* * *
He made up the little crib he’d used for Matilda, put flowers in his sitting room to welcome her home, and went back with the car seat from her pram to find her ready to go.
‘Here—have a cuddle while I put my cardi on,’ she said, and he put the baby seat down on the bed and took Zach from her, settling him easily in the crook of an elbow and staring down at him with an odd sensation in his chest.
‘Hello, little guy,’ he murmured, his finger tracing the line of his tiny nose while that annoying lump reappeared in his throat. ‘Gosh, you’re like your daddy.’
‘That’s what his parents said. I sent them a photo. I’m so pleased for them that they haven’t lost all of him.’
And neither had Em. He swallowed the lump again and put his feelings back where they belonged, deep below the surface.
‘Come on, then. Time to go home,’ he said, clipping the baby into the seat, but his words echoed in the quiet room and he had to remind himself that, for them at least, his house wasn’t home, and he’d do well to remember it.
The following April...
THERE WAS A tap on the door of the consulting room and it opened a crack.
‘Mr Stratton? I’m sorry to interrupt but Mr Walker’s in the Park Café and he needs you there straight away.’
Jake opened the door and frowned at the receptionist.
‘So why do I need to go? I’m in the middle of an antenatal clinic—’
She beckoned him out of the room and lowered her voice. ‘He’s with your little girl. Her mother’s disappeared.’
‘Disappeared?’
She shrugged. ‘That’s what he said.’
‘Right. Can you find my registrar, please, and ask her to take over? I need to sort this out. And tell him I’m on my way.’
His mind whirling, he apologised hastily to his patient and sprinted down the corridor to the café. He couldn’t see anything at first, but he could hear Matilda crying hysterically, and he pushed his way through a crowd of onlookers and found Ben crouched down trying to soothe her in the buggy.
‘It’s OK, Tilly, I’m here,’ he said. ‘It’s all right, darling, you’re OK. Come to Daddy.’ He undid the straps and scooped her up into his arms, her little body racked with sobs as he sat down on the nearest chair and rocked her against his shoulder.
‘Dad-dy,’ she hiccupped, burrowing into his shoulder, and he rocked and hushed her while he tried to make sense of it.
Ben sat down beside him, and he looked at him in confusion. ‘I don’t understand. Where’s Jo, and why is Matilda even here?’
‘I don’t know,’ Ben said softly. ‘Jo said she recognised my name from my badge. She told me who she was, said she’d forgotten to put a ticket on the car and could I watch Matilda for a minute, and she hasn’t come back.’
‘When was that?’ he asked, but Ben just shrugged.
‘Fifteen minutes ago? She kissed her goodbye which I didn’t really think anything of, but she looked a bit upset for some reason and when she didn’t come back I started to wonder, and then I noticed this sticking out of the buggy so I rang the clinic.’
Ben was holding out an envelope and he stared at it blankly. ‘What is it?’
‘I have no idea. It’s addressed to you.’
He took it, pulled out a folded sheet of paper, flicked it open and scanned the words in disbelief, then read it again, just to be sure.
I’m sorry to do this to you, but I can’t look after Matilda any more. It’s not that I don’t love her, I do, and I’m sorry it didn’t work between us, but I’ve met someone I really want to be with, and we’re going travelling. I’ve always wanted to do that, and I know it seems selfish, but I have to do this for me, and I know she’ll be better off with you than she would with me.
She loves you to bits, and I know how much you love her, and you can give her a better life than I’ll ever be able to. I’d like to keep in touch with her and see her when I can, but please don’t try and contact me to talk me out of it. I know you would, that’s why I couldn’t tell you to your face, but I know this is the right thing for everyone, and I’m really sorry about all the money.
Love her for me.
J
Nothing else, except a key in the envelope. Ben held it out silently, and he frowned. The key to her house? Of course. With all Tilly’s stuff in it. No doubt she’d left already—and what was that about all the money? All what money?
‘This is crazy. She can’t just walk out on Matilda. I’ll call her.’ He pulled out his phone, rang her number and got no answer. Great. He looked back at Ben.
‘I can’t get her. She’s not picking up.’
‘Do you want me to call Security in case something’s happened to her?’ Ben asked, but Jake shook his head, realising the futility of it as it started to sink in.
‘No point. She’s gone, Ben. She’s left us.’ He pressed a kiss to his daughter’s tangled, sweaty hair, his love for her overwhelming him. ‘It’s just you and me, Tils,’ he murmured, ‘but that’s OK, I’ll look after you. Daddy loves you. We’ll be OK.’ He kissed her again, and she burrowed tighter into him, her little legs tucked up against his side, arms tight around his neck.
‘You need to go home,’ Ben said softly.
‘How? I’m in the middle of a clinic, and it’s only Monday. What about the rest of the week? I can’t just walk out.’
‘Don’t worry about work, someone’ll do your clinic today and we’ll sort the rota out. Your daughter needs to come first. And I’ll get Security to locate and copy all the CCTV images of Jo from the time she arrived to the time she left. Just in case you need them for any reason in the future.’
He nodded, the implications of Jo’s actions beginning to sink in as anger took the place of shock. If she loved Matilda, as she’d said she did, then how could she just dump her like that, without talking to him first?
Because she knew he would have tried to talk her out of it. She’d been right about that. Right about him taking care of her, too, but how? How could he? He had a full-time job, with irregular hours and huge responsibilities. He couldn’t just drop everything. It wasn’t fair on his colleagues or his patients. And in any case, he had a mortgage to pay—assuming she hadn’t totally emptied his bank accounts and put him into overdraft right at the beginning of the month. Was that what she’d meant? Panic swamped him for a moment, but he fought it down.
At least Matilda was all right, but what if she hadn’t been? Jo had only left her with Ben because she’d recognised his name. If he hadn’t been there, would she still have left her? Anything could have happened to her. Someone could have taken her—
He felt a wave of nausea and swallowed hard. ‘Thank God you were here, Ben, but what if you hadn’t been? What if someone had taken her?’ he said, but Ben just shook his head.
‘Don’t go there, Jake. Just take her home,’ he said softly, so Jake took the key from him and put it on his keyring, then made a quick detour to pick up his things from his office before heading off to sort out the chaos his life had just become.
* * *
The