‘You make it sound as if it wasn’t for you, we’d have no bond at all,’ he harrumphed but he soon turned serious. ‘Oh, that is what you mean. Well, can’t change your opinion, I’ve learnt that along the way. He’s my son and I say we’re doing Christmas andNew Year in Ireland. Either you like it and come with us, or you stay here. Up to you.’
‘Have you ever thought that maybe he will have had a whole term at university and doesn’t want to be traipsing miles even if it is to a fancy castle?’
She picked up her things.
‘What you mean is he wants to come home to his mummy so she can coddle him.’ His words dripped with disdain. ‘I get it, you’re number one. Usually. But Maya, this year it’s me; I’m going to be number one.’
She wasn’t going to say another word. She’d tried.
‘You’d better make him see sense or you know what’ll happen!’ he yelled as she walked out of the kitchen, out of the front door and left him behind.
Didn’t she deserve the chance to be happy?
She knew she did. But she had no idea how to achieve that with Conrad always waiting in the wings.
20
‘Do you think we can call this evening a date?’ Noah asked Eva after he’d given her a bottle and she sat on his lap in the rocking chair beside her cot. He still didn’t think he was much good at this parenting lark, but she was definitely calmer the last few days. Maybe her gums weren’t quite as sore now another couple of teeth were poking through. Or maybe it was because Paul hadn’t shown his face again… yet. He’d cancelled their arranged meeting and rescheduled for a few days’ time and Noah hadn’t exactly been sorry to put it on hold. It gave him a chance to think about things. Not that he’d come to any conclusions or found any answers.
With Eva on his hip, he stood up and pulled the curtains closed. ‘Not going to answer me?’
She belched in response and then smiled up at him. He couldn’t deny every time she gave him that look, it felt special and it made him feel that if she wasn’t in his life, he would lose more and more pieces of Cassie. It made him treasure the time with her all the more and perhaps his patience as a result contributed to her being that bit more settled.
Eva hiccupped and Noah plucked a story book from the shelf beside her bed. The house was liveable for now, but this room was the most comfortable and homely. Eva came with a lot of paraphernalia and it was the room he’d made the most effort in – he’d put stencils on the walls, there was the rocking chair that Cassie had picked out and all of the other baby bits and pieces including the colourful mobile, the soft toys, the changing table and brightly coloured, wipeable mat, and a nice, sturdy bookcase filled with the books Cassie had bought for her daughter.
He read the title out loud. ‘Goodnight Moon.’ Eva promptly took the book from his hands and grasped it in her own. ‘Oh, you’re reading tonight, are you?’
When he laughed as he watched Eva, it made him realise he hadn’t been doing a whole lot of that lately. He was usually on tenterhooks waiting to mess something up. But perhaps that was parenthood all over, even temporary parenthood, if that’s what this turned out to be.
The thought left him more unsettled than he would’ve liked.
Custody. When Paul had said the word the other day, he’d been within his rights. It didn’t matter what Noah felt about the guy, did it? The man was Eva’s father and it was a good sign if he was determined to be in her life, wasn’t it?
Noah suspected he might feel better about it all if Paul had even tried to bond with Eva when he was here, but he hadn’t.
He started to readGoodnight Moonwhen Eva finally relinquished the book.
As he read, Eva’s little hands reached out to touch the brightly coloured pages, Noah paused at the end of each one to let her savour the vivid colours, the joy of story time when she wasn’t yet able to read for herself. Their parents had been big on story time, and judging by the amount of books Cassie had bought for Eva, despite her being nowhere near ready for most of them, so was Cassie.
It was Eva who closed the book and he turned it over, read it again, by which time her eyelids were growing heavy, she wasn’t as interested in the pages this time.
He stood with her in his arms, he dimmed the lights until they were almost as low as they could go and corrected the curtains so that the sunlight could no longer filter in via the gap he’d left.
He took Eva over to her cot, ready to lower her in but he felt her breath against his cheek and he froze on the spot.
‘Dadda,’ she said again. All he could do was stare at her.
‘Dadda…’ She said it a third time, almost as if she was convincing him he wasn’t hearing things.
Noah had had surprises over the years, he’d had special moments like when he passed his driving test when he was sure he’d failed, or on his twenty-first when an old friend from way back had come over from Cyprus to help celebrate, or the day he’d joined the air ambulance crew in London and couldn’t believe how lucky he was to have such a job. But none of those moments had made him feel the way he did right now.
He cleared his throat after planting a kiss on Eva’s forehead. ‘No, I’m Noah,’ he said, for the sake of full disclosure.
But his words were ignored. ‘Dadda, dadda, dadda…’ She was trying it on for size with a big smile for good measure.
And all at once he wished Cassie were here, that his sister could’ve seen this. ‘Oh, Eva…’ He pressed a kiss to her forehead. He couldn’t lower her into the cot. He didn’t want to let her go.
He didn’t move from her room until the doorbell chimed.
