A Forever Family: Their Christmas Delivery. Kate Hardy

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      ‘I know. I’m totally hanging my head in shame,’ Josh said, looking anything but repentant.

      Amy suddenly had a very clear idea of what he was like to work with—as nice as he was as a neighbour, kind and good-humoured and compassionate, yet strong when it was necessary. Given his gorgeous blue eyes and the way his hair seemed to be messy again five minutes after he’d combed it, she’d just bet that half the female staff at the hospital had a crush on him. Not that he’d notice. Josh wasn’t full of himself and aware of his good looks, the way Gavin and even Michael had been. He was genuine.

      And he was off limits, she reminded herself.

      Alison peered into the Moses basket. ‘She’s a little cutie.’

      ‘Pick her up and give her a cuddle, if you like,’ Amy said.

      Alison smiled, needing no second invitation. ‘I love babies. Especially when I can give them back when it comes to nappy changes.’

      ‘Noted,’ Josh said dryly.

      ‘So she was just left in the lobby in your flats?’ Alison asked.

      ‘Yes.’ Amy ran through what had happened. ‘And we have a theory that her mum might be in my form group.’

      ‘But if the mum’s in your class, Amy, how come you didn’t recognise her handwriting?’ Alison asked.

      ‘Because she’s in my form group, not my class. I don’t teach her,’ Amy explained. ‘It means she’s there in the form room for five minutes in the morning for registration, and twenty minutes in the afternoon for registration and whatever other activities we’re doing in form time—giving out letters for parents, a chance for any of them to talk to me if they’re worried about something, and sometimes we do quizzes and the kind of things that help the kids bond a bit. I never see any of her written work. And it’s still only a theory. If we’re wrong, then we still have no clue who Hope’s mum is.’

      ‘Well, I hope they do find the poor little mite’s mum.’ Alison looked at Josh. ‘So you two are sort of living together this week?’

      ‘As friends,’ Josh said swiftly. ‘It makes sense, because otherwise we’d have to keep transferring the baby between flats and it’d unsettle her.’

      Amy reminded herself that they weren’t a couple. Even if they had slept on the sofa together last night and fallen asleep holding hands, and when he’d put his arm round her it had simply been comfort for both of them after their worry about the baby’s health.

      ‘It’s really nice of you to look after her,’ Alison said.

      ‘What else could we do?’ Amy asked. ‘She’s a baby. She didn’t ask to be left here. The social worker couldn’t get a placement because it was Christmas Eve and nobody was about, and Josh said the hospital’s on black alert so the baby couldn’t stay there.’

      ‘The winter vomiting virus is everywhere,’ Alison confirmed, ‘and the children’s ward is full of babies with bronchiolitis, something you definitely don’t want a newborn to get.’ She smiled at them, then handed the baby back to Amy. ‘Here you go, cutie. Back to your Aunty Amy. Thanks for the coffee and biscuits. I’m heading home to bed now because I’m working the night shift again tonight and I need some sleep before I face the fractures and the ones who gave themselves food poisoning with the leftovers.’

      ‘Thanks for bringing all this,’ Josh said, ‘and I owe your sister flowers and some decent chocolate. And you, too.’

      Alison waved away the thanks. ‘It’s good to be able to do something nice for someone at Christmas. It feels as if it’s putting the balance back a bit, after all the greed and rampant consumerism.’

      When she’d gone, Josh turned to Amy. ‘The only time you’ve been out of the flat since Christmas Eve morning is our middle-of-the-night trip to hospital. Do you want to go and get some fresh air?’

      ‘That’d be good. And I could probably do with picking up something for dinner,’ she said. ‘I forgot to get something out of the freezer earlier.’

      ‘I ought to be the one buying dinner,’ he said. ‘You’ve fed me two days running as it is.’

      ‘It really doesn’t matter.’ Unable to resist teasing him, she added, ‘But if you really want to cook for me...’

      ‘Then you get a choice of spaghetti Bolognese or a cheese toastie,’ he said promptly.

      ‘Or maybe I should teach you how to cook something else.’ She grabbed her coat and her handbag. ‘I’ll see you in a bit. I’ve got my phone with me in case you need me.’

      ‘Great.’

      * * *

      It felt odd, being alone in Amy’s flat, Josh thought when she’d gone. Weirdly, it felt like home; yet, at the same time, it wasn’t. Everything was neat and tidy and she’d done the washing up while he was seeing Alison out of the flat, so he couldn’t do anything practical to help; all he could really do was watch the baby.

      He’d texted his parents and his siblings during his break at work on Christmas Day, and hadn’t corrected their assumption that he was working today. Not that he really wanted to speak to any of them. If he told them how his Christmas had panned out, he knew they’d try to manage it—which drove him crazy. He was perfectly capable of managing his own life, even if he was the baby of the family and had messed up, in their eyes.

      He held the baby and looked at the framed photographs on Amy’s mantelpiece. The older couple were clearly her parents, and the man in one of the younger couples looked enough like her to be her brother in Canada. The other couple, he assumed, must be the friends she’d talked about staying with in Edinburgh.

      ‘She really loves her family,’ he said to the baby, ‘and they clearly love her to bits, too.’ He sighed. ‘Maybe I should make more of an effort with mine.’

      The baby gurgled, as if agreeing.

      ‘They’re not bad people. Just they have set views on what I ought to be doing with my life, and right now they feel I’m letting them down. I’m the only one in our family to get divorced. But Kelly didn’t love me any more, and I couldn’t expect her to stay with me just to keep my family happy. It would have made both of us really miserable, and that’s not fair.’

      The baby gurgled again.

      ‘Tell you a secret,’ he said. ‘I think I could like Amy. More than like her.’

      The baby cooed, as if to say that she liked Amy, too.

      ‘And I would never have got to know her like this if it wasn’t for you, Munchkin. We’d still just be doing the nod-and-smile thing if we saw each other in the corridor or the lobby. But this last couple of days, I’ve spent more time with her than I have with anyone else in a long, long time.’ He paused. ‘The question is, what does she think about me?’

      The baby was silent.

      ‘I’m not going to risk making things awkward while we’re looking after you,’ he said. ‘But in the New Year I’m going to ask her out properly. Because I’m ready to move on, and I think she СКАЧАТЬ