so you might want to OK that with them before tomorrow.’
‘I’ve done it—or at least the ones I could get hold of. I’ve emailed the CEO but my clinical lead’s going to have a word. He was brilliant, so supportive. They’ve been amazing to me, and I feel bad about not going back, but—I just feel this is right for both of us.’
‘You and Zach, you mean?’
‘No! You and me. Well, and the children, on current form, but I won’t hold my breath,’ she said with a laugh. ‘Any ideas what I should do with them next when this all falls apart?’
‘Matilda likes cooking. We make rock buns sometimes. It’s hard to ruin them.’
She chuckled. ‘What, even for you?’ she teased.
‘Very funny. I’m on my way, but you’ll find everything you need in the cupboard next to the fridge. Don’t eat them all before I get home.’
‘You know what? It’s a gorgeous day. Why don’t I make a picnic instead and we could go to the beach? They’d love that, and maybe what we all need is some time together just having fun.’
‘That’s a brilliant idea. Want me to pick anything up?’
‘Sandwiches? I think we’ve got everything else.’
‘OK. I’ll see you shortly.’
* * *
She was right, the children had a wonderful time on the beach, and so did they.
They found a nice flat area in the shelter of a breakwater and had their picnic, then they built a sandcastle just below the high-water mark where the sand was still damp enough to stick together.
‘It needs a moat,’ Emily insisted.
‘Of course it does, why wouldn’t it?’ he said wryly, knowing what was coming, so he rolled up his jeans as high as he could and took a bucket down to the sea and got predictably drenched by a freak wave.
‘It’s not funny,’ he told her, trying not to laugh, but Matilda thought it was hilarious and little Zach joined in, and then when they’d all finished laughing at him they decided—they being Em, of course—that it would be fun to bury him in the sand.
‘Really?’
‘Really. Lie down and stop fussing. You know you want to.’
So he dug out a hollow and lay down in it obediently and let them cover him in sand. It was damper than he’d realised, though, and by the time he broke free and stood up, he was plastered in it.
‘It’ll fall off when it dries,’ Em said cheerfully, and handed him a bucket. ‘Why don’t you go and rinse your hands and feet and bring some water up so we can rinse our hands, too, and then I think it might be time to go. They’re getting tired.’
‘I’m not surprised. They’ve shifted about a ton of sand between them.’
‘They had help.’
‘I noticed,’ he said drily, but he went and fetched water, more cautiously this time, and then they cleared up all the toys and the remains of the picnic and set off.
* * *
The children were both fractious by then, so they decided to go for a walk to let them sleep in the buggy.
Zach was gone in moments and it didn’t take Matilda long to join him, so they went round the point past the sea defences and followed the sea wall along to the harbour, falling into step as they strolled along.
The sea was quiet, the silence broken only by the sound of their footsteps and the soft slap of the waves on the shingle, the stones settling with a little whisper as the waves receded. Out at sea some gulls were wheeling over a fishing boat, and they could hear the faint putter of its engine in the distance.
‘Gosh, it’s beautiful. I can see why you love it here,’ Emily said with a sigh, and he grunted softly.
‘Jo couldn’t. She flatly refused to live here with me, even though she hadn’t said anything negative when the job came up and I started looking at houses, and then of course it was too late, I was committed to the move and there was nothing I could do about it.’
She turned her head so she could see his face. ‘Do you think she really hated it and didn’t want to live here, or didn’t want to live with you because she’d realised she didn’t love you? You’re old enough to be pragmatic, but she’s not, she’s still young enough to be dreaming of a happy ever after, which is probably why she’s gone off chasing rainbows with the dude in the campervan. And maybe you moving here just gave her an out?’
He sighed and scrubbed a hand through his hair, dislodging the sand that had finally dried in it. ‘I have no idea. Maybe. I knew she was a bit of a hippy at heart, but I wouldn’t have said she was manipulative so I think you could be right. She was probably just out of her depth. You know she nearly didn’t have Matilda? She said at the time she wasn’t ready to be a mother, and judging by the way she walked off last week and left Tilly without a backward glance, she was right.’
‘So, what did your parents say about that?’ Em asked curiously. ‘I take it you’ve told them.’
He laughed, but there wasn’t a trace of humour in it. ‘Nothing new. My mother told me it was no more than I deserved, and my father gave me another lecture on contraception and what he called my indiscriminate sexual habits—What?’ he asked, shooting her a dirty look when she laughed.
She tried to straighten her face. ‘Well, it was high time someone said it,’ she pointed out. ‘You’re a bit of an alley cat, Jake.’
‘I am not!’ Her eyebrows shot up, and he frowned. ‘Seriously, Em, I’m not, at least not anymore, and I have no idea how she got pregnant.’
‘You need me to explain?’ she said, and then stopped walking, mostly because she was laughing so hard she couldn’t breathe.
‘I didn’t mean it that way,’ he growled.
‘So what did you mean?’ she asked when she could speak. ‘Because you can’t have been that careful or she wouldn’t have got pregnant. Was she on the Pill?’
‘No, and we were careful! We used a condom every single time, and as far as I know none of them failed—not that it’s any of your business,’ he added, glowering at her and trying not to laugh.
She wasn’t even trying. ‘Well, clearly one of them failed—or else she sabotaged you.’
‘Why would she do that?’
She fell into step beside him again, giving him a disbelieving look. ‘Oh, come on, Jake. You’re a good catch.’
‘So why didn’t she catch me? Why not insist that I marry her? God knows I offered.’
‘She didn’t need to. You were supporting her anyway, and maybe by then she’d realised she didn’t love you.’
He shook his head. ‘No, she’s not like that. She’s not
