The Village Midwife's Secret Christmas Wish

Chapter 1

Alex was out of bed before Zoe had even woken enough to register the bleeping of the alarm. The bedroom was in gloom, the sun not yet risen, and she could just make out his shape against the window.

‘It’s five thirty already?’ she mumbled. ‘Where did the night go?’

‘I’ll make coffee…’ His voice was bright and alert, and Zoe wondered, groggily, if he’d already been awake before the alarm had gone off. She wouldn’t have been surprised because he’d been jittery the entire evening before they’d gone to bed.

She sat up with a stretch, just in time to see him leave the room, letting the door slam behind him. The hanger holding her freshly washed midwife’s tunic was suspended from a hook there and clattered against the wood as the door closed.

As she shrugged on her dressing gown, she peered out of the window from a crack in the curtains.

The hills beyond their home were in darkness, and aside from the odd point of orange light, there wasn’t much else to see other than their looming shapes against a sky turning from inky darkness to indigo.

There was a stiff breeze that she heard more than saw, though it rustled in the trees and shrubs in the garden below.

She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself as the draught crept in through gaps in the old window frame.

Alex had talked about getting new windows, but it was a huge cost and money they didn’t really have.

Secretly, Zoe was glad. She liked these characterful wooden frames, even if they weren’t very efficient in the winter.

They made Hilltop farmhouse look like the sort of house she’d have dreamed of back when she’d lived in Manchester, the sort of house that would have been featured on the front cover of the homemaking magazines that littered the table in the staffroom of the maternity department where she’d worked.

Sometimes, after a hard day at the surgery where she spent her time now, when she arrived at the gates of the home she shared with Alex, she’d think back to lunch breaks spent browsing those magazines, and she couldn’t quite believe that she’d ended up living in one of those places after all.

In the bathroom, Zoe could hear Alex moving about in the kitchen, dishes clanking, the kettle boiling and him talking to their dog, Grizzle. She splashed her face with water and then ran a brush through her newly trimmed chin-length hair before going down to join him.

Grizzle danced around her legs as she went to collect the mug Alex had left for her on the counter.

‘There’s toast in if you want some,’ he said.

‘God, it’s too early for food…’ she grumbled as she sat at the table with her drink. But then she caught his eye and smiled. ‘I bet you’re looking forward to welcoming them home.’

‘I couldn’t sleep,’ he said. ‘I think this might be the longest Billie has ever been away from me.’

‘Really? Not even a girls’ holiday somewhere sans parents?’

‘She was never really into that stuff, and she had everything she needed in Málaga.’

‘Hmmm. I suppose if I lived in Málaga, I wouldn’t want to go on girly holidays anywhere else either.’

‘It’s definitely the longest we’ve been away from Louisa,’ he added.

Zoe sipped at her coffee and nodded. ‘It’s been weird not having her here. I’ve got so used to building my day around her routine. And we settled into it so quickly too.’

‘True. She was born and then a week later she was ruling our lives.’

Zoe smiled. ‘Like a tiny but very cute dictator.’

‘Luckily, I work for myself and I can mostly build my day around her, though it’s made it weirder still now that she’s not here. Like I really noticed it, looking at the clock and thinking, Will Louisa be napping? and then realising she’s not here.’

‘Well, in a few hours they’ll be back and you’ll have to get used to that all over again.’

‘I’m looking forward to seeing them. I thought I’d miss them, but I didn’t imagine it would be this much.’ He peered over the top of his mug at her. ‘Don’t you get any ideas about going off on your own for a week – I don’t think I could bear it.’

‘Chance would be a fine thing.’ She tipped up her mug to drain the last of her coffee. It was still a little on the hot side, but she was conscious that he’d be anxious to get on the road, and she didn’t want to hold him up. ‘I’ll go and get changed.’

Alex crammed almost an entire slice of toast into his mouth and mumbled something incoherent through it as he took his plate to the dishwasher. Grizzle got up from the basket where he’d settled and dashed over, tail going like mad as he followed him to the kitchen door.

‘Sorry, bud,’ Alex said, swallowing his toast and rubbing Grizzle’s mop of a head. ‘No time for a wander this morning, but we’ll make it up to you later, promise.’

