Ninja School Mum

by Lizzie Chantree

  She was close to Skye now, and she hadn’t ever expected that to happen either. When they met, Skye had been suspicious and prickly. Thea had assumed she would be self-centred and hard-hearted, if she was honest, but she was the complete opposite. Skye had a brittle edge, but Thea had decided that this stemmed from years of neglecting her own needs.

  Thea was trying to be excited about Skye’s new business venture and couldn’t believe how quickly she had made the decision to set it up and then jumped in and made it all work. The rumours Thea had heard about Skye’s team, before she knew her, were of cold and ruthless men and women who didn’t leave a detail to chance, until their final job. They were an enigma whose reputation went before them. From what Thea now knew of Skye, she saw efficiency, razor sharp intelligence and humility, which she hadn’t expected at all.

  Thea had wanted Skye to like the village, and for the kids to be friends, but now it was looking as though they were setting up a permanent home, Thea was beginning to think it might not be a good idea. She wanted to bring up Flo here, and supposing someone did look for Skye one day, or LUCAN decided they wanted her back? There must be at least one person who knew she was alive and well somewhere, even though Thea had been thorough when she’d deleted her history. The thought didn’t sit easily with Thea and she was beginning to regret telling Skye so much about herself. She should have just got to know her from a distance, like she did with everyone else, and then she wouldn’t be feeling so bad about the fact that she was angry at Skye’s success. Why couldn’t she find a great guy to look at her the way Zack drooled over Skye; the way most men seemed to drool over her? What was so great about wearing hardly any make-up and boring black clothes all the time, anyway? Thea needed to shake herself out of this funk, stop worrying about things she couldn’t control, and start being a better friend. Grabbing a mouthful of wine from the glass that always seemed to be at her side these days, she got up and decided it was time she got a haircut and began to sort out her own life.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  It had been surprisingly quick to set things in motion for the new assault course, as Skye had already drawn up plans of her ideal layout for the field behind her cottage. Deciding to work as a team towards building a new climbing course meant Skye and Zack spent more and more time together. Last night they had gone to the wine bar Marlo suggested, to meet with the cocktail waiters and waitresses Zack had decided to hire for the ball.

  There had been full glasses of crisp red wine and they had tasted morsels of mouth-watering food, while they relaxed, listened to the music, and laughed about they way some of the customers were clinging onto each other and dancing after one too many cocktails. One woman had shimmied over to Zack and tried to drag him away, even though he had been sitting opposite Skye and gazing into her eyes all night. The woman had been so persistent that Skye had told him to make the woman happy with one dance, but instead he’d smiled seductively, pulled her into a quiet corner and slid his hands around her hips. He moved her body with his as the beat got slower and his lips dipped to her shoulder blade and left searing heat there, making her forget that anyone else was around. She’d wound her arms around his neck and pressed her body into his to let him know her intentions. As Leo had stayed over at Thea’s cottage, they had spent the evening laughing and flirting until the early hours. He’d tortured them both by waiting until the last song had finished and had then led her out of the bar with a smouldering look.

  At the end of the night, Zack had driven her to his home and led her up the stairs to his room without a word. As soon as she saw the huge bed she had balked slightly but, before she had time to think, he’d backed her up against a wall and his lips plundered hers. She’d gasped in excitement as every nerve in her body came to life as his hands roamed over her hips and then moved around to cup her backside and pull her towards him to let her know the effect she had on him. Skye had felt like she was on fire and she’d responded with such passion that it took his breath away. There was no going back for her now and Zack had worshipped every inch of her body until she was completely intoxicated by his caresses and they moved together in rhapsody. She moaned as he trailed kisses down her neck and bent lower to taste the swollen buds of her breasts and then moved lower still to send her over the edge of ecstasy.

  The next morning, Skye had woken dreamily in dishevelled sheets next to a smiling man, who actually looked a bit smug, but she found she didn’t care as she felt rapturous. She had forgotten how nice it was to wake up in someone’s arms, to snuggle into their warmth and feel the intoxication of their first night together. Zack had jumped out of bed naked, which astonished her but she certainly appreciated the view. Then he made her breakfast, insisting that she wasn’t allowed to rush away at the break of dawn, as Emmie was at Mike and Marlo’s house until later that morning. Skye had begun to feel a bit weird about the domestic scene, though and, after an hour or so, had slipped from the bed and made her excuses to go and freshen up while Leo was at school.

