And watching her now, Miranda rather admired that.
‘I don’t care what people say about me,’ Juliet said, sitting up straighter in her chair. ‘I thought I would – thought I’d hate all the locals gossiping about me the way they always used to. That was one of the reasons I left, to get away from everybody knowing my business. But now . . . this is who I am. It’s my life. And I’ll live it wherever I choose, and however I want.’
‘I never thought you wouldn’t,’ Miranda said, smiling. ‘So, tell me. If you don’t want to marry Rory, what do you want?’
Juliet slumped down again. ‘That’s the problem. Beyond having this baby, I have absolutely no idea.’ She bit her lip as she looked up at Miranda. ‘So, are you?’
‘Am I what?’
‘Disappointed in me?’ She looked so worried. Miranda had never imagined that her opinion might actually matter to Juliet.
‘I thought you didn’t care what people said or thought about you?’
‘You’re not people,’ Juliet replied. ‘You’re family.’
That sent a warm and fuzzy feeling through Miranda as she considered her answer.
‘The way I see it,’ she said, slowly, thinking through everything her sister had told her. ‘Your sleazebag boss lied to you, took advantage of you, abandoned you, left you holding the literal baby, and forced you into a situation where you felt you had to give up your job and your home, too. And in response you found the strength to come home – even though you always said you wouldn’t – you decided to keep your baby, and to find a way to raise it yourself. You took over running the Lighthouse when Mum and Dad extended their trip, and you mended your friendship with Rory, as well as helping Leo out with the girls and looking after the damn llama. Through it all, you’ve been the grown-up, even if it hasn’t felt like it. Juliet, I’m not disappointed in you. I’m proud as all hell of the woman you are today.’
Tears welled up in Juliet’s eyes, and Miranda grabbed for the tissue box behind her.
‘Really?’
‘Of course.’ They’d never really been hugging siblings, but Miranda figured that if there was ever a time to start it was probably now. Perching on the chair beside her, she wrapped her arms around Juliet and hugged her. Tight. ‘You got screwed over, and you’re not letting it stop you.’
‘Like you and Paul.’ Juliet sniffed, and wiped her eyes. ‘He dumped you horribly, and you took up with a sexy musician who looks at you like you’re the only woman in the world.’
‘And who will be leaving soon. Again.’ Miranda sat back and sighed. ‘Paul tried to get us back together today. Said he could come home at weekends. He pointed out that there’s literally no one else on this island I’d want to marry and, well, he’s not wrong.’
Juliet stared at her in horror. ‘You said no, right?’
‘Of course I said no. But . . . it means deciding that I’m OK with being on my own here for the rest of my life. Which before I met Owain, I might have been. But now . . .’
‘You could always leave the island,’ Juliet said, eyebrows raised.
Miranda laughed, but it felt cold and dead in her throat. ‘Yeah. Anyway. We’re not talking about me tonight. We’re going to get Leo, and we’re going to have a family meeting.’
‘Without Mum and Dad?’ Juliet sounded horrified.
‘We’re adults now,’ Miranda pointed out. ‘And they’re not here. We can do this on our own.’
‘Do what, exactly?’
‘Help you figure out what’s next,’ Miranda said, firmly. ‘And then we’ll help you do it.’
Juliet threw her arms back round her neck and hugged her tight. ‘I take back all the awful things I ever said about big sisters. You get the kettle back on, and I’ll go get Leo.’
But before either of them could move, the back door flew open and Abby and Mia appeared.
‘We’re ready!’ Abby shouted, with far too much excitement. ‘Lucy’s getting married! Come and see her in her dress!’
Miranda and Juliet shared a look, then crossed to the kitchen door and looked out beyond the terrace, to where Lucy the Llama stood, all in white, with a circlet of oxeye daisies around her head.
They stared.
Then Miranda realised something, and horror rose up her throat.
‘Wait. Is that my wedding dress?’
