‘Two years.’

Two difficult, frightening years that she would have struggled to get through without the help of her parents and her friends, but they’d all been wonderful and life now was better than it had ever been.

‘I’m sorry.’

She smiled. ‘Don’t be. Things are good. Hang in there, Harry. It really does get better.’

He looked down at the baby and gave a twisted little smile. ‘I hope so,’ he said wryly. ‘It needs to.’

‘It will,’ she promised, and just hoped that she was right…

CHAPTER TWO

FREDDIE’S CUP landed in her lap, dribbling orange on her, and she absently righted it and brushed away the drips.

Finally she looked back at him. ‘So—aren’t the legal ramifications vast? Nationality and so on?’

He shrugged. ‘Apparently not. I was Carmen’s husband, I’m down on the baby’s birth certificate as her father. That makes her British.’

‘But you’re not. Her father, I mean. Couldn’t that land you in trouble, if they ever found out?’

‘How? Are you going to tell them? Because I’m not. I know it’ll be hell, but I won’t be the first father to bring up a child alone, and I doubt I’ll be the last. And if not me, then who? The legalities are the least of my worries. I owe her this. It’s the least I can do.’

The least he could do? Devoting his life to her? He was either even more amazing than she’d remembered, or utterly deluded.

Probably both. Rash and foolhardy, his grandfather used to say affectionately. But kind. Endlessly kind. He reached for his cup, the baby held against his shoulder by one large, firm hand, but her head lolled a little and his grip tightened and she started to cry again.

‘Let me—just while you drink your tea,’ she said, and reaching out, she lifted the tiny little girl into her arms.

‘Oh—she’s so small! I’d forgotten! They grow so quickly—not that Freddie was ever this small. Beth was dainty, but even she—’

She broke off, the baby’s fussing growing louder, and she walked down the garden a few steps, turning the baby against her breast instinctively.

And with the same instinct, little Carmen Grace nuzzled her, then cried again. Oh, poor lamb. She needed her mother!

‘She’s hungry,’ she said, her voice uneven, and he got up and reached for her, but Emily shook her head, curiously reluctant to let the baby go.

‘Bring the bottle. I’ll hold her while you get it, it’s all right.’

He hesitated for a second, then went, squeezing through the gate and returning a few moments later with a bottle. ‘I don’t know if it’s the right temperature,’ he said, handing it over, and Emily tested it on the inside of her wrist and frowned.

‘It’s too cold. I’ll go and warm it. Keep an eye on Freddie for me.’

She went into the kitchen, gave the bottle a few seconds in the microwave, shook it vigorously and tested it again, then slipped the teat into the baby’s mouth, silencing her cries instantly.

Good.

She went back down the garden and found Harry on his knees with Freddie, playing in the sandpit. As she walked down the garden he sat back on his heels and looked up at her with a relieved smile.

‘Sounds peaceful.’

She laughed and settled herself on the bench, watching them and trying not to let her stupid thoughts run away with her.

‘Did you love her?’ she asked, then wanted to bite her tongue off, but he just sat back again and stared at her as if she was crazy.

‘She was a child, Em. I married her for her own protection. Yes, I grew to love her, but not in the way you mean. It was just a legal formality, nothing more. I never touched her.’

She felt a knot of something letting go inside her, but she didn’t want to think about the significance of that. She turned her attention back to the tiny scrap in her arms. The bottle was almost empty, the tiny amount she’d drunk surely not enough to keep her alive, but she was so small, her stomach must be the size of a walnut. Smaller.

She lifted her against her shoulder and rubbed her back, waiting for the burp and watching Harry as he piled sand into the bucket with Freddie and helped him turn it out.

‘Mummy, castle!’ Freddie shrieked, and the baby bobbed her head against Emily’s shoulder, her whole body stiffening in shock. She soothed her with a stroking hand, rocking her and smiling at Freddie.

‘I can see,’ she said softly.

‘How about a moat?’

‘Wasa moat?’ he asked, and Harry chuckled.

‘It’s like a big ditch full of water that goes all round the outside—here, like this,’ he said, scraping out a hollow ring around the slightly wonky castle.

‘You made one on the beach with Dickon and Maya last week,’ Emily pointed out, and Freddie nodded and scrambled to his feet.

‘Mummy, water!’ he demanded, running to her with his cup, but Harry got up and grinned and ruffled his hair.

‘Let her sit there for a minute. We’ll get the water. Come with me and show me where the tap is,’ he said, and held out his hand.

Freddie, normally the last person to allow such a familiarity, slid his hand trustingly into Harry’s and trotted happily beside him, chattering all the way to the kitchen.

Emily glanced down at the baby, sleeping again, her tiny face snuggled into the crook of her neck so that she could feel the soft skin, the warm huff of her breath, the damp little mouth, and the ache in her chest grew until she had to swallow hard to shift it.

‘Poor baby,’ she crooned, cradling her head with a protective hand. ‘Don’t worry, darling. We’ll look after you.’

She didn’t even think about the words. They came straight from her heart, bypassing her common sense, and as she rocked the baby in her arms, she felt a sense of rightness that should have rung alarm bells, but the bells were switched off, and the warning went unheeded.

Freddie was delicious.

Bright and bubbly, his fair hair sticking up on one side as if he’d slept on it. It was soft and unruly, much like Harry’s own, and it felt just right under his hand.

‘’Nough?’ Freddie asked, and Harry nodded, looking at the jug he’d found.

‘I think it’s enough.’

But, of course, it sank straight into the sand, and Freddie’s excitement turned to disappointment.

‘Mummy!’ he wailed, running to her and throwing himself at her knees, and Harry felt racked with guilt because he’d suggested it and it had failed and now the boy was upset. Damn. Could he do nothing right?

Em looked up at him with an apologetic smile. ‘There’s a cake ring in the drawer under the oven,’ she told him. ‘It should just about fit over the castle. You could use that and fill it with water.’

So they went back up to the kitchen, and found the cake ring, and with a bit of adjustment they fitted it over the sandcastle and filled it with water, and even found a stick to make a drawbridge and floated a leaf in it as a boat.

And the look on Freddie’s face was priceless. ‘Boat!’ he said, and ran to his mother yet again, his eyes alight. ‘Mummy, boat!’ Ook!’

Emily looked, admired it dutifully and threw Harry a smile over Freddie’s head, then stood up. ‘I have to get Beth,’ she said, ‘and I think this little one needs her daddy’s attention.’

There was a spreading stain below her nappy, and Harry’s heart sank. He wasn’t sure if there was a washing machine in the house, and she’d only got a few clothes. Clearly, at this rate he was going to have to buy a whole lot more!

‘Fancy company? If I change her quickly, could I come, too? And afterwards, if you were feeling really kind, you could point me in the direction of the nearest supermarket or baby shop so I can buy her more stuff.’

‘Sure. I was going to walk, but we can take the car. I’ll give Georgie a ring and warn her we might be late.’

He nodded, took the baby from her gingerly and went through the fence. She was starting to fuss, but she settled once he’d changed her and put her in the carrier, and he met Emily on the drive just as she was putting Freddie into his seat.

‘Can we squeeze this in?’

‘This?’ she said with a chuckle, taking the carrier from him. ‘Poor baby, what a way to talk about you! He’s a bad daddy.’

She hoisted it into the car and strapped it in, then got behind the wheel. He slid in beside her, shifting so he could watch her. ‘So where are we going?’

‘A friend’s—actually, Georgie Cauldwell. Do you remember her? Her father’s a builder—we used to go and crawl around on the building sites when we were kids.’

He nodded. ‘I remember her—small but fiery. Brown hair, green eyes, lots of personality?’

She shot him a look. ‘You do remember her. Very well. Did you have a thing about her, Harry?’

He laughed softly. ‘Hardly. You were more than enough trouble for me.’ He looked away. ‘So what’s she doing now?’

‘She’s married to a guy from London with pots of money. He’s a darling. They’ve got three kids that were his sister’s, but she was killed on the way home from hospital when she had the last one. It was awful. Anyway, they’ve adopted them and Georgie’s pregnant now, so it’s just as well they’ve got this big house.’

She swung into the drive of a huge Victorian villa overlooking the sea and cut the engine. Two boys came running over with a little girl he knew instantly must be Beth. She was every inch her mother’s daughter, from the soft dark curls that tumbled round her shoulders to the twinkling, mischievous eyes that reminded him so much of Em when he’d first met her.

And behind them came Georgie, older of course but still essentially the same, a baby in her arms. He unfolded himself from the seat and stood up, and with a little cry of welcome she hugged him with her free arm, her smile open and friendly.

‘Harry! Emily said you were back—oh, it’s so good to see you again. Welcome back to Yoxburgh. Come on in and meet Nick—Oh, and this is the baby!’ she added, peering into the car. ‘Oh, Harry, she’s lovely!’

The baby in her arms was pretty gorgeous, too, and when she burrowed her head in her mother’s shoulder and then peeped at him and giggled, he couldn’t help responding. ‘So who’s this?’ he asked after a moment or two of pee-boo-ing and giggles.

‘Maya,’ Georgie said. ‘Aren’t you? She can say her name now. Tell Harry who you are.’

‘Harry,’ the baby said, swivelling round and pointing, and burrowed into her shoulder again. Still smiling, he followed the direction she’d pointed in and met a challenging stare.

‘You’ve got my name,’ the boy said, his head tilting to one side. ‘I’m Harry.’

Harry grinned. ‘Is that right?’

He nodded.

‘Well, in that case I think you must have my name, since I had it about twenty something years before you needed it, but hey, that’s cool, I don’t mind sharing. It’s a good name, it would be mean to keep it to myself.’

They swapped grins, and then he was introduced to Dickon, Harry’s younger brother, and Em’s daughter Beth.

So many children—and now it was his turn. He got the carrier out of the car, turned it towards them all and said with a curious feeling of rightness, ‘This is Kizzy. She’s my daughter.’

‘Is Emily her mummy?’ Dickon asked, puzzled, and Harry shook his head.

Should he say this? Hell, these kids had lost their mother only a year or so ago. Was it really fair to dredge it all up?

Yes. Because life wasn’t fair, and the truth would come out at some point, he was sure, so he shook his head again and said gently, ‘Her mother died.’

‘Our mummy’s dead,’ Dickon said matter-of-factly. ‘Georgie’s our new mummy. Is Emily going to be Kizzy’s new mummy?’

Emily laughed, the sound a little strained to his ears, and started towards the house. ‘Heavens, no! I’ve got enough on my plate with Beth and Freddie, haven’t I, darling?’

Beth slipped her hand into her mother’s and snuggled closer. ‘Babies are nice, though. Georgie’s having a baby.’

‘Well, I’m not,’ Em said firmly. Too firmly? He didn’t know. All he knew was that all this blatant fecundity should have sent him running—and it didn’t. And the idea of Emily being Kizzy’s new mummy was suddenly extraordinarily appealing…

‘Lovely house.’

Nick looked around and smiled the smile of a supremely contented man. ‘It is, isn’t it? Georgie and her father did the work for us, and we love it. I thought it was ridiculously big at first, but with all the kids and another on the way and my mother living with us and working here, and me working from home at first, frankly if it was any smaller it wouldn’t be big enough.’

For a man who’d evidently been a bachelor a little more than a year ago, he seemed extraordinarily happy with the way things had turned out. They were in the garden, sitting in the shade of a big old tree and looking out over the sea, and every few seconds his eyes would stray to his family, an indulgent smile touching his mouth.

Harry could understand that. His own eyes kept straying to Em and her children, her revelation about their father still ringing in his ears.

He walked—well, ran, actually. I haven’t seen lightning move so fast.

Bastard. Fancy leaving them. Although maybe it had been better to leave them with Emily who clearly adored them than to stay and make them feel unloved and unwanted, and then at the first opportunity pack them off to boarding school and to their grandparents in the holidays…

‘So where are you staying? Georgie said something about your grandmother’s house.’

He wrenched himself back to the present and gave a rueful smile. ‘Well, that was the idea, but it’s had tenants since she died ten years ago and I haven’t been back since the funeral. To be honest, it was a bit of a shock, seeing it. The agents told me it needed some cosmetic attention, but I think they were erring on the kind side. It needs gutting, frankly, so I think we’ll have to rent something.’

Georgie lifted her head and frowned at him. ‘Is it really that bad?’

‘It needs total redecoration, and if I’m going to live there long term it’ll need a new kitchen and bathroom at least, but for now a lick of paint and some clean carpets would work wonders. I don’t suppose your father knows anyone reliable?’

Her eyes flicked to her husband’s. ‘We could send in the A-team.’

Nick chuckled. ‘Indeed. We’ve got a whole range of trades,’ he explained. ‘They’re used to working together, they do a good job, their prices are reasonable and at the moment they’re not busy because there’s been a hold-up on a development. So—yeah, if you want, we could send them along to give you a quote.’

‘Fantastic. That would be great.’

And if they could do half at a time, he could stay there. It was summer, after all, and he and the baby could spend most of their time in the garden.

