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Holly dropped her head onto her chest as she let out a groan.

‘Can I let you know tomorrow? I don’t want to think about any of it tonight.’

A smile spread across Evan’s face as he pushed his laptop lid back down for a second time. ‘Is that right? Well, maybe I can think of some way to distract you.’

50

Holly woke with butterflies in her stomach. Not the excited ones, when it felt like something good was going to happen, but the tight, twisty ones. The ones that tightened into knots and made her feel a little nauseous. Immediately, her mind rattled through all the current stresses in her life, from Maud to Jamie’s wedding and to the shop and her mother. Turning around in the bed, she jolted at the time on her phone. She and Evan had stayed awake until the early hours talking and kissing, and she’d known she was going to struggle to get up in the morning. Still, it was a surprise to see it was already gone nine. And while Holly could easily believe that she had slept in to such a time, she couldn’t believe the same of her daughter.

With as much speed as she could manage, she raced downstairs, to find Hope already in her highchair, while Evan was standing over the hob.

‘We wondered if you were going to join us,’ he said, as he whipped up another batch of pancakes, this time with the addition of blueberries. ‘Hope, you need to stay a morning person. We’ll win your mum round, won’t we? These are the best hours of the day.’

Hope babbled away as she took a piece of her chopped-up pancake from her tray table and stuffed it into her mouth.

Already salivating from the smell, Holly picked a freshly cooked and still-warm pancake from the plate next to Evan and took a bite.

‘I was expecting Ben by now.’ Evan said. ‘He is having her today, right?’

Holly waited till she’d eaten and swallowed her mouthful before she spoke.

‘I told him not to worry until later on. You don’t mind, do you? It’s just, he’s had to rearrange his work quite a bit for me. And this way, I could give him a couple of hours extra to get jobs done.’

‘Of course I don’t mind. So, we’ve got a beautiful morning. What are we going to do?’

‘Well, I can’t ride a bike, but what about a walk? You said you wanted to learn the local areas? Let’s head to Slaughter.’

Lower Slaughter was one of the little villages in easy walking distance of Bourton across the fields and was easily one of Holly’s favourite places. Somehow, with all the memories that Bourton held for her, both good and bad, Slaughter held only good ones.

Her parents used to take her there frequently when she was a child. Sometimes, they had picnics or sat on the edge of the stream with a fishing net, trying to grab the little minnows that darted in the water. Other times, they wouldn’t get as far as the village, but would just walk along the hedgerows, collecting ripe blackberries that she and her mother would later use to make crumbles together.

But her memories hadn’t stopped with her parents. She and Ben had once gone on a cycle ride there, on one of the days when she wasn’t sure if she even liked the man, let alone envisaged having a child with him. But even when they knewthe relationship was fading, she’d found solace in the place. The wheel of the old mill had long since stopped turning, but they served some damn fine ice cream. And the shallow water was fine for Hope to sit on the edge of the river and watch as the ducks and swans paddled by.

Unfortunately, in order to walk there, Hope needed to get into her pushchair first, and it was something she had no intention of doing.

‘You just need to hold her in there a little better,’ Holly said, peering over Evan’s shoulder as he struggled to work out where all the straps went. ‘Hope, honey, please don’t be silly. We’re going to go to Slaughter. To see the ducks. You want to see the ducks, don’t you?’

Even the magic word wouldn’t stop Hope from squirming as she kicked out her legs and twisted around, making it impossible for Evan to do the belt up. Given how much she was kicking, Holly didn’t think it was wise that she got in there and try to help.

‘I don’t understand how she’s so strong,’ Evan said, catching her under the arms as she attempted to dive out of the side of the chair. ‘Have you looked at getting one-on-one training for her? Weightlifting, perhaps. I think she’s a shoo-in for the Olympics.’

Holly would have laughed. After all, Evan was doing a good job of trying to manage the situation. Only Holly knew there was no managing it. When Hope was in one of these moods, all she wanted was to be carried. And that was fine, when Holly had both working arms. She would slip her in the baby carrier, do up the straps around the back, and be off, ready to walk as many miles as she needed. But she couldn’t put the baby carrier on now. And she could hardly ask Evan to wear it. Could she?

‘There must be some other solution,’ Evan said, whipping Hope out of the pushchair and holding her against his chest.Immediately, she stopped her grizzling. ‘I can carry her like this. This is fine.’

‘You can’t carry her like that,’ Holly said. ‘She feels light now, but in fifteen minutes, your arms are going to hurt.’

‘So what other option is there?’ he said.

Holly grimaced. ‘Just so you know, you asked for this.’

51

The moment Hope saw the baby carrier, she was all smiles, although the giggles and laughter soon shifted to confusion as Holly and Evan worked together to increase the lengths of the straps to make it fit him. It took a couple of attempts. Apparently, Holly’s explanations of how to fit it weren’t the clearest and with only one hand, she wasn’t much practical use either, but after ten minutes of trial and error, Hope was securely strapped to Evan’s chest, and they were off, on their way for their first family walk.

‘I think this is one of the best things about living in England,’ Evan said, as they crossed the main road and immediately found themselves in the middle of an empty field with just a single path cutting through the middle. ‘Going for walks.’

‘You can go for walks in the States, surely?’ Holly said. She always saw posts on social media of influencers in America hiking on amazing trails or standing with their arms stretched around ancient, gargantuan trees.