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‘You can’t go home!’ They spoke together, then Marty took Emma’s hand and he said, ‘You need to go to the hospital to be checked out, probably kept in for a while in case you have concussion. We’ll take you there.’
‘Hmph!’ Pop said, looking at the pair of them hand in hand in front of him. ‘Hallie reckoned this would happen. I just hoped you wouldn’t be so stubborn as to not see what a gem you’ll have in Emma.’
He smiled at Emma then leaned forward and kissed her cheek.
‘He gives you any trouble, my girl, you come straight to me. I’ve been sorting him out anytime these past thirty years!’
And Emma laughed, and hugged the man who was to become her father-in-law, then Marty took her hand and they headed for her car.
In the end, she dropped them both off at the hospital and went home to tell her father what was happening—and to ask about the woman in the photo.
‘That’s your great-aunt,’ he said. ‘The woman who left us the house.’
‘Do you know her story? Did she ever marry?’
Her father frowned, thinking back.
‘No, she didn’t, but I seem to remember there was a man, someone who felt he wasn’t right for her.’
‘No wonder her eyes look so sad,’ she said, thinking how close she’d come to having that same sadness in her eyes.
When Marty arrived, determined, it appeared, to ask her father’s permission for her hand, she waited until the excitement was all over and they were sitting on the veranda on their own.
She showed him the two photos, and told him the story.
‘Bloody hell!’ he said. ‘To think that could have been us if I hadn’t finally come to my senses.’
Emma laughed.
‘It wouldn’t have been us,’ she said. ‘You once told me I should want a man for myself, not just for the boys, and it took me a little while to accept that. Until I realised that, more than anything, I only wanted—still want, and will always want—you.’
He kissed her then and she relaxed into the kiss, glad they’d not only found each other but had finally found their way to love.
EPILOGUE
THE WHOLE FAMILY was gathered, Lila and Tariq flying in laden with gifts for everyone, Steve and Fran were up from Sydney with their baby Chloe, Carrie and the twins, all three looking beautiful, Izzy and Mac, with George, usually held in Nikki’s arms, the centre of much attention as the very latest addition to the family.
Emma and Marty had decided, after much deliberation, to hold the celebration at the old nunnery where the Halliday family—as the locals called them—had grown up.
And there were dozens of them, all present to see the last of the brood safely married off.
Emma dressed in the little flat Pop had fixed up for Izzy when she’d brought Nikki home from hospital—Nikki, the birth daughter of Liane, the sister who hadn’t survived her horrendous early childhood.
And Dad was with her in the flat, helping with the last-minute touches, fastening the pearls he’d given her as a wedding gift—pearls that had been his mother’s.
‘Why didn’t my mother take them?’ Emma asked, and watched him closely for they rarely spoke of her mother.
‘She felt they were yours,’ he said. ‘She wasn’t bad, or uncaring, Emma, she was just a square peg in a round hole and she had to escape or die. She loved you and in her own way loved me, but once she’d met Helena and realised what true love was, she couldn’t live a lie anymore. Helena took her back to Europe, to Hungary where she was from, and from there they roved the world—or that had been the plan when they departed.’
‘She never thought to keep in touch?’
Her father drew her close and hugged her, heedless of creases in the soft green dress Emma was wearing.
‘She said that that would make it too hard for all three of us, and she was probably right, for it would have awoken memories that hurt both of us.’
He paused, then added, ‘Have you missed her?’
Emma eased away from him and looked into his eyes.
‘Not for a minute. You’ve been all I’ve ever needed and more as far as parents go.’
She kissed his cheek.
‘Now, let’s go and get this wedding over with,’ he said. ‘Knowing Hallie, she will have organised a tremendous spread, and everyone will be getting hungry.’
They walked down the stairs and out into the big back yard, where Marty and his family would have played so often. And the family had obviously been busy, for the rather saggy old grape arbour had been fixed and covered with fresh flowers, and a carpet laid beneath it.
And there was Marty, waiting for her, Stephen beside him as support, while Hallie held the hands of two little boys, dressed in smart new clothes for the occasion, Puppy, with flowers in his collar, sitting docilely beside them.