He didn’t let himself think too much about why it seemed so important to stay there rather than rent another house—one that wouldn’t be next to Em. After all, she’d already made it clear she wasn’t interested in being Kizzy’s new mummy.

Not that he was about to ask her, or had even really thought about it for more than a moment, but he thought about it now—couldn’t think about anything else, in fact, however foolish he knew it was. If he had any sense he’d keep well out of her way and not indulge the foolish fantasy that they, too, could have a fairy tale ending like Georgie and Nick…

Emily was stunned.

If I’m going to live there long term?

He was considering it? Really?

She’d thought he was back for a few days—just a quick visit to sort out the house ready for the next tenants. It had never occurred to her that he might be coming back for any length of time—or maybe even for good!

But if he was back for good—no. She couldn’t let herself think about it. Daren’t let herself think about it, because her heart couldn’t take any more. She’d been stupid over Harry Kavenagh once too often, and she wasn’t going to do it again.

‘So when can you start?’

‘Tomorrow? We’ll strip all the wallpaper and rip out the old floorcoverings, decorate throughout and then you’ll be ready for the new carpets. Should take a week at the most with the team on it.’

‘A week?’

‘Uh-huh. Some of the windows need quite a bit of work, unless you’re going to replace them?’

‘Um—I hadn’t intended to. I was hoping to live here while you do it.’

‘With the baby?’ The foreman shook his head. ‘No. Sorry, I really wouldn’t recommend it. Not with all the old lead paint. It’s OK when it’s left alone, but when it’s disturbed it can be harmful to children, and she’s so tiny.’ His face softened as he looked down at the baby in Harry’s arms, and Harry’s eyes followed his gaze and his eyes locked with Kizzy’s.

Wide and trusting, fixed on him.

‘No, you’re right,’ he said, wondering what on earth he did now. ‘Come tomorrow. I’ll find somewhere to go. It’s not like there’s much here to worry about in the way of furnishings. I’ll get carpets and stuff organised for when it’s done, so it won’t be for long.’

He waved them off, hesitated on the doorstep and then went round to Emily’s house and rang the doorbell.

‘Oh. It’s you,’ she said, wondering if there would ever come a time when her heart didn’t hiccup at the sight of him. ‘I thought you would have come through the fence and knocked on the back door.’

He smiled a little awkwardly. ‘I don’t want to take advantage.’

‘You aren’t taking advantage.’ She opened the door a little wider. ‘Come on in. I was just about to have coffee. Join me.’

‘Thanks.’ He followed her down the hall and into the kitchen, perching on the stool awkwardly with Kizzy snuggled against his chest, and watched her while she made their drinks.

‘Still off coffee?’ she asked with a smile, and he shook his head, his mouth kicking up in an answering smile.

‘No. I need caffeine today. I’ve just had the decorator round. He’s coming tomorrow, but they’re going to hit the whole house at once and strip it all right out. I need to find a hotel for us for a week. I wondered if you’d got any ideas or recommendations?’

‘A hotel?’ she said, and then, knowing she was going to do it and utterly unable to stop her mouth making the words, she said, ‘Don’t be silly. You can stay here. It’s only a week. You’ll be no trouble.’

No trouble? Was she out of her mind? And what was she thinking, only a week? That was seven nights! Well, five if she was lucky and he was talking working weeks, but it was Monday now, and if they’d said it would take a week then there’d be a weekend in between and so it would be properly a week before the decorators left, and then the carpets would have to be fitted and the furniture delivered. So, next Wednesday at the earliest. Oh, rats. Still, the house was plenty big enough and there were three bathrooms. They wouldn’t be tripping over each other at least.

Besides, it was too late, because he was accepting, hesitantly, reluctantly, but still accepting, and only a real bitch would say, ‘Actually, no, I’ve changed my mind, I didn’t mean it at all!’

Or a woman whose life was complicated enough, whose heart was finding it altogether too difficult to be so close to the person who’d held that heart in the palm of his hand for so very many years…

‘I’ve found my old baby sling,’ she told him, putting the coffee down in front of him and lifting the sling off the end of the worktop where she’d put it ready to give him.

‘Baby sling?’

She smiled and handed it to him. ‘You put it round your shoulders and over your back, and the baby lies against your front, without you having to hold her all the time, so she can hear your heart beat and you have your hands free. They’re wonderful.’

He studied the little heap of soft stretchy cotton fabric with interest. ‘I’ve seen things like this all over the world—women tying their babies to them so they can work, either on their fronts so they can feed them easily, or on their backs.’

She nodded. ‘The so-called civilised West has just cottoned on. It’s a big thing now. They call it baby-wearing, as if they’d just invented it, but since you seem to be doing it anyway I thought you might like to borrow that to make it easier.’

‘Thanks. You’ll have to give me lessons,’ he said, putting it down again with a defeated laugh. ‘It looks like a loop of fabric to me.’

‘It is. Here.’

And just because it was easier to show him than to put it on him with the baby still in his arms, she looped it round herself, adjusted it, took the baby from him and snuggled her inside it, close against her heart.

Kizzy shifted, sighed and snuggled closer, relaxing back into sleep without a murmur. ‘See? Then you get your hands free.’

He gave a cheeky, crooked grin. ‘Or I could let you carry her, since you seem to be the expert.’

She laughed, sat down and sipped her coffee, relishing the feel of the little one against her, warm and curiously reassuring. No. She mustn’t let herself get too used to it. It was much, much too dangerous. Her heart had already been broken by this man, and there was no way she was going to let his daughter do the same thing.

‘I don’t suppose you want to come carpet shopping with me?’

She met his eyes over her cup. ‘Can’t you cope?’ she asked, desperately trying to create a little distance, and then could have kicked herself because she would have loved to go carpet shopping with him.

He shrugged dismissively. ‘Of course I can cope. I just thought it might be more fun.’

‘What, with Freddie in tow and Mini-Dot here yelling the place down? I don’t think so.’

‘She’s not yelling now,’ he pointed out. ‘Maybe she’s stopped that.’

Foolish, foolish man.

The baby began to stir almost before he’d finished speaking, and within seconds she was bawling her tiny lungs out.

‘I’ll get her bottle,’ he said, standing up, but Emily got up, too, extracted Kizzy from the sling and handed her to him.

‘I’ve got a better idea. You take her and deal with her, and when she’s settled, you can take her carpet shopping. And I can get on with my work.’

A fleeting frown crossed his brow. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realise you were working,’ he said, and took Kizzy from her arms. ‘We’ll get out of your way. And don’t worry about having us to stay. We’ll find a hotel.’

‘Harry, no!’ she said, angry with herself for upsetting him.

‘No, really,’ he said, his voice a little gruff. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t just come back here after all these years and expect you to welcome me with open arms.’

Oh, Harry, if you only knew, she thought, and her hand came out and curled over his wrist, holding him there with her. ‘I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just—I do have work to do, and Freddie is having a nap and it’s my one chance. Please, come and stay. I can’t let you go to a hotel. Not with the baby. Anyway, Freddie and Beth will love having her here. Please?’

His eyes were serious, searching hers for an endless moment, and then, finally satisfied, he nodded briefly. ‘OK. But we’ll try and keep out of your way so we don’t stop you working.’

She felt the tension go out of her like air out of a balloon. ‘Still want help with the carpet shopping?’ she said with a smile.

CHAPTER THREE

HE HADN’T realised just what an expedition it would be, shopping with three children.

Kizzy was more than enough trouble, but by the time he’d got her fed and settled and Freddie had woken up, Beth had come back from playing with a friend, so they were all going together.

And then, of course, because she was so tiny and seemed to be hungry every three minutes or so, he needed to take feeds for Kizzy, and because she was just like a straw he’d need nappies, and because he was so rubbish at putting the nappies on she’d need a total change of clothes…

He bet they took less equipment on an Arctic expedition.

‘You OK there?’

He gave Emily what he hoped was a smile and nodded. ‘Sure. I’m fine. I’ve got everything, I think.’

She eyed the bulging bag dubiously. ‘Got wipes?’

Of course not.

He found them and put them in, then straightened up, baby carrier in hand. ‘Will I need the sling? Because I still don’t think I know how to put it on.’

‘I’ll help you. Bring it,’ she instructed, and so he followed her out—to her car, not his, because it was set up with baby seats for her two. Beth and Freddie were already strapped in, reaching across and poking each other and giggling, and they looked up and beamed a welcome at him and Kizzy that made him feel—just for a second, until he reminded himself that he wasn’t—as if he was a part of their family.

As if he belonged.

And the pain hit him in the chest like a sledgehammer.

He sucked in a breath. ‘Hi, kids,’ he said, leaning over Freddie to put the baby carrier in the middle, and Freddie reached up and grabbed his face and planted a wet, sticky kiss on his cheek.

‘Harry!’ he said happily, and Harry straightened up and ruffled Freddie’s hair and swallowed hard.

No. They weren’t his kids. He wasn’t going to get involved. Look what had happened the last time he’d got involved in someone’s life…

‘All set?’

He clipped on his seat belt and nodded. Emily started the car and headed for town.

It was a good job he had her in tow, she thought.

He was fingering a lovely pale pure wool carpet with a thoughtful look on his face.

‘Imagine it with baby sick and play-dough on it,’ she advised sagely, and he wrinkled his nose and sighed heavily.

‘So what would you suggest?’

‘Something a little darker? Something scrubbable? There are some you can pour bleach on. Maybe a tiny pattern, just to break it up? Or a heather mix, so it’s not a flat, plain colour.’

He was glazing over, she could tell. Poor baby. For the first time in his life he was up against having to consider something other than his own taste. And he didn’t like it.

‘I want wood, really. I’d like to strip the boards, or put down an oak strip floor, perhaps. I’ve got solid walnut in my flat and it’s gorgeous. And you can wipe it clean.’

‘Hard to fall on, and it can be a bit cold. Anyway, they probably couldn’t do a really nice floor that fast.’

‘Oh, damn,’ he said, ramming his hands through his hair and grinning ruefully. ‘I tell you what, you choose. You’ve had more experience than I have. So long as it covers the floor and I can have it next Tuesday, I don’t care.’

So she chose—a soft pale coffee mix that would stand children running in and out—and then wondered what on earth she was thinking about because the only child running in and out would be Kizzy and she was less than two weeks old! He’d probably replace the carpet before she was walking.

‘Next?’

‘Furniture? I haven’t got any.’

So she took him to a place that sold beds and sofas and dining furniture, and he ordered the best compromise between what he wanted and what was available at short notice, and then right on cue Kizzy started up.

Freddie was wriggling around in the buggy, wanting to get out, and Beth was hanging on her hand and needed the loo.

‘How about lunch?’ she suggested. ‘Then we can tackle curtains and bedding—a bit more retail therapy for you.’

‘Retail therapy?’ He gave a snort. ‘Not in this lifetime—but lunch sounds good,’ he said, the air of hunted desperation easing slightly at the suggestion of reprieve, and she nearly laughed out loud.

Poor Harry. Anyone less in touch with their feminine side she had yet to meet, but she had to hand it to him. He was taking it on the chin and giving it his best shot, and she felt a strangely proprietorial sense of pride in him.

Swallowing a lump in her throat, Emily tucked her arm through his and steered him into the little café next door, sat him and Beth down, found a high chair for Freddie and took Kizzy from the sling on Harry’s chest, rocking her while the waitress heated the bottle. Then she fed her while her children played with their bendy straws and Harry sat back and closed his eyes and inhaled a double espresso with the air of a condemned man taking his last meal.

It was all she could do not to laugh.

‘Well, that was painless.’

‘Painless?’ He cracked an eye open and studied her for signs of lunacy. ‘I thought we’d never get them settled. I’m exhausted.’

‘You’ll get used to it,’ she promised. ‘I did.’

‘You’re a woman. You have hormones.’

‘Yes—and usually they’re a hazard,’ she said with a chuckle in her voice, and he opened the other eye and sat up a little.

They were in her sitting room, all three children sound asleep, and his few possessions were now installed in Dan’s bedroom, which just happened to be next to hers. Unfortunately. He could have done with being at the other end of the hall, or downstairs, or even at the end of the garden—

No. He couldn’t afford to think about the summerhouse. Not now, when he was alone with her for the first time in years, and there was soft music flowing all around them and all he wanted to do was take her in his arms and carry on where they’d left off…

‘Are you OK?’

‘Sure. Why?’

‘You’re scowling.’

He tried to iron out the muscles in his face and struggled for a smile. ‘Sorry. Thanks for today. I don’t suppose you enjoyed it any more than I did,’ he said, and then realised it was actually a lie, because in some bizarre way he had enjoyed it, all of it. And because he couldn’t lie to her, because he never had, he shook his head and smiled again, properly this time. ‘Actually, it was fun, in a strange way,’ he admitted, and she smiled back, her eyes soft with understanding.

‘You’ll get used to it, Harry. It’s not so bad after a while.’

‘Because it’s so long since you’ve done anything for yourself that you forget to miss it?’ he suggested, and she gave a wry chuckle.

‘Got it in one. And the kids are lovely. They give you back all that love in spades.’

