Uncle, she reminded herself. He’s always been involved with Zoe. He made more time for her than I ever seemed to be able to do.

  He was talking to his mother about the packing they’d got done, the arrangements for the movers and the storage. All while making funny faces at Zoe and picking the worst mushed bits of rice off her clothes and floor.

  She didn’t even realise she’d been gawping like an idiot until Sheila spoke to her.

  ‘Sorry, what?’

  Sheila shot her a knowing look. ‘I was just going to say it’s lovely to see you two getting along so well. Sit down—eat!’

  Lucy obediently took a seat next to Jackson, her stomach gurgling as a plate piled up with food was placed in front of her. Jackson was busy tucking into his, and the pair of them sat in a comfortable silence. Sheila put even more food into various containers, checking the oven from time to time. She chatted away to Zoe, who was now de-riced and demolishing a yoghurt and some fruit.

  ‘She’s been as good as gold today; she helped me in the garden earlier. She liked baking, although some of the buns she helped with might not be fit for the bake sale at church. The flour made her sneeze on one of the batches.’ She turned to Jackson. ‘I saved that batch for you.’

  Lucy suppressed a laugh; Jackson gave her a side-eye. ‘Thanks, Mum. Glad you enjoyed it. We’re back at work next week, so I’ll expect more sneeze buns in my future.’

  Sheila giggled. ‘You do that, love. Are you sure it’s not too soon for you both?’

  Jackson did one of his trademark shrugs. ‘We’ll manage. We both have departments to run, and they’re already stretched as it is.’ He didn’t need to mention the hole that Ronnie had left in A & E. Sheila nodded at them both and turned her attention to Lucy. ‘I will look after her. I know Jackson said you were a little worried.’

  Lucy wanted the ground to swallow her up. ‘I never—’

  ‘Yes, you did.’ Jackson sold her out before she could finish. She kicked him under the breakfast bar. He jumped but acted as if nothing had happened. ‘I told you, Mum will pick her up from nursery. She’ll bring her to ours too, so that she can be in bed on time.’

  Ours. Still sounds weird.

  Sheila didn’t show a flicker of awkwardness. It was as though everyone was just okay with it, as if they were just doing this.

  We are doing this, you fool.

  ‘If you’re sure it’s not too much.’ Lucy tried to get back into the conversation. ‘I... We...’ Jackson turned his head to her, but she didn’t dare look at him. ‘We do appreciate all this, really.’

  Sheila waved her off with a flick of her floral-patterned tea towel. ‘Give over. It’s what grandparents are for. Retirement is boring at times, I can tell you. Zoe and the three of us will have some adventures.’

  Lucy couldn’t help but smile at the thought of that. If her grandparents had been around, her adolescence might have been easier to cope with. It was one of the reasons Harriet hadn’t waited to have kids. Her parents having them later in life had meant that their own two sets of grandparents had already passed. Harriet had talked about it before she’d got pregnant. She hadn’t wanted to wait.

  ‘Family is not something to wait for,’ she used to say.

  Zoe would be with family she knew when Lucy and Jackson were at the hospital. Thinking about work next week was stressing her out enough—worrying about what Zoe would be doing, whether she would be happy...how the heck she would juggle work with her new life and responsibilities. ‘I bet you will,’ she told her earnestly. ‘Zoe will love that.’

  * * *

  By the time Jackson’s mother let them go, laden with yet more food, Zoe was tired out. Jackson could see her head lolling in the car seat on the way home, and he drove at the speed limit for once. When they pulled up at the house, Lucy lifted her out. ‘I’ll go put her to bed.’

  Jackson put the food away, glancing at the boxes stacked in the dining room with a tired sigh. Decorating could wait, Lucy had said. The office walls were cream, the glossed paintwork unchipped. They’d taken most of Zoe’s stuff straight to her room and added the rest of the boxes to the piles in the dining room. They’d deal with putting the furniture together tomorrow, which would make a huge difference to the rooms. They’d clear the clutter and help Zoe feel more at home.

