What's A Housekeeper To Do?

by Jennie Adams

  Cam searched her eyes for a moment before he closed her car door, crossed in front and got into the driver’s seat. Just a few moments with those broad shoulders in motion, his long legs eating up the ground until he slid behind the wheel, and Lally couldn’t concentrate again.

  ‘Would you like the top down again?’ Cam glanced her way.

  Lally quickly nodded. ‘The breeze is nice.’

  She didn’t care about her hair getting whipped about; that could be fixed when they arrived. Maybe the wind would blow this lapse of control away.

  Cam got things organised. Then he sat there with the engine idling and finally turned his gaze her way. ‘Lally…’

  ‘Don’t.’ She shook her head. ‘Please. We have to see your mother. Can we just…do that?’

  So they went.

  ‘Here we are.’ Cam drew the car to a halt in a restaurant’s small parking-lot. ‘Hopefully Mum will be here and won’t have changed her plans without letting me know.’

  ‘Does she do that often?’ Lally asked as they made the short walk to the restaurant’s entrance.

  ‘It happens.’ Cam’s mother did a lot of things he didn’t always like. ‘How’s the foot? If it’s hurting, I can help you.’

  ‘Oh, no, it’s okay—and I wouldn’t want your mother to think—’ Lally broke off.

  But not before Cam saw the memory of their kisses cross her face. Lally might have set out to say she didn’t want his mother to think she was anything other than able to look after herself, or something like that, but her words had quickly led her thoughts elsewhere.

  Cam could identify with that, because all his thoughts seemed to lead elsewhere at the moment.

  And all those ‘else where’ roads led to one place: the kissing Lally place. His lack of control around her was substantial, it seemed. Cam wasn’t exactly proud of that and yet he couldn’t regret what they’d shared.

  ‘Then I guess I won’t carry you inside.’ He said it with a smile that took effort at first. But he thought his mother might actually do a double take if she saw him walk into the restaurant carrying Lally clutched to his chest like a prize, and his smile became more natural.

  He turned to her as they made their way inside. ‘There’s about an eighty-percent chance we’ll be meeting someone else as well as my mother for dinner.’

  ‘I’m not sure what you mean.’ Lally seemed to be just on the edge of nervous.

  Or maybe that was left over from what had passed between them back at the beach. Cam glanced at her. Even hobbling a little, she still managed to look graceful. He looked again. He realised his mother might be likely to bring ‘a friend’ yet again to meet him, but Cam wanted to show Lally off to his mother. That was very much a first.

  As your employee. You want to show her off as your employee.

  Yeah.

  Right. That was what he wanted. That was no doubt what had driven him to kiss her again back there at the beach, lose complete sight of where they were. It was what he’d told himself he would and wouldn’t do when it came to Lally.

  Cam wasn’t sure he wanted to think about his motives for that. Somehow they appeared to be linked to something far too deep inside him that he’d thought he had worked out. He did have it all worked out!

  ‘I guess you’d say Mum’s a free spirit. She’s not someone who will pin down to anything for long, but when it comes to relationships that’s not a lesson she’s been able to acknowledge within herself. She keeps leaping in and backing out again just as quickly.’

  ‘Oh.’ Lally gave a calm nod. ‘I have an older cousin who’s like that—revolving-door relationships. I don’t know how she deals with the stress, although, now that I think about it, she manages to walk away apparently unscathed each time. I couldn’t do it.’ She fell abruptly silent.

  Cam had a feeling it had occurred to both of them at once that they weren’t really in the best position to discuss this as uninvolved ob servers. ‘We can’t be—’

  ‘Well, there you are. Cameron, come and meet Tom; he’s such a darling. I don’t know where I’d be without him.’ His mother stepped forward as she spoke the flow of words, hugged him quickly and stepped back.

  The obligatory hug was over for another year, and it had happened so quickly that Cam had almost missed it.

  Men weren’t supposed to feel the lack of that kind of thing, were they? Yet it occurred to Cam in this moment that he’d missed a lot of real, genuine hugs in his lifetime. Lally would never hug half-heartedly like that. Cam just knew this.

