Matilda Next Door - Kelly Hunter Page 0,28
she asked as she buckled up and looked around. ‘Because it has that new car smell.’
‘Do you like it?’
‘It’s gorgeous. Love the leather. Is it all-wheel drive?’
He nodded.
‘How many cylinders?’
‘Eight.’ Didn’t want her being underpowered out there on Wirralong’s dirt roads in the rain.
‘I approve.’
‘Good, because it’s yours. My gift to you for ruining your holiday with my unexpected … addition.’
‘But—you can’t just—’
‘It’s done. Check the glove box. The purchase is in your name and so’s the temporary registration. You’ll have to fill in the forms properly when you get a chance.’
‘Henry, it’s too much. Way too much.’
‘Feels about right to me.’ He glanced in the rear vision mirror. How was a man supposed to concentrate on driving with a baby on board? ‘She’s very quiet.’
‘Be happy about that, because I guarantee it won’t last.’
He took that to mean get a move on. ‘So how did you find London once you got the hang of it?’ And found some clothes to wear. The memory of her clad only in his business shirts was one he frequently revisited.
‘Can you keep a confidence? As in not mention it to my parents?’
He cleared the airport and headed for North Melbourne and the apartment near the hospital. He had two words for her. ‘Kewpie doll.’ She’d spent a small fortune on a hideously ugly kewpie doll at the Wirralong Show one year and told her mother Henry had won it for her on the ping-pong-ball clowns. He’d been ribbed mercilessly for his largess. Henry Church was mad for Silly Tilly. To this day, he’d never betrayed her confidence. ‘Do you still have that thing?’
‘My folly? Sure do.’ A dimple appeared in her cheek. ‘You gave it to me.’
‘What’s your secret, this time, that you think your parents are not going to like?’
‘I didn’t much like London, or travel, or adventure. I missed the blue sky and the red dirt and the sound of magpies in the morning.’
‘What about the smell of sheep dung? Did you miss that too?’
‘And the smell of wet wool and the ability to get out of bed, open the doors to my bedroom and step outside. Not that your London place isn’t beautiful, because it is. I’d have stolen your leather library chair in a hot minute if I thought I had any chance whatsoever of bringing it home. But the pigeons and the garbage trucks and the door alarms and the people made me feel so out of place. Even the art galleries were big and busy and you couldn’t just stand there and look at a picture for a while, you had to move on long before you were done.’ She sighed. ‘I’d dreamed of this trip for so long. I fully expected the Mary Poppins experience and dancing on rooftops with Dick Van Dyke, and instead I was lonely—that is until missy in the back there turned up. She kind of gave my holiday a purpose. Please don’t call me silly,’ she finished quietly. ‘Not that you ever have.’
He wasn’t about to start. ‘When I first went to London I used to get up before dawn and stare out the window overlooking that little corner of Trafalgar Square and wait for the pigeon lady to arrive. It reminded me of feeding the sheep at home. She never missed a day until the day she did.’ Hadn’t even known who she was, only that she’d kept him company for years and reminded him of a simpler life than the one he’d hungered for. ‘I never saw her again.’
‘But do you look for her still?’
‘Every damn day,’ he murmured. ‘City living’s not for everyone. Don’t beat yourself up.’
‘But you like it.’
‘Yet here I am reassessing my lifestyle options. Maybe I like London enough to visit once in a while. Maybe I want Rowan to know the pleasures of farm life.’
‘Henry, you couldn’t wait to get gone.’
For more than one reason. He gave her the simpler one. ‘I had to know what was out there. And now I do and I’m seriously considering coming back to take care of the people who once took care of me.’
‘For how long?’ Suspicion laced her voice. That and an underlying raggedy edge of something he couldn’t place.
‘I don’t know. But thank you, again, for all you’ve done on my behalf these past few days.’
‘You’re welcome.’ She sat back in her seat and closed her eyes. ‘I still can’t accept this car in return.’
‘You can.’ It helped that she seemed too tired to argue