‘Really?’
‘Really. Lie down and stop fussing. You know you want to.’
So he dug out a hollow and lay down in it obediently and let them cover him in sand. It was damper than he’d realised, though, and by the time he broke free and stood up, he was plastered in it.
‘It’ll fall off when it dries,’ Em said cheerfully, and handed him a bucket. ‘Why don’t you go and rinse your hands and feet and bring some water up so we can rinse our hands, too, and then I think it might be time to go. They’re getting tired.’
‘I’m not surprised. They’ve shifted about a ton of sand between them.’
‘They had help.’
‘I noticed,’ he said drily, but he went and fetched water, more cautiously this time, and then they cleared up all the toys and the remains of the picnic and set off.
* * *
The children were both fractious by then, so they decided to go for a walk to let them sleep in the buggy.
Zach was gone in moments and it didn’t take Matilda long to join him, so they went round the point past the sea defences and followed the sea wall along to the harbour, falling into step as they strolled along.
The sea was quiet, the silence broken only by the sound of their footsteps and the soft slap of the waves on the shingle, the stones settling with a little whisper as the waves receded. Out at sea some gulls were wheeling over a fishing boat, and they could hear the faint putter of its engine in the distance.
‘Gosh, it’s beautiful. I can see why you love it here,’ Emily said with a sigh, and he grunted softly.
‘Jo couldn’t. She flatly refused to live here with me, even though she hadn’t said anything negative when the job came up and I started looking at houses, and then of course it was too late, I was committed to the move and there was nothing I could do about it.’
She turned her head so she could see his face. ‘Do you think she really hated it and didn’t want to live here, or didn’t want to live with you because she’d realised she didn’t love you? You’re old enough to be pragmatic, but she’s not, she’s still young enough to be dreaming of a happy ever after, which is probably why she’s gone off chasing rainbows with the dude in the campervan. And maybe you moving here just gave her an out?’
He sighed and scrubbed a hand through his hair, dislodging the sand that had finally dried in it. ‘I have no idea. Maybe. I knew she was a bit of a hippy at heart, but I wouldn’t have said she was manipulative so I think you could be right. She was probably just out of her depth. You know she nearly didn’t have Matilda? She said at the time she wasn’t ready to be a mother, and judging by the way she walked off last week and left Tilly without a backward glance, she was right.’
‘So, what did your parents say about that?’ Em asked curiously. ‘I take it you’ve told them.’
He laughed, but there wasn’t a trace of humour in it. ‘Nothing new. My mother told me it was no more than I deserved, and my father gave me another lecture on contraception and what he called my indiscriminate sexual habits—What?’ he asked, shooting her a dirty look when she laughed.
She tried to straighten her face. ‘Well, it was high time someone said it,’ she pointed out. ‘You’re a bit of an alley cat, Jake.’
‘I am not!’ Her eyebrows shot up, and he frowned. ‘Seriously, Em, I’m not, at least not anymore, and I have no idea how she got pregnant.’
‘You need me to explain?’ she said, and then stopped walking, mostly because she was laughing so hard she couldn’t breathe.
‘I didn’t mean it that way,’ he growled.
‘So what did you mean?’ she asked when she could speak. ‘Because you can’t have been that careful or she wouldn’t have got pregnant. Was she on the Pill?’
‘No, and we were careful! We used a condom every single time, and as far as I know none of them failed—not that it’s any of your business,’ he added, glowering at her and trying not to laugh.
She wasn’t even trying. ‘Well, clearly one of them failed—or else she sabotaged you.’
‘Why would she do that?’
She fell into step beside him again, giving him a disbelieving look. ‘Oh, come on, Jake. You’re a good catch.’
‘So why didn’t she catch me? Why not insist that I marry her? God knows I offered.’
‘She didn’t need to. You were supporting her anyway, and maybe by then she’d realised she didn’t love you.’
He shook his head. ‘No, she’s not like that. She’s not organised enough to be premeditated.’
She stopped walking again and turned to look at him, thoughtful now. ‘I don’t know, Jake. She stole your money and defaulted on her rent, so she obviously planned that. And if she said it was an accident when she got pregnant, you’d believe her. Accidents happen all the time, and people get carried away in the heat of the moment and fall into bed without thinking. It has been known, and it wouldn’t be the first time you’d done it.’
She knew that all too well. She vividly remembered the time they’d come really, really close to making love...
‘Can we please stop discussing my sex life?’ he muttered, and she wondered if he was actually blushing or if it was just that he’d caught the sun.
‘Well, at least you have one. I can’t even remember what it was like,’ she said with painful honesty.
‘Ah, come on, Em, you and Pete were married for years!’
‘And most of the time he was too busy trying not to die,’ she pointed out.
All trace of laughter was gone from her voice now, and Jake stopped walking and pulled her into his arms with a ragged sigh, resting his cheek against her hair.
‘Ah, hell, I’m sorry, Em,’ he murmured apologetically. ‘I shouldn’t have said that, it’s none of my business. It must have been so tough for you both, living on a knife-edge throughout the whole of your marriage.’
She eased away from him and started walking again, somehow uncomfortable talking about Pete while she was standing in Jake’s arms. ‘Not all of it. Some of it was OK, especially after he got the all-clear, but I always knew in my bones it couldn’t last.’
‘So why did you decide to have a baby if you thought he was going to die?’ he asked, finally asking the question that must have been bugging him ever since she’d told him she was pregnant and Pete was dying.
She sighed, her shoulders lifting in a little shrug. ‘Because I thought he would live to see it. Pete had always wanted children, so had I, and my clock was ticking. He’d banked some sperm as soon as he was diagnosed, before he had the first chemo, so it was sitting there waiting, and I felt if we didn’t get on with it I’d have left it too late and missed my chance, but I never dreamt it would be over so soon for him. That was a real shock, when he went downhill so fast and I realised we’d left it too late.’
‘It must have been. Do you regret it?’
‘What, marrying Pete, or having Zach?’
‘I meant having Zach,’ he said, although he must have wondered if she’d regretted her marriage to a man she’d known was probably dying, but maybe he felt he’d been intrusive enough.
She smiled down at the sleeping baby snuggled up in the buggy, her heart filling. ‘Not for a single second. It hasn’t been easy, and I’ve often been scared that I couldn’t cope, but no, I’ve never regretted it. He’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Well, apart from you, of course, but that’s different.’
She