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‘You’re welcome, it was good to meet you, and you, Shadow. And I’ll come in, look at those signs when I get a moment.’
‘Please do,’ she smiled. ‘Listen, I was wondering, I’m having a birthday party on Friday evening, would you like to come? Barney will be there, Harvey, lots of people, Hazel…’
He wondered if she read the change in his expression, but he shrugged. ‘Some adult company sounds great, but I have Abigail.’ Unless he asked Sandy to look after her.
But before that thought went any further, she said, ‘Bring her, honestly, kids are welcome. The more the merrier. It’s at the Little Waffle Shack so it’s pretty informal and we’ll have the outdoor area reserved and to ourselves. I’d love it if you could both join us. And Peter will be there too – he’s ten – nearly eleven, as he loves to remind Daniel, who was like a dad to him for years and still is really. So Abigail will have company her own age.’
‘I knew there was someone I hadn’t told you about,’ Barney admonished himself. ‘How could I forget young Peter, he’s in the Cove often enough.’
‘You told me plenty,’ Gus assured him, ‘the rest I’ll have to learn as I go along.’
‘So you’ll ask Abigail?’ Lucy asked, blue eyes hopeful. ‘You’ll think about it?’
‘I will.’ He bent down to fuss the top of Winnie’s head. ‘Come on, you, let’s have a look at that tick.’
He would ask Abigail, and if waffles were involved, he was pretty sure she wouldn’t need much convincing. She was seeing her mum on Friday too so if that didn’t go to plan, he’d at least have a treat in store for her to take her mind off it. The only hesitancy he had was putting Abigail into a crowd of strangers who might make her feel uncomfortable. But at the same time, he had Joan’s voice in his ear telling him not to let his fears be Abigail’s and if she was scared, it was up to him to be the stronger one and help her to move forwards.
And that was exactly what he wanted for his beautiful daughter. He didn’t want to hold her back because he was scared of what may or may not happen.
Adjusting his thinking, however, was a big challenge and one that for now, with Winnie waiting for his attention, he had to push to one side.