He studied her, wondering about her love life, if it consisted solely of cuddles with her adorable children or if there was a man somewhere.

‘You’re scowling again.’

He laughed. ‘Sorry. Tell me about your garden design business. Did you do your parents’ garden? I noticed it was different—better.’

‘Do you like it? I did it years ago. It was one of my first projects. The swing seat had broken, and the garden needed a thorough overhaul. My father asked me if I wanted to do it as my first commission, when I was finishing my course. I would have done it anyway, but he insisted on paying me—said I had to live and he was sick of supporting me!’

Harry laughed with her, picturing her father, gruff and loving, always supportive, and her mother, warm and motherly and generous to a fault, like a younger version of his grandmother Grace.

‘You’re very lucky to have such loving parents,’ he said, his own voice a little gruff, and she nodded, her eyes searching his face and missing nothing, he was sure. He looked away. ‘So how’s business now?’

‘Good,’ she said. ‘I’ve done quite a bit for Nick and Georgie, both in their garden and in the development behind their house, and Nick’s got some other projects under way that I’m drawing up some ideas for, and I’ve done a few other domestic jobs around the area.’

‘Enough to live on?’

‘I manage,’ she said, but there was something in her voice that made him wonder how tight it was and how dependent she was on her parents for accommodation, or if it simply suited them all. He wondered if the rat who’d fathered her children and then legged it made any kind of contribution, and thought probably not.

‘No, he doesn’t,’ she said, and his head jerked up.

‘Did I say that out loud?’ he said guiltily, but she shook her head, her smile wry.

‘No. You didn’t have to. You were scowling again.’

‘Ah.’ He pressed his lips together, but the words came out anyway. ‘Tell me about him.’

She shrugged. ‘Nothing to tell. I met him at a party—no surprises there. He’s always been a party animal. We lived together for a year, and I became pregnant with Beth. He wanted me to get rid of her, as he put it, but I wouldn’t. I told him it was too late, and I really thought he’d come to love her, but he was pretty indifferent to her.’

‘So why didn’t you leave him?’

Her laugh was humourless and a little bitter. ‘I had nothing to live on. I didn’t think it was fair to come home to my parents. They were enjoying being free of responsibility, and they were taking all the holidays they couldn’t afford while Dan and I were at home. So I stayed with Pete, and two years later I was pregnant again.’

‘And he left you.’

‘Mmm. I told him on Saturday morning, and on Saturday afternoon he packed up and moved out while I was at the supermarket. He left me with the flat, the rent was due and I had no money for food. He’d stopped my card so I couldn’t use it at the supermarket, and when I got home with no food after an embarrassing fiasco at the checkout, he was gone.’

‘So what did you do?’

‘I came home. My father collected us and brought us home, my mother looked after Beth so I could go back to work until I had Freddie, and they’ve been fantastic. I don’t know what I would have done without them.’

Her voice was soft and matter-of-fact, but underneath he could sense a wealth of pain and he ached for her. He knew what it was to be unwanted, knew how it felt to be an unwanted child, and having heard her story he was more than ever sure that Beth and Freddie were better off without their father.

‘You don’t need him,’ he said, and she smiled.

‘I know. And you don’t have to sound so cross. He did me a favour, really. Without him I wouldn’t have had my children, and at least he had the decency to go off and leave us alone, instead of hanging around and being cruel…’

He felt his legs bunch. ‘He hit you?’

She laughed and shook her head, leaning over to push him back onto the sofa. ‘Relax. There are other ways of being cruel.’

Oh, yes. And he’d met many of them in his time. He relaxed back against the sofa and sighed, then patted the cushion beside him. ‘Come here.’

She hesitated a second, then she sat beside him, snuggling against his side as she’d done so very many times before. ‘I’ve missed you,’ she said softly. ‘I see you on the telly and wonder how you are, if you’ll ever come back to Suffolk…’

‘And I have.’

‘Mmm. With Kizzy. I might have known you’d find a waif and rescue her. You were always a softie.’

He thought of Carmen, how she’d looked after she’d been attacked, and how she’d looked in the chapel at the mortuary, her young face finally at peace.

‘I don’t think I did her any favours,’ he said gruffly. ‘Maybe if I’d left her there, or handed her over to the aid agencies…’

‘Then what? She would have had a child and no way of supporting it except prostitution. Would you want that for her?’

He shook his head. ‘But she didn’t deserve to die.’

‘Of course not, but life’s a bitch, Harry. You gave her hope, gave her a home—and you’ve given her baby a home and a father, safety and security for the rest of her life.’

‘We have yet to survive it, of course,’ he said wryly. ‘Only time will tell.’

‘You’ll survive it.’ She tipped up her face and smiled at him, her hand coming up to cradle his jaw with gentle fingers. ‘You’ll be a wonderful father, Harry. Give yourself time.’

He nodded slightly, not sure if he could believe her but no longer really thinking about it, because her eyes were tender, her mouth was full and soft and, oh, so close, and without thinking, without giving himself time to analyse or argue or reason, he lowered his head and touched his lips to hers.

Oh, dear heaven, she tasted the same. All these years and he could remember her taste, her scent, the feel of her lips under his, the soft stroke of her tongue against his, the tiny sigh, the warmth of her breath, the frantic beating of her heart against his fingertips as his hand glided down over the hollow of her throat and settled against a soft, full breast, fuller than before, her body a woman’s now, lush and generous, the curves just right for his hand.

And he wanted her as he had never wanted her before, as an adult, a man who knew all the joys in store instead of a hormonal youth who simply hoped to find out. And the knowledge was almost enough to destroy his self-control, to push him over the edge.

But then, just as he was about to let her go, when his mind was already pulling back even as his hand curled against her breast, she lifted her head away, her eyes confused, and said, ‘Kizzy.’

Kizzy? What had Kizzy to do with it?

And then he heard her crying, her screams getting louder by the second.

He jerked himself to his feet, strode towards the door and bounded upstairs, his heart racing and his body clamouring to turn round and go back and finish what they’d started…

Emily sagged back against the cushions and lifted her hand to her lips. Had it really always felt that good? And if so, how on earth had they ever stopped?

She closed her eyes and waited for her heart to slow, listening to his voice, a soft rumble on the stairs as he carried Kizzy down. Her cries subsided for the moment, a cuddle enough to comfort her for now.

Emily nearly laughed aloud. A cuddle from Kizzy’s father was nothing like enough to comfort her. She wanted more—much more—but she’d be insane to let this crazy situation go any further, because whatever else she knew about Harry, she knew that Yoxburgh wouldn’t be enough to satisfy him for long.

He’d always talked about seeing the world—a result of his restless upbringing, trailing round the globe in the wake of his parents who had been too busy to pay attention to their little son. So although he’d never had their love, he’d had experiences in spades, and the wanderlust that was a part of his father’s make up was part of his also.

And so he’d go—maybe not now, maybe not for a while, but eventually, when it all got too dull and easy and the world beckoned. And she’d be left, broken-hearted as Pete could never have left her, because although she’d thought she’d loved Pete, she knew full well that an affair with Harry had the potential to bring her far more joy and far more sorrow than Pete could ever have done, because he’d never had that unerring capacity to touch her soul.

So she simply wasn’t going to go there, not now, not ever. And if they’d got scarily close on the night of his grandmother’s funeral, they weren’t getting that close again. No way. It was far too dangerous.

She could hear him in the kitchen, hear Kizzy starting up again, and taking a deep breath to steady her, she got to her feet and went through. ‘Want a hand?’

‘I’m OK,’ he said, his back to her and his voice tight.

Damn.

‘I’m going to do some work, then,’ she said, and went into the study and shut the door a little more firmly than was quite necessary, just to be on the safe side.

‘Oh, Kizzy, what did I go and do that for?’ he murmured, staring down at his tiny daughter with regret. ‘We were getting on so well, and now I’ve gone and screwed everything up, but she was just there, you know, and I just wanted to kiss her. Nothing else. What a silly daddy.’

He took the bottle out of her mouth and propped her up against his shoulder, rubbing her back until she burped gloriously in his ear, then he gave her the rest of the bottle, cuddled her for a minute and then took her back up, changed her and put her down in the travel cot Em had found in the loft.

Kizzy went out like a light, without a murmur, which left him nothing to do but go back downstairs and sit and watch the study door and wonder if Emily was mad with him.

He paused in Freddie’s doorway, staring down at the sleeping boy. He was huge compared to Kizzy, but he was still a baby really, his steps sometimes unsteady, his chin only too ready to wobble if things went wrong. Beth wasn’t that much older, either, but quite different, bright and beautiful and full of mischief, her sparkling eyes just like Em’s.

Beth was lying sprawled across the bed, too close to the edge, and he shifted her back and covered her again before heading downstairs with all the enthusiasm of a French aristo going to the guillotine.

He owed Em an apology, and he wasn’t sure if he dared be in the room with her long enough to make it. At least not without a table between them to keep them apart.

He went into the kitchen, made some tea and tapped on the study door. ‘Em?’

‘Come in,’ she said, turning towards him with a wary look in her eyes as he pushed the door open and went in, tray in hand.

‘I’ve brought you tea.’

‘Thanks.’

He hung on to the tray, because if it was in his hands he couldn’t do anything else with them. ‘My pleasure. And we haven’t eaten. Want me to cook something?’

She swivelled her chair a little farther and reached for the tea. ‘What can you cook?’

He laughed. ‘Probably nothing English. What have you got to work with?’

‘All sorts. I did a big shop the other day. Go and have a look. I just want to finish this off and I’ll come and give you a hand.’

He nodded and went out, sighing with relief that the awkwardness seemed to have gone and their friendship was back on track.

Unless he poisoned her! He opened the fridge and studied the contents. Peppers, chicken breast, onions, tiny cherry tomatoes, salad, apples in the fruit bowl, couscous in the larder cupboard and spices in the rack next to the hob.

Excellent.

‘Smells good.’

He jumped, turning towards her with a laugh lighting up his eyes and the knife pointing towards her threateningly, but she didn’t feel threatened. ‘Do you have to creep up on me?’

‘Sorry.’ She grinned without remorse and perched on the stool at the breakfast bar. ‘Found all you need?’

‘I think so. Did you get your drawing done?’

‘Yes. I was just making a few changes to the planting. So what are you cooking?’

‘Moroccan chicken and couscous. I wasn’t sure if you liked things spicy, so I haven’t made it too hot, but it’s fruity so it takes the edge off it. Here—try a bit.’

And he held out a fork with a little pile of couscous on for her to taste. She leant forward, closed her lips around the fork and wondered if he’d been tasting it, if his lips had closed on the prongs of the fork, too, if he’d…

‘Wow! That’s gorgeous!’

‘Not too hot for you?’

She shook her head, putting her hormones back in their box and concentrating on the food. ‘No, it’s lovely.’

‘Good. I’ll just finish off the chicken and I’ll be done.’

‘Want a hand?’

‘No. Just stay there and keep me company.’

So she sat there, watching him work, her eyes drawn to the muscles in his shoulders flexing as he stirred and flipped the chicken in the pan, his buttocks taut when he shifted from foot to foot, crouching to lift out the plates from the oven and then straightening, thighs working…

Damn. She was going to drool in a minute.

He threw the chicken into the couscous, scraped the juices into the mixture and stirred it through then piled it into the bowls and set them down on the breakfast bar in front of her, hooking his foot round a stool and drawing it closer before sitting opposite her.

Their knees brushed and she pulled away, just as he did, and he apologised automatically and then he met her eyes and smiled wryly. ‘Actually, I’m sorry for all of it. For landing on you like this—for kissing you.’ Then he shook his head and laughed softly under his breath. ‘No, that’s a lie. I’m not sorry. I’m sorry I’m not sorry, if you see what I mean. I didn’t mean to kiss you, and I shouldn’t have done, but I can’t be sorry I did. Not unless it gets in the way of our friendship, because that means too much to me to mess with it. Ah, that was the most garbled speech in the world, but—I guess what I’m trying to say is, forgive me?’

Forgive him? For kissing her so tenderly, so beautifully, so skillfully?

‘There’s nothing to forgive,’ she said, her voice a little unsteady, and picking up her fork, she turned her attention to the food before she said or did anything she’d regret…

CHAPTER FOUR

‘CAN I ask you an enormous favour?’

Emily lifted her eyes from the baby’s face and met Harry’s clear blue gaze. Maybe one day she’d be immune to watching him with the baby in his arms as he fed her, but not today or any time soon.

‘Sure,’ she said, wondering if her voice was as husky as she suspected.

‘I need to go to London. I didn’t really give them much warning that I was going to be taking time off. I’ll go on the train, I think it’s the quickest, and I shouldn’t be gone more than five hours—six, tops. I’ll leave all the feeds ready for you—the made-up packets are a doddle, even I can manage them, and with any luck she’ll sleep for most of it, but I need to go and talk to my boss, and I can’t really take her with me.’

‘Why not?’ she suggested, just to see what he said and to find out if he’d thought it through. ‘It might be quite useful—you know, make the point of how tiny she is and all that.’

