Page 20 of All Yours

‘And your hen night!’ Wren added.

‘And to meet the babies when they arrive?’ Rosie put her arm around Wren’s shoulders.

Isabella raised the bottle to top up her wine, but Robyn put a hand over her glass. ‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘It’s just Willow and me this afternoon.’

‘Well, you’ll need to borrow Fox’s babysitter for the nights out,’ Isabella said. ‘Then we can show you what Honeybridge is really all about.’

Robyn took Willow from Wren and held her close. She’d never left her yet, not even in a different room. But, all of a sudden, listening to the women talk about their plans over the next little while, she thought it might be time.

It was dusk by the time she walked back to Fox’s, kicking leaves under her boots while Willow slept against her chest, and her back ached lightly. It would be nice to snuggle into that big sofa when she got back to the pool house and think over the day. Her cheeks felt sore from smiling, her stomach muscles from laughing. Rosie and Wren’s friends were hilarious. Isabella had regaled them with stories about taming the ex-heartthrob of Honeybridge, while Amber recounted how Alex Martin – the Alex Martin that Robyn heard on the radio all the time – had written his hit song about her. And after hearing about Isabella’s cousin Gabi, she could hardly wait to meet her at Christmas when she got home from her latest gig as a stuntwoman. She noticed how they all smiled when they talked about their partners, and how Wren’s face softened whenever she looked at Rosie. They’d been lucky, finding people that they could rely on. It was rare.

Inevitably, her mind flicked back to when she had relied on someone too. When she and Finn started dating, he was her first call if she broke down in the clapped-out old Mini she used to drive. When they moved in together, he was the person who held her hair back if she was sick and held a cold cloth to her head if she had a temperature. Finn had been the one she turned to in the night if she had a bad dream. When he proposed, she thought she could rely on him for better or worse. Every time she needed him, he was right there. Though maybe that was more about coming to the rescue rather than anything else. Short-term fixes he could do. Long-term commitment was beyond him. As she found out.

The street lights lit up just as she arrived at the house. She took the side path, heading straight through the quiet garden to the cottage. The pool was still illuminated by the underwater lights and she turned them off as she passed, wondering briefly whether it had been a family swim or just Fox out there doing laps. An image of him topless sprang to mind, kneeling between her legs, clear enough to make her gasp. She’d managed to keep her mind on the job the last few days and that was the way it was going to stay.

Robyn closed the door quietly behind her and turned on a lamp. The glow it cast was enough for her to see immediately that something was different. Someone had been in the cottage, moving things around.

A bouncing baby seat was on the rug in front of the sofa, with a baby gym next to it. Robyn pressed her hands together in delight. Willow would love them, she was sure. And it would mean Robyn had somewhere safe to put her down, rather than carry her all the time or leave her on the rug. Her eyes darted to the kitchen and she spotted a wooden high chair against the wall. Willow wasn’t ready for it yet, she couldn’t sit unaided, but it would definitely be helpful in a matter of weeks. She ran her fingers over the chair, excited for the next phase.

She spotted a note that had been left on the kitchen table.

Found these when I got the car seat out of the loft. There’s also a buggy which I left in the garage. Thought they might be useful. F.

Useful? They were going to be brilliant. She hugged Willow to her, before unwrapping the sling and walking through to the bedroom to put her to bed. Something about the spare bedroom made her glance inside, maybe because the door was left open. She turned the light on and gasped at the sight of a white hand-painted cot, with a beautiful quilt inside, and a baby monitor beside it on the bedside table. She pressed her hand to her mouth. It was like something out of a magazine. All of a sudden, she realised how sparse her life was. How everything she had needed for herself and Willow so far could easily be carried on her back. And all of this, it suddenly felt like . . . well, it felt like a lot. Could she really accept these things?

She wasn’t used to taking anything from anyone, but she knew that Willow’s feet were almost touching the end of her moses basket, and the cot would give her daughter room to grow while they were in Honeybridge. After all, it was just a loan. And it wasn’t just generous, it was thoughtful. It would be churlish to turn it down. She gently laid Willow in the cot, careful not to wake her. She looked so gorgeous there, peaceful. She snapped a photo on her phone.

She started to compose a message to Fox, deliberating over the wording. Wanting to show just how grateful she was, without going over the top. She typed, Thank you so much for the loan of the baby things. Then she added a kiss, before immediately deleting it. This was a message to her boss after all. She pressed send.

A moment later, her phone tinged with a reply. A simple thumbs up. And she breathed out in relief. Thank God she hadn’t added the kiss.

She scooped Willow back up and headed to the bedroom, laying her in the moses basket beside her own bed. She watched her eyes flicker and wondered what she was dreaming about.

Robyn smoothed the frown from her baby’s face with a stroke of her forefinger. She had carried Willow on her body since the day she was born, and she’d slept beside her every night. She loved having her close by, but she always knew it couldn’t last for ever. She’d have to put her in a crèche while she worked eventually, maybe even after Christmas. So, a trial run while she did yoga might be a good start. In fact, getting a little more distance between them was probably sensible. Better for Willow. And remembering the promise of nights out with the girls, probably better for her too. But not tonight. She wasn’t ready, not right this minute, to put her daughter in the cot in the room next door. But tomorrow she would try, she decided.

Chapter Ten

Fox

The rain was not letting up. Since the moment he’d woken up that morning, it had been hammering it down. The boys had thought it fun to walk Dingbat in the rain for about ten minutes, but the novelty soon wore off when they were soaked through and they all trudged home after half an hour.

They’d made waffles, spreading them with banana and Nutella, and piling a stack high between them on the table. They’d FaceTimed Millie and Reggie had shown her his new wobbly tooth. They’d watched a movie, done some drawing and even finished the model car Reggie had been gifted last Christmas. And still it was raining. But to top it off, now it was getting dark too. He gazed out at the heavy grey sky and sighed. A wet Sunday was tough going. Glancing over at the pool house, he wondered if Robyn was finding it hard too. She’d said something about a day trip to the lake today, but surely she wouldn’t have gone in this weather?

The boys were getting bored, which normally led to trouble. He’d have to come up with something else soon to keep them occupied until bedtime. But what?

His phone tinged with a message from Robyn. He opened it up to see a photo of Willow lying in the bouncy chair he had left for them. Robyn sent a message below: She loves it!

Well, at least someone was having fun. But it looked like her planned day trip had been rained off as he’d suspected. He wondered if she was as bored as he was. About to reply with a thumbs up, he paused. Was it overstepping to invite her over? He didn’t want her to feel obliged, but it would break up the last bit of the day, for the boys mainly, he told himself.

Want to come over? He pressed send. Then, precisely one microsecond later, had a massive panic that he shouldn’t have sent it and that she’d be staring in horror at her phone, trying to think of a polite way to say no to her boss on a Sunday afternoon.

He looked at the message again. God, did it look like a hook-up? He should give a reason for coming over at least. Something. Anything. His brain felt scrambled. He tried again.

Fox: Boys are slowly going stir crazy with this weather.

But wait. Did that now look like he was expecting her to come over and entertain them? He wasn’t asking her to come and work. He smacked himself on the forehead and then sent another one.

Fox: Want to join us for some games?