  As soon as Skye arrived home she had been torn between euphoria and restless bewilderment, and had headed back to talk to Zack about what they had just done. It changed everything for her, but she wasn’t ready to be vulnerable to another man again.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Mike was working in the CloudClimb office when Skye appeared. He told her that Zack had just left for a meeting with suppliers and wouldn’t be back until school pick up time. As Skye headed for the door, Mike shrugged and left her to it. He had discovered over the last few weeks it was best to leave her pretty much to her own devices. She would ask for his opinion with the site, but usually already had an idea of the answer. She wasn’t girly and giggly like some of the other women who hung around Zack, and she didn’t really seem to notice he was there much, which must drive him nuts, Mike smirked. Zack was used to women swooning at his feet, but this one was different. Mike could see the appeal, though. She had a lithe, athletic body and long dark hair. She dressed with minimal fuss, which seemed to suit her personality, and Mike was enjoying gradually getting to know her. Marlo was desperate to find out more about her, but she was a bit of a closed book on that front.

  Mike looked at the computer screen in front of him and sighed at the list of jobs he would have to do that day. The climbing course was shut for the day as it was Wednesday and Zack liked a day to have some peace and quiet for his app design business. It didn’t mean Mike had a day off, though, as there was always a ton of bookings to go through for the following week and, for some reason, he had been voted as the member of staff who should look after their Facebook and Twitter feeds, even though he hadn’t a clue what he was doing and it often took a whole day to update everything. He could just stick a photo of Zack on there each week and customers would flock from miles around. Mike grinned at the thought and decided it was time he got his own back on Zack for lumbering him with this job when he knew he hated it. He was sure Zack did it because he knew it would wind Mike up. Zack said it was time he moved into the right decade with technology and educated himself on other ways to support the business. Mike secretly thought Zack wished he was more ‘techy’ so that they could discuss his app business more, but Mike had no idea how any of it worked and had spent months training each Wednesday, and still arrived each week without a clue where to start.

  Scrolling through the computer and finding a few old promotional photos that Zack had refused to let the PR team use, Mike smiled to himself and hit send, to post one to their social media pages. He was sure Zack would see the funny side of it, but Mike did actually think it would bring in more business and Zack might just have to put up with it. Marlo would be proud of him for his inspired idea, too.

  He felt a bit bad, after his initial burst of happiness, at the joke he’d just played on Zack, then decided that maybe it wasn’t his best idea and he scrolled around the computer trying to find out how to delete the picture. After twenty frustrating minutes, he gave up and angrily slammed the computer shut. He rem
embered that Skye was around somewhere and decided that she might know how to take the photo down without Zack ever finding out.

  After walking around the CloudClimb grounds, and not seeing Skye, he was about to leave but a slight noise alerted him to someone in the trees. His pulse began to race and he started to run towards the highest point of the course. He grabbed the phone out of his pocket to dial for help if someone had gone onto the course without the proper safety checks, and then stopped, dumbfounded, as he saw Skye leap from one tree trunk to another with such grace it took his breath away. What the hell? He stood stock-still in shock as she bounded round the course, before he came to his senses and called for her attention. He didn’t want to scream and scare the hell out of her, in case she wasn’t wearing the correct safety harness. Zack would kill him.

  Skye looked surprised to see him, but didn’t break her stride and his heart felt like it was in his mouth as, although he could now see that she was wearing a safety harness, she was deftly clipping and unclipping it between the stations so quickly that it was as if it wasn’t even there.

  ‘Skye,’ he called. ‘What the hell are you doing up there? Get down!’

  Skye simply nodded her head at the command and clipped herself onto the high-wire zip line, while Mike looked in awe as she flew down the line in seconds and was standing at his feet grinning with the adrenaline of leaping around in the sky.

  ‘What the hell?’ said Mike, angrily. ‘You could have been hurt.’

  Skye looked abashed for about a second, then grinned so widely that he couldn’t help but grin back. ‘You’ve done this before, haven’t you?’ he asked, still cross, but she looked so happy it was hard to stay mad.