He shook his head, his mouth kicking up in a wry smile. ‘No. My boss is a woman. There’s no way she’d be impressed by that. She’d expect a woman to get child care to cover a meeting. She won’t make an exception for me. And I know it’s a pain, and I promise I won’t make a habit of it. It’s really just this once. And, yes, I could take her and dump her on a secretary or something on the way in, but it isn’t really fair on the secretary and it certainly isn’t fair on Kizzy. I’ve already thought about doing it, and if I didn’t have to ask you, I wouldn’t. I know you’ve got more than enough to do, and I’ll make it up to you—babysit yours so you can get some work done or something. Look after them while you get a massage. Whatever you like.’

She put him out of his misery. ‘Done. You can babysit for me while I work, and I’ll have a massage. And you can pay for it,’ she added, waiting for him to renege, but he didn’t, he just nodded and looked relieved.

‘Thanks, Em. I owe you.’

‘I know. The meter’s running.’

He chuckled and lifted the baby against his shoulder, burping her. Hell, he was getting good at it. Those big strong hands cradled her with a tenderness that made Emily want to weep, and now he was relaxing into the role, Kizzy obviously felt safe. Emily envied her. She’d give her eye teeth to be cradled in his arms with him staring adoringly down at her like that.

She shot to her feet. ‘More tea?’

He shook his head. ‘No, I’m going to turn in. I’m shattered. So—is that OK for the morning, then?’

‘Tomorrow?’ she said, startled, and he nodded.

‘Sorry—didn’t I mention that? Is tomorrow a problem?’

‘No,’ she said, mentally scanning her diary. ‘Except the decorators are starting.’

‘Hell,’ he said softly. ‘Could you keep an eye on them? Make sure they’re OK and don’t do anything silly?’

‘Have you agreed colours?’

‘Colours?’ He looked suddenly overwhelmed, and she took pity on him. He’d had a hard day, and the learning curve must seem to him as steep as Everest.

‘Don’t worry. I expect they’ll be doing preparation for a day or two. I’ll pick up some colour charts for you, or they might have some. If all else fails I’ll decide for you—but don’t blame me if you come back and find the hall sore-throat pink!’

‘You wouldn’t,’ he said, his eyes filled with panic, and she chuckled.

‘Don’t push your luck. Go on, go to bed and we’ll sort the rest out in the morning.’

He nodded and stood up, the baby asleep in the crook of his arm, and he paused beside her and looked down into her eyes. The light was behind him so she couldn’t read his expression, but his voice was gruff.

‘You’re a star, Em. I don’t know what I would have done without you.’

And without warning he bent his head and brushed his lips lightly against hers, then with a murmured, ‘Good night.’ He went upstairs and left her there, still reeling from his touch…

The overhead lines were down.

He couldn’t believe it. He’d had the day from hell. His boss had grilled him like a kipper about when he was going to be able to return to work, he’d had his contract terms pointed out to him in words of one syllable, his mobile phone battery had died and now this.

The train had come to a shuddering halt midway between stations, and there was nothing they could do but wait for the lines to be repaired. And in the meantime the air-conditioning was out of action because the train wasn’t running, and the staff were wandering up and down, handing out bottled water and reassurance while the entire world got on the phone and told their loved ones what was going on.

Except him. Because his battery was flat, because with everything else he’d had to do he’d forgotten to put it on charge. And now Em wouldn’t know where he was or be able to get hold of him, and some woman next to him had recognised him and was hell-bent on making conversation. He would have borrowed her mobile and phoned Em, but her number was in his phone so he couldn’t get it and besides he didn’t want the number registered on the woman’s call log, because there was just something persistent about her that rang alarm bells.

So he sat, stripped down to his shirtsleeves and wondering if it would be rude to take off his shoes and socks, and endured her conversation in the sweltering heat and worried about Kizzy and whether Em was coping, until he could have screamed.

Where was he?

She looked at her watch again, and tried his mobile once more, just in case, but either he was stuck in the underground, it was switched off or the battery was dead.

And Kizzy was refusing her feeds. She’d been sick, she’d spent most of the afternoon with her legs bent up, screaming, and finally Em had got Freddie and Beth off to bed and was pacing up and down, Kizzy in her arms turned against her front for comfort, and she was grizzling and hiccupping and it was tearing Emily apart.

She shifted her from one arm to the other because she was getting cramp, but as she settled her on the other side her breast brushed Kizzy’s cheek and she turned her little head, instinctively rooting for the nipple.

And with her maternal instinct kicking in, Emily’s nipples started to prickle and bead with milk, even though it had been months since she’d given up feeding Freddie.

Months and months, but as far as her body was concerned it could have been yesterday, and she pressed the heel of her hand against the other breast and bit her lips to hold back a whimper.

Oh, she ached to feed her. The instinct was overwhelming, and Kizzy felt it, too, nuzzling her and sobbing, and in the end it was more than she could bear.

How could it hurt? Wetnursing had been around for ever—for as long as mothers had died in childbirth, other women had fed their babies for them, and no one had thought twice about it. It was only now, in this sanitised age where bottle-feeding was an accepted option that anyone would even blink at the idea.

And anyway, she didn’t need food, she needed comfort, poor motherless little scrap, and if Emily could provide comfort for this tragic infant, then who was she to deny it?

She sat down in the middle of the sofa, unfastened her bra and lifted it out of the way, then turned the baby to her nipple, brushing it against her cheek, and as if she’d been doing it all her life, Kizzy turned to her, opened her mouth and latched on.

There. Just like that, peace was restored. The hiccupping sobs faded to nothing, the only sound in the room was the rhythmic suckling of the baby, and cradling her close, Emily stroked the back of the tiny starfish hand pressed against her breast and closed her eyes.

Poor baby. She should have done it hours ago, but she’d thought Harry would be back.

She glanced at her watch, concerned for him. The decorators had been and gone, leaving colour charts behind, and she’d made them tea and chatted over the fence in between feeds and Freddie’s tantrums and Beth’s persistent demands for attention, and somehow the day had disappeared.

Now it was night, almost eight-thirty, and it was getting dark outside.

She was just about to phone him again when she heard a key in the door. She felt a sudden flutter of panic, and glanced down at Kizzy. What if he was angry? What if he didn’t understand? She thought of prising the baby off and reassembling her clothes, but there wasn’t time, and anyway, she couldn’t lie to him. She’d have to tell him, whatever, and she’d just have to hope he could understand.

‘Em, I’m so sorry—the wires were down…’

He trailed to a halt, staring in amazement. She was suckling her! Breastfeeding Kizzy, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, and he felt a huge lump clog his throat.

For a moment he couldn’t move, but then his legs kicked in again, and crossing over to her, he hunkered down and reached out a finger, stroking the baby’s head, then looked up into Emily’s stricken eyes. ‘You’re feeding her,’ he said hoarsely.

‘I’m sorry. She wouldn’t settle—she’s been crying for hours, and it seemed the only sensible thing to do. I’m really sorry, it’s the only time—’

‘Sorry?’ He stared at her in astonishment. ‘For giving her what her poor mother was unable to give her? Emily, no. Don’t be sorry. She had donated milk in SCBU, just to start her off, but of course I couldn’t keep it up. Don’t have the equipment.’ He smiled, and then his smile wobbled a bit and he frowned. ‘I just—It was the one thing I couldn’t do for her, the one thing I’ve felt so really bad about, and I never thought for a moment, never dreamt—’

He broke off, choked, and rested a trembling hand on Kizzy’s head, watching as her damp little mouth worked at Em’s nipple, and a surge of emotion washed over him, so strong it would have taken the legs out from under him if he hadn’t already been down there.

‘You couldn’t get me a drink, could you?’ she said, her voice soft, and he nodded and cleared his throat.

‘Yeah. Sure. Of course. What do you want?’

‘Tea? I’d better not have juice, it might upset her.’

He stood up, his legs a little unsteady, and went out to the kitchen, put the kettle on and leant his head against the wall cupboard while the world shifted back gradually onto an even keel.

He’d fantasised about this.

For the past two days, whenever she’d been carrying the baby or holding her like that, turned in to her body, he’d fantasised about her breastfeeding his child.

Not that Kizzy was his, except he couldn’t imagine her being any more important to him whatever her parentage, and Em certainly wasn’t his to fantasise over, but that hadn’t stopped him, and now she’d brought his fantasy to life.

Only the once, he reminded himself. She’d probably never do it again, and why should she, really? It was a hell of a tie, and Kizzy was nothing to do with her. Anybody else would have shut her in a bedroom and left her to cry herself to sleep.

But not Em. His Emily had always been fiercely protective of children, breaking up squabbles on the beach when she was only ten, leading crying toddlers back to their distraught parents—he couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t mothered something, be it a child or an animal.

That was the first time he’d been in the summerhouse, when she’d shown him a hedgehog with a damaged leg. She’d put it in a box in the summerhouse, and she had been feeding it on cat food bought out of her pocket money. He’d helped her look after it, and they’d both ended up with fleas.

He laughed softly at the thought, and her voice behind him caught him by surprise.

‘Penny for them.’

He turned with a smile. ‘I was remembering the fleas from the hedgehog you rescued. And here you’ve got another little stray.’

‘Hopefully not with fleas.’ She chuckled and handed him the baby. ‘Anyway, she’s your little stray and she needs her nappy changed. I’ll make the tea—or do you want something else?’

A large bottle of Scotch? Nothing else would blot out the hellish day—but Emily had, with her gentle smile and her loving kindness to his daughter.

‘Tea would be lovely,’ he said, his voice suddenly rough, and took the baby upstairs to change her and put her in her cot. He checked the others, went back downstairs and found Em in the sitting room, the mugs on the table in front of her. She was sitting on the chair, not one of the two sofas, retreating, he imagined, to a place of safety, a place where it wouldn’t be so easy for him to sit beside her, draw her into his arms and kiss her senseless.

For a second he was tempted to scoop her up out of the chair and sit down in it with her on his lap, but then common sense prevailed—better late than never—and he dropped into a corner of one of the sofas, facing her.

‘Bad day?’

‘Probably nearly as bad as yours,’ he confessed with a wry smile.

‘So how was your boss?’

His laugh sounded humourless, probably because it was. ‘Let’s just say she could have been more accommodating. I’ve taken a month’s unpaid leave to give me time to sort things out. Let’s just hope it’s long enough.’ He picked up his tea and cradled the mug in his hand, his head resting back against the cushion and his eyes closed. ‘Oh, bliss. It’s good to be home,’ he said, and then almost stopped breathing, because that was exactly what it had felt like—coming home.

For the first time in his adult life.

He straightened up and turned his attention to the tea. ‘So how did the decorators get on?’ he asked, once he was sure he could trust his voice.

‘OK. They’ve stripped out all the old carpets and put them in a skip, and they’ve started work on the windows. Here, colour charts.’

She pushed a pile of charts towards him on the table, and he put down his tea and picked them up, thumbing through them. ‘What do you think?’

‘I have no idea. I don’t know what your taste is, Harry. I haven’t seen you since you were twenty one, at your grandmother’s funeral. Our minds weren’t on décor.’

No. They’d been on other things entirely, he remembered, and wished she hadn’t brought it up, because he was straight back to the summerhouse, scene of many a moonlit tryst in their teens, stolen moments together on a voyage of discovery that now seemed so innocent and then had seemed so daring, so clandestine. Except that night, after he’d buried his grandmother, when things had got just that bit closer.

‘Neutral,’ he said, dragging his mind back from the brink. ‘Or should children have bright primary colours to stimulate them?’

She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I go with instinct, and my instinct is earth colours, unless you’re talking about toys, but they can be put away and leave the place calm.’

‘Calm, then.’

‘I think so.’

He nodded and tried to pay attention to the colour charts, but all he could think of was their first kiss and their last—until last night, that was, only twenty-four hours ago, and still much too fresh in his mind. Coupled with coming home—there he went again—and finding Emily feeding Kizzy, he was having a hard time keeping his mind off sex and on the subject.

No. Not sex.

Emily. Emily in his arms, Emily’s lips on his, Emily holding the baby, suckling her, the image still so powerful it was going to blow his mind.

He threw the colour charts down. ‘I’ll look at them tomorrow. See them in context. I can’t even remember what colour sofas I chose now.’

She laughed, reaching for her tea and curling back up in the chair, her legs folded so that her feet were tucked up under that lovely curve of her bottom. ‘Brown,’ she told him. ‘Bitter chocolate in that thick, bumpy leather—the tough stuff.’

‘Right.’ Concentrate on the sofas. ‘So shoe buckles and toys don’t scratch them. I remember. So we probably don’t want to paint the walls black, then.’

She laughed again, and he felt it ripple right through him. ‘Probably not. So, tell me about your boss.’

He shook his head. ‘She was tough—tougher than the leather. I knew she would be. Don’t worry, I can deal with her. It was the journey home that was so awful. There was a woman on the train who recognised me, and I was trapped with her for hours. I was getting ready to strangle her. She was creepy. I got the feeling that if the sun set I wouldn’t have been safe.’

Em spluttered with laughter. ‘Was she after you, Harry?’

