Lee nodded and took hold of James's hand and whispered: “Don't leave me, James, please.”
“I'm not going anywhere Lee. You're doing brilliantly. It's all going to be all right. It's all going to be all right…”
And it was.
Chapter 23
It was 6:03pm when James sent a text to his mum and Lee’s mum and then, after careful thought, to their brothers and sisters and Gina. Baby born at 4:02 this afternoon. Lee and baby doing fantastically.6lb2oz :). He hit send and took a deep breath, excited to go back in and see his daughter again. However, before he re-entered, his phone buzzed manically and when he opened it up he had a text from almost everyone he’d messaged asking the question that he'd obviously forgotten to answer: boy or girl? He grinned and replied - a beautiful little girl. Gina responded first to that one first. Congratulations! I'll be there in 15 minutes with Lee’s stuff. She doesn't have to see me, but I want to make sure she has it for the overnight stay!
Thank you Gina, James texted back, before heading back in. He was greeted by the sight of the amazing woman who had given him this beautiful daughter, lying together in the hospital bed, looking radiant. Exhausted, but just perfect.
“She should have a Christmassy name,” Lee said, stroking a dark curl off her baby’s forehead.
“It’s nearly Halloween, Lee!” James said in hushed tones.
“I know, I know, but we met at Christmas time, and we got together properly on Christmas day, and I feel like she should have a Christmas name. Like… Ivy?”
James considered it for a moment. “Or Holly?”
“Holly… Holly. I like it. Definitely a Christmas name, and nothing crazily old fashioned like mine or my sister’s.” She kissed the sleeping baby on the forehead.
“Hello, Holly.”
“Holly… Davis?” James asked, his voice a little louder than a whisper. It was a question that somehow had not come up - and yet here they were, with a baby with a first name but a choice of two surnames.
“Holly Knight,” Lee said, after a moment or two of silence. “I think Holly Knight. It’s a shame, that I don’t have the same surname as her, but I think-”
“What if you did?” James asked, and it took Lee’s sleep-deprived brain a few seconds to catch up. “What if all three of us were Knights?”
“James, I-” She didn’t know what she planned to say, only that her head was too muddled for anything less than a direct question - but she was interrupted by James kneeling on the hospital floor next to the white hospital bed where she lay.
“Lee Davis - you are the love of my life. I never thought I would be so lucky as to meet someone as fantastic, as clever, as funny as you are - and now you’ve made my life complete with the most precious daughter. Lee - will you marry me?”
And there was a ring, and there were tears from both parties - although, thankfully not from Holly just yet. What Lee had taken to be a spur of the moment decision had clearly been planned some time in advance; the ring was evidence of that.
Marriage had been something Lee had aspired to when she was dating Nathan. Marriage had been something that had defined her, and something that had nearly destroyed her. Nearly a year ago, she had considered swearing off marriage forever; denouncing it as something that could never succeed. And yet now… Now, when she looked into the eyes of a man who loved her, a man who she truly believed would always be there for her and for their daughter no matter what, the idea of that commitment didn’t seem so terrifying anymore. She would do things differently this time.
“I need us to make a promise, first,” she said, wiping tears from her eyes that she hadn’t even realised had started.
“Anything,” James insisted. Lee smiled.
“I want us both to promise that we will always make time for each other. Every day, no matter what else is going on in our lives, we will find some time for one another. I don’t want to make the same mistakes again.”
“I promise, Lee. I swear to you I won’t let my job take over - I’ll find time every single day for you, and for Holly.”
“I promise too. And yes, James. Yes, I will marry you.”
Chapter 24
Epilogue
“Come on, nearly there,” Lee said, feeling a touch out of breath herself. The climb had been steep, and even though she was used to chasing a three-year-old around, she could still use a little more cardio exercise to get into shape. James was lagging behind, but Lee knew full well that was because Holly was dawdling, and there wasn’t much in the world that James wouldn’t give in to when it came to his daughter. So the two of them were a little way behind Lee, despite the fact that she knew James’ job kept her far fitter than she was.
“Coming mummy!” Holly answered, speeding up a little with her short little steps. Her blond hair felt in wisps around her face and the purple headband kept it from flying in her face - which it regularly did. James laughed and swept Holly off her feet, carrying her with one arm around her waist as if it was no effort at all - even though Lee knew from experience that Holly was not that easy to lift these days.
“Come on monster, we can beat mummy!” Lee laughed as James strode up the hill, giggling daughter under one arm, easily overtaking Lee and plumping Holly down on the ground at the foot of the castle.
“We won, we won, we won!” Holly repeated, running round in circles before flopping on the floor, her puppy-like burst of energy gone - for the moment.
