She rang her great-aunt to check that it was convenient for her to visit, then packed swiftly. ‘We’re going to the sea,’ she told the baby, who cooed at her and clapped his hands. ‘Where I used to go when I was tiny. You’ll like it.’
Then she picked up the phone again. It was only fair to tell Dylan what she planned. Except he was unavailable, in a meeting with a client. This wasn’t the kind of thing she wanted to leave in a message, and she could hardly text him because his mobile phone was still here.
But she could leave him a voicemail.
She dialled his mobile number swiftly and waited for the phone to click through to his voicemail. ‘Dylan, I need some space to think about things,’ she said. ‘To get my head straight. I’m staying at Great-Aunt Syb’s. I’ll text you when I get there so you know we’ve arrived safely.’ Given what had happened to Ally and Pete, she would’ve wanted him to text her if he’d been the one travelling. It was only fair.
* * *
Honestly, Dylan thought, if you were going to leave a message on someone’s voicemail, you could at least make sure you were around to accept the return call.
On the third attempt, he finally got through to Nadine. ‘You wanted to talk to me,’ he said.
‘Yes. I saw that article in the magazine.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘And Jenny at the office said you were looking after Pete’s son since the accident.’
Where was she going with this? He had a nasty feeling about it. ‘My godson. Yes.’
She dragged in a breath. ‘So you’re a dad.’
Uh-oh. This was exactly what he’d thought she wanted to talk to him about. ‘A stand-in one.’
‘So we could—’
‘No,’ he cut in gently before she could finish her suggestion. ‘Nadine, you’re seeing someone else.’
‘On the rebound from you. I still love you, Dylan. We can stop the divorce going through. All you have to do is say yes. We can make a family together.’
‘It’s not quite the same thing, Nadine. You wanted a baby of your own,’ he reminded her.
‘And we still can. We can have a brother or sister for Tyler.’
‘No. Nadine, it’s over,’ he said, as gently as he could. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘So you’re really—’ she took a deep breath ‘—with that jeweller?’
‘I am,’ he confirmed. And it shocked him how good that made him feel. Tonight, he’d leave the office and go home to Emmy and Tyler. His partner and his child. His unexpected family.
Her voice wobbled. ‘What does she have that I don’t?’
‘That isn’t a fair conversation,’ he said. ‘You’re very different. Opposites, even. But she complements me. And it works.’ He paused. ‘Be happy, Nadine. And try to be happy for me. We’ve both got a chance to make a new life now, to get what we wanted.’
‘I wanted it with you.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, guilt flooding through him. ‘But there’s no going back for us. I know that now. We wouldn’t make each other happy.’
‘We could try.’ Hope flared in her voice.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said again. ‘Goodbye, Nadine. And good luck.’ He cut the connection.
And now he could go home. See Emmy. Tell her that everything was going to be just fine.
Except, when he opened the front door, he realised that the house was empty.
Maybe she’d taken Tyler to the park or something. He tried calling her mobile phone from the house landline, but there was no answer. Maybe she was somewhere really noisy and hadn’t heard the phone, or maybe she was in the middle of a nappy change. ‘It’s me. I’m home,’ he said when the line clicked through to voicemail. ‘See you later.’
He went in search of his mobile phone. Emmy had left it in the middle of the kitchen table. He flicked into the first screen, intending to check his text messages, and noticed that he had two voicemail messages. The first was Nadine’s from earlier, asking him to call. He sighed and deleted it.
The second was probably work. He’d sneak some in until Emmy got home, and then—well. Then he could kiss her stupid, for starters.
He smiled at the thought, and listened to the message.
And then his smile faded.
I need some space.
Uh-oh. That wasn’t good. Did that mean she’d changed her mind about what had happened between them? That she didn’t want to be with him?
Or had he been right about her all along and she was like his mother, unable to stick to any decisions and dropping everything at a moment’s notice to go off and ‘find herself’?
Feeling sick, he listened to the rest of the message.
So she was going up north. To the sea. That figured. And she’d left the message two hours ago, so right now she was probably in the car. Of course she wouldn’t answer while she was driving. She’d never put Tyler at risk like that.
OK. He’d talk to her when she got there. And in the meantime he’d get on with some work.
Though it was almost impossible to concentrate. The house just didn’t feel right without her and Tyler. Going for a run didn’t take his mind off things, either, and nor did his shower afterwards. And he was even crosser with himself when he saw the text from Emmy when he got out of the shower. Here safely. E.
Just his luck that she’d texted when he wouldn’t hear it. He called her back immediately, but a recorded voice informed him that the phone was unavailable. Switched off? Or was she in an area with a poor signal?
‘Leave a message, or send a text,’ the recorded voice told him.
Right.
‘Emmy, call me. Please. We need to talk.’ They really had to sort this out. Did she want him, or didn’t she?
Except she didn’t call him.
And Dylan was shocked to find out how much he missed them both. How much he wanted them home safely with him.
Maybe she wanted space because she wasn’t sure of him. Maybe he hadn’t made her realise exactly how he felt about her. Maybe she needed something from him that he wasn’t good at—emotional stuff. The right words.
Maybe his mother went to find herself because she had nobody to find her. But Emmy had someone to find her. She had him. And he needed to tell her that.
It was too late to drive to Whitby now. It’d be stupid o’clock in the morning before he got there. But he could go and find her tomorrow. Tell her how he felt. And hope that she’d agree to come back with him.
First, though, where did Syb live? He had a feeling that if he did manage to get through to Emmy’s phone to ask for the address, she’d come up with an excuse. And this was too important to put off. He needed to see her now.
Knowing Emmy, all her contacts would be on her phone rather than written down somewhere. But he knew she was savvy enough to keep a backup. If she had a password on her computer at all, he reasoned, it would be an easy one to crack. He switched on the machine, waited for the programs to load, and typed in Tyler’s birthdate when the computer prompted him for a password.
Bingo.
It was a matter of seconds to find Syb’s address in Emmy’s contacts file.