Page 53 of All Yours

‘Your dad was an idiot,’ he said gruffly, thinking of the two little boys upstairs in their beds, and how Robyn’s dad had missed the everyday wonders that came with kids. Their kisses goodnight, their little hands in yours, the way they orbited around you as if you were the sun. Listen to him now, getting all starry-eyed, like Robyn. But it was how he felt. His children were his blessing in life. With all the sadness he’d experienced, they’d been the bright shining happiness in every day.

‘Maybe,’ she said in a small voice against his shoulder. He rested his hand on the duvet on her back, keeping her close.

‘Honestly, you’ve just had a bad run.’

She laughed then, surprising him.

‘For thirty years,’ she said. ‘It’s been a pretty long streak.’

Fox knew she was masking her pain with humour, but he had to admire the way she could pick herself up even when she felt low. He squeezed her and she raised a hand to lie on his chest.

‘Not all men can’t commit, though. I did it.’

He thought back to his own wedding. He had been able to see Meg’s smile behind her veil as she walked down the aisle on her father’s arm. He remembered the excitement in his belly for the next phase of their lives. The marriage, not just the wedding. The commitment to each other. He was as excited for that as he was for the day itself.

His mind flicked to imagining Robyn’s face as she was kept waiting outside the church for a groom that should already have been at the end of the aisle. He could picture the slow horror dawning as she realised what was happening, and was struck with an almost physical pain at the thought. Fox couldn’t believe that somebody could choose to hurt Robyn like that. He realised his hand had found the back of her head, his fingers moving gently through her autumn waves.

‘I’m sorry about your wife,’ Robyn said quietly. ‘It’s so tragic for her to die so young. For her, for you, for the boys.’

Fox focused on the night sky above them.

‘That’s why I can’t imagine doing it again,’ Fox said. ‘I loved her, we were building our life together, and she died.’ Robyn’s hand stroked across his chest; he heard the rustle of his jacket as she soothed his heart, even through his coat. He tried to ignore the feeling that was emerging. The one that he always tried to ignore when he thought about moving on, finding someone else. Fear. Terror that it would happen again, that he would love someone and they would die.

‘I couldn’t go through that again.’

He shuddered, plunged back into the dark despair of the days following Meg’s death. The gaping space where she should have been lying on her side of the bed. The inability to wash up the teacup that she’d left half drunk when she went to the shop. He shook himself. It was a place he couldn’t go back to. Sometimes he wondered how he’d climbed out of it, before. Maybe he wouldn’t have done if he hadn’t had two tiny boys to get up for every day, or if Etienne and Walker hadn’t been there to put their arms around his shoulders and drag him out.

‘It’s a lot to worry about,’ Robyn said. ‘Probably too much to contemplate.’

He nodded, her words hitting home. It was too much to think that it could happen again, if he loved someone. If he let someone in. How could he make that decision?

‘Just do what I do,’ she said and now it was her turn to comfort him.

He glanced downwards and her eyes were shining up at him, reflecting the moon. He could faintly make out the freckles on her nose.

‘Believe in what the universe has in store for you.’

He could smell the vanilla of her fragrance, stirring with every move of her head as she settled back against him, her head nuzzling into his chest as if it was made for her. His arms encircled her now, holding her as if they were in bed on a Sunday morning, her naked in his arms. It felt amazing.

‘Look up,’ she said. ‘Just keep looking up.’

He followed her gaze back to the boundless sky above them, the limitless galaxies above their heads. He breathed in Robyn’s scent, and enjoyed the warm weight of her against him, wanting nothing more than to lie like this and stay like this. A movement caught his eye.

‘There,’ whispered Robyn.

A star blazed overhead, streaking its tail behind it, burning its way in a full arc towards them. Fox gasped at the beauty of it.

‘It’s starting,’ Robyn said and he could hear the wonder in her voice.

Another star shot across the sky, brighter than before, and a moment later, the sky was alive with an almost constant blaze of shooting stars, in all their glory.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Robyn

‘Did you see any meteors the other night?’ Wren asked Robyn, as she opened the door to the bridal shop. The bell jangled and Isabella clapped her hands at their arrival.

‘I did actually,’ Robyn said, her mind pulled back to the feeling of Fox’s arm around her. ‘It was quite a night.’