LEO
Tom had long since hung up on him leaving Leo staring at his screen, wondering what he’d missed. He couldn’t even think about the call from the estate agents right now – not until he’d figured out where he’d screwed up at work. The one thing he was supposed to be good at. How could he fix anything else – his family, the Lighthouse – when he couldn’t even manage his business?
What had it been about that presentation that made Harry decide to go with someone else? When they’d worked so well together for so many years? He still hadn’t been able to get him on the phone, and the lack of answers was driving him crazy.
‘Are you seriously still up here?’ Leo looked up and found Christabel leaning against the doorframe.
He rubbed a hand across his forehead. ‘I thought Mia said you went home.’
‘I did. And then I came back again, to see if you’d wised up yet. Apparently not.’
‘Look, I appreciate your help with the girls and everything over the last few weeks. But I have an actual job to do, you know, and sometimes that requires working during office hours, not taking bike rides and picnics.’ He knew he was taking his frustration out on her, knew it wasn’t fair, but that didn’t seem to be stopping him doing it.
‘Actual office hours like seven o’clock on a Friday night?’ Christabel asked mildly.
He blinked at the clock on the corner of his screen. No wonder Tom had hung up. ‘When did it get so late?’
‘Around the time you were obsessing about whatever it was I’m assuming you couldn’t fix?’ She leaned against the edge of his desk, and pushed his laptop screen closed. ‘Tell me honestly, have you achieved anything since I left you that has actually made a tangible difference to your business?’
Leo thought about it. ‘I’ve properly pissed off my assistant, if that counts?’
Everything else had just been noise. He had been playing the blame game, trying to make himself feel better about something he couldn’t change. To try and make up for not being there this summer.
He should probably send Tom flowers. Or whisky.
‘Well done you.’ The sarcasm was strong in her voice. ‘God, I don’t even know why I came back. I’d like to pretend that it was just to make sure the girls hadn’t starved, but it wasn’t. I came because I wanted to believe that this summer had made a difference to you. That I had made a difference to you. Pathetic, huh?’
Leo’s eyes widened. Had he ever heard Christabel talk herself down before? God, how much of a let-down must he be if he’d knocked even her unshakeable confidence?
‘You made a huge difference this summer.’ He pushed away from his desk, rolling the chair backwards, and got to his feet, crossing the room to her. ‘You think I’ve made a mess of things now? I guarantee you it would have been a hundred times worse if you hadn’t been here, steering me in the right direction.’
Every time he’d screwed up, or felt lost, or out of control, or just overwhelmed by it all, Christabel had been there to ask him the questions that guided him back to his path. As long as he’d been listening.
Today, he’d closed his ears.
‘Normally it’s easier than this,’ she admitted, her voice smaller than he was used to hearing. In the dim light of his father’s study, he felt like he was finally seeing underneath the positive exterior Christabel showed the world every day. He’d spent so much time with this woman – kissed her, made love to her, laughed with her, shared his feelings with her – and yet it felt like this was the first time he was seeing all
of her.
That shook him.
‘Easier, how?’ He perched on the desk beside her, reaching tentatively for her hand. He was used to touching her now, but this wasn’t the Christabel he was used to, and suddenly he felt like he needed to be more careful.
‘Normally, I see it as a kind of a challenge. Like a mutually beneficial experiment. I find someone I like, we flirt, we have fun, and I help them find what they’re really looking for in life. And I know it’s never going to be me and that’s fine, because that’s the deal. There’s always a time limit. I get to feel good for helping them, for putting some positivity out in the world. Plus we have fun together. Then, when it’s time, we each move on towards what we really want. But you . . .’ she shook her head ruefully. ‘You are a much harder nut to crack. Our time is nearly up, and I’m no more confident about your path than I was when we met.’
Leo nudged her with his shoulder. ‘I might just be a hopeless case, you realise.’
‘I don’t believe that,’ she replied, fiercely. ‘I’ve always found that the most worthwhile things are the ones that take the most work – as long as you’re working for something you believe in.’
‘And you believe in me?’ Leo asked, surprised.
