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‘Well?’ Emily asked, her arms folded so tightly across her chest a sliver of paper would have struggled to get through. Worry was etched all over her face.
‘Three messages from James. One asking how to work the dishwasher, one asking if it’s okay to cook a pizza in a microwave and one asking where the iron is.’
She relaxed her stance slightly. ‘At least we know they’re alive.’
‘If your brother hasn’t killed them both with food poisoning.’
‘My dad’s not eating anything so he’ll be safe.’
He saw straight through her vain attempt at humour. ‘He’s not eating?’
‘All he does is sleep.’ She shrugged helplessly. ‘Sleep is good. Eventually he comes out of the darkness. Well, normally he does.’
‘And James is capable of caring for him?’ Now he knew the man microwaved pizza, real doubts had set in.
‘Yep. All he has to do is make sure Dad takes his pills and keep an eye on him throughout the night.’
He could see how badly she was struggling to keep herself together and he admired her efforts. There was so much he admired about her. ‘I’m surprised James didn’t ask you to pop home and iron for him.’
‘He can ask all he likes—I’m happy to cook for my brother but when it comes to ironing he can jolly well do it himself.’ She grinned, a forced smile that tugged at his heart. ‘I swear, if I ever have a boy I’m going to train him to do every domestic chore going before I let him loose on the world.’
Of course Emily wanted children. A woman as devoted to her family as she was wouldn’t think twice about it. It was in her DNA.
A lancing pain settled in his guts. Once, a long time ago, he’d dreamed of having children. A family linked by his blood.
‘So you don’t completely baby him, then?’ he said, forcing his own grin.
The groove in her brow deepened. ‘I never baby him. He’s just hopelessly undomesticated.’
‘I understand that it’s normal in a lot of families for the baby to keep the baby role even into adulthood.’ That didn’t apply to him, though—Marat had gone to great lengths to ensure Pascha never felt like a brother to him, younger or otherwise. Pascha had grown up feeling like an only child with a stranger living in the room next to him. A stranger he had wished with all his heart would accept him.
‘James isn’t the baby of the family,’ she said, sounding offended. ‘I am. He’s three years older than me.’
‘Really?’ He stared at her, looking for a sign that she was teasing him. All he saw was indignation. ‘Then why have you taken responsibility for your father?’
‘James and I share the responsibility.’
‘If that’s the case, why didn’t he move back home to be with your father too? Why was it only you?’
A look he struggled to discern flitted over her face. The closest he could come to describing it was confusion. ‘I offered.’
‘And James was happy with that? He didn’t offer in turn?’
‘What is this? Are you trying to turn me against my brother?’ Her brown eyes were wide, the rest of her features tight, and she took a step back.
‘Not at all. I’m just trying to understand why you’re the one doing everything—risking everything: your job, your home—while your brother gets to live his life as normal apart from occasionally acting as a babysitter.’
She looked as if she’d been punched. ‘You haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about or what we’ve been through, so keep your opinions to yourself.’
She left his hut without a goodbye.
Pascha could have kicked himself. He hadn’t wanted to upset her, but nonetheless he was glad he’d said what he had.
He would bet every last cent he had that James’s job wasn’t at risk. The man ran his own business, could take all the leave he needed with no one to answer to.
Emily had been the one to take all the time off, enough to have been given a final warning for it. Emily had been the one to leave her flat and move back into her childhood home.
James might be the elder sibling but it was the younger of the two who had taken the role of leader.
It was the younger of the two who’d effectively given up her life for their father.
CHAPTER TEN
EMILY SAT AT the table of her hut—which had mercifully escaped the storm with no internal damage—carefully sewing sequins onto the hem of the dress she’d spent the afternoon making, a different dress from the one she’d marked out a couple of days before. So what if she had no mannequin or model? That she was doing something practical was enough.
