Housekeeper's Happy-Ever-After

by Fiona Harper

  Ellie spun onto her knees and looked through the letterbox. He looked so forlorn, so utterly crushed, she could hardly speak. ‘I do love you,’ she said, in a croaky whisper. He looked round, and her stomach went cold as she saw the sadness in his eyes.

  He tried a small smile on for size. ‘Good. Come home with me, then.’

  Her fingers got tired holding the brass letterbox open and she let it snap shut. Carefully, because she was feeling a bit wobbly, she pulled herself to her feet. He stood too, and leaned against the door, trying to see her through the multi-coloured glass. Ellie raised her fingers to the clear green diamond of glass where she could see his left eye. It reminded her of the colour of the sunset flash. Of true love. Of coming home.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mark. It’s just…I just needed to be somewhere that reminded me of Chloe.’

  The green eye staring at her through the glass blinked. She knew what he was thinking. He thought she’d come here to remember Sam too. But while she had unearthed forgotten memories of both the people she’d lost, it didn’t make the slightest impact on what she felt for Mark.

  ‘I love you, Mark. And as soon as we work out a way to get this door open I’m coming back home. I promise.’

  He nodded again, but she could tell he only half believed her. Another wave of emotion hit her and she began to cry again. What was wrong with her today? ‘I don’t know why I’m doing this,’ she said, half-sobbing, half-laughing. ‘I can’t seem to get a grip…’

  ‘Perhaps it’s the hormones?’

  Hormones?

  She jumped as the brass flap of the letterbox creaked open again. Something plastic rattled through and clattered onto the floor. Her pregnancy test! She’d left it in the sink. So much for a cool, calm testing of the water on that subject.

  ‘When were you going to tell me?’ he asked, his voice going cold. ‘I didn’t expect to find out I’m going to be a father from a plastic stick. You could have called me at the very least.’

  ‘I was going to tell you, but then I…I forgot Chloe’s name. And that just freaked me out. I was scared. What if I forget her altogether when this new baby comes along? I couldn’t live with myself. You do understand, don’t you?’

  She heard him grumble something under his breath. The heavy crunch of his feet on the gravel got quieter.

  ‘Mark!’ Ellie ran to the door and pressed her nose against the glass.

  No answer. She’d finally scared him away with the ghosts from her past. Her unfinished business had caught up with her.

  ‘Mark!’ She sounded far too desperate, but she didn’t care.

  She dropped the test and flung her full weight against the door. Unimpressed, it hardly rattled. She banged it with her fists, hoping to catch Mark’s attention. She needed to tell him how stupid she’d been, that she thought he’d be a wonderful father.

  ‘Mark!’ Hoarse shouts were punctuated by sobs as she continued to bang on the door.

  She stopped.

  No faint crunch on the gravel. No hint of a shadow moving up the path. She used the door for support as she slumped against it, exhausted. He couldn’t leave now, could he?

  She managed one last hollow plea, so quiet he couldn’t possibly hear it. ‘Don’t go.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

  She spun round to find him striding towards her down the hallway.

  ‘How did you—?’

  He nodded towards the back door, not slowing until he crushed her close to him. His lips kissed her wet eyelids, her nose, her cheeks, and came to linger on her mouth. She might be confused about many things, but here in his arms everything seemed to make sense. When she finally dragged herself away, she looked into his face. All the passion, tenderness and love she had ever hoped to see there were glistening in his eyes.

  ‘Ellie, there is room in that massive heart of yours for all of us. Easily.’ He stroked the side of her face. ‘Just because we’re going to make new memories together—the three of us—it doesn’t mean you have to erase the old ones.’

  He dipped his hand into his pocket and pulled something out of it. It was only as she felt cold metal round her neck that she realised he had brought her locket with him, and that he was fastening it at her nape, underneath her hair.

  Her lip quivered. ‘But what if I do forget? My brain’s not reliable all the time, is it?’

