“Who else?” Agnes said, clicking her tongue. “I wouldn’t trust this lot with my scone recipe.”
I laughed, catching Cat’s eye over my aunt’s shoulder and mouthingthank you. She was obviously the little bird who had mentioned the nursery to Jo. I pulled back from the hug and took a settling breath, proud that I’d managed not to burst into tears.
“Where do we want to start?” I asked. “Tea?”
“Yes,” Elsie said. “But first…”
“I thought you could do with a pick-me-up,” Jo said. “I got word that Declan got fired after that disaster of a presentation. He ran off to Glasgow to lick his wounds.”
Agnes looked scandalized. “How do you know that?”
“I do work at a newspaper, you know,” she sniffed. “I’ve got little birds all over the place.” We all laughed, and she gave me a wink. Then she handed me a gift bag. “This is the other pick-me-up.”
“What’s this?” I asked, opening it to find a darling mobile. It was hung with small hand-painted woodland creatures, each one more adorable than the last. “Jo, this is amazing. Thank you.”
“Your mother made that for me a long time ago,” she said.
My jaw trembled as I took in the mobile again, studying each paint stroke even closer. “Really?” I asked, wonder filling my voice. I’d never seen my mother make anything like this.
“It used to hang over my grandson’s crib,” Jo confirmed. “I’ve held onto it all these years without knowing why. But now I do. Because it was meant to come back to you.”
The tears I was barely holding back finally started to fall. I blubbered a little laugh as the group closed ranks with a crushing hug. “Thank you so much. I don’t even know what else to say. This is incredible. You’reallincredible.”
“I know it’s been difficult,” Aunt Elsie said, “dealing with the pregnancy without your partner and without your mum. But we just want you to remember that you’re very muchnotalone.”
“It takes a village,” Jo said with a firm nod.
I wiped the tears from my eyes, giving everyone a watery smile as I realized that’s exactly what I had. A village.
LOCKE
Bang! Bang! Bang!
I bolted upright on the couch, my eyes flying open. The sun streamed in through the windows, far too bright, and whoever the hell was knocking on the door was doing it far too loudly. I grimaced, getting to my feet. I was still wearing my clothes from yesterday.
“Locke, open the damn door!” a voice called.
Dad?
I hurried to the door, instantly worried something was terribly wrong. I flung it open, relieved to see him standing there—no blood, no bruises, no tears. I let out a sigh of relief, tension draining out of me. Whatever it was couldn’t be that bad.
He frowned at me. “Took you long enough.”
“Sorry,” I muttered, rubbing the sleep from my eyes now that my pulse had stopped racing. “I didn’t know you were coming.”
“It’s not like you to still be sleeping at this time of day,” he said, walking straight through the door and into my living room. He glanced around—from the couch, scattered with yesterday’s work notes, to the coffee table packed with rubbish—dropping his hands to his hips.
I smoothed my hair back a little self-consciously. “I was up late looking at the specs for the West Lothian property again. I guess I just passed out at some point.” I fought off a yawn. I hadn’t been sleeping well lately. “Were we supposed to be meeting today?”
“No, your mother called me,” Dad replied, shaking his head and clicking his tongue as he turned to face me.
Mum had called him? That was the surprise of the century. I honestly didn’t think Graeme and Nicola Fraser had spoken in years. “What for?”
“She’s worried about you. Looking at you now,” Dad gestured from me to the coffee table, covered with take-away containers, “and looking around this place, I can see why.”
I bristled, offense very much taken. “What the hell does that mean?”
“It means you look like shite; not to mention, you’re clearly eating like shite.” He marched into the kitchen, grabbed my rubbish bin from under the sink, and returned to sweep the take-away mess into it.