  He’d felt it for himself when she’d held him, and everything inside him had relaxed and felt as though it could rest and be still.

  That stillness wasn’t something Cam understood, and he hadn’t truly thought about it in relation to Lally until now. But she gave him that feeling. It was as though somehow being around her helped him to find peace or something.

  And what are you now, Travers? Some kind of tortured soul? For crying out loud!

  Cam turned his gaze to his mother. ‘Hello, Mum. This is Lally. Lally, meet my mother, Dana.’ He shook hands with—John? No, that was the last one. ‘Hello, Tom.’

  ‘What have you been doing, Cameron? Dull old business things, I suppose, with a bit of writing thrown in on the side?’ His mother picked up her menu and started to scan it. ‘You should rest more. Weariness isn’t attractive, you know.’

  ‘Insomnia isn’t quite the same as weariness, Mum. And I always do try to rest.’ Cam said it gently; he didn’t expect Dana to really listen. He drew a breath to turn the conversation else where.

  ‘I think Cam deals really well with his insomnia.’ Lally’s words came softly into the conversation. ‘It can’t be easy to have all those long hours to get through, knowing you can’t rest as much as you’d like to be able to.’

  Cam hadn’t expected her to speak. The support behind the words touched him. He stared into liquid brown eyes and felt much of the tension over seeing his mother again ease out of him.

  With a few soft words, Lally had him in a better place with things. Cam needed to make sure his housekeeper and assistant was in a good place too, because beneath the surface of her cheerful attitude he could see a hint of unhappiness that he suspected might have been for his sake. His mother had turned her head to speak quietly to Tom for a moment.

  Cam touched Lally’s hand beneath the table. ‘Thank you,’ he murmured so only she could hear him. ‘Mum doesn’t mean any harm. We’re not very close, you know? But I still like to see her occasionally. She’s the only relative I’ve got.’

  Could those words reassure a woman whose life to a large degree seemed to revolve around her love for her big extended family? It wasn’t a topic Cam could cover further now, at any rate.

  ‘You should just take sleeping pills, Cameron.’ His mother tossed these words out. They were an easy solution, a fast solution; Dana was good at offering those and then forgetting all about whatever issue had arisen in the first place.

  She just wasn’t good at seeing that some things didn’t have fast, easy solutions. ‘I’m sure after a few days of those your body would retrain and you’d be fine.’

  ‘Lally’s trying some bush-food remedies to see if they’ll help,’ Cam offered with a determined smile. ‘And I have felt more relaxed in the past while.’ That was down to Lally herself, in Cam’s opinion, but he kept that thought to himself.

  And now he really wanted to change the topic.

  ‘I see.’ His mother looked back at her menu then glanced at her watch. ‘We should make our selections. I’m sure the waiter will be along at any moment.’

  Lally blinked just once before she lowered her gaze toher menu.

  Cam had the odd urge to take her hand again beneath the table and this time keep it in his clasp.

  Instead, he turned his attention to choosing a meal.

  Tom spoke, bringing up an interest in fishing and four-wheel-driving. ‘What do you drive, Cameron?’

  Cam gave the older man the mak
e and model of his convertible. ‘I like—’

  ‘The fresh air.’ Lally glanced at him and smiled. ‘It was nice this morning, wasn’t it? Coastal roads, warm weather and a sea breeze.’

  ‘What exactly is your relationship to Cameron, Lally?’ his mother suddenly asked nosily.

  Cam opened his mouth to answer, somewhat protectively. His mum’s tendency to stomp all over people’s privacy with her questions was something Cam hadn’t taken into account when he’d invited Lally along for this. He should have thought about it.

  But Lally beat him to it. ‘I’m working as a temporary housekeeper to Cam while he’s in Adelaide.’ She smiled. ‘And building him a pebble mosaic for the courtyard of his property development there, while he creates his latest crime story to keep readers on the edges of their seats.’

