Meredith Webber - From Bachelor To Daddy

‘Heavens!’ Emma said. ‘There’s enough food here to feed an army.’

‘Or two always hungry little boys who’ll love these leftovers.’ Her father smiled as he spoke.

‘Though, really, Marty should take it,’ Emma suggested.

‘And deny the boys Hallie’s chocolate cake? I think not!’

Laughing blue eyes met hers across the table and for a moment the air caught in her throat, just stuck there, as if she’d forgotten how to breathe.

Of course she could breathe!

In, out, in, out—simple as that.

But it seemed to take forever to get it sorted...

Not that her absence from the conversation was noticed as her father was now exclaiming about Hallie and Pop still being in Wetherby.

‘I met them, you know, quite a few times when I was a member of the surf club, and seeing a bit of Carrie.’

‘Small towns,’ Marty said, smiling again, but this time, thank goodness, at her father. ‘Carrie was one of the first children they took in, she was about twelve at the time so she was their first teenager. My lot—me, Izzy and Stephen, both of whom Emma’s met—and a couple of others were the last. I think all of us being teenagers together finally convinced them they’d done enough.’

‘What didn’t kill them made them stronger,’ her father remarked with a smile.

‘Dad was a high-school teacher so he knows all about teenagers,’ Emma explained, mostly to prove to herself she could speak as well as breathe...

The evening ended with complicated arrangements being made for her father and the boys to meet up with Carrie and her twins, the potential babysitters, and her father walked out to the car with Marty while Emma cleared the table and put everything away.

‘Well, that was fun,’ her father said, wandering back into the kitchen a little later.

The words sent a sharp pang of guilt spearing through Emma.

‘I’m sorry, Dad, I’ve been so selfish, letting you give up your life to help me out, first when Simon died and I lost the baby, and then with the boys. I hadn’t realised quite how selfish I’ve been until tonight.’

Her father put his arms around her.

‘You needed me back then, so where else would I have been? And wasn’t it me who talked you into having the boys, and didn’t I promise to look after them for you?’

He kissed her on the top of her head, adding, ‘And I’ve enjoyed every minute of it, but tonight, meeting Marty, and sitting out there just talking about nothing in particular, has shown me how restricted our lives have become. That was natural when the boys were small and very demanding, and the flat was really no place to be entertaining, but we both need to get out a bit more now, and the barn dance is a splendid idea.’

He was voicing the feeling she’d had back at Izzy and Mac’s place—voicing the fact that their lives had become too constrained, too centred around work and childcare.

She moved a little away from him and kissed his cheek.

‘You’re right,’ she agreed. ‘It’s time for both of us to get out and about. Who knows what’s waiting for us out there in the wild country town of Braxton?’

Her father chuckled and they parted for the night, Emma going quietly into the boys’ room and watching her sons sleep for a few minutes before dropping a kiss on each of their heads and taking herself off to bed.

Where, exhausted as she was, sleep was a long time coming.

Mainly because every time she closed her eyes she saw an image of a pair of laughing blue eyes.

She’d no sooner banished this image—with difficulty—when the barn dance hove into her mind. Though with Dad going too, the gossip mill could hardly slot her into the ranks of one of ‘Marty’s women’.

Could it?

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.