‘I’d like to. I’d like to believe that you love your daughters more than your job. That your family, your life, matters to you at least as much as your business does. I hope you’re just still scared and trying to find the right balance. I just don’t know what else I can do to help you.’
‘I’d like to believe all that too,’ Leo said, slowly, thinking about the girls, and the call from the estate agent. He needed to talk to his sisters. But first he needed to fix things with his daughters. Again. ‘I want to be the man you hope I can be, the dad my daughters need – even the brother that Miranda and Juliet deserve. But I think that becoming that person might be a longer path than you’d like. I might not be a quick fix, but I hope to keep getting closer to where I’m going, every day. And it’s not up to you to hold my hand and get me there. It’s up to me to keep working for it.’
She smiled at that. ‘Well, working is the one thing we know you’re good at.’
‘The only thing?’ he asked.
‘Maybe not the only thing.’ Reaching up, she kissed him, slow and sweet. ‘Come on. I don’t know what your daughters are up to down there, but I heard some shouting about a wedding dress on my way up here, so I suspect we’d better get down there pronto.’
‘Wedding dress?’ Leo asked, as they hurried down the stairs. ‘I know the girls mentioned something about a . . . a llama wedding, I think?’
‘That’s right,’ Juliet said, meeting them in the hallway, visibly biting the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. ‘I think they’re marrying Lucy off to the old rocking horse from the sunroom. And they’ve dressed Lucy in the wedding dress Miranda bought to marry Paul . . .’
Leo’s eyes widened. ‘Shit. I’d better go save them from the wrath of Randa.’
Juliet laughed. ‘Actually, it’s OK. She said it was a sign she really wasn’t meant to marry Paul. Then she fetched them the veil to go with it.’
‘Wow.’ That did not sound like the Miranda he remembered, growing up.
‘I think it helped that Paul was a total arse to her today,’ Juliet added. Then her face grew more sombre. ‘Um, they’re waiting for us outside for the wedding ceremony – I was told it was my turn to get yelled at by you. And then afterwards . . . Miranda wants a family meeting.’
‘Without Mum and Dad?’
‘Yep.’ That was weird, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a good idea – one he should have had. Maybe he would have, if he hadn’t been distracted by his work disaster. They all needed to talk about the sale of the Lighthouse, after all.
‘Well . . . good.’ Then he frowned. Miranda didn’t know about the phone call from the estate agent. So why was she calling a meeting? ‘Wait. What’s the meeting about?’ He didn’t like this. This had the feeling of a disaster.
‘Oh, nothing much.’ Juliet turned and started to walk outside. ‘Just the fact I’m pregnant and unemployed. We’ll talk about it later.’
Leo stared after her, then turned to Christabel. ‘Did she say—’
Christabel patted his arm. ‘That you’ll talk about it later. Llama wedding first.’
The wedding went off without a hitch. Well, apart from Lucy trying to eat the veil, Juliet actually crying as Abby asked Lucy if she’d take Rocking Horse to be her husband, Misty the cat bridesmaid screeching and racing away the moment Abby tried to put a flower crown on her head, and Mia pointing out that Rocking Horse was a girl, so they’d be wives. Leo was pointedly not asked to give either of the brides away, and when, after the wedding breakfast of chocolate biscuits – brought by Christabel to make up for the ones they’d eaten earlier in the week – and glasses of milk, Leo suggested it was bedtime, Mia dragged Abby straight up the stairs declaring they didn’t need tucking in tonight.
‘I’ll go,’ Christabel whispered to him, as they disappeared up the stairs. ‘I’ll make sure they’re settled, then let myself out. You get on with your family meeting.’
But Leo shook his head. ‘No. I need to make up with them both. Their mother always says, “never go to bed angry”. That might have been our problem, actually. I’d work so late that there was never time to make up. I can’t make that mistake with my daughters.’
The smile Christabel gave him told him he’d got something right, at last.
