And she was. Truffle was sitting as close to him as she could possibly get, leaning against him, with her chin on her knee as if to say that she was there and she’d never desert him.
‘So you do do emotions. Truffle’s the walking proof of that.’
Where was she taking this? ‘I guess,’ he said guardedly.
‘But I think you use her to deflect your human feelings.’
That was probably also true. But he didn’t know what to say.
‘And you told me you loved Zoe.’
‘I did.’
‘So,’ she said. ‘Maybe you could learn to love our child.’
And he could see in her eyes the thing she didn’t dare to say. Maybe you could learn to love me.
He thought about it. When Truffle had gone missing, Georgie had been there by his side and helped him find the dog. She’d been there by his side at the vet’s. She’d listened to him, and she had still been there by his side afterwards to help him look after Truffle.
At work, last week, she’d sat with Mollie’s mum when it was above and beyond the call of duty. She’d refused to leave the poor woman to wait alone until a family member or friend could come to support her. And he’d seen Georgie do that with other anxious parents too, over the last three months.
So it followed that she wouldn’t abandon him or their child.
He could trust her.
And he liked the way he felt when he was with her. He liked the way she made him see things differently.
Could he see a baby differently? A baby of his own? The baby he’d always told himself he didn’t want—but, if he was honest with himself, the baby he thought he didn’t deserve because he wasn’t lovable enough?
He’d told himself that he didn’t know how to be a father. But Georgie seemed to believe he could do it.
He thought about it some more. What about the practicalities? Would she expect him to move back to London with her? Truffle would hate that and so would he; he’d feel hemmed in, in the city. But would she be prepared to stay here with him?
There was only one way to find out.
Ask her.
He’d never, ever felt this nervous and unsure before. He’d never told anyone the deepest, darkest secret of his heart. Maybe it was time to be totally honest.
‘What if I fail? What if I’m a rubbish dad and a rubbish partner and I let you down?’
Hope bloomed in her eyes. ‘I don’t think you’ll fail. I’m not looking for perfection, and neither is our baby. Just for someone who’ll love us all the way back.’ She reached out and took his hand. ‘And you won’t let us down. Just keep being you. A bit less of the silent and stubborn would be helpful, but I don’t want to change you.’ She took a deep breath.
‘So I’ll take the risk and say it. I love you, Ryan McGregor. Even if you were Grumpy McGrumpface when I first met you. I love everything about you. The way you notice things and sort things out quietly and without a fuss. The way you insist on seeing everything rationally, yet you can still see the magic in the Northern Lights—and the way you kissed me under them made me weak at the knees. I think that’s when I started to fall in love with you. And the night you danced with me at the ceilidh—that was when I realised I wanted you. For keeps.’
She loved him.
‘And, just so you know,’ she said, ‘I wasn’t necessarily planning to go back to London. Actually, if you turn me down, I’m going to camp on your doorstep until you agree to let me into your life. The way I see it, you and Truffle are mine, just as the baby and I are yours.’
Camp on his doorstep?
Those were the words of a woman who wasn’t going to abandon him. A woman whose family and half her friends would be four hundred miles away if she stayed here in Edinburgh, but she wanted him—loved him—enough to make that distance work.
‘So I’m yours, then,’ he said.
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Ryan Jones,’ he said, testing out the name.
She shook her head. ‘That’s Charlie’s surname. If you really want to take mine, you’d be Ryan Woodhouse.’ She looked at him. ‘Though if we’re talking name changes, I think Georgina McGregor has a nice ring to it. All those Gs, softie southerner first name and tough Scots last name. That’s us all over.’
Only Georgie could have come up with that.
And it felt as if the barriers round his heart, the ones he’d thought were impenetrable, were dissolving. Melted away by the deepest of emotions: love.
‘Are you asking me to marry you?’
‘If that’s what it takes, sure. I’ll drop down on my knee and propose. Though a piece of paper isn’t going to make the slightest bit of difference to the way I feel.’ Her face lit up as she looked at him. ‘You’re not Charlie—you’re not going to be careless with me. You’re stubborn, but I think you love me too and you just don’t know how to say it.’
How could she see inside his head like that?
‘So I’m happy to be the one to say it first. I love you, Ryan McGregor, and I want you to be my family.’ She nudged the dog. ‘Your turn to speak. Tell him you want to be a family with me and the baby, too.’
‘Woof,’ Truffle said obligingly.
A baby. A family. A woman who really, really loved him.
Things he’d never thought to have.
He remembered what she’d said to him before. ‘All you have to do is reach out.’
He’d told himself it was too hard; but it wasn’t. What was hard was trusting that it would be easy. But he trusted Georgie. The calm, capable, professional doctor who put his head in a spin and put fire in his heart. The one who’d shown him that the world was a
