Page 35 of A Very Happy Easter

“Let’s go and take a look for her, okay?”

“Ghost?”

“Yup, I’m a kind of ghost. A phantom. What are you?”

“A turtle, dummy.”

“No way, you’re too fast for a turtle.”

“I’m a fast turtle.”

A lady in an Oompa-Loompa costume rushed over. “Sorry, I’m so sorry. I looked away for one second, just one second, I swear, and he was gone.”

“That’s ’cos he’s a fast turtle,” Heath said, and the kid grinned at him.

“I can fly too.”

“Only the best can do that.” Heath lifted the kid higher until the little boy squealed in delight. “Now you’re a Superturtle.”

Watching the pair of them, it was painfully obvious that Heath would make a great dad someday. Which meant his time as my companion was limited, no matter how much I might want the arrangement to continue. Money couldn’t solve every problem. Once, I’d looked forward to having a family, to having a house full of children, but now I was a barrier to my own happiness. Even adoption was a challenge when you were single with agoraphobia. People assured me it was possible, that past mental health issues wouldn’t be a big deal, but the “past” part was currently a problem. What if I had a panic attack while out with a child? What would I do? What would they do?

The boy ran off to his friends, and Heath turned his attention back to me.

“Can I get you anything? A drink? Something to eat? A throne?”

“You jest about thrones, but in the very near future, I’m going to need to use the bathroom, and I genuinely don’t know how I’m going to manage.”

“Huh. I hadn’t thought about that.”

“It’s okay for men—they just point and shoot.”

“Even pointing and shooting would be a challenge in that outfit. Why don’t you take the skirt off?”

“I’ll have to go over to the main house. I won’t fit into a stall in the fancy portaloos Eis hired, and I’m not wandering around in my underwear.”

“Then I’ll walk with you.”

I couldn’t loop my arm through Heath’s tonight—it was too far away—so he offered me a hand as we picked our way along the path to the front door of Twilight’s End. This year, the party had grown from one marquee to two, plus a catering tent. At least the grounds were well-lit.

“This is one hell of a place,” Heath said. “Even bigger than your London house.”

“It is. Eisen and I used to come here every few weeks when we were growing up. My pony lived in the stables at the side, and Eis liked to run around in the woods making holes in his trousers.”

“That’s something I can identify with. I grew up in the country, and since I was the youngest, I had a lot of hand-me-downs from Liam. He kept his clothes pristine, and a week after I got them, they’d be covered in mud and usually torn somewhere.”

“Good practice for the Army?”

“By some miracle, I managed to keep my service dress relatively intact.”

“Is that the fancy one? Dress blues?”

“Ah, no, I never wore that one much. Only for a couple of parades in the beginning. Service dress is a khaki jacket and trousers with a shirt and tie.”

“Did they make you give it all back when you left?”

“Yup.”

Shame. I bet he’d have looked handsome in the dress blues, although that was clearly irrelevant, given our current circumstances.

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