Poppy had taken it all in her stride, which made him chuckle. She seemed to have inherited his more laid-back, roll-with-the-punches kind of personality.
He’d never held much faith in the whole love-at-first-sight thing, but when it came to Poppy, all that went out the window. He’d fallen for this kid—hard—and the emotion had caught him off guard. His only real experience with kids had been as an uncle, and that had not prepared him for the kick in the guts he’d experienced after coming to terms with the fact he was a father and this was his child.
He wasn’t sure how they were going to work all this out. All he knew was that he would do anything to make it happen. He’d missed out on the first four years of her life—he wasn’t going to miss a single day of the rest of it.
He took the soft blanket from the end of the bed and gently covered them both. For a moment, he thought about waking Kenzie so she could go to her own bed, where she’d be more comfortable, but he didn’t have the heart to disturb them.
He turned for one last look before stepping out of the bedroom, closing the door softly behind him.
The next morning, when Kenzie woke up, she stretched and savoured the softness of the mattress beneath her—it was like floating on a cloud. She made a note to search for the brand before she left so she could replace her bed at home. As she opened her eyes, she remembered waking up in the early hours of the morning, having fallen asleep while putting Poppy to bed the night before. She hadn’t remembered covering them both with the soft blanket and felt slightly unsettled, not knowing who else might have done it. Shaking off the thought, she climbed out of bed and quickly got dressed.
Ewan wasn’t around when she ventured downstairs after once again finding her daughter’s room empty, but she knew where she’d find her now and had headed straight to the kitchen.
‘Breakfast?’ Peggy asked, looking up and sending a friendly smile.
‘No, thanks, I might just have coffee this morning,’ Kenzie said, glancing around and still finding no sign of Ewan … or anyone, for that matter. ‘Where is everyone?’
‘The terrible two are out in the garden,’ Peggy said dryly, nodding her head out through the doors in the breakfast room, to where Vera and Poppy had gone, ‘and Ewan went out for a run.’
A run? Yet another thing they didn’t have in common. Kenzie had never run a day in her life. In fact, if she everwererunning, it would only be because something terrifying was chasing her … and even then, depending on how far shehad to run, she would possibly consider that she’d had a good innings, lie down and accept her fate.
Vera was holding a long basket that she and Poppy were filling with tomatoes and leafy green vegetables.
‘Morning, Mummy,’ Poppy said as Kenzie approached carrying a mug of coffee.
‘I can’t believe I slept in again. I’m so sorry,’ she said, wondering if this woman considered her a terrible mother who left her child unsupervised each morning, although she had been up with Poppy the day before.
‘It’s the country air,’ Vera said with a smile. ‘It happens all the time when we have visitors.’
‘I’ll have to start setting my alarm,’ Kenzie said weakly.
Vera shooed her suggestion away. ‘You’ll do no such thing. Just enjoy the rest. We love our early morning girl time, don’t we, Poppy?’
Poppy nodded, holding up a carrot for her mother to inspect.
‘This really is an amazing garden,’ Kenzie said, admiring the fresh produce in the basket. ‘We tried to grow some tomatoes on our balcony in pots.’
‘They died,’ Poppy informed her grandmother in a dire tone.
‘Ah well. It just takes a little bit of practice,’ Vera replied.
‘And maybe some water occasionally,’ Kenzie added. She’d tried her best to remember to water the stupid plants every day, but mornings were just too hectic and by the time she got home, she was usually too busy with getting dinner sorted.
‘Who knows, maybe by the time you go home, we’ll have made gardeners out of both of you,’ Vera said cheerfully.
‘Actually, I was going to bring out my laptop and go through a few emails, and thought it might be nice to do it out here?’ ‘You can try, but there’s a bit of a black spot outside. But feel free to work, you have the house to yourself,’ Vera said. ‘We were just going to potter about out here today, so we can stay out of your hair. Go work in peace.’
Shedidhave work to do that she was having a small amount of anxiety about finding time to catch up on. ‘Are you sure it’s not too much trouble?’
Vera’s eyes sparkled, the same colour as her son’s and granddaughter’s. ‘Spending time with this wee one is no trouble at all.’
She could almost get used to these later starts, Kenzie thought, comparing these last few mornings of having her coffee made and a cook on hand to make her breakfast to the usual racing around searching for a lost shoe or trying to hurry Poppy through eating her breakfast while she gave an incredibly drawn-out and detailed recap of the dream she’d had the night before.
It didn’t matter how organised Kenzie was, there was always that element of rush that she hated. Everything was always on a time limit. She loved these kinds of mornings, where Poppy was free to talk to her heart’s content without someone telling her to hurry up and eat because they had to leave in five minutes.
Maybe shedidneed to look at how she could better manage her workload so she didn’t have to constantly rush through life.She made a note that when she got back to the office, she’d look into the possibility of cutting back some of her hours to free up more time to spend with Poppy through the week. Some late starts and ending her work day in the early afternoons occasionally seemed like a luxury when long hours and early starts had always been the way she’d done things.
Kenzie washed up her mug and placed it on the sink when she came back inside, then headed for the stairs. She stopped when she heard her name, and saw Callum standing in the doorway of a room next to the formal sitting room.
