A Taste of Home by Heidi Swain (the beginning after the end read novel TXT) 📕

worried that the rosiness could be the result of the air which might have felt fresh to someone who had been indoors for a while.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m cosy enough with all these blankets. Although, I still can’t get properly comfortable. What I wouldn’t give for a night in my own bed, and how Eliot has stuck it on the floor, I’ll never know.’

‘He’s a saint, isn’t he?’

‘He is that,’ my grandfather agreed. ‘And then some.’

‘I did suggest he could nap on the spare bed where I’ve been sleeping.’

His gaze shifted from the cat to my face. ‘Staying in the house, are you?’

Damn. My nerves had started to dissipate and in their place my ability to blurt had popped back up again.

‘Well, yes,’ I said, quickly composing myself. ‘Just to make sure Eliot had some back-up until you were over the worst. You’ve been very poorly you know.’

I was quite proud of the speedy justification for my sleepover, and reminding my grandfather that he’d been properly poorly might make him think that what occurred on Saturday was just a dream. Assuming he could remember any of it, that is.

‘Well, that’s very kind,’ he nodded, taking a moment to gauge my expression, which I kept as neutral as I could. ‘Clearly you’ve both gone above and beyond. Are you and Eliot an item, by any chance?’

My face flushed brightly enough to more than match his and my regained composure and impartial appearance flew straight out the open window.

‘Why on earth would you think that?’ I stuttered.

‘I thought I heard you having words yesterday,’ he smiled. ‘And wondered if perhaps it was a lovers’ tiff, but given the look on your face,’ he added with a chuckle, ‘perhaps not.’

‘Absolutely not,’ I firmly said. ‘Our relationship is purely professional. We did have a slight disagreement about something yesterday and I’m very sorry if it disturbed you.’

‘No harm done,’ he shrugged, clearly amused by my reaction.

I mentally crossed my fingers and toes hoping he hadn’t heard the cause of our raised voices.

‘That’s very generous of you,’ I said, standing up again, ‘but I am sorry we bothered you. I think it would be best if I left you in peace now. Eliot and I won’t disturb you again, Mr Brown and he’ll be back to take over soon.’

My grandfather looked at me and shook his head.

‘I think we can drop the title, don’t you? Mr Brown is a little on the formal side.’

‘William, then,’ I smiled, thinking I’d got away with it. ‘That’s right, isn’t it? I’ll call you William or Bill.’

‘Not Grandad?’

For a second or two the world seemed to stop turning, then it started up again like a super slow-motion sequence beloved by movie-makers, before finally coming back into focus. I groped for the chair behind me and sank into it.

‘Grandad,’ I swallowed. ‘Why would I call you that?’

‘Because you’re my granddaughter, aren’t you?’

He sounded completely unfazed by the pronouncement he had just made, but I was floundering. Should I deny who I was, or confirm it? Was this the moment I had been waiting for? It didn’t feel like the moment I had been waiting for. That moment was supposed to be decided upon by me, Eliot and Louise. They were supposed to be holding my hands and helping me take those teeny tiny steps we’d talked about and yet, here I was with my grandfather, the very person we were trying to protect and he was pulling me along the path and telling me to get a wriggle on and take bigger strides!

‘I’ve often wondered if Jennifer had a girl or a boy,’ he further shocked me by saying. ‘If I had a granddaughter or a grandson somewhere in the world.’

Tears prickled my eyes and I looked down at the floor, unable to meet his gaze.

‘You knew she was pregnant?’ I whispered.

‘I had a pretty good idea,’ he quietly said.

I couldn’t bring myself to look at him.

‘I knew she’d had a holiday romance,’ he carried on. ‘And you look to be about the right age, and then of course there was your name. You told me Saturday that it’s Felicity, didn’t you? Same as my dear wife’s. That’s a bit of a coincidence, isn’t it?’

‘I didn’t think you’d remember that,’ I said, my voice constrained as I had to force the words over the lump in my throat. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘What are you apologising for?’

I shrugged, unable to say that I was sorry his daughter, my mother, was dead and that it had taken the acknowledgement of her impending demise for her to finally tell me that he existed. That could all come later.

‘You’ve got nothing to apologise for,’ he said. ‘She was the one who ran away. I just want to know, are you my granddaughter, Felicity?’

‘Yes,’ I said, looking up at him through my tears. ‘Yes, I am. I am your granddaughter.’

Chapter 8

‘What do you mean, he knows?’ Eliot frowned as I relayed the details of what had happened in his absence.

The supermarket pharmacy hadn’t got the prescription ready when he had finally arrived, having weaved his way through the bank holiday traffic, and then there had been some mix-up which meant he’d had to call Doctor Clarke, so he’d been gone ages and arrived back in a far less happy mood than the one he’d left in.

My grandfather and I, or Grandad, as he was now insisting that I called him, hadn’t got any further than establishing our relationship to one another but that was more than enough for either of us to get our heads around and looking at the expression on Eliot’s face and the colour that had flooded it as I explained what had happened, I realised that it was a shock for him too, coming straight on the back of his hot and tiresome trip out.

‘I can’t believe it,’ he grimaced as he tried to shrug himself out of his leather suit.

His hair was plastered to his head and his