  He looked at her with fierce tenderness. ‘You won’t forget. I won’t let you. If you lose a name or a date I’ll remember it for you. We’re in this together, Ellie. You and me. And I want all of you. We have the future, but your past has made you who you are now, and that’s the woman I love.’

  She raised both hands and stroked the sides of his face, looking just as fiercely back at him. ‘Oh, I love you too,’ she whispered, and pressed her trembling lips to his.

  She had one thing left to ask. Just because she needed to be one hundred percent certain. ‘You do want children?’

  Waiting for his reaction, she swallowed, trying to ease the thickening in her throat.

  His hands moved from her back to splay over her still-flat stomach. She laughed. He looked as if he was expecting evidence there and then. He was just going to have to be patient.

  ‘I want it all. I want our baby. I want to change nappies and clean up sick and crawl around on the floor with him. I want to give him brothers and sisters and teach the whole lot of them to play cricket. I want to help our children with their homework, teach them how to drive, give our daughters away at the altar. And I want to do it all with you by my side. Will you do that with me, Ellie? Do you want that too?’

  Ellie threw back her head and laughed with joy. Mark always had made everything seem so simple. She was the one who made it all so complicated. She kissed him with a fervour that surprised them both.

  Then, for the second time that month, she said, ‘I do.’

  EPILOGUE

  ELLIE crept across the carpet in her bare feet and peered into the empty cot.

  ‘Shh!’ A low voice came from a dim corner of the room. ‘I’ve just got him off to sleep.’ Mark was pacing up and down, their two-week-old son cradled against his shoulder.

  Baby Miles was sleeping the boneless sleep that newborns did so well. His mouth hung open and his brow was tensed into a frown. Mark and Ellie smiled at each other.

  ‘The trick to putting him into bed is to treat him like a stick of dynamite,’ he said, sounding like a total expert already as he lowered the infant into the cot with precision. ‘One false move and—’

  ‘The explosion is just as noisy and twice as devastating. I know. You’ve made that joke a hundred times in the last fortnight, and unfortunately I haven’t forgotten a single occasion.’

  Mark grinned at her, then went back to what he’d been doing. He eased his hand from under his son’s head. They both froze as the little tyrant stirred and made a squeaky grunt. Mark’s mask of stern concentration melted.

  ‘I love it when he makes those noises,’ he said, reaching for Ellie’s hand and leading her from the room. She lifted their joined hands to look at her watch.

  ‘Midnight! Just the right time for a chocolate feast,’ she explained, and pulled him towards the kitchen. She delved into the fridge and pulled out a large bar of her favourite chocolate.

  He turned the radio on low, and they ate chocolate and chatted until they were both doing more yawning than munching.

  Ellie cocked her head. ‘Listen, Mark.’ He turned the radio up a notch. It sounded deafening in the quiet kitchen. They both looked at the ceiling and waited. When they were sure it was safe to make a noise, she added, ‘They’re playing our song.’

  He started to hum along to Kat’s latest single, ‘All My Tomorrows’. It had been number one for three weeks already. The music-buying public couldn’t seem to get enough of the simple love song, performed with just the expressive huskiness of Kat’s voice and her acoustic guitar.

  Ellie smiled and remembered the first time she’d heard it. She coul
d almost feel the warmth of the Carribbean dawn on her skin and smell the hibiscus blossoms. Mark joined in the second chorus. She stood up and ruffled his hair before sitting on his lap. ‘Don’t give up your day job, sweetie. Kat might have you up on murder charges for doing that to her song.’

  Mark pulled a face and Ellie hummed along with the music.

  Treasure my heart and keep it safe, and I’ll spend all my tomorrows loving you.

  Ellie wagged a finger at him. ‘Better do as the lady says, Mark.’

  ‘Always,’ he said, as he leaned in and stole a kiss.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-5223-7

  HOUSEKEEPER’S HAPPY-EVER-AFTER

  First North American Publication 2010

  Copyright © 2010 by Fiona Harper

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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