Letting You Go (34 page)

Alex felt a few tears fall over her cheek and flicked them away. Finn was watching her. She tried to smile at him and more spilled over her eyes.

‘I don’t want to sing, Mummy.’ Dill’s words sounded rounded and pudgy, like his little body had been back then.

‘You don’t?’ Blythe said disappointedly. ‘Well, do you think you could maybe say something instead? Into the microphone look, Dill. Then we can play it to Daddy when he comes to pick us up from Grandma’s.’ Heavy breathing crackled from the speakers.

‘Not so close, Dill!’

‘
Muuum
, he’s getting dribble on my microphone!’ Jem whined.

‘Go on, Dill. Say something good,’ Alex encouraged. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Dillon … Edward … Foster,’ Dill managed, selfconsciously. ‘Edward like my daddy’s name.’

‘How old are you?’ Jem asked.

‘I’m free!’

Jem cackled. ‘You’re
three
silly. Not
free
.’

‘What else?’ their mother encouraged. ‘What do you like, darling?’

‘I like my daddy’s truck.’

‘You do?’

‘Yes, I love my daddy’s truck and … and … I love my daddy too.’

‘I love Dad too,’ Alex added.

‘And me! I love my
whole
family!’ declared Jem.

‘That’s so nice, guys,’ Blythe said. ‘We all love each other, don’t we? And it doesn’t matter where we are, or what we’re doing … or how long we might be apart from each other, does it? Because we all, always, know that, don’t we?’

Ted was crying silently behind them where he sat.

‘Mummy?’

‘Yes, Jem?’

‘
Please
can we sing the
Titanic
song now?’ Jem burst into song anyway. ‘Every night in my dreams … I see you, I feeeeeel youuuuu …’

They all listened, captivated as Jem and Alex’s crooning
pulled them back from sadder thoughts to tears of embarrassed hysterics as, verse by verse, Alex and Jem tried to out-Celine each other.

It was a good day. Dill was everywhere now. Not just at the river, but here, in the home they’d shared. He was in the creak of the garden swing, Norma’s mischief, Alfie’s tiredness as he fell asleep on Ted’s shoulder, exhausted from all the discoveries he’d made in another little boy’s bedroom. Dill was in the way Ted had watched over them all, not just Alfie but Jem, Alex, Mal and Finn too, while they’d played with his arrows on the lawns as the night crept in around them. And when Alex caught the tail end of another story Jem was telling about their brother, at last nobody remembered to feel sadness or regret for things left unsaid. They were too busy laughing.

M
ayor Alfred Sinclair had a habit of jumping to conclusions.

That he might be the descendant of a great and noble Viking. That the searing pain behind his eyes was his wife’s incessant nagging rather than the tumour that would unexpectedly kill him. That the little boy who looked so much like his boy Malcolm, and whose mother he had loved so intensely, must surely be his son too.

Had Louisa Sinclair have taken more of an interest in her husband’s genealogical hobby, or just have been gracious enough to have accepted Blythe Foster’s gift and embarked on a climb up through her own family tree, Louisa might have
not only
helped her husband to discover that he probably wasn’t descended from King Cnut as he’d hoped, but that several generations back there had been a crossover between two of the oldest families in Eilidh Falls that would go on to strike like a lightning bolt in the same place twice.

Perhaps if the mayor had ventured far enough through the boughs of his family tree, he might have learned of the fate of his great-great grandmother’s sister, Elizabeth Sinclair
who, after a dalliance with a blue-eyed William Foster, died bringing their illegitimate son into the world.

If William Foster hadn’t taken the child back for his wife Alice to raise alongside their other
legitimate
children, the Sinclair dimple might not have found its way silently through the bloodlines of
two
families in the Falls, eventually arriving like a band of marauding Vikings at the cheeks of both Dillon Foster, and his distant cousin, Malcolm Sinclair.

Had Dillon lived to reach his teens, his mother Blythe would’ve seen that while her son did indeed resemble the younger, blonder, Malcolm Sinclair who had once come to play over with her daughters and whose father she had so briefly shared herself, unlike Malcolm, Dillon’s blond hair would not have darkened through his youth.

It would have remained as light and fair as his father’s.

Ted Foster.

Blimey, book number three in the can … madness!

As ever, I couldn’t have done it without my favourite hoodlums, Jim, Rad and Loch, the gruesome dream team. Thanks for putting up with me, fellas. And for getting on with it without so much as a batted eyelid while I disappeared into my room for months on end to write. You all put such brave faces on, the back-to-back football and WWE must have been horrendous for you. I’m going to reward you all with Downton Abbey and decent bedtimes aplenty.

A huge thanks going out to Sammia Hamer, my long-suffering, deadline-flexing editor. Never work with children or animals? Got to be easier than hormonal pregnant women, right? Sammia, thank you for letting me go at my own pace, mostly on hideously swollen ankles. Your encouragement and support was invaluable. Thanks also to Donna ‘The Don’ Hillyer. Always good to have you in the wings, missus. I’m going to miss yoouuu!

A hefty thanks to my mum, The Baby Whisperer. Hooray for newly retired grandmothers, Gertie! Couldn’t have got this novel to the finish line without all you’ve done for Jesse Boy, who I should also thank for being such a chilled out, supercool kid while I was doing crazy hours at my laptop. (Would’ve been nice if you’d have eased up on the night-feeds though, son.)

And finally, as always, to the team at Harlequin for giving me the opportunity to be an actual, real life writer (!), and to my agent Madeleine Milburn for knowing so much more about this wonderful arena than I do, thank you!

ISBN: 978-1-474-03093-9

LETTING YOU GO

© 2015 Anouska Knight

Published in Great Britain 2015
by Harlequin MIRA, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited,
Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR

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