Page 89 of A Forever Home at Honey Bee Croft

‘I don’t want to move here, Daddy.’

‘I don’t want you to either and Mummy and I need to talk about that.’ I didn’t want to dwell on that with her and have her worrying about it. ‘So they don’t have a playground, eh? I reckon you could still have some great adventures with Cloud. There must be lots of grass if it’s a campsite. Is there?’

‘Yes.’

‘Show me.’

She turned the phone round and filmed round her. It was a bit fast and made my eyes boggle but, as far as I could tell, there was plenty of open space.

‘When I was younger, I used to love playing tig and hide and seek with my friends or just running around pretending we were superheroes. Can’t you do that with Ezra and Delphine? I’m sure they’d love their big sister to play with them.’

‘I could teach them tig.’

‘I think they’ll love that. Are you okay now? No more talk about running away?’

She nodded and smiled at me. ‘I’m okay. Thank you, Daddy.’

‘You’re welcome, sweetie. I love you.’

‘I love you too.’ She blew me a kiss before handing the phone back to Tilly who’d been hovering in the background.

‘I’ve been trying to calm her down for ages,’ she said, looking and sounding relieved. ‘Thanks for doing that for me.’

‘I didn’t do it for you,’ I said, a hard edge to my voice which I hated but which she needed to hear. ‘I did it for Imogen and if I didn’t think it would do more harm than good, I’d be jumping on a plane right now and bringing her back with me.’

‘You can’t do that!’

‘I just said I’m not going to! Did you hear everything I said to her?’

She nodded.

‘Then you heard me saying we need to talk. A heads up on that is I’m not standing for any more of this nonsense. I’ve seen my solicitor and you donothave sole custody of our daughter. Also, you cannotmove her to the other end of the country on a whim and you certainly can’t move her to Scotland without my permission.’

‘It’s not a whim. This is our dream. You know we love camping.’

‘Loving camping and running a campsite in Scotland are two completely different things. I think you need to seriously ask yourself whether you’re wearing rose-tinted glasses here. Being the owner rather than the camper will be exceptionally hard work. Do you really want to take that on with newborn twins and four more kids to look after? And what does Leighton’s mum think about it?’

Tilly shrugged. ‘She doesn’t know yet.’

‘Because you know she’ll say no. So what’s Greg going to do? Is he really prepared to lose his son for a dream that could turn out to be the hardest job he’s ever had?’

She bit her lip and looked down. The lack of arguing back filled me with hope that she might be having doubts herself, so I forged on.

‘Honestly, Tilly, can’t you see how crazy this is? Open a campsite if you must but do it in Yorkshire. You still get your dream, but you don’t rip three families apart in the process.’

‘We haven’t made any firm decisions yet,’ she said, but the hostility I was so used to was absent from her tone. She looked worn out. She looked like she wanted to run away too.

‘Imogen can call me any time she wants and I’m happy to talk her down if this happens again but, when you get back, you and I need to have a long talk. I’ve let you get away with too much and I’m not standing for it anymore. Imogen’s my daughter and I have rights. Okay?’

There was silence and I raised my eyebrows at her.

‘Okay,’ she said, with a sigh. ‘I’ll see you when we get back.’

She disconnected the call, and I ran my fingers through my hair with a sigh. That was the most compliant I’d ever seen her. Perhaps Imogen wasn’t the only one who hated the campsite. Perhaps it wasn’t Tilly’s dream either.

37

POPPY

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