  ‘Oh.’ Mum seemed to be somewhat at a loss. ‘So, you’re a bit of a Jill of all trades? Stone masonry is an unusual career choice for a woman.’

  ‘Well, pebble mosaics are a little different to stone masonry.’ Lally quickly outlined her vision for the mosaic. ‘I’m looking forward to doing the work, anyway.’

  ‘And I’m looking forward to seeing the end result.’ Cam closed his menu. Because he didn’t want his mum cross-questioning Lally for the rest of the meal, he really did change the subject now. ‘Catch of the day for me. You can’t beat fresh fish, isn’t that right, Tom?’

  They discussed fishing and real estate through the main course. When he’d first got enough money to do it, Cam had bought his mother a home in Sydney and had invited her to settle there. He’d hoped to have her nearer, to be able to see her more.

  That had been a vain hope. His mother had taken the property, immediately rented it out, and gone on her way travelling, content so long as no one asked her to put down roots.

  ‘Remember, the house is always there for you, Mum.’ He didn’t know what made him say it.

  Dana gave him an uncomprehending look. ‘Well, and so it should be. It was a pay-off for the years I sacrificed to raise you. I deserve that rental income to allow me to travel in my motor home wherever I want to go.’

  ‘You could change for the right man—settle down in a real home,’ Tom muttered beneath his breath. He followed it up with a teasing smile, but he frowned and pushed his dinner plate away at the same time.

  Cam glanced at his watch. Only a little over half an hour had passed since they’d sat down; it felt like much longer.

  ‘I have family in Queensland and the Torres Strait islands,’ Lally said as she pushed a fat, golden chip around her plate with her fork. ‘My mother tries to get up that way every couple of years. I’ve enjoyed making the trips with her a few times.’

  Lally glanced briefly towards him.

  Ah, Lally. Don’t care about this. It just isn’t worth it.

  The conversation segued to a discussion of bush foods and other cuisine. That took them through the rest of the meal. When it ended and Cam’s mother mentioned coffee, Cam shook his head and stood.

  ‘We need to push on, find a suitable place to stay this evening. It was…good to see you.’ He nodded to Tom. He didn’t bother trying to kiss Dana’s cheek or hug her. She hadn’t got up and clearly didn’t intend to.

  Instead, Cam took Lally’s arm in a gentle clasp, nodded to his mum and Tom once again and led Lally out of the restaurant.

  ‘Your mother seems very…autonomous,’ Lally said as diplomatically as she could.

  Cam saw her effort to avoid saying so much else, and he appreciated it for what it was. He shook off his mood because there was no point and he didn’t want to spoil the rest of their evening. ‘She always has been. I try.’

  Cam did try. He kept a one-way stream of communication with Dana throughout the year, using whatever medium of contact she made available to him. The contact just didn’t come back his way very often.

  ‘Did your mother look into your insomnia when you were younger?’ Lally asked with a frown.

  ‘She didn’t acknowledge it as anything more than a child being annoying about not wanting to sleep.’ There’d been a lot of nights spent lying awake. The settings had changed all the time, but the end results had been the same.

  Lally seemed to fight with herself for a moment before the need for expression finally got the better of her. ‘Your insomnia probably started as a result of you being picked up and moved around all the time. If you’d received the right kind of attention back then…’

  ‘That’s a long way back. I don’t think it was that.’ Yet Cam had developed that problem as a child. He’d just assumed he got it from the gene pool of whoever had fathered him, that it was a genetic issue, not one that might have developed from his circumstances. ‘I’ve lived away from that environment for a long time now.’

  ‘And kept moving around, the way your mother always has.’ Lally searched his eyes. ‘I’m not saying you shouldn’t travel if that’s what keeps you happy, but maybe you haven’t had a decent chance at finding that kind of peace to allow you to properly rest?’

  Cam opened his mouth to say that moving around was as necessary to him as it was to his mother. Then he closed it again, because he wasn’t quite sure if it was as necessary as he had always thought.

