‘I don’t know,’ she said, peeling her back from the door. ‘But apparently my mother has been trying to contact me. There’s no mobile signal and the Internet has been playing up so I’m going to the hotel to call her back.’
‘Don’t overreact,’ he advised. ‘It might be nothing.’
She rounded on him, eyes blazing. ‘Of course it’s something. Don’t patronise me.’
‘Emily Rose?’
Icily composed now, she nodded. ‘Probably.’ Her daughter needed her, and she’d been... She pressed a hand to her stomach as self-loathing made the muscles tighten and she pushed through a wave of nausea.
Ben reached for his shirt, his eyes on her paper-pale face as he dressed. ‘I’ll come with you.’
Lily’s chin had dropped on her chest but came up sharply now as she blurted forcefully, ‘No!’
The rejection hit him at a level he didn’t analyse, but there was pain involved. ‘You can’t be alone—’
‘I’ve been alone for three years.’
Ben flinched.
‘I need to do this alone.’
There was a pause before he tilted his head in acknowledgement. ‘I’ll be here if you need me.’
‘Thanks, but it’s probably nothing,’ she said, her laugh brittle. ‘Mum’s probably lost her favourite toy and she won’t go to sleep without it.’
‘You’re probably right, but I’ll hang around until you get back, if that’s all right?’
‘There’s really no need.’
‘There’s really no need for you to do this alone,’ he countered.
She lifted her chin. ‘It’s what I do.’
Ben watched as she joined the suited figure waiting on the path. He stayed there until they were swallowed up by shadows.
Frustration gnawed at him as he began to pace the room. The calm detachment with which he tackled difficult moments eluded him. Her rejection of his assistance had got to him more than he was prepared to admit. Was she trying to prove a point...to herself...to him? He had no idea; he just wished she’d not chosen this moment to do it.
As the minutes ticked by he kept seeing her scared face, feeling the same rush of unaccustomed protectiveness that had taken him totally unawares...and her efforts to put a brave face on it when she was clearly terrified... What if it turned out she had reason to be?
Ben managed to contain his frustration for five minutes before he followed her. She didn’t want his help? Too bad, she had it.
He stopped short of actually entering the building, contenting himself with waiting outside. He had worn a path in the greenery by the time she appeared.
He raised a hand and after a short pause Lily walked across to him.
Her face, pale and strained, said it all.
‘I need to get back to England.’
‘Is it...?’
‘Emmy has been admitted to hospital.’
‘What happened? Did she fall? Is there anything broken?’
‘No. She’s ill. I don’t know what with. She’s ill and I need to get home, that’s all I know. But it’s a bank holiday or something and there isn’t a spare seat on any flight until Monday.’ Hearing the husky tremor in her voice, she swallowed and lifted her chin. ‘You came in a private plane?’
She saw the anger flare in his eyes and misinterpreted it.
‘I wouldn’t ask but...’
She was asking, that was the point. She was acting as though he needed to be asked. As though he needed to be persuaded to help when his daughter was ill.
He reached into his trouser pocket, pulled out his phone and began to punch in numbers. He lifted a finger, said, ‘Give me a minute,’ and turned away.
Lily watched as he walked a few yards away and then began to pace back and forth as he spoke into his phone. The conversation did not last long before he slid it back into his pocket and joined her.
‘I’ll pick you up in an hour. Tell your mother we should be there by breakfast.’
She expelled a deep sigh of relief. ‘That’s...’ She moved forward to embrace him, but something in his expression stopped her.
‘You don’t need to thank me or be grateful, Lily. She’s my daughter too.’
Aware she had offended him but too preoccupied to figure out how or why, she nodded and said, ‘An hour?’
The vagueness in her voice brought his searching scrutiny to her face. What he saw there made him catch hold of her hands and pull her around to face him. He didn’t have to be an expert to recognise shock when he saw it.
‘You need to... Lily...!’ The sound of her name drew Lily’s green, oddly flat stare up to his. Through his hold on her narrow, delicate wrists, he could feel the tremors that were striking intermittently through her body. Ben took a deep breath and spoke slowly. ‘You need to pack and...’ He stopped. Two things were obvious: she was not listening, or at least not hearing him, and he was way out of his depth. Being excluded was bad but this... This, he decided, was way worse.
Lily looked at him and thought, Why is he telling me this? Does he think I’m stupid or something?
‘It’s fine. I’ll sort it.’
He led her back to the bungalow, emptied a miniature of brandy from the bar into a glass, stood over her while she swallowed the contents with a grimace and then she set about packing.
* * *
When he returned Lily looked pale, her big eyes haunted, but she no longer looked as though she were sleepwalking.
‘I’m all packed,’ she said, nodding to the cases by the door.
‘Your mum is expecting us?’
She nodded and stood up as he hefted her bags. As he approached the door with one under each arm she hurried to open it for him. ‘The hotel rang her back for me. I should never have left Emmy with her.’
‘Are you going to beat yourself up all the way? Just a question—it’s fine, feel free.’ He gestured towards his pocket. ‘I brought my earphones just in case.’
The twitch of her lips almost constituted a smile. ‘How long will it take...to get back?’
‘It will seem a lot longer if you clock watch.’
She nodded, then clamped a hand to her mouth, covering a strangled sob. ‘Sorry.’
The sound made something he chose not to name twist in his chest. ‘You don’t have to be sorry.’ Ben felt a stab of shame that he had ever privately compared her maternal instincts with Signe’s. ‘I don’t know, but from what people say kids can be ill one minute and bouncing around the next.’
Lily nodded.
A firm believer in straight talking, Ben was beginning to appreciate that there were times when it wasn’t appropriate. ‘But I suppose the medical establishment quite rightly tend to err on the side of caution when it comes to kids...’
She seized eagerly on his observation, nodding as she said, ‘That’s true. Mum only took Emmy to the doctor’s because she just seemed a little off colour...and he said just to be on the safe side...so it’s probably nothing, but I need to get back to her.’
The catch in her voice made the knot of unaccustomed emotion in his throat tighten. ‘You