Page 45 of A Christmas Wish for the Village Midwife

‘I don’t know,’ Zoe said. ‘I don’t think they’ve come up with anything yet. I’ll phone tomorrow to see how things are, and I’ll ask then. Or we could all go over and visit. I’m sure Victor wouldn’t mind us going up to have a nosy. She’s so cute!’

‘Maybe,’ Billie said, her tone still flatter than Zoe would have expected. ‘If it’s not raining, we could.’

‘I’d like to,’ Alex said. ‘Zoe saw the baby because she helped to deliver it, but it was all over by the time I got there.’

Billie perked up at this revelation. ‘You did?’ she asked Zoe, who wafted her hand.

‘That’s giving me too much importance. I didn’t do much apart from clean the baby up. Dandelion did all the delivering, all by herself. Even Victor just stood with me and watched, and when the vet turned up, he just had to check them both over.’

Billie picked up her phone, glanced at it and then set it down again.

‘Anything happened here?’ Alex asked, his gaze going to the phone Billie had just checked.

Billie looked up at him. ‘Like what?’

‘I don’t know… just asking if everything has been all right while we were out.’

‘Fine.’ Billie let out a yawn. ‘I might go up if you two don’t need me.’

Zoe watched Alex as he watched his daughter. Would he bring up his plan to have Luis’s family over for Christmas? But as Billie got up and clicked her fingers for Grizzle to follow her, he said nothing about it; he simply bid her goodnight and then watched as she left the room.

‘Are you worried it wasn’t such a good idea?’ Zoe asked him once Billie had gone.

‘What?’

‘Inviting the in-laws over? I thought you might have said something to her before she went to bed.’

‘It didn’t seem like the right time. I didn’t want to keep her up. I’ll mention it in the morning.’

‘So you’re not having second thoughts?’

He turned to her with a rueful smile now. ‘How do you always know what I’m thinking?’

‘Trust me, I wish that was the case! But I can imagine you might be. I would be the same if I was already worried that she might prefer living with them than me.’

‘It’s that obvious?’

‘Only to me, I’m sure. And for the record, I’m sure that’s not the case. I don’t think she’d rather live with them than with you.’

‘But she’d rather live where they live than live here?’

Zoe couldn’t argue with that, and it would be an insult to his intelligence to try. ‘You can hardly blame her for that. She wouldn’t be the first to swap our rainy skies for sunnier ones, would she?’

‘And it probably feels a lot more like home than here,’ Alex agreed. ‘What am I going to do?’

‘Talk to her properly. I understand she’s not good at opening up, but you’re going to have to.’

‘It’ll blow over. I’ll give it another week.’

‘If Luis’s parents say they can come for Christmas that will cheer her up, I’m sure.’

He shrugged. ‘I’m starting to wonder if it was a good idea. If things are a bit tense already and then we go and add two more people into the mix… Me and my big gob.’

Zoe gave a small smile. ‘I’m glad you said that because I wasn’t going to.’

‘You were thinking it.’

‘Naturally…’ She prodded him on the arm. ‘Don’t beat yourself up about it – I’d have probably done the same. If they come, we’ll cope. And it might make Billie’s Christmas a whole lot better, which is what you wanted, right? So it’s a win in the end.’