‘I think she might have been,’ he confessed drily. ‘Then again it might just be paranoia.’

‘Or your ego.’

‘Or my ego,’ he conceded with a grin. ‘Yeah, she was probably just a nice woman who was bored as hell and thought she could tell me her life story because she knew me. That’s the trouble with spending your evenings in everybody’s living rooms—they think they know you, and I suppose to a certain extent they do. Depends how much you give away to the camera.’

She tipped her head on one side, studying him. ‘How much do you give away?’

He shrugged, trying to be casual because he knew the answer was that he gave away too much of himself, even if it didn’t show on camera. ‘Depends. As little as possible, but sometimes things really get to you—like the earthquakes and the mudslides and things. Hideous. You can’t keep that under wraps. Not if you’re human. And then there are the fantastic moments when they pull a child out alive days later—I can’t just tell it deadpan, but you have to bear in mind you’re reporting the news and not making a social commentary. That’s not my job, and if I have feelings or allegiances, I have to ignore them. It’s all about being impartial, about giving people the facts and letting them make their own minds up. So I try not to give my own feelings away, but sometimes—well, sometimes I fail.’

He laughed softly and put his mug down on the table. ‘Sorry—getting a bit heavy here. Tell me about your day.’

She studied him thoughtfully for a moment, then smiled, allowing him to change the subject. ‘Well—let’s just say I’ve had better. Freddie was a nightmare, Beth decided it was going to be one of those days when she wanted to make things with her mummy and so wanted my undivided attention, Kizzy was miserable and the decorators wanted tea.’

‘Just another peachy day in suburbia, then,’ he said with a suppressed smile, and she chuckled.

‘Absolutely.’

‘So you didn’t get a lot of work done.’

‘Not so you’d notice.’

He nodded, feeling the prickle of guilt for the umpteenth time that day. ‘Sorry. That’s my fault. How about I have the kids for you tomorrow so you can rest and do a bit of work and get your head together?’

‘That would be fantastic. I’ve got a roof terrace design to deliver to Georgie and Nick—the one I was working on last night—and if you could bear it, I’d like to take it over to them in the morning and discuss it. It’s up to you.’

‘That’s fine. You do that. I’ll cope, I’m sure.’

Except it didn’t quite work like that.

Kizzy had other ideas. She woke at eleven, and he fed her, but she didn’t seem to want her feed, and then she woke again just after twelve, and he was trying to get her to take the bottle when Em appeared in the kitchen, her eyes tormented.

‘Harry?’ she said softly.

‘She just won’t take it.’

‘Want me to try?’

He shrugged and handed her the baby and the bottle, but she spat it out and turned to Em, nuzzling her.

And Em turned those tormented eyes on him and said, ‘Oh, Harry, I have to…’

She was going to feed her. Again. Bare her breast and put the baby to it, and he was standing there in the kitchen in his boxers and it was all just too much.

He swallowed hard and nodded. ‘Sure. Go on up to bed with her and I’ll bring you tea,’ he said, and the moment she was up there, he ran up, found a long T-shirt and pulled it on to give his emotions a little privacy. Then he went back down, made two mugs of tea and carried them up to her room, putting hers down on the bedside table.

‘Call me when you’re finished, I’ll change her,’ he said, and was heading for the door when her quiet voice stopped him.

‘Stay and keep me company?’

‘Don’t you mind?’

She shook her head. ‘It’s not like it’s anything you haven’t seen before, is it? The places you go in the world, women do it all the time in public.’

But not her. Not his Em, feeding his child. But she was right, it was nothing he hadn’t seen before, and so he sat down on the other side of the bed, propping himself up against the headboard and trying not to stare at the little puckered rosebud lips around her nipple.

‘I don’t think I’ve got enough milk for her,’ Em said regretfully after a few minutes.

‘Is that going to be a problem?’

She shook her head. ‘No, not really. I’ll be able to give her comfort, if nothing else, and she can get her feeds from you.’

Except she wouldn’t. Not then, not later, not in the morning. It seemed she was a baby of discernment, and she’d decided only Emily would do.

Well, she’d made a rod for her own back with that one, Emily thought, and wondered where they went from there.

At best, she was feeding every three hours. At worst, it was more like one and a half or two hours. And, OK, at the moment Harry was living there, but once the decorators had finished and gone and he moved back, was he going to come through the gate in the fence every two or three hours through the night to bring the baby to her to feed?

Or, worse, leave the baby with her?

No way.

She loved Kizzy, wouldn’t harm a hair of her fuzzy little head, but she wasn’t hers, she hadn’t asked for this and there was no way she was taking on responsibility for her. And she was in no doubt that Harry would put up a token fight and then give in and let her if she so much as hinted that she was willing.

She needed an exit strategy and, frankly, until she could convince Kizzy to take the bottle again, she wasn’t going to have one. And another thing. How would she explain it to her children? Sure, they’d accept it, but would they then go and tell the world? Kids were so open. OK, not Freddie, although he might be jealous and start wanting to feed again, as well, but Beth might very well say something at playgroup or to Georgie or the boys.

She closed her eyes and stared sightlessly down at the little scrap busy making herself at home with her adopted milk bar. ‘Oh, Kizzy,’ she murmured. ‘Why me?’

But she knew why her. Because nobody else would have been rash enough. They would have let her yell and handed her straight back to her father the minute he walked through the door.

It was her own fault, and she was going to have to deal with the consequences.

Just until she could talk Kizzy out of it. And in the meantime, she was supposed to be going to a business meeting with Georgie and Nick, and how the hell was she going to explain this to them? She’d just have to time it exactly right…

Damn.

Kizzy was yelling again, Freddie wanted to make another sandcastle with a moat and couldn’t make the sand pile up because it was too dry, Beth wouldn’t help him get water because she was busy pestering Harry for help with putting stickers on a book, and he was ready to rip his hair out.

How on earth would Em cope?

He took a deep breath, thought about it and went into the kitchen, stuck a bottle in the microwave—just for a quick blast on low—filled the plastic jug with water and took it to Freddie, helped Beth line up two stickers down the edge of the book and went back and grabbed the bottle.

Slick.

Except she wouldn’t take it, Freddie spilt the water and Beth wasn’t happy with just two stickers, she wanted more and she wanted him to help her stick them on.

Great. Fantastic. Where the hell was Emily? He glanced at his watch and was stunned. She’d only been gone three quarters of an hour!

‘Are you OK? You look really tired.’

She gave Georgie a weak smile and flannelled. ‘Harry and the baby are staying with me at the moment, and the baby was up a lot in the night.’

Georgie tipped her head on one side and studied her thoughtfully. Too thoughtfully. ‘You’ve still got a thing for him, haven’t you?’ she said softly. ‘And he’s staying with you? Is that wise?’

Not in the least, but she wasn’t telling Georgie that!

‘It’s fine,’ she lied, ‘but I really ought to get back.’

‘Rubbish. He can cope. It does them good—they find hidden strengths. Look at Nick. Fifteen months ago he didn’t have a clue about children. Now he’s an expert. It’s just practice.’

‘Well, I don’t need him practising on my children,’ Emily said firmly, and scooped up her bag and keys. ‘Are you sure about the design? Quite happy with it?’

‘Absolutely. You’ve seen the place in London, you know what Nick likes and you’ve come up with a design that works for him and for the site. What’s not to be happy with?’

Emily nodded. ‘OK. Great. Thanks. And I haven’t forgotten the bit round the back you want looked at. I will get round to it. It’s just that at the moment with Nick’s commercial stuff and with Harry and the baby…’

‘It’s fine. It’ll keep. We won’t do anything with it till the autumn anyway, so relax. And go back to him, if you have to. I must say if I were you and there was a hunk like that waiting for me, I wouldn’t want to hang around having coffee with a chum!’

‘But I do,’ she said, meaning it. ‘I’d love to have time with you, talk to you…’ She trailed off, and Georgie’s eyes sharpened.

‘Em, are you sure everything’s OK?’

For a moment she hesitated, wondering whether to say anything, but Georgie probably wouldn’t understand. This was her first pregnancy, she’d never fed a baby—she might be horrified. ‘I’m sure,’ she lied again, and, kissing Georgie’s cheek, she bent to touch Maya’s head and smile at her, then headed home.

And just in the nick of time.

She could hear Kizzy as she turned onto the drive, and her let-down reflex was working overtime. She squashed her nipples with the heels of her hands and ran into the house, dumped her bag and went out into the garden, to find Freddie yelling and throwing sand out of the sandpit, Beth sulking over her stickers and Harry pacing helplessly with the flailing baby in his arms.

The look of relief on his face was comical.

‘You’re back,’ he said needlessly, and without a word she took Kizzy and the bottle, went down to the seat under the apple tree and tried to fool her. Not easy, with Freddie climbing up her legs and Beth hanging round her neck from behind and Kizzy busy spitting out the teat.

‘Hey, kids, how about some juice and biscuits?’ she suggested, and looked up at Harry pleadingly.

‘Good idea,’ he said, picking up on it immediately. ‘Come into the kitchen and we’ll see what we can find. And you’d better wash your hands first. Come on, young man, let’s go and find that biscuit tin,’ he added, prising Freddie off her legs and setting him on his feet, then herding him towards the kitchen.

Now, then. She tried again with the bottle, but it was futile, so she hitched up her vest top, unclipped her bra—a front-fastener, dug out of the bottom of her underwear drawer—and plugged the baby in.

Peace. And with any luck she’d get enough food inside her before her children came back out and saw what she was doing. Not that she had any problems with them knowing, it was the rest of the world, and since she didn’t intend to let this become a long-term thing—like, more than today, if possible!—there didn’t seem any point in them finding out.

All she had to do was convince Kizzy that the bottle was just as good.

She tried sneaking the teat of the bottle in beside her nipple, but Kizzy was smarter than that. She spat it straight out and went back to the real thing.

So much for Plan A.

CHAPTER FIVE

‘HOUSTON, we have a problem.’

It was the evening, and she’d spent the day dodging her children every time she’d fed the baby, while he’d struggled to keep them entertained and out of mischief.

Which, to give him credit, he’d managed very well, but it was getting silly, and she’d had a lot of time to think about it.

He cocked an eyebrow at her. ‘Want to elaborate?’

‘This feeding thing. It’s not going to work. Not long term. I shouldn’t have started it, it’s my own fault, but now I have, I have to find the way out.’

‘So what do you suggest?’ he asked, his eyes troubled. ‘Any ideas?’

‘I’m going to see if I can get hold of a breast pump. I’ve used one before, when I had Freddie, because I had tons of milk and they were desperate in our local special care baby unit.’

He nodded, and she realised he would have known about it from his time there with Kizzy. His next words confirmed it. ‘They had one in our SCBU,’ he said, smiling crookedly. ‘That’s where Kizzy’s milk came from—they called the thing Daisy. I doubt if you’d get one like that, though.’

‘Oh, no, but I’m sure there’s one I can get to use at home, but I don’t know where from. I’m going to talk to the health visitor in the morning. I know her—she’ll sort it if she can. But once your house is decorated, you’ll be moving back, and we’re going to have a problem if she still wants me. We have to wean her off me, Harry—and fast.’

He was frowning. ‘So what’s the plan? Give her bottles with your milk in until she gets used to the bottle again, then switch back to formula?’

She nodded. ‘That’s the idea.’

He pressed his lips together, ran a hand through his hair and nodded agreement. ‘Yeah. Well, it makes sense. I can’t expect you to do it for ever. Or at all.’

She sensed there was something he wasn’t saying, but she didn’t push it because she didn’t want to be talked out of it. Wouldn’t be talked out of it. No matter how sorry she felt for Kizzy.

‘Can I borrow your computer and go online?’ he asked abruptly.

‘Sure.’

She watched him leave the room, and dropped her head back with a sigh. How on earth had she got herself in this mess?

Five minutes later he stuck his head round the door. ‘Come and see,’ he said, and she got up and followed him to her study.

‘Breast pumps,’ he said, pointing at the computer with the air of a magician. ‘Manual, electric, single, double—tons of stuff. Bras to hold them in place so you can work while you do it—whatever. Order what you want—and get the works. It comes next-day delivery and I’ll pay. It’s the least I can do.’

The stuff turned up the following afternoon, and she disappeared with it to experiment. He tried not to think about it. He was getting fixated, and it was ridiculous.

‘Hey, Freddie, come here, little man. Let’s put some more suncream on you and you need that hat on.’

‘No!’ he screamed, throwing himself over backwards and flailing. ‘Not hat! Not cream! Go’ way!’

A window flew open upstairs and Em leant out, clutching a towel to her chest. ‘Is he OK?’

‘He’s fine. He doesn’t want sunblock.’

‘Bribe him,’ she advised, and shut the window.

Huh? Bribe him? A nineteen-month-old baby? With what?

‘He likes bananas,’ Beth said softly in his ear, and giggled. ‘So do I. And biscuits.’ Specially chocolate ones.’

‘Is that right?’ he said, slinging an arm round her skinny little shoulders and hugging her. ‘And I suppose you want one, too?’

