Putting down my cloth with a sigh, gathering the bucket of spray bottles and dumping my gloves in a bin bag, I made my way down to the reception area.
When I glanced up to see who was waiting in the foyer, I nearly tripped down the remaining few stairs.
Giving myself a mental slap for still being so pathetically obsessed with Daniel that I saw him everywhere I went, I quickly yanked myself together, swallowed back the lump in my throat and carried on.
Then he turned around.
The man smiled, hazel eyes crinkling, one hand automatically reaching up to rub at his scar.
Daniel.
Here.
In the Tufted Duck reception, holding an overnight bag andsmiling.
‘I’m sorry.’ He shook his head. He didn’t look sorry. His grin was growing by the second. ‘I shouldn’t be smiling. That’s not what I had planned.’
‘What did you have planned?’ I stammered, coming to a stuttering stop a few metres away.
He shrugged, trying and failing to tug down the corners of his mouth. ‘An appropriate level of contrition to show you how completely sorry I am, and that I am fully aware of what a total arse I was.’ He took a hesitant step towards me. ‘Miserably lost and utterly heartbroken. Because that’s how I’ve been since you left.’
I don’t know how I did it, but despite my thumping heart and wild thoughts running around inside my head, I managed to reply in a manner that was just about on the right side of composed.
‘So why are you smiling?’ I don’t know why that was the question that popped out. Seeing the state the rest of me was in, my mouth appeared to have gone rogue.
He looked at me for a long moment. When he blinked, it was like someone flicked the lights off and then on again.
‘I’m happy to see you.’
‘Okay.’ I didn’t ask why he was happy to see me, let alone why he was here. I wanted this moment to drag out forever. Before the hard questions came, and the heart-breaking answers and then Daniel went away again. ‘Do you want to check in?’
‘Yes, please. If you’ve room.’
I moved over to the check-in desk and flicked through the reservations book, Mum and Dad still not having upgraded this aspect of the system to a computer. My movements were robotically calm, but beneath the surface I was a gibbering wreck. ‘Yes, the Mallard room is free again.’
‘Perfect.’
‘Will you be needing a cot?’
‘No.’ Daniel was still grinning like a loon, but I felt a stab of disappointment that I wouldn’t get to see Hope. It was probably for the best, though. She was too young to understand any of this. I was thirty, and I could barely get my head around it.
‘Same address and phone number as last time?’
‘Yes.’
I added all the details and then paused, hand trembling, lips horribly dry. ‘Do you have any plans for the rest of the day?’
‘You.’
‘Excuse me?’ I nearly choked on my own breath.
‘Um. I mean, would you like to go for a walk, or find somewhere to get a drink or something?’
It was my turn to blink, about 300 times in quick succession.
‘Because, obviously, I’m here to see you.’
Up until this moment, if Daniel had asked to meet up, or phoned wanting to talk to me,myplan had been to say no. It had been a long, hard slog, trying to deal with the trauma of what had happened with Lucy, on top of my whole life tumbling upside down for the second time in six months. Let alone losing the man I loved, and the child I’d begun to care for like my own daughter.
