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IT HAD BEEN one hell of a tough week. The meeting with Edward’s father, when the past had reached out, snatching her back into the nightmare that she thought she’d survived. Being afraid all the time, and trying not to show it to anyone.
One glass of wine with Edward on Friday, after Isaac had gone to bed, and she had fallen asleep on the sofa, waking with a start when she felt his hand on her shoulder, gently shaking her.
Today she woke to silence. A slow, sleepy climb into wakefulness, cocooned in comfortable forgetfulness. Something was missing, and she groped around in her mind for what it might be. No alarm. No... She sat up straight, propelled by panic. No Isaac, bouncing on her bed, telling her to wake up and get on with the day.
Hitting the floor at a run, Charlotte sped into his bedroom. The curtains were drawn back, the room was bathed in sunshine, and the bed was neatly made. Then she heard a noise from downstairs: Isaac’s laughter, threaded through with Edward’s quiet, rich chuckle.
Stupid. There was nothing wrong, no need to be this jumpy. All the same, she crept downstairs, just to check on them.
They were so involved with what they were doing that they didn’t see her. Isaac was sitting on the edge of the sofa, next to Edward, with the coffee table pulled up in front of him so he could reach the keyboard of Edward’s laptop. Edward, leaning back on the sofa, was concentrating hard on the screen.
‘Way to go, partner!’ Edward’s face lit up and Isaac threw his arms up above his head, bouncing up and down on the cushions. Edward leaned forward, hitting a key. ‘Do you want to try the next one?’
‘That’s all my teacher told me to do...’ Isaac turned to him.
‘Well, we don’t need to do exactly what she says.’ Edward shot him a look that mirrored the mischief on Isaac’s face. ‘You don’t have to stop unless you want to. You’re pretty good at this.’
‘Okay...’ Isaac giggled ‘...partner.’
Edward chuckled and pressed another key. It looked as if the two of them were fine without her for a while, and Charlotte could take her time in the shower.
When she got back downstairs, showered, dressed and feeling better than she had for weeks after a good night’s sleep, she smelled coffee. The patio doors were open, and Isaac’s voice drifted in from the garden.
‘Is that a fresh pot of coffee I smell...?’ She followed the aroma into the kitchen and found Edward there.
‘Yep. Want some toast?’
‘You are a wonderful man.’
He looked over his shoulder, shooting her a rakish half-smile. ‘If I’d known that it just took a pot of coffee and some toast...’
‘And a good night’s sleep. Where’s my alarm clock?’
He nodded at the clock, sitting innocently on the kitchen table. ‘I happened to wake up early. I heard Isaac rambling around, and I sent him into your room to get it. I reckoned you could do with a bit of a lie-in.’
‘Oh, so you’ve been enlisting my son in your machinations, have you?’
‘Yep. He seemed to think it was a good idea, too. And I reckoned that if you did wake up, then you’d probably be a little happier to find Isaac creeping into your room.’
A good deal more relaxed, maybe. Happier...? That would depend on what Edward was there for. Charlotte dismissed the thought, and with it her fantasies of waking up to find Edward there.
‘Has he had breakfast?’
‘Yep. I told him that I’d be in trouble with you if we didn’t keep to the straight and narrow, and he took me through the procedure step by step. Cleaned his teeth, had a wash, showed me where his clean clothes were. Do you always let him have chocolate biscuits for breakfast?’
‘No!’ Charlotte supposed it couldn’t hurt just for today.
Edward chuckled. ‘Gotcha. We had toast with peanut butter, and banana smoothies. Then we did some number games on the internet.’
So that’s what they’d been up to. ‘Isaac’s homework?’
‘Yes. He showed me the sheet that his teacher had given him. I found a game on the internet that made it a little bit more fun.’
‘Thanks.’ That feeling of dread she had when Edward did anything either for her or Isaac had almost completely disappeared now. Maybe because Edward so clearly enjoyed playing with Isaac.
‘No trouble.’ He buttered the toast and set it down in front of her, adding a jar of marmalade and one of apricot jam. Then coffee, hot and aromatic, with a dash of milk. Just one cup.
‘I’ve got to go out...’
