Amy didn’t answer as she broke off another strip of chocolate. ‘Are you good whilst I go cry in the shower for ten minutes?’
He nodded. ‘We are good.’ He walked over to Amy and stroked her face. ‘Cry as much as you need to, you got served the most awful lot in life that you didn’t deserve. At least you have Ava though, she is precious.’
He had a sudden urge to lean forward and kiss Amy. He felt his head moving closer to hers and he was sure she was leaning up towards him, and he wanted to more than anything. As if sensing something epic was about to happen, Ava began to squirm and let out a high-pitched cry, breaking the spell between them both. Amy withdrew and he straightened up, gently rocking the baby to soothe her.
‘I’ll be in the bathroom if you need me.’
‘We won’t, we’re good, aren’t we, Ava?’
He could feel his cheeks burning. Amy disappeared upstairs, taking the chocolate with her, and he wondered what the heck had just happened between them. What was he thinking? He’d almost kissed her, and she’d wanted to kiss him back, he was pretty sure she had. He couldn’t do that to Angela, he loved her. He was besotted with her elegant, ageless charm. Her easy-going, supportive manner that never questioned why he was late home. She didn’t feel threatened by Amy and Ava, felt no jealousy towards Amy because she knew they were just very good friends. But he had nearly thrown all of that out of the water. If he’d kissed Amy, it would have ruined everything, their friendship and his relationship with Angela, yet none of that had stopped him from almost doing it.
He looked at the baby who had settled herself again. ‘You have Spidey senses, kid; I owe you big time for that. Thank you.’
Ava let out a loud burp which made him grin. ‘Just like your mother.’
He gently lay her back into her Moses basket and began to pick up the wet wipes, nappy bags and empty baby bottles. Busying himself tidying up the living room. Then he went into the kitchen, rolled up his sleeves and washed the pots, before cleaning out the bottles and putting them into the steriliser. Cain made up a fresh batch of bottles to see Amy through the night, then opened the fridge to see what he could make her to eat. The only ingredients she had that he could scrape together was for chili. Taking out his phone, he ordered pizzas from Gino’s to get delivered, then set about making a pan of chili. She could freeze it and then microwave it, so she at least had something a bit more substantial to eat.
By the time he’d finished, there was a knock on the door. The pizzas smelled like heaven in a cardboard box. He cleared the table got out plates, knives and forks just as Amy came back downstairs. Taking in her sleeping baby, the tidy house, row of freshly made bottles, chili cooking on the stove and the piping hot pizza on the table, she burst into tears again.
Cain rushed to hug her – briefly this time – and pulled away. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘It’s my hormones, they’re a mess. Nothing is wrong, I can’t believe what I did to deserve a friend like you. Thank you, Cain.’
He smiled at her. ‘Phew, I thought you were going to go crazy with me or something. You are welcome, Amy. I did what I could. Is that enough bottles for Ava?’
She nodded. ‘Perfect and you even used up my out-of-date mince and peppers, how thoughtful.’
Cain laughed loudly. ‘Yeah, I did sniff it before I started cooking it. Smelled okay, didn’t have that rank, gone off odourmince sometimes has. Although I’ve cooked it when it has and by the time you add the sauce you can’t tell.’
Amy pulled a face. ‘Christ, I’m glad you don’t work in a restaurant. You’d get it shut down straight away.’
‘For your information I bet some places do much worse than cook out-of-date mince. Eat your pizza, I got you a meat feast with extra cheese.’
She let out a contented sigh as she opened the box and inhaled. ‘You’re going to make Angela the perfect husband one day.’
He beamed at her. ‘I try, although she’s not bothered about getting married. She said she’s happy being engaged, there’s not much point at her age.’
Amy shrugged. ‘I suppose so. Why don’t you ring her and invite her over for pizza? I’d love to see her, is she okay Morgan mentioned you were worried about her?’
‘Yeah, false alarm. I’ll message her, but I don’t want to disturb her, they probably have a lot of catching up to do.’
He didn’t want to talk about how he hadn’t been able to get hold of her for a few hours and that he’d almost gone out of his mind worrying about her.
‘Hey, how do you feel about doing me a favour and doing some of your excellent detective work after you’ve eaten?’
‘You bought me pizza to butter me up?’
He nodded. ‘Yep, I did.’
‘Cain, what do you need me to do?’
‘Well, these murders are a nightmare full of complications. Did you know that Lydia Williams had two sisters, and they were both found murdered the last couple of days?’
‘No way.’ Amy spoke through a mouthful of pizza.
‘Yes, way. Apparently, there is a stepbrother, half-brother somewhere. Me and Morgan are worried that he could be indanger, though she’s leaning more towards thinking he’s the killer, but up to now I haven’t been able to find anything on him.’
‘What about Morgan?’