Taking the stairs two at a time, he made it up to the top floor and found the girls brushing their teeth. Hanging back by the banister, he waited, knowing they hadn’t heard him.
‘Don’t worry, Abs,’ Mia said, around her toothbrush. ‘Mum’ll be back soon. And Dad can go back to just seeing us every other weekend, like normal.’
The words hit his heart like needles. Was that what they wanted? Well, why wouldn’t they? Christabel had set him a challenge at the start of the summer; to be a father that his daughters could rely on to always listen, to be there when they needed him.
And he’d tried, he really had. But it wasn’t enough.
He wasn’t enough.
And maybe another day, another summer, he’d have decided that it was time to stop trying. To accept that there was nothing more he could do here, like he should have done hours earlier with the lost client.
He might have given up and accepted that he’d never be the father he wanted to be so he might as well focus on being the businessman he wanted to be instead.
But not this summer. He’d tasted how good it could feel when he got it right, and he knew now that he’d keep striving for that feeling, even if it took him a lifetime. Parenthood wasn’t something he’d win crystal awards for, that he could line up on the shelf in his office. In fact, he was pretty sure he’d keep getting it wrong more often than he got it right.
But maybe all his girls needed to know was that he’d keep trying. That he was in this for ever, for them. And that even when he screwed up he was still trying his best.
As the girls finished up on the bathroom, he clunked loudly up the last few steps, making them both turn towards him.
‘How about I tuck you both in, huh?’
Mia shrugged, as if to say she didn’t care, but Leo persisted.
‘I’m sorry about today,’ he said, as he tucked the duvet around her. ‘I made you a promise and I broke it. I shouldn’t have.’
Mia stared at him for a moment, as if she were trying to find a hidden message in his words. Then, apparently convinced his apology was genuine, she burst out, ‘You didn’t even tell us what the problem was. We might have been able to help. But at least we would have understood what was going on. I’m not a baby any more you know. You can talk to me.’
‘You’re right. I should have explained. I’m sorry about that too. Next time, I’ll talk to yo
u about what’s going on.’ Which might mean talking to her about the Lighthouse being sold, sooner rather than later – something he really didn’t relish.
She nodded. ‘Then we can see When had his little girl grown up so much? And how did she already understand people and relationships so much better than he did? Probably from paying attention to her mother, he supposed. And Christabel, this summer.
Perhaps it was just his generation of the family that were totally screwed in that area.
Moving to the other bed, he tucked Abby in too, and pressed a kiss to her forehead.
‘Goodnight, sweetheart. I’m so sorry I shouted at you.’
‘Sorry means you won’t do it again,’ Abby told him. ‘So that’s OK.’
‘It definitely means I’ll try.’ Leo knew his own limits.
‘Did you enjoy the wedding, Daddy?’ she whispered, her eyes already starting to close.
‘I thought it was wonderful.’ The lump in his throat hurt when he spoke, but Abby seemed happy, all the same. ‘I was so happy to be there with you both. In fact, spending this summer with the pair of you has been the best thing I’ve done in years. I’m sorry if I let you doubt that today.’
Switching off the last lamp, Leo headed downstairs to find out what was going on with his sisters, hoping it was an easier fix than his relationship with his daughters.
‘Goodnight, Daddy,’ they chorused behind him, and Leo smiled.
MESSAGES
Juliet (to the ’Rents group): Hi Guys! Hope you’re still having lots of fun on your travels. Um . . . I have some news for you both, but I’d rather tell you in person than by text. Do you know yet when you’ll be home?
(Unread)
JULIET
Family meetings had always had a structure, a tradition about them – and it seemed that Miranda intended to follow it to the letter. Already, she’d lit the candles on the proper dining table – the kitchen table wasn’t formal enough for a full-on family meeting – and set out the crystal whisky tumblers. Juliet’s had sparkling water in it, but still, it was the thought that counted.
Summer on Seashell Island: Escape to an island this summer for the perfect heartwarming romance in 2020 (Riley Wolfe 1) Page 26
