‘No to the first, offal to the second.’
She smiled. ‘That makes two of us. I’ll pick up dinner while I’m out.’
He thought about it. Really, this was much like sharing a student house. Except it wasn’t with his friends, it was with a near stranger. And he had the added responsibility of a baby. ‘We need to sort out a kitty.’
‘Sure. We can do that later.’
‘And we need a rota for doing the shopping. Or maybe we could get the shopping delivered.’ He frowned. ‘Do you have a car?’
‘Yes. And I know how to fit Ty’s baby seat in it.’ She paused. ‘What about you?’
‘Yes to having a car. I don’t have a clue about a baby seat.’
‘We only have one baby seat between us. I think we’re going to need one for your car as well as mine.’
He frowned. ‘So I need to take another afternoon off?’
She shrugged. ‘Or we could go at the weekend.’
Her weekend on, his weekend off—and he was going to have to spend it doing baby stuff instead of catching up with work. Great. Yet more disruption. And then the guilt surged through him again. It wasn’t Tyler’s fault that he needed to be looked after—or that Dylan had agreed to do it. ‘OK. We’ll go at the weekend,’ he said.
* * *
Saturday morning saw them in the nursery department of a department store in the city.
‘Your baby’s gorgeous,’ the assistant said, cooing over Tyler.
Dylan was about to correct her when Emmy said, ‘Yes, we think so.’ She shot him a look, daring him to contradict her.
He thought about it. Strictly speaking, Tyler was their baby. Just not a baby they’d actually made together.
Then he wished he hadn’t thought about making babies with Emmy. How soft her skin would be against his. How she smelled of some spicy, floral scent he couldn’t quite place. How it made him want to touch her, taste her...
Oh, hell. He really couldn’t have the hots for Emmy. He hadn’t even looked at another woman since he’d split up with Nadine. Abstinence: that had to be what was wrong with him. That, or the fact that he’d done the night shift, the previous night, and Tyler had woken three times, so lack of sleep had fried his brain.
He shut up and let Emmy do the talking.
And then Emmy spied a cot toy, something that apparently beamed pictures of stars and a moon on the ceiling and played a soft tinkling lullaby.
‘Can we get this as well? I think he’d love it.’
‘You mean, you love it.’ Emmy seemed to like simple, childlike things. And Dylan hadn’t quite worked out yet whether he found that more endearing or annoying. He certainly didn’t loathe her as much as he once had. She was good with the baby, too.
Her eyes crinkled at the corners. ‘OK, then, let’s ask him.’ She picked up the cot toy, crouched down beside the pram, switched it on and let Tyler see the lights and hear the lullaby.
Tyler’s eyes went wide, then he laughed and held his hands out towards it.
Emmy looked up at him and smiled. ‘I think that’s a yes.’
Again a surge of attraction hit him. Was he crazy? This was Emmy Jacobs, who sparred with him and sniped at him and was his co-guardian. She was the last person he wanted to get involved with. But at the same time he had to acknowledge that there was something about her that really got under his skin. Something that made him want to know more about her. Get closer.
And that in itself was weird. He didn’t do close. Never had. He didn’t trust anyone to let them near enough—even, if he was honest with himself, Nadine.
The rest of the weekend turned out to be Dylan’s first weekend of being a dad. Although it was officially Emmy’s weekend on duty, he somehow ended up going to the park with her to take Tyler out for some fresh air. He noticed that she talked to Tyler all the time, even though there was no way a baby could possibly understand everything she said. She pointed out flowers and named the colours for him; she pointed out dogs and birds and squirrels.
She was clearly taking her duties as godmother and guardian really seriously, and Dylan was beginning to wonder just why he’d ever disliked her so much. Then again, this new Emmy didn’t have a smart-aleck mouth. She didn’t snipe, and she wasn’t cynical and hard-bitten like the Emmy Jacobs he was used to.
Which one was the real Emmy? he wondered. Was she letting her guard down and letting him see the real her? Or was this just some kind of mirage and Spiky Emmy would return to drive him crazy?
They stopped at the café in the park, and Emmy asked for a jug of hot water to heat Tyler’s milk. While she found them a table, he bought the coffees. He’d seen her looking longingly at the cinnamon pastries, so he bought her one of those as well.
‘That’s really kind of you,’ she said when he brought the tray over to their table.
But her eyes were full of anguish. What was going on here? ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.
She sighed. ‘I struggle with my weight. And no, that isn’t your cue to tell me that I’m fine as I am. My job’s pretty sedentary, so I only manage to keep my weight under control because I go to an exercise class three times a week. But things have changed, now, and I’m not going to have time for classes anymore. I haven’t been since the week before Ally and Pete went to Venice.’
‘You miss your classes?’
She shrugged. ‘I’ll manage.’
‘That’s not what I asked. You miss them?’
‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘It’s ridiculously soon. But yes, I miss them. I spend too much time sitting at my desk—I really lose track of time when I’m working—and the classes used to help me get the knots out and stretch my muscles.’
‘When are they?’
‘Mornings. Straight after the school run.’ She shrugged. ‘So when Ty’s at school, in four years’ time or so, I can go back to them.’
‘Maybe,’ he said, ‘we can change our rota. I’ll go in to the office a bit later, on the mornings when you have a class—though obviously that means I’ll be back later on those days to make up the time.’
‘You’d do that for me?’ She looked startled, almost shocked; and then she gave him a heart-stopping smile. It was his turn to be shocked then, by how much her smile affected him. How it made him feel as if the room had just lit up. ‘Thank you, Dylan. What about you—do you do anything you’ve had to give up and miss already?’
‘The gym,’ he admitted. ‘It’s my thinking time. And I kind of like the endorphin hit at the end.’
‘Let me know when your sessions are, and we’ll switch the rota round.’ She looked at the pastry, then at him, and gave him another smile. ‘Thank you, Dylan. That’s so nice.’
‘Pleasure,’ he responded automatically. And he stifled the thought that actually, it was a pleasure, seeing her made happy by such a little thing.
He’d surprised himself, offering to change the rota so she could do her weekly classes. And she’d surprised him by immediately offering to do the same for him. Why had he ever thought her selfish, when she so obviously believed in fairness? Had he just read her wrong in the past, and it had snowballed to the point where it was easier to dislike her than to wonder if he’d got it wrong? Not wanting to think about his burgeoning feelings, he said, ‘I’ve been talking to Pete’s parents about the funeral. They’d like it to be in the same church where Pete and Ally got married.’
She nodded.