Caring For His Baby

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.’