Page 85 of All We Want for Christmas
Flynn glanced back at the doorway, wondering if he still had time to bolt. He felt ridiculous with his bags of gifts. ‘Maybe I should come back another time.’
‘No,’ Imogen finally spoke again. ‘This was obviously all planned. And no one knew I was coming until I turned up after lunch.’
‘We thought she was in Tenerife,’ Molly said, hugging herself.
‘Well, I wasn’t going to miss my granddaughter’s first Christmas and I wanted to see you and Mum,’ Imogen snapped. ‘I managed to get the time off and wanted to surprise you.’
‘That was—’ Flynn was going to say ‘nice of you’, but he decided it was better if settled for ‘I’m glad you could get here.’
‘Yeah – but – why areyouhere? It looks like you’ve been hanging around a while.’
‘I wouldn’t describe it as hanging around,’ Flynn said, feeling annoyed. He was aware that Imogen had zero insightinto the events of the past few weeks and he didn’t want to inflame the situation, for Molly’s sake, but he had a bunch of questions of his own for Imogen. In this highly charged atmosphere, though, now was not the moment.
Molly finally found her voice. ‘I am so sorry, Mum. I swear I was going to tell you tomorrow – over FaceTime.’
‘FaceTime?’ Imogen echoed. ‘I suppose it would have been better than nothing.’
‘And Flynn. I tried to message you as soon as I could after Mum arrived.’
‘I didn’t look at my phone. I was at the castle at the staff Christmas lunch. I didn’t even think to check my phone because I was late and rushing over here.’
‘I’m sorry. It wasn’t meant to turn out like this.’
‘It’s OK,’ he soothed his daughter. ‘But I can see it’s a shock for your mum.’
Imogen stared at him. She was still very like the girl he’d lain with by that lakeside fire, albeit her hair was even darker than it had been then, almost black. She was very tanned, as you’d expect from someone who worked in the sun a lot, and there was something harder-edged about her features than he remembered. Maybe twenty years of working to support a child on her own would have done that, he thought bitterly.
He wanted to ask her why she’d felt the need but he stopped himself. All in good time. God knows what he looked like to her.
He dragged his eyes away and smiled at Molly. ‘This is pretty awkward, isn’t it?’
‘You can say that again,’ Imogen said. ‘Molly, any chance of a large glass of that pink gin I brought?’
Molly scurried off to the kitchen and seemed to take a long time making a G&T and finding a zero beer for Flynn. In an ideal world, he would have had several shots of Harvey’s decent whisky to cope with the drama. However, he was stuck here now and there was no escape. He wouldn’t have left anyway, though, because Molly and Esme needed him.
‘It’s unfortunate Molly didn’t alert either of us, but it means I have no idea why and how you’re here.’
‘I work at Ravendale Castle. Molly heard my name mentioned around and kind of tracked me down. I think that’s something you need to talk to her about, though,’ Flynn replied.
Brenda came back into the lounge with Esme in her arms. ‘My, she is getting so heavy. Do I need to referee?’
Flynn almost managed a smile. ‘Not yet, Brenda.’
Imogen’s eyes flicked from her mother to Flynn, perhaps sensing the glimmer of an in-joke between the two of them. ‘How long has this been going on?’
Molly re-entered the room, a tissue in her hand.
‘Only a few weeks. Well, Flynn’s only known about us for a few weeks. I was kind of stalking him online for a while before that. So were you, Mum, so don’t deny it.’ Molly handed her a gin and tonic.
‘Stalking? If you mean I was interested in what the father of my child was doing, then, yes, but I had no intention of contacting him. Jeez, Mum, why didn’t you both tell me before?’
‘We didn’t have time. And I wanted to, Immy, I wanted to, but Molly was – Molly was worried and scared.’
Molly took Esme from Brenda. ‘I was going to tell you tomorrow, Mum. I swear.’
‘Hold on. I am here,’ Flynn said. ‘May I suggest we have this conversation when Esme is in bed?’
‘I think that’s a very good idea,’ Brenda said, placing Esme on the carpet, where she started to crawl towards the cat, who shot out of the door before its tail was grabbed.