“We made it,” Lee said, taking one of her daughter’s hands as James took the other. “One… two… three… wheeee!” They swung her forwards, delighting in her shrieks and giggles, and forgetting as they always did that this game always ended with her demanding ‘more!’ over and over again.
“Let’s see the view,” James said, distracting her for a little while. Before Lee could protest, he swung Holly up so she could stand on the ancient wall of the castle, and look down at the town sprawled beneath them. At least his arm was tightly around her waist, she told herself - although it didn’t stop her keeping hold of the little girl’s hand too, just in case.
“Wow.” They family of three stood in silence for a few minutes, looking out over the sun-kissed town that they called home. This little walk had been James’ idea; he’d been up there several times as a kid, but it was somewhere he’d never taken Lee until now. The vantage point made the town look almost like a toy - little buildings, people, trees, so tiny that you could imagine they could be picked up and moved wherever you liked.
“There’s mummy’s cafe,” James said, pointing out roughly where it would be at the bottom of the high street. “And there’s daddy’s police car!”
“That’s not yours!” Lee said with a laugh. “Yours is at the station.”
“Oh, okay, a car like daddy’s police car. And our home is up there, behind those trees.”
“Where does Aunty Beth live?” Holly asked, and she followed the direction of James’ pointing finger carefully with her eyes. Beth had certainly become a firm favourite with her only niece.
“Name three things you love about living here,” Lee said, shielding her eyes from the sun as she looked at her husband. “Go.”
“The people,” he said, without a thought. “The landscapes… And the laid back attitudes.” He grinned, lifting Holly carefully down from the wall, before placing a kiss on Lee’s lips. “But first and foremost, it’s got to be the people living here.”
“Agreed,” Lee said. “It’s what made me fall in love with Totnes in the first place!”
1
Feeling the Fireworks
© Rebecca Paulinyi 2020
Chapter 1
It was the same old routine, the same old commute, the same luke-warm coffee that Elizabeth Davis had every morning. She tried not to contemplate how little had changed in her life over the last few years, but sometimes - like today, when she was stuck in traffic trying to get into the centre of Exeter, having left a little too late (as usual) - it was hard to not let her mind wande
r.
She had once thought she was the daredevil of the family: the one who would stay up all night drinking at a moment’s notice; the one who went through jobs and men at a rate of knots; the one who didn’t feel the need to have her life mapped out in front of her.
And then she found herself stuck in a rut. Keeping the same job, because even though it was going nowhere, she had rent and bills to pay - and was sick of having to run to her mum or her sister for a bailout. Feeling too tired for those all night drinking sessions, because the early starts took their toll. Well, that and the fact that, at twenty-eight, most of her friends were no longer in the let’s-do-tequila-shots-till-4am phase of their lives. No, they had steady boyfriends (something Beth had little experience of), or husbands, or children, or even mortgages.
“Get over onto your side!” she screamed at a lorry that had swerved far too close to her lane for comfort - but the distraction did at least stop her mulling over her life - for a few moments, at least. She waved at the security guard as she parked in the little car park that was attached to the printing firm she’d been at for the last two years. She always wondered why on earth they needed a security guard - nothing exciting ever happened at Chilster and co.
She’d started on an internship, even though she’d been way too old to be an intern, really, when she’d thought she might be interested in a career in publishing. That had fizzled out by the second month, but she - and they - had realised that she made a pretty good secretary, and so when a maternity role had come up, she’d been the obvious candidate. Then when it became permanent…well, it paid the bills. It definitely was not her passion; it definitely was not a career that she thought she would be pursuing for the rest of her life - but Beth had long ago come to the conclusion that she was not one for life plans and long term goals.
Her sister, on the other hand, always had been. Beth supposed that was what always made her feel like a rebel - her older sister Shirley (who was not quite as old as the name suggested, and went by Lee) had always been the good one. She’d gone to university, got a career in law, got married, bought a house, got made a partner by the time she was thirty… everything their mother, with her habit of naming her daughters as if they were already in their seventies, had ever wanted.
And then…
And then Lee’s seemingly perfect life had been ripped to shreds by her cheating husband, and before Beth knew it, she was no longer the rebel of the family. Oh no, Lee left her home, her job, moved to the middle of nowhere in Devon, bought a café… the list of shocking events was endless. Then there was the fact that Lee had met a drop dead gorgeous police officer, had a child with him and was currently engaged!
It had certainly been a whirlwind year in the Davis family - and it put Beth’s life rather into perspective.
“Morning Beth!” called Jasmine, the latest intern. At 23, she was a few years younger than Beth, but Beth found they had a lot in common - certainly more than she did with the thirty- and forty-year-old publishers that she generally worked with.
“Lunch out today?” Beth called over, dumping her bag on her desk and accidentally knocking a few errant paperclips off the table as she did so.
