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‘You have to see this.’ He moved her hair to whisper the words. ‘Trust me.’

She reluctantly looked up and her eyes widened as she took in the council leads: every single one of them had their hand raised. Her own hand went to her mouth in amazement as Tom lowered his from the vote and started to clap. After a few seconds the rest of the council followed Tom’s lead, and he held his hands out to her with a huge smile. Hot, grateful tears streaked down her cheeks as she tried to compose herself, overwhelmed by the support.

‘Unanimous,’ she whispered the word in wonder. ‘Thank you so much.’

‘Told you it would be.’ Jake gave her a happy squeeze.

‘We should let Nick know,’ she murmured quietly, not wanting to disrupt the meeting any further.

‘Already doing it.’ Jake tapped a message into his phone, which pinged in reply almost immediately.

‘What did he say?’

Jake showed her the screen. Bloody awesome. Told you so. I’m on it.

Evelyn looked around. ‘Do you think it would be really rude if we snuck out? I desperately want to tell Mum and Summer the news.’

‘I think it will be OK. People will understand,’ Jake reassured her. ‘Let’s just wait a few minutes and we’ll slip out between agenda items.’

‘OK.’ Evelyn giggled. She felt giddy with the relief of the council’s decision, and the thought of sneaking out made her feel like a misbehaving schoolgirl.

When they reached the car park, Evelyn was virtually skipping with happiness. ‘I can’t believe it was unanimous! I know you said it was going to be all right, but I never imagined it would be unanimous. I can’t thank you enough!’ Without thinking, she swung around and grabbed Jake, and placed a huge kiss on his lips.

Almost immediately, his arms snaked around her waist and he drew her tightly against him as he kissed her back. His lips were warm and so familiar that she felt like she’d finally come home. But as his tongue teased her lips, the clock tower chimed the hour and she felt unwanted reality creep back in, and she forced herself to pull away from him, immediately regretting the cold that replaced his warmth.

But she forced herself to take one step, then another, away from him, and hoped the shaking in her legs wasn’t so obvious that Jake would be able to see it. If she was honest, she’d thought about rekindling a relationship with him – how could she not have when he made her feel so treasured and cared for? – but she still stood by her belief that it was unfair to ask any man to take on a sick child. Summer’s own father, such as he was, hadn’t been able to handle her illness. There was no way Evelyn could expect another man to take on such responsibilities and stress, and possible heartache.

She shook her head sadly to shake the thought from her mind. It wasn’t fair to anyone to consider starting a relationship, no matter how much she adored him, and looked forward to every second they spent together.

‘Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m starving. Fancy grabbing something to eat?’

Now that he mentioned it, Evelyn was hungry. She’d been too nervous before the council meeting to stomach more than a few sips of coffee. ‘I should really be getting back. I can’t wait to tell them the result.’

‘Of course you can’t. Good news should be shared. But I could pick up some food and bring it back to yours. We could celebrate.’

‘Well …’ For a moment, Evelyn was tempted to say yes, but she reminded herself that she still needed to keep distance between them. Right until the moment where he melted her resolve.

‘You know, I bet if I gave The Brockle’s Retreat a call, the chef would whip me up some of their Badger Burgers. Summer loves those.’ Yet again, Jake effortlessly, and automatically included her daughter in his plans, making her question her resolve.

‘You’ve got that much sway, even with the local pub?’

Jake shrugged. ‘They’ll do it for any local. But the chef there might or might not have a cat who might or might not be a patient of mine.’

‘Burgers would be lovely.’ Evelyn pulled out her purse. ‘Let me give you some money.’

‘Wouldn’t even think of letting you.’ He waved her offer away. ‘You head home, tell Summer and Linda the good news, and I’ll meet you there with the food as soon as I can.’

Jake’s phone started buzzing with notifications as he walked into the pub and waved to the landlord. He ordered himself a quick half while he waited for the food to be cooked and packed up into one of the many cool bags that were kept in the kitchen just for locals, who staff knew would always return them.

He checked his phone as he sipped his ale. True to his word, Nick had already been hard at work, and Jake was copied in on nearly a dozen emails and social media notifications that introduced Summer’s Christmas to the world. The press release was beautifully written and Summer smiled out from the screen, looking completely adorable. He grinned back at the digital version of her, feeling surer than ever that this was going to work.

Less than fifteen minutes later, he knocked at Evelyn’s door. He stumbled and nearly dropped the food as Summer threw herself at him, chattering away excitedly.

‘Did you hear? I’m going to go to America for special medicine! It’s so special you can only get it one place in the world, so I’m going to have to get on the biggest plane ever and fly there which will take a whole day and we’ll have to sleep and eat and use the toilet on a plane in the air. How crazy is that? And Mum says you can see the clouds from their tops instead of their bottoms. It’s going to be amazing!’

‘It sounds pretty cool,’ Jake agreed as he swung her up onto his hip.

‘Oh, I didn’t tell you the best bit.’ She squealed with excitement, making Jake wince. ‘The doctors said they’re going to make me all better. And then when the cancer is gone again, they have more medicine to make sure it never comes back. And it works on almost everyone. Isn’t that brilliant?’