‘Course,’ she said, wriggling free and grabbing his hand. ‘C’mon. Freddie, let’s get a biscuit.’

‘No! Want Mummy!’ Freddie yelled, and Beth just shrugged and headed up the path to the kitchen, towing Harry in her wake.

‘No biscuit if you don’t come. Or banana. Come on, Harry. Let’s have a tea party. We’ll make some for Mummy, too.’

So he went with her—no choice, really, unless he let go of her hand, which he was curiously reluctant to do—and they made tea and put biscuits and fruit out on plates while he watched Freddie out of the window to make sure he didn’t come to any harm.

He’d rolled onto his front, and he was still sobbing, but at least now he was in the shade and he wouldn’t come to any harm.

‘What’s Mummy doing?’ Beth asked while she was arranging the biscuits for the fourth time.

‘Um—feeding Kizzy, I think,’ he said, hoping she wouldn’t go upstairs, but she just carried on arranging the biscuits until she was satisfied.

‘There. Shall we take them in the garden and wait for Mummy?’

‘Good idea,’ he said. ‘Have you got a picnic blanket?’

Her eyes lit up. ‘So we can have a picnic under the tree! Um—Mummy has—it’s upstairs, I’ll get it,’ she said, and before he could stop her, she was gone.

He groaned inwardly, but there was no point going after her and, anyway, he couldn’t take his eyes off Freddie that long. Hopefully Emily would have finished by now…

‘What are you doing?’

Emily looked up at Beth, standing in the doorway swinging on the doorhandle and watching her, and gave up.

‘Kizzy needs milk, but she doesn’t like the milk from the shops, and she hasn’t got a mummy.’

‘So are you giving her your milk?’

‘Yes. Like I did when Freddie was small, and I went to the hospital and gave them milk for the tiny babies so they could have it in their bottles.’

‘Because Kizzy’s tiny, isn’t she?’

Emily nodded.

‘So why don’t you just feed her like Freddie?’ she asked, looking puzzled.

Why not, indeed? Except that she wasn’t her child, and cradling her that close, suckling her, was going to make it all the harder when Harry took her away.

‘Because I can’t. Harry needs to move back to his house when it’s decorated, and I’ve got to work. And I don’t want to be up all night, I’m tired.’

‘Oh. Won’t she mind?’

Probably, but it was tough. ‘She’ll be fine,’ she said firmly, hoping it was true. ‘Did you come upstairs for anything in particular?’

‘Picnic blanket. Harry and me made biscuits and bananas and tea and juice—oh, and strawberries. We’re having a picnic in the garden. Are you coming, Mummy?’

Made biscuits? She would have smelt it. Probably just poetic licence. ‘In a minute,’ she said, eyeing the reservoir and wondering if it would be enough. ‘Take the blanket down and I’ll be down soon.’

Although not that soon. She filled a bottle, then washed out the machine, put the parts into fresh sterilising solution and right on cue, Kizzy started to cry.

The acid test, she thought, and, scooping the baby up, she offered her the teat, squeezing a little milk out so she knew it wasn’t formula, but Kizzy wasn’t fooled and she spat the teat out.

Great.

Emily didn’t know what she was doing. If only she hadn’t started this. Well, it was time it stopped. Harry could feed her. Maybe that would work better.

She took Kizzy down, handed her and the bottle over and gave him a crooked smile. ‘Yours, I think,’ she said, and, scooping Freddie up, she hugged him and kissed his sticky, chocolaty little face. ‘Hello, gorgeous,’ she said, and he snuggled into her and wiped chocolate all over her front.

She didn’t care. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that Harry and Kizzy would manage to get the milk down her neck and she could take a back seat.

‘Is that my tea?’ she asked, and Beth nodded.

‘It’s not very hot.’

‘It’ll be fine,’ she said firmly, and, turning her back on Harry and the baby, she sipped her tea, nibbled a biscuit—not home made, she noticed—and tuned out the sound of Kizzy fussing.

And then, miraculously, there was peace.

The screaming stopped, there was a suckling noise from behind her, and she felt her shoulders drop about a foot.

Finally.

‘Thank you.’

She looked up and smiled at Harry. He was hesitating in the doorway, his eyes studying the gadget, and he shifted awkwardly, jerking his head towards the pump.

‘So how does it work?’

Strangely shy suddenly, she showed him the instructions, showed him the bra which held the breast shields in place while the pump was working, and how the milk was collected, and his brows clumped together in a frown.

‘I had no idea it was so complicated,’ he said. ‘Hell, Em, I’m sorry. It’s a real drag having to do all that.’

‘It’s fine,’ she said, all too conscious of the fact that he’d never asked her to start this.

‘But it’s going to take so much time—all the sterilising and stuff, never mind the time linked up to the pump.’

‘Well, that’s OK. You’ll have plenty of opportunity in between milking times to hose down the parlour,’ she said with a grin, and his face dropped.

‘Me? You want me to wash it out and sterilise it and stuff?’

‘Well, why not? She’s your baby. I’m just the dairy cow—and, no, you can’t call me Daisy,’ she added, and his mouth quirked in a smile.

‘Sorry. I didn’t think. Of course I’ll do it. Just one thing?’

‘Mmm?’

‘Can I call you Buttercup?’

He ducked out of reach, laughing, and she stood up and grabbed a cushion and lobbed it at him just as he turned the corner into the hall.

It bounced off the wall, and she heard the sound of his retreating chuckle, then the noise of the kettle boiling. Two minutes later he was back with a cup of tea for her.

‘Kids are all settled. Anything I can do for you?’

A massage, to take the kinks out of her neck from falling asleep in the chair this morning after she’d fed Kizzy?

She shook her head. ‘No. I’m fine.’

‘You don’t look fine, you look tense,’ he said, and, turning her round in her swivel chair, he put his big, gentle hands on her shoulders and squeezed. ‘Tight as a bowstring,’ he said, tutting, and worked the muscles carefully.

Bliss. It was absolute bliss. The only thing that could be better would be if they were lying down, and then when he’d massaged her shoulders, he’d run his hands down her back, over her bottom, her legs, then back up, really slowly, teasing, slipping his finger under the elastic of her knickers and running it round, just enough to torment her. Then he’d roll her on her back and start again, kneading—

‘Are you OK?’

Oh, lord, had she really groaned aloud?

‘I’m fine. Sorry, bit tight there,’ she flannelled, wondering if she’d get away with it. He paused a moment longer, then his fingers started working again and she let her breath go in a long, silent sigh.

‘Better?’

Was she imagining it, or was his voice a little husky? No. Don’t be silly, she told herself. You’re imagining it.

‘Yes, thanks,’ she said, and wondered if her voice was a little off kilter or if she was just imagining that, too. But then she turned to smile her thanks, and met his unguarded eyes.

Need.

That was what she saw. Need, and hunger, and reluctance. Well, she knew all about that. All of them, in fact. Just at the moment reluctance was way down her list, but it was still there, smothered by the need and hunger and the unrequited ache that had been there for what seemed like half her lifetime.

Was half her lifetime.

Oh, hell.

She turned back to the desk. ‘I’d better drink my tea,’ she said, a touch unsteadily. ‘It’ll be cold. Thanks for the massage—I’ll be able to put in another couple of hours at the drawing board now.’

She felt him hesitate, then with a murmured, ‘See you later, then,’ he went out and closed the door softly behind him.

She sagged against the desk and closed her eyes. Why? Why on earth had he had to come back and torment her like this? And why was it all so incredibly complicated?

She straightened up, pulled the file towards her and sorted through the pages, considering the next project she had to do for Nick. She couldn’t afford to think about Harry now. She had work to do, to earn her living. And Harry Kavenagh was just a distraction she could do without.

He shouldn’t have touched her.

Just the feel of her shoulders, tense under his hands at first, then gradually relaxing, and that little moan—hell, he’d nearly lost it.

Bit tight? Rubbish. She’d been utterly floppy and she’d only tensed up again after she’d made that needy little noise.

And her eyes, when she’d turned—wary, longing—he had no idea how he’d got out of there. If she hadn’t turned away when she had, God knows what would have happened.

He snorted. Well, of course she’d realised that. That was why she’d turned back to her desk, because she’d realised that if she kept looking at him like that, he would have lost it.

Might still.

He growled with frustration and checked his watch. Eight-thirty. He’d fed Kizzy at seven-thirty. With any luck he’d got another hour, at least. He tapped on the study door and opened it a crack.

‘Are you OK if I go for a walk? Kizzy should be all right for a bit.’

‘Sure,’ she said, her voice a little strained. ‘Take your mobile.’

‘Done,’ he said, and went out into the blissful evening. It was gorgeous—a light breeze to take away the heat of the day, the sun low in the sky, creeping down to the horizon. He walked to the clifftop and sat watching the sun brush the sky with colour. It was the wrong way round for a sunset, of course, facing east as it did, but sunrise would be glorious.

If he was up one night, woken by Kizzy, he might bring her here and let her see the dawn.

He glanced at his watch, surprised at how dark it had become, and realised he’d been longer than he’d meant to be. Still, his phone hadn’t rung, so Kizzy hadn’t woken.

Unless Em just hadn’t phoned him.

He jogged back and arrived just as she began to whimper.

‘Milk’s in the microwave,’ Em told him, meeting him in the hall.

‘Thanks.’ He ran up and lifted the baby into his arms, and she snuggled into him, her little mouth working, feeling the material of his T-shirt and growing impatient.

‘Sorry, baby. Do I smell wrong? Never mind. Come on, let’s go and find some milk for you.’

Em was waiting for him, handing him the bottle and going back into the study and shutting the door. Just as well. A little space would do them both good at the moment.

He fed the baby, persevering through her fussing until she took the bottle in the end and settled down to suck, then he bathed and changed her and put her to bed.

Ten. Just in time for the news, he thought, and watched it in silence on the edge of his seat, saw friends of his reporting from places he knew well, read between the lines, guessed the things they weren’t telling or had been ordered not to report.

Did they miss him? Were they all having to work extra shifts, or were there things not being given coverage because he wasn’t there? Maybe some youngster was getting his first chance. Or hers. There were plenty of women now out there working in the field, covering stories every bit as dangerous as the ones he covered.

He laughed softly to himself and shook his head. The most dangerous thing he had to do at the moment was dodge one of Kizzy’s special nappies.

Or Emily. Keeping out of her way, keeping the simmering need between them under control because frankly things were complicated enough without that. And then she stuck her head round the door.

‘I’m off to bed now. The breast pump’s in the sink—it needs washing up and putting in the sterilising solution. There are four bottles in the fridge—should see her through. ’ Night.’

‘Good night,’ he said automatically, and switched off the television. They’d got onto the local news, and he didn’t need to know about the local protests about a meat-rendering plant and the woman who’d had her dog stolen.

So he went into the kitchen and picked up the breast pump. Warm. It was still warm, the bits that went over her nipples still holding her body heat, the reservoir warm from the milk.

And he had to wash it, knowing where it had been, aching to have touched her as closely as these bits of plastic.

Dear God, he was losing it. It was just an ordinary, everyday thing, and he was turning it into something huge.

Because it was.

He didn’t know anybody else who would have done it for Kizzy, and it brought a lump to his throat. He didn’t want to be there in the kitchen. He wanted to be upstairs with Em, cradling her in his arms, holding her close to his heart, listening as her breathing slowed into sleep, but he didn’t have the right.

He didn’t have any rights.

He washed it up, put it in the solution, checked the bottles and went upstairs to bed.

Kizzy slept right through to four, and when she woke she snuggled down into his arms and fell asleep again, so he went down to the kitchen, warmed the bottle and went back up, laid her carefully down on the bed and pulled on his jeans and T-shirt, wrapped her in her fleecy blanket and went down, took the bottle and headed for the cliff.

‘We should just make the sunrise,’ he told her, and as they turned the corner, he saw the first tiny rim of gold creep over the horizon.

‘Look, Kizzy,’ he said, holding her up, and she opened her eyes and stared up at him and smiled.

She smiled at him! Her first smile!

He sat down on the damp grass, cradled her close and lifted the bottle to her mouth, and she took it without a murmur, while he sat there and watched the new day dawn and marvelled at her smile.

‘Harry?’

He turned in the bedroom doorway, his face perturbed. ‘Em—I’m sorry, did I disturb you?’

‘Not really. I heard the door go. I was worried. Is everything OK?’

He nodded, his face somehow lit from within. ‘She smiled at me,’ he said in wonder. ‘I took her out to watch the dawn and she smiled at me.’

Oh, she remembered that so well—the first time Beth and Freddie had smiled at her. Such a wonderful gift. Of course, Kizzy was very young, so it might have been wind, but she wasn’t going to spoil his moment. And she’d been staring more and more intently, so it could easily have been a proper smile.

‘That’s lovely,’ she said softly, and reached out her finger to stroke it down the baby’s downy cheek. ‘Did she take the feed?’

He nodded, and she felt a strange mixture of emotions. Relief, of course, but also—regret? Really?

‘I’m just going to change her and put her down. Do you want me to make you a cup of tea, as you’re up?’

