Falling For The Single Dad

‘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.