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‘We’d better get back so you can get ready for your three-week check-up.’
They were starting to extend the time between check-ups. It was a good sign, it meant Evie was making good progress.
In companionable silence, they wandered off the viewing platform and slowly rambled alongside the long stretch of stone wall towards the railway, which would take them back down towards the lower section of Old Town.
‘Mr Van Berg?’
They both whirled around as a man hurried towards them, a large sheet, clearly just torn from his sketchpad, in his outstretched hand. It was one of the artists from before.
‘You saved my sister’s hand a couple of years ago when she got it crushed in a car door.’ His voice was heavy with gratitude. ‘We never knew how to repay you but...well, I hope this goes some way towards it.’
Before Max could reply, the man had thrust the painting at him and was hurrying back off up the wide, cobbled tourist route, only turning briefly to wave his hand in acknowledgement. Turning the sketch around, Max lowered his head.
His heart drummed a tom-tom solo in his chest.
‘It’s amazing,’ Evie whispered, her chin resting against his arm.
And it was. A striking likeness of the three of them, capturing the moment Evie had dropped a kiss on their daughter’s head, the two of them encircled protectively in his embrace. But more than that, an intense love radiated from the drawing, the lines, fine here and thicker there, drawing the viewer deeper into the picture.
And the simple caption. Family.
Max stopped dead. That one word finally gave him a name to that something that had clicked inside him earlier, to the feeling playing at the edges of his mind.
Family.
The idea of Evie moving to Silvertrees in order that he should enjoy a better relationship with his daughter was commendable, but it wasn’t a good enough reason. He needed Evie to want to move here for herself. To be with him. Because he wanted to be with them both. He wanted them to be a family in every sense of the word. For ever.
‘What is it?’ Evie had pivoted in concern as he stopped so abruptly.
‘Wait,’ he commanded hoarsely, desperately trying to clear his head of the crazy thoughts now swarming.
How much time had he wasted? How much energy? Focussing on his career and excluding the poss
ibility of anything else, anything more, just because he didn’t want to be the kind of parent his own had been to him.
Now he knew he never would be like them. It wasn’t who he was. He wasn’t emotionally unavailable as they were, and Evie had been the one to show him that.
‘Max? Is everything all right?’
She was obviously worried, and yet he still didn’t know how to tell her. What would he say? It wasn’t as if he even knew that she felt the same way he did. What if he told her he wanted more than they’d ever agreed only to scare her off? He suspected she felt as he did, but, then again, family life with him wasn’t something she had ever suggested she wanted.
‘What about you?’ he rasped.
Her eyebrows knitted together in nervous confusion.
‘Me?’
‘You talked about living here in order that Imogen and I would have a closer relationship. But what about us? Would you and I have a closer relationship, too?’
He heard her breath catch in her throat.
‘Is that what you want?’
‘It is,’ he confirmed without hesitation, but held back from saying anything more.
‘Right.’ Evie nodded, swallowing hard.
‘Is it what you want?’ he echoed her question carefully.
