His hands tightened around hers. ‘There’s room for all of you. The question is, have you got room in your heart for all of us?’
Perdita’s dark eyes were shimmering with unshed tears. ‘You know there is,’ she said brokenly. ‘I do love you, Ed. I love you more than I could have thought possible and I’ve missed you every second since we came back from Burnham, but you deserve so much more than I can give you at the moment.’
‘More than what?’ he asked gently.
‘More than a few moments between working and caring for my mother.’ Perdita swallowed the lump in her throat. ‘There’s nothing else in my life at the moment. I can’t just abandon Mum, or put her in a home, but how can I give you what you need when I’m looking after her?’
Ed looked down into her face. Raindrops spangled her dark hair and her eyes were huge and shining in the gathering dusk.
‘You can give me what I need just by being there,’ he told her slowly. ‘Yes, you may have to drop everything sometimes if your mother needs you. Yes, we may have to cut short a dinner or cancel a date because of one of the kids, but it won’t always happen that way. And when I come back from ferrying Cassie to a party, you’ll be there for me, just like I’ll be there for you when you’ve had a hard day coping with your mother.’
He drew her closer. ‘You’re too used to assuming that you have to do everything on your own, Perdita. You don’t. I’ll help you and you can help me, because God knows I’m going to need help with Cassie and Lauren over the next few years!’
Perdita’s heart was pounding with hope and she smiled waveringly. ‘I’ve heard some of the rows.’
‘Then you’ll know that it’s not going to be easy,’ said Ed with a smile before his expression grew serious again. ‘Do you remember the bar at Burnham?’
‘When I said everything was perfect?’
He nodded. ‘It won’t be perfect, Perdita. It will be hard. There aren’t going to be any magic solutions, you were right about that. Your mother isn’t going to get better. The kids aren’t going to suddenly become polite and helpful and bored with partying. They aren’t going to switch off the television voluntarily and do their homework without nagging…and they aren’t going to forgive me if I don’t find a way of persuading you to marry us.’
Perdita was betrayed into a laugh. ‘Us? Would I be marrying all of you?’
‘I’m afraid so.’ A smile that started at the back of Ed’s eyes was spreading over his face. ‘You’d be marrying the whole package: me, Tom, Cassie and Lauren, just as I’d be marrying you and your mother.’
Releasing her hands at last, he cupped her face between his palms. ‘We can find a way of managing things together, Perdita. Marry me, and come and live with us. Sell your flat and pay for twenty four hour care for your mother. It’s what she needs now, and it doesn’t mean that you can’t be there for her. She can stay in her house and you can see her every day. And if you can’t for any reason, then you and she will have a whole family who can help. If you’re away working, I’ll go and see her, and if we’re both away, the kids will check that she’s OK. That’s what families are for. We can do anything as long as we’re together.’
He made it seem so easy. He sounded so certain, and she felt so safe between his hands. ‘Do you really think it could work?’ Perdita asked, wanting-longing-to believe him, but not daring to.
‘We won’t know unless we try,’ said Ed.
‘And how do we do that?’
‘We stick together. We love each other. We support each other the best way we can.’ His hands slid over her wet shoulders and down her arms to pull her closer. ‘We don’t have expectations that it will be perfect. We just take each day as it comes and be glad that we have each other.’
He smiled down at her, but she could see the anxiety in his eyes, as if he still wasn’t sure of her. ‘What do you think?
Heedless of the drizzle, Perdita gazed back at him as the certainty and the happiness began to trickle back into her sore heart. ‘I think…’ she began in a voice that wobbled ridiculously with emotion. ‘I think it would be wonderful if we could do that.’
‘So will you try with me?’
‘Yes.’ She smiled at him through her tears as she reached for him. ‘Oh, yes, I will!’
Ed’s arms came round her then and he held her hard against him. ‘And you’ll marry me?’ he asked urgently, tipping her face up to his.
‘Only if I get the whole package,’ said Perdita. ‘Only if I get to marry Tom and Cassie and Lauren too,’ she said, and he then kissed her at last.
The drizzle quickened into rain as they kissed and kissed and kissed some more, but neither Ed nor Perdita noticed, and when they ran out of breath they just held each other tight, thinking how close they had come to letting it all go.
It was some time before Ed realised that there was water trickling down his neck and he held out his hand, squinting up at the rain. ‘We’re getting soaked here. Let’s go and find somewhere drier where I can kiss you.’
Perdita clapped a hand to her mouth as reality flooded belatedly back. ‘What time is it? I said I’d be back before Mum’s carer leaves at four thirty.’
‘It looks as if we’d better go and get dry there then, doesn’t it?’ said Ed, glancing at his watch.
Stacking away the forks safely, they ran for the shelter of Ed’s car. Perdita smiled ruefully as Ed started the engine.
‘It’s starting already, isn’t it?’ she said, squeezing the worst of the rain out of her hair. ‘Fitting in with each other’s responsibilities?’
But Ed only smiled. ‘That’s the way it’s going to be,’ he said. ‘We’re starting a new life, aren’t we? We may as well start the way we mean to go on.’
‘Together?’ asked Perdita, and he leaned over to kiss her, a kiss so indescribably sweet and intense and so full of promise that her heart sang.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Together.’
Jessica Hart
