Single Dads Collection - Lynne Marshall Mills & Boon e-Book Collections

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if he hadn’t loved her so much he would have throttled her.

      ‘Problems?’ Dan said, dropping down beside him on the grass in the shade and watching him try again.

      ‘She likes Emily milk. Only Emily milk.’

      Dan frowned. ‘So what’s going to happen when you go back to work? Are you leaving her here with Em?’

      ‘I can’t.’

      ‘So you’ll take her away with you?’

      He let his breath out on a sharp sigh and shot Dan a troubled glance. ‘I can’t do that, either.’

      ‘Rock and a hard place come to mind,’ Dan said mildly, lying back on the grass. ‘So what, then? You need to do something. I mean, she’s not a puppy. You can’t just stick her in kennels every time you race off to the other side of the world.’

      He felt sick.

      For the rest of the day, all he’d been able to hear had been Dan’s voice, those words echoing in his head.

      She’s not a puppy. You can’t just stick her in kennels.

      So what the hell was he supposed to do?

      Especially now she was so inextricably linked to Emily.

      He’d begun to realise that every time he got some formula into her, it upset her little tummy. Clearly her system couldn’t tolerate cows’ milk.

      The next day he went to the doctor’s surgery and saw the health visitor and explained the situation, leaving Emily’s name out of it.

      ‘Oh, this must be Emily’s little one,’ she said with a smile. ‘She’s been on the phone, asking for advice.’

      He felt silly. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘So what did you say?’

      ‘Try all the things you’ve been trying,’ she told him. ‘Only if she’s got a problem with cows’ milk, then you’ve got to try soya milk or carry on as you are. Personally I think breast milk is best, obviously, because it’s designed for human babies, and in cases of lactose intolerance like Kizzy’s, your choices are strictly limited.’

      ‘Tell me about it,’ he muttered, and she smiled and patted his hand.

      ‘It doesn’t last for ever. This is only a short phase of her life. Once she’s weaned it all gets much easier.’

      Really? With him on the other side of the world? He didn’t think so.

      She’s not a puppy. You can’t just stick her in kennels.

      He thanked her and left, bought some soya milk and tried that. It was better, but she still didn’t like it, and when he tried her back on Emily’s milk exclusively, she settled straight away.

      And his decorators were finished, the carpet fitters were in and the furniture was stacked up on the drive, waiting. He didn’t have the time or the energy for any more experiments, and Kizzy was beginning to distrust the bottle.

      He found Dan in the swing seat under the old apple tree, reading a book. ‘Dan, they’ve finished in the sitting room. Could you give me a hand to get the suite in?’

      He grinned. ‘As an alternative to lying here, doing nothing? It’ll be a pleasure.’

      ‘Don’t be sarcastic. You need the exercise.’

      ‘Exercise?’ he grumbled. ‘I’ve been doing nothing but exercise since I got here,’ he pointed out.

      ‘I’ll bring you a beer under the tree when we’ve finished,’ he promised, and Dan chuckled.

      ‘You must think I’m really cheap.’

      ‘I know you’re really cheap,’ he replied, and headed for the drive of his house, Dan trailing behind and grumbling. They found Emily in there with the children, Beth picking up the little bits of carpet that the fitter had missed, Freddie making piles of tufts in the middle, and Emily vacuuming up the rest.

      She finished the last bit and turned off the machine. ‘You’d better give me Kizzy,’ she said, and he took the sling off and handed her over reluctantly.

      Strange, how odd it felt without her on his front. He’d got so used to the sling he didn’t even think about it now, but obviously he couldn’t carry her and move furniture any more than he’d been able to do the gardening with her on his front.

      And he missed her.

      ‘Right, let’s get this suite in,’ he said, and didn’t let himself think about how he’d feel when he’d gone back to work and left her behind.

      You can’t just stick her in kennels.

      It looked good.

      They’d worked all day, following the fitters round, cleaning up each room in turn and unpacking the furniture, and now it was done. Beth and Freddie had been wonderful, but the novelty was definitely wearing off, and the fridge was low on milk.

      And Kizzy was starting to grizzle.

      So Emily went to pump, and Harry took the last bottle of milk and went to feed the baby, and she sat in her study linked up to Buttercup and thought, How stupid. What a pointless exercise, when she could just be giving it to Kizzy direct.

      It wasn’t as fresh, there was an infection risk, there was infinitely more work—crazy.

      But necessary, for her peace of mind, for Kizzy’s independence from her and for the future.

      Whatever that might hold.

      Emily realised that she had no idea. Dan had told her that Harry was still undecided about what he was going to do, and she had to have answers. She had to know what the future held, she couldn’t go on like this indefinitely.

      She’d have to tackle him—but how?

      And that night he’d be sleeping in his house again.

      It felt so odd, not being at Emily’s.

      It smelt strange—that new-carpet smell, a brand-new bed, the sheets stiff and creased from the packets, the down duvet not yet quite fluffed up.

      Not that he really needed it. It was still hot at night, and he lay with the windows wide open and stared through the uncurtained window at the house next door.

      Emily.

      She was all he could think about.

      The landing light was on, the trees filtering the light, but he could still see it.

      Kizzy was asleep in the room next door. She’d been unsettled, but that might be because it smelt different. But finally she’d gone to sleep, her tiny mouth working rhythmically, and he’d been able to get his head down.

      But just like his daughter, sleep eluded him for a while. Not that he wasn’t tired. He was. He was exhausted. Days in the garden, today spent heaving furniture around—all on top of weeks of broken sleep, starting after a hectic fortnight dodging mortars and sniper fire—it was no wonder he was shattered.

      But it wasn’t enough to stop his mind working.

      He went down to the kitchen—a soft ivory, in the end—and made himself a cup of tea. He didn’t have anything else apart from coffee in the empty kitchen, and he really didn’t need that. And he sat in his sitting room overlooking the now orderly but barren garden, pale in the moonlight, and wondered what the hell he was supposed to do about Kizzy.

      ‘So have you decided what you’re going to do?’

      He didn’t pretend not to understand. He was sitting in the garden with Emily, more than a week after he’d moved back to his house, less than two weeks of his month’s grace left, and he still hadn’t made a decision about where he went from there.

      He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I can’t see the way forward.

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