him to meet us at the hospital.’
He glanced at Emily, who he’d finally managed to maneuver into the passenger seat in between contractions.
‘And tell him he’d better make it quick.’
Marla and Jonny collapsed into the car in a fit of euphoric giggles.
‘That was inspired,’ Jonny said, as his phone started to jingle out a Christmas version of YMCA.
‘You are a walking, talking cliché,’ Marla laughed as she turned the key in the ignition, then gasped as the clock glowed neon blue on the dashboard.
‘We’re going to have to step on it if the County Hotel are going to get their glitter balls,’ she said as Jonny hung up the phone.
He shook his head. ‘Forget about the glitter balls. That was your mother. Emily’s gone into labour at the chapel.’
‘Oh my God! With just my mother for company?’
Marla gripped the wheel in horror at the idea of her mother as a midwife. She couldn’t imagine anyone less competent. Jonny laid a hand over hers on the gear stick as she threw the car into reverse.
‘Wait. They’re not at the chapel anymore. They’re on their way to the hospital.’
‘In the name of all that is holy, tell me my mother isn’t driving.’
Marla could barely breathe. Her mother couldn’t drive on the left if her life depended on it, let alone the lives of Emily and her unborn child.
‘You’re mother isn’t driving.’
She sagged with relief and flicked on the wipers to clear the fresh snow from the windscreen. ‘Who is then?’
Jonny pursed his lips and rubbed his hands together with excitement.
‘Angel Gabriel.’
Gabe pushed Emily’s Micra as hard as he dared through the snowy lanes towards the hospital. He was well aware that every four minutes had become more like every two minutes, and Cecilia’s constant nasal chatter from the back seat was doing more to hype Emily up than calm her down.
At last the lights of the hospital loomed into view through the swipes of the windscreen wipers, and he screeched to a halt outside maternity. He dashed inside to grab a wheelchair from the foyer, then dashed back and flung Emily’s door open.
‘Ready?’
She nodded with a wince of pain and held her arms out to him.
Gabe had never known relief like the moment when a flurry of nurses crowded in and took charge of Emily. One look at her contorted face had been enough to galvanise them into action. In a blink Cecilia, Gabe and Emily were hurried down a corridor into a room full of scary-looking lights and metal equipment strapped to the walls. A small woman in a dark blue uniform looked him over expectantly.
‘Right then, dad. Let’s get Emily up on the bed so we can check what’s going on down there.’
‘Oh, I’m not the father,’ Gabe said, thoroughly alarmed.
‘No, I am.’
Everyone turned at the sound of a new voice in the room.
‘Thanks Gabe. I’ll take it from here.’
Emily burst into noisy tears.
‘Tom. Thank God.’
Snowflakes settled on Gabe’s shoulders as he leaned against the wall outside the maternity unit. He was frozen, but it was preferable to the cloying heat of the waiting area and having Cecilia snoozing on his shoulder.
Why did things never go as he expected them to around here?
This was the first time he’d set foot near Beckleberry since the day after the fire, and already his well-laid plans had been ripped to shreds. His phone bipped in his pocket, and he grinned as he scanned the predictable message from Dan. Everything else in his life might shift like quick sand, but Dan would always be Jack the lad.
‘Pub. Now. Wall 2 Wall totty.’
In the hot pub, which was packed out with tinsel-draped revellers, Dan felt his mobile vibrate in the back pocket of his jeans. He reached down for it without disturbing Trisha, the comely barmaid, who at that very moment was in the process of delivering his Christmas snog with considerable tonsil-probing skill.
He flicked the message onto the screen and squinted at it over her naked shoulder.
Sorry bud. Sink a Guinness for me. Mercy dash to the hospital with Emily.
Dan read it twice over then shrugged Trisha off unapologetically and shouldered his way through the crowd, his jacket and cigarettes forgotten on the table behind him.
He had to get to the hospital.
Gabe stood in the shadows and watched Marla skate across the snowy car park towards him. He shook his head at her thoroughly unsuitable choice of footwear. Did the woman possess anything else except high heels? Her hair swirled around her pink cheeks,