Jessica Hart - Falling For The Single Dad

‘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…

‘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.