‘I’m sure Billie will want to take him out,’ Zoe said. ‘I bet she’s missed him more than us.’

‘I have no doubts of that!’ Alex said, laughing as he followed her up the stairs.

Alex shuffled from foot to foot as he and Zoe watched the arrivals begin to trickle through.

The flowers Zoe was holding had been a last-minute thing, spotted in the petrol station as they’d stopped to fill up on the way to the airport.

Now that she was here with them, it felt like overkill.

Billie, Alex’s twenty-four-year-old daughter, would know they were pleased to see her home, and she didn’t need flowers to prove it.

She’d probably roll her eyes, in that very Billie-ish way she did when she thought Zoe was being too much – which was often.

And it wasn’t reserved only for Zoe – Billie had plenty of eye-rolls for her dad too, more and more these days.

‘The eye-rolls are a good sign,’ he’d said before she’d flown out to Spain to visit baby Louisa’s other grandparents, taking Louisa with her. ‘It means she’s almost back to her normal self.’

Zoe had been inclined to agree, even though it sometimes made her feel foolish to be on the receiving end of one.

‘I wonder how Louisa coped with flying,’ he said now as they eyed the arrivals board.

‘I know; people take babies abroad all the time, but she’s so little.’

Zoe looked up at him.

‘Louisa’s a good baby, and it’s only a short flight. I’m sure it was fine. At least she’s not walking yet, because wanting to get around might have made her a lot more restless.’

‘Eight months…’ He smiled as his gaze turned to the board too. They’d both spent much of the last half hour watching for Billie’s flight to land. ‘Eight months already since she was born. Where did that go?’

‘It’s November next week… already – where did that go? Seems like five minutes since last Christmas and here we are counting down to another one. I swear time is moving faster than ever these days.’

‘Ah, that old chestnut.’

Zoe grinned. ‘I sound like an old lady, don’t I? And if you say that’s because I am an old lady, I will have to slap you!’

‘I wouldn’t dare!’

‘Is that the flight…?’ Zoe frowned at the board.

Alex strode forward to get a closer look, though they could both see perfectly well from where they’d been.

Rather than say so, she followed him. Pent-up energy and impatience radiated from him, in every angle of his limbs, in the way his shoulders were tensed, despite his jokes.

He tipped a second cup of coffee up to drink the last of it and then marched to a nearby bin to throw the cup away before joining her again. ‘It’s landed. She should be out soon.’

‘Hopefully,’ Zoe said, thinking that disembarkation, passport control and luggage retrieval would probably make his reunion with his daughter and granddaughter a lot less soon than he’d like.

‘There will probably be time to go and sit down for a while. Now we know the flight is in, we can stop watching the board. She’s bound to be at least thirty or forty minutes.

And she’ll probably text us when she’s through passports. ’

‘I know, but I’m OK here.’ He glanced down at her, uncertain for a moment. ‘You’re all right? You’re not feeling light-headed or—’

‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘No funny turns. You don’t have to worry about those now I have my medication.’

‘I know, but I do.’

‘If I need to sit down, I’ll be sure to say. You worry too much about everything.’

‘Probably. But you mean so much to me, and…’

His gaze went back to the board, though there was nothing new to see.

Zoe didn’t ask him to finish his sentence.

She knew what he’d wanted to say, and why he’d be afraid to say it.

He’d lost his wife, and he’d imagined for the longest time he’d never love again.

Now he had Zoe, and she understood that loving her scared him because he could never be certain she’d always be there.

He’d thought that before, and his wife had died, and they’d both been far too young for such a tragedy.

It also explained why he was so overattentive to his daughter, Billie.

Zoe curled her spare hand around his and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

‘I don’t know why I should be so jumpy,’ he said, his eyes not leaving a now growing line of people coming through customs and out into the main exit.

‘It’s the first time she’s been away since you moved to Hilltop. She’s gone on her own with Louisa, and that’s a first too. You’re bound to be worried.’

‘I was when she went, but you’d think I’d be all right with her about to come back. If anything I’m worse! I’m stupid, aren’t I?’