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‘Is there anything else?’ she pressed quietly, but her father had switched back to staring out of the window and she knew he was lost in his own thoughts, leaving her to try to pick her way through the unexpected bombshell.
She was still musing when her brother walked back in with the milk and a huge round box of chocolates in his hand.
‘Who are they for?’ She forced a laugh, grateful for the distraction. ‘Dad, or you?’
‘Their Dad’s favourite.’ Hayden, oblivious to the turmoil in her head, at least had the grace to look sheepish as she followed him into the kitchen and dropped them on the island.
‘But you quite fancied them?’ Mattie lifted her eyebrows.
He lifted his hands, palms up.
‘I admit nothing.’
She sank into a chair and toyed with the plastic seal on the box as he set about making fresh tea. It was only when she heard her brother clicking his fingers by her ear that she realised he’d been talking to her and she hadn’t heard a word.
‘Sorry, what?’ Sitting up straighter, she affected levity.
She might have known Hayden wouldn’t be fooled.
‘What’s happened, Mattie?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Mattie,’ he chastised, but then turned his back as though concentrating on the hot drinks.
Knowing that would somehow make it easier to talk.
‘Dad thought I was Mum again.’ She stopped. Waited. But Hayden didn’t press her, leaving her to continue in her own time. ‘Did you know he helped Kane to leave because his brothers had held up that Eight-Till-Late in town?’
Her brother didn’t answer immediately, but eventually he half glanced back, his head over his shoulder.
‘Dad helped Kane leave because he gave evidence against his brothers.’
Whatever she had expected, it wasn’t that. She tried to process the information, but her head was spinning hard. Beginning to pound. Another thought walloped her.
‘You knew? Wait, is that why you invited Kane to London? To my wedding rehearsal?’
She heard silence as he stopped stirring the tea. Then the clink as he set the spoon down. Finally, Hayden turned around.
‘I contacted Kane because Dad asked me to.’
‘Dad did?’ She kept her voice low because as much as shouting wasn’t her, right now she wanted to yell and roar, and probably beat her bloody hands on her chest. ‘What did he say?’
Hayden folded his arms over his chest.
‘Not much. He was already into the illness by then, you know that.’
The pounding in her head grew louder, like a marching band made up of every drummer in the entire military.
‘He must have told you something.’
Her brother met her gaze head on.
‘He contacted me out of the blue a few weeks before your wedding. Told me Kane was in the military and that I should contact an old army buddy of his from way back. He wanted me to tell Kane that you were getting married.’
‘And?’ she prompted.
‘And about what happened that night with Kane and his brothers. But that was pretty much all he said.’
