‘I was looking forward to seeing you,’ he persevered, ‘but I thought you’d be working until the evening, and when I heard about Hannah I felt I should go and see her parents straight away rather than keep putting it off.’
He hesitated. ‘When I saw Molly and understood the situation…you were the first person I thought of, Rose.’ He couldn’t explain how strong his feeling had been that she was one person he needed, and that if he could only find her and show her Molly that everything would be all right. ‘You know what my mother’s like. She was never exactly hands-on with her own child, so I can’t imagine she would be much help, even if she could be persuaded back from Spain. My father might have helped, but he’s ill, and my stepmother is taken up with him at the moment. I could only think of you.’
‘You didn’t think that I might be busy? That I might have my own child to look after?’
‘No,’ said Drew. ‘I never thought of you having a baby. I thought you’d be just the same, and that I could rely on you the way I’ve always done before.’
His green eyes looked straight into hers. ‘There’s nowhere else I can go right now. I knew you would know what to do with a baby, and I had to bring Molly somewhere.’
‘And this is your house,’ Rose added for him in a dull voice, her gaze sliding away from his. ‘Don’t forget that bit.’
‘I hadn’t forgotten, but I don’t want to use that to threaten you. You live here, and nothing’s going to change that. You can tell me to leave if you want to, and I’ll go, but I’m begging you, for Molly’s sake, to help me. I’m a water engineer, Rose. I don’t know the first thing about babies. I’ll get a nanny for Molly tomorrow, but for tonight I really need your help.’
Rose looked at Molly. She was just a baby. How could she refuse to help her? Drew had known that she wouldn’t be able to do that. Her grey eyes lifted to meet his green gaze once more.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll help you tonight, but then we need to talk about this, Drew.’
‘Whatever you say,’ said Drew, unable to hide his relief.
As if she had been waiting for some signal, Molly’s face puckered and she began to squirm. Rose saw the relief in his expression wiped away by panic.
‘Oh, God, she’s going to wake up,’ he said desperately, sitting rigidly still, as if he could will the baby back to sleep. ‘What shall I do?’
The words were barely out of his mouth before Molly began to wail, startling Jack, who looked up from the box of toys he was emptying.
‘Ga?’
‘It’s all right, Jack, it’s just the baby,’ said Rose, getting up to take Molly from Drew, who looked frankly terrified. ‘Let me take her.’
Lifting Molly against her shoulder, she held the warm little body close and rubbed her back soothingly as she bawled. ‘It’s all right, sweetheart…Shh, now…you’ll be all right…’ she murmured, swaying in a comforting rocking motion.
Drew watched them both nervously. ‘Is she OK? Why’s she crying like that?’
‘She’s woken up in a strange place with strange people, Drew. Wouldn’t you want to cry if you were Molly?’
Out of the corner of her eye, Rose could see that Jack had stopped what he was doing and was regarding her with a scowl, jealous of the attention she was giving the baby. She badly wanted to tell Drew exactly what she thought of him, but that was going to have to wait.
‘Jack needs his supper,’ she told Drew, ‘and Molly will need something to eat, too. Did her grandmother give you food for her?’
‘I’ve got a whole car full of stuff.’
‘Why don’t you go and bring it in?’ she suggested, resigning herself to the inevitable. ‘We need to get both these children in bed, and then, Drew, we’re going to have to talk.’
CHAPTER THREE
BY THE time Drew had struggled in with the last of Molly’s stuff, the front half of the living room was crowded, but Jack’s supper was almost ready. Rose had made it largely one-handed, while inviting Jack to patronise Molly for being so small and helpless that she couldn’t do half the things that he could, like pick up his bricks. Showing off about that kept him occupied for a while, but she could tell that resentment at the attention Molly was getting wasn’t far off, and she was very glad when Drew had finished and she could hand his daughter back to him.
‘Here—you take her,’ she said.
Before Drew had a chance to protest, she had laid the baby in his arms. Molly stared up at him, and he stared back, suddenly overwhelmed. His daughter. Her eyes were the same colour as his. She had the same streak in her hair. His throat seemed to close with an emotion he couldn’t name, a mixture of terror and love.
And then Molly began to wail and the moment had passed.
‘Hold her against your shoulder and walk around with her,’ Rose told him. ‘Talk to her. She doesn’t know where she is or who we are or what’s going on. Try and comfort her.’
Gingerly, Drew did as he was told while Rose put Jack in his highchair and set his supper in front of him. She offered him a plastic spoon, as well, but without much hope that he would use it. Jack hated being fed but, while he would occasionally have a go with the spoon, generally he preferred to use his hands. He loved his food, but there was no denying that he was a messy eater. By the time he had finished, half his meal seemed to have ended up garnishing his hair or ears. It was never a pretty picture.
Rose was used to Jack’s eating habits, but she noticed that Drew averted his eyes. ‘Better get used to it,’ she told him. ‘I don’t suppose Molly’s table manners are much better! And, talking of which, we’d better find her something to eat…’
He wouldn’t have known where to begin, Drew realised, feeling horribly inadequate but profoundly grateful at the same time that Rose seemed to know what she was looking for as she dug through the pile of stuff the Clarkes had sent with Molly, emerging eventually with a bib, a jar of prepared food and a smaller version of Jack’s highchair.
‘OK, we’re in business.’ Rose carried the chair over to the table and set it next to Jack’s as she pretended to marvel at how much he had eaten. ‘Do you think you deserve some pudding now?’ she asked him, and Jack shouted an enthusiastic reply and banged his plate on the plastic tray.
Drew liked watching her with her little boy. She was so relaxed and natural with him. Would he ever be like that with Molly? he wondered, glancing down at his daughter. It was hard to imagine. All he had to do was hold her at the moment, and he felt much, much more tense just doing that than he had done when he had heard that rebel troops were closing in on the village. Insurgents he could deal with; an eight-month-old baby was a much more alarming proposition.
‘Shall we just get Molly settled first?’ Rose was still chatting to Jack, wanting him to feel pleasantly superior rather than resentful. ‘She’s just a baby. She’s not a big boy, like you, and she probably doesn’t know about puddings, does she?’ She glanced over her shoulder at Drew. ‘Do you want to put her in the chair?’
‘Um…Rose…’ Drew held Molly away from him with a grimace.
‘What is it?’
‘She…smells.’
Rose couldn’t help it. She started laughing at his expression. ‘I should have thought of that! Time for your first lesson: changing a nappy!’
Digging out the changing mat, she laid it on the kitchen floor and talked Drew through the whole process as she gave Jack his pudding and encouraged her son to condescend to Molly. She could have changed and fed the baby in half the time it was obviously going to take Drew to do it, but she would have to be careful