She nodded. ‘That would be nice. In fact, why don’t I make it while you do the baby?’ she offered, and he smiled gratefully and went into the bedroom to change her.

Emily went downstairs, put the kettle on and made the tea, and she was just at the foot of the stairs when he came out of the baby’s room and pulled the door to.

‘Ah, cheers,’ he murmured, and ran lightly down, smiling at her.

‘So where did you go?’ she asked, curious about his sudden urge for the dawn.

‘The cliff top. I took the bottle and fed her while I watched the sun come up. It was gorgeous. Beautiful. You would have loved it.’

She would have. Sitting on the cliff top with him, leaning against him and watching for that first sliver of gold—they’d done that on the morning of his grandmother’s funeral, and then that night, in the summerhouse, he’d kissed her as he’d never kissed her before, with a wildness and desperation that had nearly pushed them over the edge.

Did he remember? Yes, of course he did. He’d mentioned it already, when he’d talked about the creaking garden gate; she’d said they’d been kids, and he’d said not the last time. So clearly he remembered it.

She handed him his tea and curled up on the chair—safest, really, considering how vulnerable she was to him—and he sat in the corner of the sofa opposite and drank his tea and watched her as the sun slowly pushed back the night and the shadows receded.

‘I ought to go back to bed and catch a few more minutes—Freddie’ll be up soon,’ she said, putting down her mug and standing up, and with a fleeting smile she turned on her heel and left him while she still had the determination to do it.

She was out for the count. Not surprising, really, considering how much sleep she’d lost over the last couple of nights, but as he was up anyway with Kizzy, it was no hardship to give Freddie a hug and change his nappy—quite a different proposition to Kizzy’s!—and take him downstairs for his juice.

Two babies, he thought, and had to stifle a slightly hysterical laugh. Him, the greatest bachelor of all time, changing nappies at six-thirty in the morning?

His mother would be stunned.

He realised with something akin to astonishment that he hadn’t told them yet—not about Carmen, not about his marriage, and certainly not about Kizzy.

Perhaps he should. Give them an opportunity to gloat. They’d probably earned it, he’d given them a hard enough time when he’d been growing up.

And whose fault was that? an inner voice asked. Yours, for being bored and understimulated by parents that didn’t bother, or theirs, for neglecting your basic need for human interaction?

Well, he was getting plenty of human interaction now, both at work and at home—and there was that word again.

‘San’ castle,’ Freddie demanded.

‘How about breakfast first?’ he suggested evenly. ‘Want some eggy bread? Or toast and honey?’

‘Eggy b’ed.’

‘OK. I tell you what, you drink your juice and watch the telly with me, and I’ll give Kizzy her milk, and then we’ll have eggy bread. OK?’

‘’K,’ Freddie said round the spout of the feeder cup, and snuggled up under his arm and watched him feed the baby.

He looked exhausted.

He was dozing on the sofa, Kizzy sleeping in the crook of his arm, Freddie next to him watching baby-telly in the crook of his other arm, and Emily felt a wave of emotion that she didn’t want to examine too closely for fear of what she’d find.

‘Hi, baby,’ she said softly, and Freddie lifted his head and gave her his gorgeous beaming smile and held out his arms. She scooped him up, hugged him close and sat down on the chair with him without a word, so as to not disturb Harry. She didn’t like leaving Kizzy there like that, in case he rolled over or moved and dropped her, but the first sign of movement and she’d be there.

Plus, of course, it gave her the perfect excuse to study him as he slept.

He was rumpled and tousled and gorgeous, she thought, his jaw dark with stubble, his lashes dark crescents against his cheeks. His nose had been broken at some time, leaving a little bump in the middle, and there was a faint scar slicing through the stubble—from a knife blade? Could be. It wouldn’t surprise her, the places he ended up and the trouble he seemed to find.

What was that saying? Don’t borrow trouble, it’ll find you soon enough—or something like that? It certainly found Harry—or he found it. As a child he’d been a dare-devil, and as an adult—well, she couldn’t bear to think about the things he’d done in the course of his career as a TV world affairs correspondent.

Still, it was over now. She was sure he’d still travel the world, but once he’d worked his notice, hopefully his life should be a whole lot safer.

And maybe, just maybe, he’d find that life in Yoxburgh wasn’t so bad after all…

CHAPTER SIX

‘IT’S looking really good.’

‘Mmm.’ Harry swivelled round, studying the newly painted sitting room, then glanced down the hall. ‘The kitchen’s still awful.’

‘Well, give them time. I tell you what, if you had the cabinet doors painted while they’re in there, it would give it a new lease of life. Just until you decide what you’re doing,’ she added.

She was fishing, but he didn’t rise. ‘I’ll talk to them,’ he said, and disappeared upstairs to where the boss was working, leaving her there with Freddie in her arms and Beth at her side, wrinkling her little button nose at the smell of paint.

Emily was standing by the French doors, keeping an eye on Kizzy outside in the baby-carrier, and she glanced up at the garden, looking at it properly for the first time in ages. As she studied it Harry appeared at her shoulder and made a thoughtful noise.

‘Awful, isn’t it? It’s gone to rack and ruin over the last ten years. My grandparents would be gutted. It just needs tidying when I’ve got time,’ he said, but she laughed.

‘I don’t think so. Most of the shrubs are too leggy to recover, and it’s a high-maintenance garden, anyway. Tenants won’t want that, and I don’t suppose you do, either.’

‘So what do you suggest?’

She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Something simple? Some gravel, some paving, some serious pruning and thinning of the shrubbery and some more inventive planting—I’d have to look at it.’

‘Would you? I’ll pay you to design it for me.’

She turned and frowned at him. ‘I wouldn’t dream of charging you!’ she said, insulted, but he just arched a brow.

‘Do you charge Nick?’

‘Well—yes, but it’s business.’

‘Yes. And so’s this. Put it like this, if you won’t let me pay you, I’ll get someone else in—one of the garden centre chains. Most of them have a design department. And you’ll have to look at it over the fence and it will annoy the hell out of you.’

‘But I’ll need someone to look after the children.’

‘I’ll do that.’

‘Only if you let me pay you.’ Hah. She had him.

Or not. ‘But I still owe you babysitting time,’ he pointed out archly, ‘and, come to think of it, a massage.’

‘You gave me that the other night.’

‘Not a proper one. I only did your shoulders.’

And that had been bad enough. The thought of taking her clothes off and lying down on a towel while he massaged her whole body with those incredible hands was enough to make her hyperventilate. She turned back to the garden.

‘Fair cop,’ she said, her voice a little uneven. ‘OK. Instead of the massage, you can look after the kids and I’ll do you a design. If you like it, you can pay me. If you don’t, then there’s no charge.’

‘Is that how you normally work?’

‘Yes,’ she lied.

He grunted, and she guessed he didn’t believe her, but it was tough. She wasn’t taking money off him if he didn’t agree with her design, and she wouldn’t take much off him anyway. And she’d oversee it for nothing and pretend it was part of the service. Maybe even do some of the work. And maybe he could do some, too. They could do it together, working side by side while the children played in the soil and ran around getting grubby.

Just like a family.

The sudden ache in her chest took her by surprise, and she sucked in her breath and turned back to him with an overbright smile. ‘Deal?’

‘Deal,’ he said, but before he could say any more or lay down any conditions of his own, her mobile phone rang.

‘Hey, Georgie!’ she said with relief. ‘How are you?’

‘Fine—fancy the beach? We’re going down with the kids and taking a picnic. Want me to do enough for you, too?’

‘You don’t want to do that! I can make something for me and the kids.’

‘Aren’t you forgetting Harry?’ Georgie said, and she shot him a look, wondering if he’d heard. Probably.

‘Fancy going to the beach with the kids?’ she asked him, hoping he’d say no, but he grinned and nodded.

‘Love to. I haven’t been to an English beach for years. Bucket–and-spade time, eh, Freddie?’

Freddie was jiggling on her hip and squealing, Beth was bouncing on the spot and nearly tugging her arm out of its socket, and Harry looked almost as enthusiastic.

‘I think that’s a yes,’ she said to Georgie, giving up the unequal struggle, because, in fact, she couldn’t think of anything she’d like more than going to the beach with Harry and the children.

And if it was just another example of them playing happy families, well, maybe he’d find it was so much fun he wanted to do it again and again and again…

‘Freddie, no!’

He was being crushed to death! He was lying flat on his back, buried up to his neck in sand, and Freddie was bouncing on his chest and laughing. Beside him Nick was similarly buried, with Dickon sitting on him and giggling helplessly, and he turned his head and caught Nick’s eye.

‘Enough?’ Nick mouthed, and he nodded.

‘OK. One, two, three!’ Nick yelled, and they both erupted out of the sand, grabbing the giggling children and dumping them in the dents they’d made.

‘Look! I can still see you!’ Beth said, pointing at his impression in the sand, Freddie sitting in the middle of it—giggling hysterically.

‘’Gain!’ he yelled.

‘You’ve got to catch me first,’ Harry said, and headed for the sea, Nick at his side and the children in hot pursuit. As his feet hit the water he stopped dead and gasped. ‘Hell, it’s freezing!’

‘Not quite Sharm-el-Sheikh, I’m afraid!’ Nick replied with a grin. ‘We can always go back to the house for a proper swim if you want.’

‘You’ve got a pool?’

He nodded. ‘And a hot tub. I love my hot tub. I’ve got one in London at the apartment, and I couldn’t bear the thought of not having it, so we built one here.’

They strolled along the fringe of surf, the children giggling and chasing each other round and round in the shallow water and splashing each other, while Georgie sat under a big hat and fanned herself and Em sat with her, the baby at her side under a little parasol she’d found in the loft.

They could have been just two normal families, he thought, but of the four of them only Em was really a parent, although of course time would soon change that for Nick and Georgie, with the birth of their own baby in just a very few weeks.

He glanced up the beach at Em. How would he feel if she was pregnant with his child?

Terrifed, if he had any sense.

But apparently not, because the thought didn’t seem terrifying at all, it seemed ridiculously appealing—although that was probably because it was never going to happen. One, because he didn’t just go round getting women pregnant and, two, because there was no way he was getting that close to Emily.

And if that left him feeling just a little hollow inside, it was tough. Coming back had caused enough havoc. And he needed to be able to leave again, needed to be free—and he knew, just knew, that if he and Em ended up having an affair, free was the last thing he’d be.

‘Stay for the evening. We were going to have a barbeque and a real swim, and the children could lie down in front of a film with Nick’s mother while we sit outside in the hot tub and chill. What do you say?’

Emily hesitated for a moment, then thought of all the good reasons why not. Starting with the fact that Kizzy was out of milk.

‘That isn’t really fair on Liz, dumping three extras on her, and anyway, we can’t—we didn’t bring enough bottles for the baby,’ she said truthfully.

‘Well—Harry, why don’t you go and pick some up from home and come back? We’ll look after Kizzy for you, won’t we, Em?’

She met his eyes in desperation, hoping he’d catch on, and he did, bless him, but not in the way she’d thought. Instead he grinned and said, ‘Sounds like a plan. Except I’ve had a beer, so I can’t drive. Still, you could go, Em. I’m sure there are things you want to do at home—you said something about putting the washing on before you came out, and I don’t think you remembered.’

‘No—no, I didn’t,’ she said, grabbing the lifeline. ‘Um—so, I’ll go, then, and stick a load in and get everything. Back soon. Kids, be good for Harry, won’t you?’

And with a quick kiss for them both, she shot out of the door before Georgie could scupper her by offering to keep her company. The last thing she needed while she plugged herself into Buttercup was an audience!

But she escaped without intervention, and half an hour later she was on her way back, the bottles full and the washing on—just to make it less of a lie, because she hated that. She ought to just tell Georgie and have done with it, but she was afraid her friend would find it somehow repellent.

Still, she’d done her bit for the subterfuge now, and she arrived back armed with the milk and more nappies and clothes for Freddie and Kizzy, to find them all in the swimming pool, with much shrieking and giggling going on, and Nick and Harry with Dickon and Harry junior on their shoulders, battering each other with brightly coloured foam poles.

Dickon fell off with a great shriek, and the two Harrys punched the air and whooped.

‘We-e wo-on,’ Harry junior chanted, brandishing his hideous green pole overhead and grinning for England.

‘Me, me!’ Freddie yelled, reaching out to Harry, his little fists opening and closing in appeal, and so Harry took him on his shoulders, Nick took Beth and, as she’d known she would, Beth let her little brother win, falling into the water with a mock cry. Nick scooped her up instantly, hugging her and whispering something to her that made her giggle deliciously, and then she caught sight of Emily and waved.

‘Hello, Mummy! Come in the water, it’s lovely!’

Why was it, she thought, that the sea was somehow so much less personal, so much easier to be almost naked in? Because here, in the close confines of the Barrons’ pool, she felt suddenly hideously conscious of the scantiness of the perfectly normal one-piece swimsuit that only an hour ago had seemed quite adequate.

