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‘Yes, I do. A tragic, senseless, wasteful accident—but still an accident, Dee.’
‘An accident...’ Dee touched the stone tenderly and then, lifting her fingertips to her mouth, she kissed them softly and then touched them to the stone.
‘Goodbye, Papa,’ she said softly, using the pet name she had had for her father as a little girl. ‘May you rest in peace.
‘I think maybe you’re right,’ she told Hugo, her eyes brilliant with unshed tears as she added huskily, ‘I hope that you are right.’
‘I am right,’ Hugo promised her, and he held out his hands to her and commanded, ‘Come here. I’ve missed you so much, Dee, wanted you so much—so much more than I’ve ever allowed myself to know. But today, holding you...touching you... I couldn’t endure to lose you again. I don’t know how I’ve endured these years without you.’
Dee stood up and let him take her hands in his and draw her towards him. The warmth of his hands wrapped around her own filled her with the most intense sense of peace, of release, and somehow, as she went to him, Dee suddenly knew that he was right, that her father hadn’t taken his own life.
With that knowledge came a lifting of her heart, her spirits, that made her feel almost light-headed, buoyant, filled with such a sense of joy and love that the intensity of her emotions seemed to make the air around her sing. Like a weight slipping from her shoulders and from her heart she could feel all the animosity she’d had, all the anger, all the bitterness she had felt towards Julian Cox leaving her like ice melting in the warmth of the sun. There was no room in her heart any more for such dark and painful feelings, because now it was overflowing with the joy of rediscovering the love she shared with Hugo.
‘Let’s go home,’ Hugo suggested simply.
‘Home!’
Dee gave him a whimsical smile as she let him guide her back to where their cars were parked.
‘And where exactly might that be?’
They had reached the edge of the graveyard, and as he led her through it and onto the road outside Hugo turned her towards him and told her as he bent his head to kiss her, ‘Home for me is where you are, Dee. Wherever you are.’
* * *
He followed her back to her house, parking his car behind hers, taking the key from her trembling fingers to unlock the door and then kicking it shut behind him before taking her in his arms and kissing her.
‘How did you know where I was?’ she asked him when he released her.
‘I don’t know...I just did. I had planned to take you out somewhere special for dinner. It’s a bit late for that now.’
‘Mmm...’ Dee agreed, and then added teasingly, ‘It looks like you’ll have to think of some other way to satisfy my...hunger...’
‘Oh...I thought I’d already done that,’ Hugo responded just as teasingly, adding suggestively, ‘But of course, if that wasn’t enough...’
‘Hugo!’ Dee exclaimed. ‘What about Peter? He—’
‘Peter’s going to be fine. That was why I went back.’ Quickly he explained to her about the specialist’s visit.
‘Which reminds me—these proposals of yours...’
Dee tensed. Surely they weren’t going to quarrel so soon?
‘I’m not prepared to change my mind about them, Hugo,’ she warned him quickly. ‘Not even for you. I know how Peter and the others feel, but I truly believe that there is a genuine need—’
‘I agree.’
Dee stared at him. ‘You do?’
‘Mmm...and from what I’ve read of your proposals I have to admit that I can’t really understand just why Peter is so opposed to them.’
Dee sighed. ‘Neither can I—not really. But he is getting old, and he’s very set in his ways.’
‘I’ll try and talk to him,’ Hugo promised her. ‘Unfortunately, morally, if nothing else, whilst I’m acting as his Power of Attorney I have to vote as he would wish to have done.’
‘I understand that,’ Dee assured him gravely.
‘I have to vote as he would have done, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t make my own assessment of the situation and try to persuade him accordingly,’ he told her.
