‘You looked engrossed. It was cute.’
‘Cute?’ Zoe raised her eyebrows. ‘I’d have hoped for smart. Book smart even. Intellectual, learned…but apparently I get cute when I’m studying.’
‘What are you studying for? Not thinking of changing jobs, are you? Going for a promotion?’
‘No. But even staying in the same job sometimes needs me to update my knowledge.’
‘Ah…’ He settled beside her with a grin. ‘I suppose it must. Don’t mind me – I’m only an ignorant labourer.’
‘You’re very clever, as well you know. It’s just that you need a different kind of knowledge to do what you do.’
‘It’s not clever; it’s about putting the hours in.’
‘I think it’s clever.’
He let his head fall back onto the sofa and turned to hold her in a fond gaze, those dark eyes of his working their magic, despite her current state of anxiety. ‘In that case, thank you. If the smartest woman I know is saying it, I suppose I can take the compliment.’
‘Who’s the smartest woman you know…?’
They both looked towards the doorway, where Billie was standing, Louisa in her arms, wrapped in a fluffy towel and looking sleepy after her bath.
‘You are,’ Alex said with a quick grin. ‘Don’t hit me – I totally meant you…’
‘Oi!’ Zoe squeaked, and he broke into laughter.
‘Oh, I’ve really done it this time, haven’t I? That’ll teach me to try and be all silver-tongued. You two are far too sharp to let me get away with it.’
‘You’ve got that right.’ Billie took a seat across from them and gently started to rub Louisa’s hair dry.
Zoe took the opportunity to steer the conversation away from what she’d been reading on her phone and in doing so escape her maudlin thoughts. Emilia and Simon had both said on occasion that knowing too much could be a dangerous thing, especially when that knowledge came from ‘Doctor Google’, and in this instance, Zoe had a feeling they were right. She’d disappeared into a rabbit hole that had been opened up by a simple search using a few keywords to describe some of the things that hadbeen happening to her over the previous weeks, a rabbit hole filled with yet more fear and uncertainty and almost certainly a lot of overreaction. Tomorrow, she decided, she’d pin Emilia down and have a proper chat with her. Emilia would put her right – she’d probably have an instant and far more innocent explanation of Zoe’s symptoms…if they were even symptoms of anything at all. Everyone had weird moments from time to time, didn’t they?
‘She loves her bath now.’ Zoe nodded at Louisa. ‘I can’t believe she used to scream the place down when you first put her in there.’
‘Now she screams when you try to take her out.’ Billie smiled down at her daughter, and Zoe felt a pang of something. She pushed it forcefully away – it had no place in her heart, not here and now. Billie had a right to be happy with her baby, more of a right than some because she’d fought a hard battle to get to this point, and Zoe had no right to be jealous. Besides, Louisa was like family, as Billie was, and so there was no need for jealousy. Zoe was free to love her as if she was her own, and she did, with all her heart. It was just that sometimes, when she looked at her, she imagined…
Once again, she pushed the emotion away, though it threatened to break over her like a tidal wave that had come from nowhere. What on earth was wrong with her? Why did she feel so horribly unstable all the time? She ought to have been happier now than at any other time in her life because she had everything she’d ever wanted, even when she hadn’t known what that was, and objectively she was happy. So why was it that sometimes she felt desperately miserable for a reason she couldn’t name?
‘She looks happy enough now.’ Alex got up and went over to plant a tiny kiss on the little girl’s forehead. ‘Don’t you, beautiful?’ He smiled up at Billie, and the stab that Zoe hadbeen trying to banish pricked at her harder than ever. ‘I never thought, after you, that I could love another child like this, but let me tell you – and don’t take this the wrong way – having Louisa might be even better.’
‘Is that because you don’t have all the night feeds and stuff and just get to be fun grandpa?’
He laughed softly. ‘Might be. I’ll tell you what, though, I’d do absolutely anything for that little mite, and I mean anything. Ask me for my left leg – it’s yours if she needs it.’
‘Well, I don’t know what she’d need it for, Dad, but I appreciate the sentiment.’ Billie rolled her eyes at Zoe. ‘God, he’s weird. I don’t know what it says about you that you agreed to move in, but thanks for taking him on.’
Alex threw back his head in laughter then shone the brightest, most loving smile on Zoe. She wanted more than anything to enjoy the love in it, but all she could think about was how undeserving she was. With a tight smile that was more pain than pleasure, she got up.
‘Right, I’ll make a start on the soup. Are those tomatoes still in the fridge?’
‘Yeah, we left them for you because you said you were planning to make soup.’
Zoe went to the kitchen and prayed neither of them would be tempted to follow to help because she was afraid she might burst into tears, and she didn’t want anyone to see it.
‘Emilia’s had to go to some GMC meeting inthat thereLondon.’ Lavender flicked over the page in her paper diary and tapped a finger where she’d blocked out the entire day for her boss. It seemed there had been a certain glee in the fact that Emilia would be missing – at least, judging by the way Lavender had embellished the page with little fireworks and cheeringmatchstick figures. Zoe tried not to frown. Her frown wouldn’t have been for the motifs in Lavender’s diary anyway but for her own frustration. She needed some peace of mind, and she was fast coming to the conclusion that Emilia was the only person who could give it to her.
‘Right,’ Zoe said slowly, her eyes still on the page.
‘I have mentioned it a couple of times in the last few days,’ Lavender added.
