‘She’s coming to Thimblebury this weekend?’
‘She said she’d like to, and I suppose it’s about time you met her. Both my parents, in fact.’
‘And here we were, wondering if you were too embarrassed about us to introduce us to your parents,’ Alex said with a brisk wink at Billie.
‘God, it’s the other way around!’ Zoe said, perhaps with a bit too much fervour. ‘I mean, I love them, but…well, they can be hard work. But I’m sure it will be fine.’
Alex raised his eyebrows. ‘Are you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Because if you’d rather…’
‘No, I absolutely want you to meet her. I mean, I want her to meet you…Dad too, whenever that’s going to be. At this rate,’ she continued with a laugh that was far from relaxed, ‘it’ll be on the wedding day. The wedding day he might end up having here at St Cuthbert’s…oh God!’
‘It’ll be fine,’ Alex said gently. ‘You’ve got us, and we’ll do whatever we can to support you…right, Bill?’
‘Of course,’ Billie said as Alex folded Zoe into his arms and hugged her tightly. ‘You know we will. They can’t be that bad, can they?’
Zoe pulled from Alex’s embrace to offer his daughter a tight smile. ‘I realise it sounds ungrateful, doesn’t it, especially knowing you lost your mum. I know I’m lucky to have them, but…’
‘I get it,’ Billie said. Zoe sometimes forgot that Billie was far wiser than her twenty-three years, but moments like this reminded her. There was no bitterness, no accusation, no resentment, just a quiet understanding. ‘Just because you have them, doesn’t mean it’s always good.’
Zoe shook her head. ‘Now I know I sound ungrateful.’ She pushed a bigger smile across her face. ‘Mum is going to love you both. In fact, I’m looking forward to her coming now and finally getting to meet you.’
Alex and Billie shared a look that told Zoe she hadn’t quite convinced them. But that was hardly surprising, given she was still working hard to convince herself, despite her optimistic words.
Later, as Zoe got her coat on to go home, Alex took it from her shoulders again. ‘It’s blowing a gale out there. Surely you don’t want to go home in this. You’ve got plenty of stuff here – stay over.’
‘I would, but I’ve got a really early start tomorrow and I’d feel bad waking you up.’
‘I won’t care about that. It will do me a favour anyway; I’ve got loads to do. I can chase up that archaeologist bloke for a start, see if I can finally get the all-clear on the camping field. I’vegot to speak to someone at the bank, call that company about getting a supply of bottled gas, the guy who makes the specialist generators…a million other things too.’
Zoe paused. ‘It’s tempting,’ she said. ‘But I’ve got things to do at home as well. There’s washing all over the radiators; it’s been there days. I could do with cleaning round a bit before my?—’
‘Boring. What’s the worst that will happen if you don’t take that washing off your radiators for another day?’
Zoe couldn’t help but smile.
‘Stay,’ he said, pulling her into his arms.
She wondered if he might bring up the subject of her moving in again and how she’d feel if he did. Part of her liked that he wasn’t willing to give up, because despite her convictions that it was too soon, she wondered why she was putting up such a fight.
‘Fine,’ she said, the battle lost as soon as she looked up into his dark eyes. ‘But don’t blame me if I wake you at the crack of dawn tomorrow.’
8
It was cold but bright, and so Zoe decided it would be a pleasant walk to see Ottilie, who’d been discharged from the hospital and was now home with her baby. Zoe always looked forward to seeing her latest newborns, but she was particularly excited to visit Ottilie and baby Anthony. Not only was there surgery gossip to catch her up on, but she always felt better in Ottilie’s company – calmer, more capable. It was a strange thing, something that Ottilie obviously didn’t even know she was doing, but she had a certain aura that was just…the only word Zoe could think of waslovely. It was a word that was overused, but in Ottilie’s case, the truest, most perfect word to sum her up. And fussing over Ottilie and her baby would take Zoe’s mind off her parents – particularly her mum’s impending visit. Luckily – for Ottilie at least – though Zoe and Ottilie were friends who went way back to Zoe’s student days, her mum had never really spent much time in her company, so she wouldn’t be too keen to visit.
The sky was the colour of old denim, and the starkness of the sun on the hills made it seem so close, Zoe felt like she could reach out and touch it. The wind of the previous eveninghad died down but was still fierce enough to lift her hair in all directions, whistling around her neck to chill her.
Despite the blustery conditions, the walk had made Zoe hot. She was unfastening her coat and trying to check through her emails on her phone at the same time as she walked the lane, and, not looking where she was going, almost ran into the vicar with enough force to knock him off his feet.
‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you at all! Too busy with this…’ He held up his mobile. ‘If any one thing is the devil’s work, I think it might be this blasted device! All in our own worlds when they’re switched on, aren’t we?’
‘Same here.’ Zoe showed him hers. ‘Trying to make sure I’ve seen all my urgent emails.’
‘How are you?’ he asked. ‘Recovered from our little drama in the church at Christmas?’