  There was still a fair bit of stuff to sort before their shifts started again. Work had been great about the time off, but he knew without Ronnie and him A&E would be stretched. Lucy’s department was strong, but he knew both the staff and Lucy would be glad to be reunited. Never mind with her patients, who Lucy loved dearly. Children never saw her snakes; they got the softer side every time. He’d seen it, and he witnessed it now, watching her with Zoe.

  Once everything was in order in the kitchen, he went upstairs to take a shower and wash off the day. After throwing his things into the hamper in the bathroom, he stood under the shower until he felt the hot water knead out all the kinks in his muscles. He felt it wake him up after the last few days of rubbish sleep. He felt like a medical student again, with that hazy, adrenaline fuelled way of moving through the day. When he turned off the shower, he felt human again. Wrapping a towel around his waist, he walked out to his bedroom and crashed straight into Lucy.

  ‘What the—?’

  ‘Oh, my God!’

  His wet chest smacked straight into her face as she collided against him. Without thinking, he brought his arms up to catch her, which made things ten times worse. The towel tucked into itself around his hips fell away, just as he wrapped her tightly into his strong hold. For a second, neither said anything. Zoe let out a little cry from his former office, and they didn’t move a muscle. At some point during the tussle, Lucy grappled for purchase with her flailing legs and arms and grabbed for something to steady her.

  ‘Shh!’ they said together. Listening, they both heaved a sigh of relief when they heard nothing more but silence.

  Under his chin, he felt her head move up to look at him and he lowered his. Her marble-like blue-green eyes were right there, up close, wide beneath her impossibly dark lashes. His bare arms were wrapped around her tight, but he didn’t move an inch.

  ‘Jackson,’ she whispered. ‘My hands are on your bottom.’

  ‘I noticed that, yeah.’

  It’s one of the reasons I didn’t move.

  She nibbled her lip, a cute little movement that did nothing to help his current situation.

  ‘You’re naked.’

  ‘I know. I did have a towel,’ he said, his voice low. ‘I think you ripped it off.’

  ‘I did not!’ she squeaked, and Zoe made a loud snuffling noise. He gripped her tighter, just as she tightened her grip on him. ‘I did not,’ she said again, whispering. ‘Be quiet.’

  ‘You were the one that squealed.’ He paused. ‘Luce, you can take your hands off my bare bum now, if you want. I got you.’

  ‘Oh, my God, sorry!’ She gasped, pulling back. He went to grab the towel, but not before she saw...well, everything. She’d never call him Yeti again, that was for sure. He was hairless, aside from a line of thick, dark hair that ran down to his...parts...which she definitely saw a flash of before he whipped the towel back around himself. He noticed with a frisson of a thrill that her voice was breathy, almost panting—the shock, obviously. The panic of waking the toddler in the next room, who seemingly hated sleep at the best of times.

  Still, a man can dream...

  ‘I was trying to stop myself falling.’

  He smirked, his chest heaving too. His breath was as ragged as the fast little puffs of air from her luscious lips. A rivulet of water dripped down his chest, running down his abs like a raindrop down a window pane. She tracked its movement as he stole a long look at her.

  ‘You grabbed me like a squirrel does a tree.’ Her jaw dropped, but when she met his eye he could see he was flushed.

  This woman. She’d been in his head for five years, one way or another, a swirling tornado in his logical brain. She was addictive, maddening, enchanting, challenging.

  He wondered how much he could fluster her right now. He was tempted to push it, just to see. ‘It’s fine, Trig. I told you we’d see each other naked eventually.’

  * * *

  His lopsided smile was the last thing she saw as he walked past her to his room.

  ‘So, we could unpack some more, if you want. My vote is for a movie and a drink, what do you think?’

  Those choices were not the thing on her mind at this minute. Either way, both meant being close to him for the evening.

  I need a minute to recover.

  ‘Whatever you want,’ she said, trying to shrug nonchalantly. ‘I’ll just get changed.’