Jasmine gave her a thumbs up, and Beth smiled to herself at the glare they both got from Victoria, the ancient (or at least she seemed it to Beth) head of accounts. Jasmine and Beth’s high energy never seemed to go down that well at work… but then, to be fair, the energy was quite often directed away from their actual workloads, and towards things like where and when to have lunch, or whether they could make it to the shops to look round the sales before they closed.
The smile dropped off her face fairly rapidly as she turned on her computer and was faced with a surprisingly full inbox. The mundane task of wading through and clearing emails - some of which were trying to get her buy something, some of which were authors trying to get their work seen, some of which were just spam - signalled the start of yet another morning in a job which, she had to admit, wasn’t going anywhere.
***
Lunch with Jasmine was, as usual, the highlight of her day. They had discussed the guy Jasmine was currently seeing - an IT technician from two doors up - and how he wanted to introduce her to his mother.
“I don’t do meeting the parents,” Jasmine said, rolling her eyes and tossing her raven-black hair across one shoulder dramatically. “Never have done.”
“You’re only twenty-three!” Beth reminded her with a laugh. “But I get you, I’ve never been the meet-the-parents type either.”
“Besides, I’m hardly going to introduce him to my parents. They’ll freak out if they find out I’m dating someone who’s not Indian, you know what they’re like-” Beth had never met them, but Jasmine had complained about them and their puritanical views enough that she felt as though she did. “I’m not crossing that bridge unless it’s someone I’m going to spend the rest of my life with.”
“And I take it you don’t think Joe is?”
“No…” she said, gazing off into the distance as she often did. “No, I don’t think he is. He’s great for now, though…” she said, with a dirty laugh that had Beth laughing along with her.
“And what about you?” Jasmine asked, turning her eyes back on Beth. “How’s things with what’s-his-name?”
“Dean? Over before it started, if I’m honest…”
“What happened?”
“Nothing major, no big drama to report, I’m afraid! He asked me out, we went to a nice bar, saw him again for dinner last Thursday, he asked me back to his…”
Jasmine wiggled her eyebrows suggestively and Beth giggled.
“But the spark just wasn’t there…”
“You don’t need fireworks with every guy!” Jasmine said, sipping her coffee as she checked her watch. Five minutes ‘til they needed to head back to the office.
“I’m not wasting time and energy on somebody with no fireworks, Jas - too old for that nonsense!”
“Pfft, not that old!”
“Not that far off thirty, I’m afraid to say - and my sister’s nearly married again with a kid!”
“Do you want a kid, now, really?”
“Well, no, obviously…”
“Stop whining then and live life while you’re young, free and single. Let’s go out, Saturday night - you and me. I bet we can find you some fireworks…”
***
By six, Beth was home in her little flat, with its mismatched pillows and throws and last night’s plate (and wine glass!) still sitting on the side. It was quiet, as it always was, and she dumped her bag and coat, as well as a bag of food shopping she’d picked up on her way home, onto the kitchen counter. Lunch with Jasmine always lifted her spirits, but coming home to a silent, empty flat and dinner for one brought them right back down again.
Luckily, her phone rang before she could get too down in the doldrums again, and a smile lit up her face as she saw her sister’s name on the screen.
“Shirley!” she answered with a grin, as her sister threw some abuse down the line for using her given name. “I hope my favourite niece can’t hear those terrible words you’re calling her aunty!”
“Well don’t call me Shirley then, Elizabeth,” Lee retorted.
“How are you sis?”
“All good here,” Lee said. “Exhausted, Holly seems to have stopped sleeping through the night again… apparently not that uncommon at 8 months, but just when I thought we were getting somewhere…”
“Is James doing his fair share?”
She could hear her sister smiling through the phone. “Yeah, he’s up at least as much as I am, even though he’s the one working full time…” Lee’s fiancé and the father of her baby, James, was a police officer in rural Devon - and Beth was fairly sure the uniform had been one of the things that first caught Lee’s eye.
“How’s the café?”
“It’s doing great actually - I’ve started doing a day a week, just to get myself back into it, but what with the law work
I’m taking on too, I have to admit I’m not in there as much as I like. Gina runs it amazingly though, so I don’t need to worry!”
“Don’t work yourself too hard - you don’t want to burn out!”
“I’m good Beth, promise. And how’s things with you? How’s the job?”
“Eh,” Beth said, unable to hide her apathy. “It’s a job. Pays the bills…”
“Have you got any holiday due?” Lee asked. “You know we’d love to see you - the weather’s nice, we could go to the beach, take Holly - and June’s the best time really, before the kids break up from school and the grockles invade for the season.”
The South West Series Box Set Page 36