Not now, though. Now, it could have been made of gauze, and she could feel Harry’s eyes burning holes in it

She slid under the water, mmmed appreciatively and swam away from him to Freddie, bobbing happily in his waterwings and splashing Georgie with his pudgy baby hands. He snuggled up to her, giving her a wet, slightly chlorinated kiss, and she was glad to focus her attention on him. It gave her a chance to ignore Harry, although she could hear another loud and boisterous game behind her with him evidently in the thick of it.

‘Get the washing sorted?’ Georgie asked, and Emily was so, so glad she’d made the effort.

‘Yes, thanks. Baby clothes,’ she flannelled. ‘Kizzy and Freddie. They get through them so fast.’

‘So can’t Harry use the washing machine?’ she murmured, and Emily felt the colour creeping into her cheeks.

‘Of course he can—but he didn’t know where Freddie’s stuff was. I just popped a few of the baby’s things in to make up the load.’

Oh, she was going to be struck by lightning in a minute, and Georgie, who’d known her for years, was giving her a very odd look. She didn’t say anything, though, and Nick was getting out of the water and attending to the barbeque, the children were heading for the shower—one mess she was glad she wouldn’t have to clear up!—and Freddie was pulling the sort of face that meant she had just a few seconds to get him to a potty.

‘Oops. Got to fly,’ she said, and hoisted Freddie out of the pool, hauled herself up onto the side, grabbed him and ran.

‘That was a great evening.’

She smiled warily. ‘Yes, it was.’

‘They’re lovely people.’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re lucky to have such good friends close by. Mine are scattered all over the world.’

And whose choice was that? she could have said, but she didn’t, she bit her tongue and headed for the kitchen. ‘Tea or wine?’ she asked, and he shrugged.

‘Whatever. I’ve had wine and beer already today. If you’re drinking I’ll join you, but I’m quite happy with tea.’

‘Tea it is, then,’ she said, glad she’d had the excuse of driving to refuse the wine, because while she was still expressing milk for Kizzy she didn’t want to drink.

And it would be lovely to reach a point where she didn’t have to take that into account at every moment of her life!

With a little sigh she put the kettle on, reached for the mugs and bumped into Harry.

‘Sorry,’ he said, throwing her an apologetic smile. ‘I was getting the mugs for you.’

But the damage was done. After a day of watching him running around on the beach and at the Barrons’ three parts naked, water sluicing off his powerful body and beading like tiny gems in the dark hair that covered his legs and arrowed down his abdomen, just the brush of his body against her was enough to start a wildfire that no amount of common sense was going to be able to put out. She’d nearly blown a fuse when his leg had brushed against hers in the hot tub, but she’d been safe there, with Georgie and Nick to chaperone and keep order. Here, there was no one to hold them back, nothing to stop them. Except her fleeting common sense.

Emily turned back to the tea, her fingers trembling, and dropped a teaspoon on the floor.

They bent together, bumped again and he laughed and apologised and moved away, giving her room to breathe at last and her heart time to slow.

‘So—fancy having a look at the garden tomorrow?’ he said after a long moment that sizzled with tension.

‘Sure. If you have the kids.’

‘I thought we could do it together—talk it through. It’s not as if it’s far away. The kids can come, too. After all, it’s the weekend. The painters won’t be there.’

‘No. OK. What did they say about the kitchen, by the way?’ she asked, desperately trying not to think about that arrowing hair on his washboard abdomen.

‘Oh, he’d been going to suggest it,’ he said, taking his mug from her. ‘Thought it was a good idea for a short-term fix. He’s going to do it.’

‘Colour?’

Harry shrugged and grinned. ‘I have no idea. Maybe sort of duck-egg, I think he was suggesting, but I can’t say I’ve taken an interest in kitchens, really. My flat’s got a stainless-steel and lacquer-red high-gloss laminate kitchen that’s a mass of fingermarks and a living nightmare to work in—not my choice, I have to add. It was the developer who put it in. The only bit of it I like is the walnut worktop, because it goes with the floor. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. This kitchen can’t look worse than it does at the moment, so duck-egg or cream or whatever, it has to be an improvement.’

They went through to the sitting room and she picked up the TV remote. ‘Want to watch something, or shall I put music on?’

‘Music would be nice,’ he said, and she went into her study and came back with a couple of CDs that she used for background while she was working—compilation albums of soft, easy-listening tracks, female singers mostly, but she’d never noticed just how intrinsically romantic all the songs were until that moment.

Damn. She should have chosen something different—something classical. She buried her nose in her mug and tried not to look at him. For a few minutes they sat in silence, then the third track came on, less romantic, and with an inward sigh of relief she shifted slightly so she could see him better and said, ‘Tell me about yourself. What have you been doing since I last saw you? Apart from the obvious, of course.’

He gave a quiet huff of laughter. ‘Nothing much. Flying about all over the world. It doesn’t leave time for much, really.’

‘You’d just left uni when your grandmother died, hadn’t you? You must have been twenty-one, I suppose.’

He nodded. ‘Nearly twenty-two. And you were nineteen, and home from uni for the summer.’

And they’d watched the sun rise, and then that night…

The memory was written on his face, and she looked away. ‘So what did you do then? After you left?’

He shrugged. ‘Bummed around. Took the gap year I’d never had, saw some of the world, worked in a radio station in Brisbane, got a job on a newspaper in Rio, linked up with a television crew in Nepal, and that was it, really. I started doing odd bits for them, earning a living but nothing great, working as a news researcher when I came home. Did a bit of local television news, then got the break into overseas reporting when I was about twenty-five. I’ve been doing it for six years now.’

‘And you’ve never married?’

He shook his head. ‘Well, except for Carmen, and she didn’t really count, because I’d realised by then that I’d never marry. It just doesn’t fit with the job.’

‘You’re not telling me all those reporters are single?’

He laughed. ‘No, of course not, but they find it hard to have a normal family life. I didn’t want anything in the way. And anyway, I’d never met anyone who made me feel like settling down.’ He tipped his head on one side. ‘So tell me about you. I know about Pete but what did you do before you met him? How old were you then?’

‘Twenty-four. I’d finished my degree, decided biology didn’t really qualify me for anything and, anyway, I’d discovered I loved gardens, and so I did a garden design course and started work.’

‘Here.’

She laughed. ‘Well, yes, my father let me do their garden, and I did some others, and then I worked for one of the garden centre chains—the sort of thing you were threatening me with yesterday.’

He grinned. ‘Hardly threatening.’

‘Blackmailing, then. Anyway, that’s what I was doing when I met Pete.’

‘And you stopped when you had Beth?’

‘Only for a while,’ she told him, remembering her reluctance to go back to work full time. ‘I wanted to freelance, to break out on my own and work from home, but he said we couldn’t afford the risk. What he really meant was that he wasn’t prepared to fund me while it got off the ground, but Pete never really said what he meant—not until he walked out, and even then he didn’t discuss it.’

Harry shook his head. ‘I can’t believe he just legged it while you were at the supermarket.’

‘Pausing only to stop the credit card,’ she reminded him. ‘Still, water under the bridge and all that. And I’m much happier now than I was then.’ Except for the fact that she couldn’t afford to house her children without her parents’ generosity. That was a bit of a killer, always nagging at the back of her mind.

As if he’d read that mind, he said quietly, ‘And the house? I don’t imagine if you weren’t living here your parents would want to keep something this big on into their retirement.’

She shook her head. ‘No. Ideally they want to downsize and buy somewhere in Portugal, as well, to be near my grandparents. Well, my mother does. My father would be quite happy here, pottering in his garden, but he loves her, and whither thou goest and all that.’

He frowned. ‘I can’t imagine a woman in the world who’d want to follow me wherever I go.’

Or a woman, presumably, who he’d follow?

‘To the ends of the earth,’ she murmured, realising that, were things different, if she hadn’t had the children and if he’d asked her, she would follow him anywhere he asked her.

‘It sometimes feels like it,’ he replied. ‘And, like I say, no sane woman would want that.’

No sane woman, possibly, but where Harry was concerned she could never be accused of being sane. If she was sane, she wouldn’t have ended up sharing her roof with him, making him welcome, feeding his child for heaven’s sake!

‘So how’s Dan?’

Dan? ‘He’s fine,’ she said, reining in her rambling mind and concentrating on her brother. ‘He’s working in New York. He breezes in from time to time, sometimes without warning—he’s got a partner, Kate, but there’s no sign of them getting married, to my mother’s disappointment. She wants to see her firstborn settled, she says, before she turns up her toes.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘Is she sick?’ he asked, and she laughed.

‘No, not at all. She’s just despairing of Daniel. No, she and Dad are fine. Enjoying life.’ And she was holding them back, interfering with their plans for retirement. Oh, damn.

‘Em, are you OK?’

She met his eyes, gentle and concerned, and could have crumpled, but she didn’t. ‘Yes, I’m fine,’ she said. ‘Just a bit tired.’

‘Why don’t you turn in?’ he suggested.

She gave a wry smile. ‘Another appointment with Buttercup before I can go to bed, but I’ve got half an hour or so to kill, at the least. I might go and sort out the washing and tidy the kitchen.’

But the kitchen was tidy, and the washing could wait for the morning so she could put it on the line, so she just pulled it out of the machine into the plastic basket ready for the morning. She’d stick it by the door and then she wouldn’t forget, she thought, but he was in there with her, right behind her again, so that when she straightened up and stepped back with the washing basket in her hands, she cannoned into him and felt her head connect with his chin.

‘Ouch!’

‘Oh, Harry, I’m sorry!’ she said, turning to see if she’d hurt him, and found him ruefully rubbing his jaw, the fingertips rasping over the stubble and sending shivers skittering over her nerve endings.

He took the laundry basket out of her hands and put it down again. ‘I think it needs a magic kiss,’ he murmured. ‘Like the ones you give Beth and Freddie when they hurt themselves.’

‘Big baby,’ she teased. She must be mad. She shouldn’t rise to it, he was just being silly. She hadn’t really hurt him. Still, she lifted his fingers away, went up on tiptoe and pressed her lips to the spot, just because it was so irresistible.

‘There. Magic kiss, all better now,’ she said softly. And just as softly he replied, ‘You missed. It was here,’ and, turning his head, he touched his lips to hers.

For a moment her heart lodged in her throat, but then it broke free, beating wildly against her ribs, deafening her with the clamour of its rhythm. Deafening her to reason, certainly, because instead of moving away, taking herself out of reach, she went back up on tiptoe, slid her arms around his neck and kissed him right back.

He groaned softly, easing her closer, and she felt his fingers thread through her hair and cup her head, anchoring it against the onslaught of his mouth. Then the kiss gentled, and he lifted his head a fraction, dropping a daisy chain of hot, open-mouthed kisses over her cheek, her eye, down the side of her jaw. He traced a line around her ear, his breath teasing her hair and making it stand on end, then he moved on, down the side of her neck, across her throat, pausing over the wild fluttering pulse before continuing down, down, across her collar-bone, her shoulder, the slope of her breast.

He lifted his head and stared down at her. ‘You’ve caught the sun,’ he murmured, one finger trailing over the sensitive skin of her cleavage. ‘Do you have any idea,’ he went on gruffly, ‘just what you’ve been doing to me all day, running about in that little scrap of black Lycra?’

He traced the line the costume had followed, down, up—back down again…

She sucked in a breath and her ribs lifted, bringing his knuckles into contact with her breast, and he groaned again, his hands sliding down to bracket her waist, easing her closer as he trailed his tongue over the sun-warmed skin, leaving fire and ice in its wake. With a muttered oath he lifted her vest top out of the way, unclipped her bra and tenderly, reverently, cradled the burgeoning fullness of her breasts in his hard, hot hands.

He sucked in a breath, his head lifting so he could stare down at her, and his pupils were huge, his eyes dark as midnight with desire. His thumbs dragged over her nipples, sending sensation arrowing through her and bringing a cry to her lips, and slowly he lifted his hand and stared at it.

There was a bead of moisture on his thumb, pearly white, and as she watched he lowered his head and touched his tongue to it.

His eyes were still locked on hers, smouldering with unspoken need, but the touch of his hands had triggered her natural response, and she felt the milk beading on her nipples.

‘Harry, no,’ she moaned, anguished, and lifting her hands to his shoulders, she pushed him away, her heart clamouring, her body aching for him but common sense, finally, making itself heard.

And he dropped his hands and stepped back, swallowing convulsively, and turning on his heel he strode away, up the stairs and into his room, closing the door softly but emphatically behind him.

With a whimper Emily crumpled against the worktop, her hands trembling too much to deal with the breast pump for a moment. And so she stood there, her legs like jelly, until her breathing had slowed and the world had righted itself and her hands were hers again.

Then she gathered all the bits and pieces from the steriliser, went into her study and shut the door every bit as firmly. Two doors between them was the minimum they needed at the moment.

She sat down, set up the equipment and reached for her CD player to relax her—and then remembered that her favourite, most relaxing CDs were in the sitting room.

And she’d never be able to listen to them again without thinking of him.

Five more nights, she told herself. That was all it was. Five more nights until he was back in his own home and she had her house back to herself.

It couldn’t come a moment too soon.

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