  She shut the bathroom door and sagged against it. On the opposite wall, she caught her reflection in the steamed-up mirror. She saw her flushed red cheeks, the sparkle of attraction in her eyes. On her top, she had an imprint of where his wet body had touched hers. She could almost make out the ab imprints. Pulling the damp hoodie over her head, she stuffed it into the hamper.

  Looking up at the ceiling, she closed her eyes. ‘Harriet, if this is part of your plan, girl—it’s not happening.’ Taking off the rest of her clothes, she turned the shower temperature to cold.

  She had work to think about, boxes to unpack, her place to sort and Zoe to look after. As the cold water hit her, she resolved to stick to the plan, like she always did. Teeny moments of attraction had peppered their involvement for so long, she was surprised she still felt them so acutely. Of course, it was easier when she hadn’t been up close and personal with his butt cheeks. Wondering what was under his scrubs when she was bored at work had paled into insignificance the second that towel had hit the deck.

  It wasn’t the only thing hitting it, either. Breakfast was going to be awkward with a capital A. A for abs—washboard ones. She was surprised the drop of water she’d tracked hadn’t sizzled to nothing.

  ‘No, Lucy. Focus!’

  ‘You say something?’ She froze under the spray when Jackson’s voice came from the other side of the door.

  ‘No, no! Be out in a minute!’

  ‘Okay. Meet you downstairs?’

  ‘Yeah!’ she squealed, her voice sounding strangled. ‘Coming!’

  She waited until she heard him downstairs and scrambled to get out. ‘Coming?’ She chided her reflection after she wiped the steam off the glass. ‘Coming, seriously?’ She jabbed a finger at her mirror image. ‘That’s one thing you won’t be doing. Get it together!’

  She needed to get back to work. She had a lot to sort out and, last time she checked, a hot, glistening wet Jackson Denning was not on her to-do list. It would stay that way.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ‘DO YOU THINK we should go in separately? I could hang back.’ Jackson’s incredulous look told her his answer. ‘Okay, stupid question.’

  ‘Yeah, pretty dumb.’

  Since the naked body-bumping incident, they’d fallen into a pattern of sorts. By the time she’d settled her nerves enough to go downstairs, he’d poured out wine for them both and was sitting on the sofa, flicking through the streaming options as though nothing had happened, and that was good enough for her.

  The cold shower and verbal telling off she’d given herself upstairs had strengthened her resolve a little. Her sister had just died, and her brother-in-law. She’d inherited a baby and had had to move house, one huge event after the other. He’d gone through it too, and had to watch his parents grieve for his brother to boot. Whatever tingle his touch produced was one-sided. Those long looks he’d thrown her were nothing, built up in her head, or by her surprisingly awakened libido. Whatever she’d felt in that moment, it was nothing on the scale of ‘whoa’ moments she’d endured. Although seeing Jackson naked, feeling his hard body up against hers, wasn’t exactly something she’d ‘endured’ and it was not so much ‘whoa’ as ‘wow’.

  She’d been ever more aware of his presence since, in the proximity of him when they were cooking together. Passing on the landing when taking turns to settle Zoe back down to sleep. The smell of his aftershave in the bathroom, seeing his clothes in the washing machine along with hers and Zoe’s.

  He had looked after both Zoe and her. She’d watched them together. She’d never really bought into the whole ‘man holding a child being sexy’ thing. In her line of work, she saw it often, but seeing Zoe in Jackson’s huge arms hit differently, put it that way.

  No matter what she tried to tell herself to the contrary, she was seeing him in a new light. The trouble was, she couldn’t find the switch to turn it off. She’d had a moment of what she could consider to be jealousy too, if she hadn’t known better.

  Over the years, she’d never cared about someone enough to feel the green-eyed monster’s breath on her back. When it had happened, she hadn’t cottoned on to what the sudden rush of emotion was at first, but it would have been pretty hard not to notice the way the nursery staff fawned over him. She was pretty sure they wouldn’t be able to pick her out of a line up. They all but ignored her. Either that or they were fluttering their lashes so fast, they missed her in their line of sight.