  Yet, if it wasn’t, why did he keep on the move all the time, constantly searching, looking for the next challenge, the next brick in the road, the next great book idea and property-development idea? ‘I guess travelling has been a way to fill all the time that yawns in front of me.’

  Cam just didn’t know what else it meant. And he felt oddly uncertain about the whole topic. ‘Let’s go find a nice bed and breakfast for the night.’

  ‘Yes. Let’s.’ Lally didn’t push the topic. Instead, she drew a deep breath and smiled as they reached his car and climbed in.

  They got on the road, and Cam slowly forgot about the visit with his mother.

  Instead he took the opportunity to gently grill Lally about her family situation. Lally seemed to need them so much, and Cam wanted to try to understand where she stood in relation to all that.

  He wanted to understand the why of her needs, and whether that somehow related to the occasional sadness he saw in her eyes.

  ‘I’m looking forward to getting back to my usual work among the family after this assignment is over.’ Lally glanced his way. ‘I’m happy with you as well. I just need to do that for my family. It’s safe—’ Lally cut the words off and frowned.

  They passed through one small place, but the accommodation didn’t look particularly inviting. Cam chose to move on. He’d researched a bed and breakfast on-line in the next town that had looked good in the photos.

  Lally leaned her head back against the seat and became silent. A few minutes later, she fell asleep.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CAM reached into the car, lifted his slumbering housekeeper into his arms, carried her inside the bed and breakfast, up the staircase and into the only room they had free.

  The rain had just stopped. It had pelted down for the last hour as he made the slow trip here. Cam had sat the last few minutes out in the parked car, right outside the B&B, with Lally gently sleeping in the seat beside him. She slept so peacefully—Cam could envy that!

  She must have been exhausted, and Cam felt at least partly to blame for that. He’d been disturbing her sleep since she’d first moved in with him. He knew it, even though he’d tried to be quiet at night when he moved around in their apartment.

  He should put her out into one of the other apartments. How long would it take to gather up enough furniture to make her comfortable? He could order the lot over the phone in about twenty minutes.

  Cam’s arms tightened about his burden that felt like no burden at all. He’d be quieter, make sure he didn’t disturb her in future. He didn’t want to move her out.

  ‘Are we there already?’ Lally murmured in a sleepy voice and then seemed to realise she wasn’t on her feet. Confusion filled her gaze and she blinked at him with wide eyes tha
t quickly changed from slumberous to conscious and softened as they locked on his face.

  One look from her, one glimpse into those unguarded eyes, and all Cam wanted…

  Well, he couldn’t have what he wanted. If he’d let himself wonder otherwise, spending time with his mother today had concreted the fact that he just couldn’t go there with Lally.

  She deserved more than someone who’d pack up and move around all the time, who would not want to settle down somewhere with her, not want babies and a picket fence. Not know how to give that even if he had wanted it.

  You could have babies and a courtyard and a big, old family home that you’re converting into apartments right now. You already know it would work quite well as a home.

  Since when had Cam started to think about that big, old place as a potential home, rather than a sound business-investment? Let alone think about settling down. It was out of the question; totally and utterly out of the question for him.

  Cam set Lally down in the small living area of the room and backed away. ‘Eh, you fell asleep in the car. There’s been a storm, so I drove us to this B&B. All they had was this room, and they told me all the other accommodation in the area is booked out. The bad weather took a few travellers by surprise, apparently.’

  He rammed his hand through his hair upwards from the base at the back. ‘So, eh, I can sleep in the car.’

  ‘Oh.’ Lally blinked, blinked again and glanced around them, taking in the surroundings, the double bed beside the bank of windows. ‘Well, um…’

  ‘Yeah. I’ll go get our things. At least I can have a hot shower.’ Cam swung about and left the room.

  As Cam left, Lally drew a deep breath and tried to calm herself. She wasn’t nervous, though maybe that feeling would catch up in a minute. She was just trying to come to terms with waking up in his arms like that. Had she melted into him before she woke up? What if she’d talked in her sleep? Snored? Kissed him? Dribbled?