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“Do what differently?” she asked.

He looked down at his gnarled hands. “Your mother always told me that I put the job first. And I thought it was the right thing to do. Maybe it was. Making the world a safe place to be, that’s important. So I worked nights, so I went up for promotion, so I left her alone more often than I should, and we argued.”

“Dad, this isn’t about—”

“Just hear me out,” he said, still looking at his hands. “We didn’t work out. Maybe we never would have, even if I’d been around all the time. But I don’t know because I never got the chance to find out. She left. She had every right to. I was nohusband to her.” He looked up now. “But I’d do it differently if I had another chance, just so you know.”

Tilly tried to digest this. He’d do it differently? Her father? The most career-minded person she’d ever met? Her role model?

He looked out over the fields. “The thing is,” he said. “It’s lonely being alone. And the job doesn’t keep you warm at night. It’s an important job, it really is. But there’s more to life than just the job.”

“I’d have thought that you’d be the first to tell me what an idiot I’ve been,” Tilly said.

“Why? Because you got mixed up with someone who might not be the perfect choice?” He laughed. “The heart wants what the heart wants, girl.”

Tilly bit her lip. “I just want to make you proud.”

“You can. You do.” He sighed. “But if you really want to make me proud, then don’t make the same mistakes I did.”

Tilly took her dad’s hand. “I don’t think she wants me anymore,” she said quietly.

“Do you want her?”

She closed her eyes. “My life was better with her in it,” she said. “It was lighter, brighter. I didn’t want to stay at work all the time. There was something waiting for me.”

“See?” he said. “That’s the thing. The job means more when you’re doing it for someone. For me, that person was you. I told myself every day that I was making the world a safer place for you. You need to find your person. Because without that, the job’s just a job, same as any other.”

Tilly squeezed her eyes tight shut for a second, then opened them to blinding brightness. “I do want her,” she said. “I’m not ready to let her go.”

“Then, for god’s sake, tell the woman,” her father said, shaking his head. “Or I really will think you’re an idiot.”

He squeezed her hand, let it go, and began to clamber over the stile. Tilly watched him for a second, then started to laugh. Was it all really that easy?

Chapter Thirty Two

“Soph, Soph, wake up.” Gio was hammering on her bedroom door. “Get up.”

“Jesus, Gio, give me a minute to get my head straight.” She pulled one arm out of bed to check the time, just gone seven thirty. She hadn’t gone to sleep until after one, sitting up and thinking about life, about love, about Tilly.

“No, get up now,” Gio said.

For an instant, she considered telling him where to go with his insistence, but there was something in his voice. She jumped out of bed and opened the door. He was white, his face looking sick. “What is it?” she said.

“Dad.”

“What?”

“Just come downstairs.”

She followed him down to find her father sitting at his usual place at the head of the table. He was gray, his breath coming harder than hers, and she’d just run down the stairs. She looked at Gio. “How long has he been like this?”

“Since he came down,” said Gio. “What do we do? He’s refusing to have the doctor out.”

“We’ll see about that,” Sophie said.

“He is right here,” gasped her father. “And you’ll not be wasting the doc’s time on me. Go and get that garage opened and I’ll be there in half an hour. Let me just catch my breath.”

Sophie looked at her brother, nervous and pale, and at her father, sick and gray, and shook her head. She wasn’t doing this, wasn’t going to play silly masculine games. She took a breath, straightened her shoulders, and took charge.