  Making the most of being with Zoe before they went back to work had been kind of nice. She felt more at home in his house. The boxes were slowly getting sorted. The to-do list didn’t feel so overwhelming. Zoe was settling down. They’d been to drop off Zoe at nursery together. They both agreed it was better to settle her back in before work schedules came into play, make things as normal as possible for her, or what was the new normal of her life now.

  They’d planned to use the time she was at nursery to tackle another day of clearing Harriet’s and her places out ready for the respective sale and rental ahead. She was keeping her mortgage on. She felt absurdly better with an escape plan, not that she could ever realistically use it. Still, that place was the first home she’d bought on her own. The inheritance from her parents was tied up in it. Something made her want to keep hold of it and cover the mortgage with a long-term tenant. It would even provide a little income.

  Jackson had agreed it made sense and insisted that he would cover his own mortgage. She’d played the fifty-fifty card on him on that one. She didn’t want to take half his house, and she wasn’t going to live there without fully paying her way. He’d reluctantly given in, eventually. The compromises were getting easier as each day went by. The easiest decision they’d come to was to take another two weeks off work together, to get things done and be there for Zoe.

  Lucy found she didn’t even mind that. Work was a huge part of her life, but for once she wasn’t in such a hurry. The FOMO wasn’t as sharp as it had been in the past. The hospital had agreed without issue, so that was that. Their time in their little bubble had been extended. Each day, the grief and feelings of being overwhelmed fell away, tiny pieces at a time.

  Zoe was a source of joy for them both. Being so young, after a few weeks the calls for Mummy and Daddy had lessened, which gave them a lot of relief, but also broke their heart at the same time. Jackson’s walls now held the photos from Harriet’s and Ronnie’s house, and he’d even come back from shopping one day with a few of the three of them together.

  Lucy had barely managed to hold her poker face at seeing those. She wondered how many of them he had, how many more snaps she’d not been aware of. The paintball photo was one of them, now enlarged and framed. One was of Harriet and her on the day of their wedding, and she knew it wasn’t one from the official wedding photographer. Harriet had made her look at those for weeks after the wedding, to the point where Lucy had begged her to stop.

  It was a strange photo to put up, really. Harriet wasn’t even fully in the shot. Her face was hidden from view, hugging Lucy to her, and Lucy’s eyes were shut tight. A tear glistened on her cheek. Why Jackson had taken that shot at that moment, she didn’t understand.

  She remembered the moment well. It had been after the first dance, and Lucy had stood on the sidelines and cried—not full on sobbing or ugly crying, of course, just silent little tears as she’d watched her little sister dance with her new husband. She remembered the emotions she’d had swirling through her. She could see them on her features in the photo, even with her eyes hidden behind tear-soaked lashes.

  She’d felt like a proud parent, as if her child was being married off, that her job was done. She’d been beyond sad that her parents weren’t there to see it. She’d wished she truly believed that they were watching from somewhere, happy that their children had turned out so well. She remembered Jackson had come to her side as she’d watched the newlyweds dance. She’d brushed her tears away quickly, folding her arms. The DJ had just called for the other couples to join the couple on the dance floor.

  ‘Dance with me?’ he’d asked, but she’d shaken her head the second the words had come out of his mouth. ‘I’d rather stick pins in my eyeballs, thanks, Denning.’

  ‘Yeah, I figured as much.’ He’d laughed, passing her a handkerchief from his pocket and moving away. She’d seen a few of the guests cast admiring glances his way. She was pretty sure his dance card would get filled.

  When the dance had finished, Harriet had come straight over, beauty radiating from her. She’d been a stunning bride, and when she’d hugged Lucy to her she’d whispered, ‘Thank you’, and Lucy had cried again.

  Jackson must have taken the photo then, she realised. When he’d hung it up in the lounge, she’d lingered over it.

  ‘Jackson, why this one?’ she’d asked him. ‘You can’t even see Harriet’s face.’