Seth waited until they were out of sight and then went in search of Fliss.
He found her upstairs in the bedroom cleaning up. She was hauling sheets and towels into a pile, even though half of them hadn’t been anywhere near the baby.
She must have heard his footsteps, but she didn’t pause to look at him. “I’m going to drop this lot in the laundry room. I’ll deal with it tomorrow. I need to get back to Grams. If I take Hero, will you secure this place?”
That was all she was going to say?
He thought he saw something glisten on her cheeks. Was she crying?
He reached out to grab her, but she dodged him. It was possible she hadn’t seen his hand, but more probable that she’d chosen not to take it.
He watched as she walked quickly out of the bedroom, Hero at her heels.
He ached for her. He wanted to drag her into his arms and force her to tell him how she felt, but he knew he had to take this at her pace, so instead of grabbing her again he thrust his hands in his pockets and forced himself to take it slowly.
This was Fliss he was dealing with. Fliss, who hid every feeling. Who never talked about things. Who fought battles on her own, her own way.
Mouth tight, he followed her downstairs and found her in the laundry room.
“Fliss—”
“I’m tired, Seth. It’s been a pretty busy evening.” She kept her back to him. “I’ll lock up here and take Hero to my grandmother’s, so you can take off if you like.”
And he was willing to bet that was exactly what she was hoping he’d do.
The fact that she still wasn’t looking at him told him a lot about how bad she felt. That and the raw emotion shimmering in her voice.
“Talk to me.” He tried gentle, the same approach he would take with an injured animal. No sudden moves.
“Nothing to talk about. The bab
y is fine. Matilda is fine. What is there to talk about?”
“We could start with the fact that you’re shaking.” He could make out the delicate lines of her profile. He saw that she was on edge, and he understood the reason. “We could talk about the fact that if I wasn’t here, you’d be crying.”
“Never been much of a crier.” She stuffed the laundry into the machine. “But if I did shed a little tear of emotion, that would be understandable, wouldn’t it? It’s not every day a baby is born in front of you in less time than it usually takes me to swallow a hamburger.”
He studied her expression, trying to work out how best to tackle this. Direct? No. She’d definitely run. Oblique, then. Carefully. “Can’t have been easy.”
“It wasn’t, but she handled it like a trouper.”
“I was talking about you.”
“I was just the spectator.”
“Didn’t look that way to me. And she did name her daughter after you, so she obviously felt you played an important role.”
“She named her after Fliss. I’m Harriet.”
He didn’t know whether to feel sympathy or pity. “Are we seriously going to do this?”
Her shoulders slumped. “All right, you win. I’m Fliss. Are you happy now?”
“Do I look happy?”
“You’re mad that I pretended to be Harriet. You feel deceived.”
“I wasn’t deceived. I’ve known almost from the first moment that you weren’t Harriet.”