  ‘I used to climb all the time with my dad,’ she said simply, her eyes clouding for a fraction of a second before she covered it and smiled brightly again. ‘I apologise if I scared you. It’s how I know so much about the assault course. I climbed for years and years. We had to do all sorts of technical training for the mountains and I was quick to learn. I went back years later and did an advanced climbing course. I was thinking about being an instructor, but my parents died and that led me on another career path.’

  ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t know,’ Mike said, pulling her into a hug and feeling her body go rigid, so he quickly let her go. ‘Zack didn’t tell me,’ he apologised, feeling a bit silly for trying to comfort her. ‘Otherwise, I would have left you up there soaring though the trees.’ He tried to joke to lighten the mood.

  ‘It’s my fault,’ Skye said, putting an arm awkwardly around his shoulders then letting go and walking amiably by his side. Mike understood from her actions that she was trying hard not to keep putting distance between herself and everybody else, as she definitely wasn’t a ‘hugger’. Not everyone enjoyed human contact, and he tried not to second-guess her reasoning and let it go. ‘I haven’t told Zack yet.’ When Mike started in surprise but didn’t say anything, she carried on. ‘I’ve been coming here every Wednesday for months.’

  ‘What?’ gasped Mike.

  ‘No one expects me to be here and it makes me feel so free to climb the trees. I guess I owe you lots of entrance fees,’ she said solemnly.

  Mike doubled over in laughter and Skye put her hands on his back to control his mirth. ‘You’ll have to take that one up with Zack,’ he gasped through his tears of laughter.

  ‘Take what up with Zack?’ asked Zack, walking towards them and sending a glare of ice to them both at the sight of Skye’s hands on Mike’s back. Mike knew he would be thinking of Kay and that this couldn’t be happening to him again. He would be trying to figure out what the hell they were doing, sharing a personal joke?

  Mike stood up and looked Zack straight in the eye to quash any stupid ideas. Zack had the good grace to look a bit ashamed of his assumption. Mike winked at Skye and said, ‘I was just telling Skye how I uploaded a gorgeous photo of you to our Twitter feed, then thought I’d better delete it. After finding out I had no clue how to do that, I asked Skye if she thought you’d mind. She said your profile is too cute to hide and we should leave it there.’ He checked to see if Skye was with him on this and she nodded vigorously, while Zack howled in rage and started running towards the office faster than he had ever moved before. Skye snorted with mirth and she grabbed Mike’s arm as they both ran after Zack to see what would happen next.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Belle sipped the last dregs of her fragrant café latte and crossed her jean-clad legs. She seethed quietly as the quivering school mum in front of her found enough courage to tell her that the new woman in the playground, Skye, had been running some sort of ‘defence against Miles’ club, to keep the children away from her son. If it was true, then heads were going to roll! How dare she exclude Miles from his friends and alienate the rest of the class from him? He barely had anyone to play with these days and now it seemed that this had all been planned from the start by the interloper. Belle crunched her knuckles and felt fury rise in her chest.

  She was already feeling sick at the sight of Skye and Zack kissing in the school playground, which was disgusting! She had marched into the headmistress’s office yesterday and demanded that she do something about it. As usual, Penny was so insipid that she had tried to smooth things over by saying there were no children present, as they were all in school and no one else had complained. Penny had only got the job as they were family friends; if she stopped being useful, then Belle would find a replacement who was.

  Her heart was hammering in her chest and she stood up and prepared to leave the coffee shop, straightening out her jacket and looking stonily at the woman in front of her who was blushing and cringing in her seat. Belle patted her arm perfunctorily as, after all, she might be a complete bore, but she knew which side of the fence to come down on. She was loyal, unlike Penny, and deserved something for telling her what had been going on at the school when it seemed no one else had the balls.

  ‘Thanks for letting me know, Naomi,’ Belle said tightly, trying to force a smile while mentally scrolling through the faces of every school mum and dad to see who the traitors were. She could instantly peg a few, but would soon work out who to tackle first. Grabbing her bag, she stalked to the door, turning briefly just in time to see Naomi sigh in relief that the encounter was over and grab her phone to spread the word. Ignoring the sense of self-doubt for a moment, Belle made a decision and headed for CloudClimb. After all, that seemed to be the most likely place to find a snake in the grass, amongst all those trees.

  Belle saw that Marlo was just about to head out of the office hopefully to try to find Skye, but stopped short and ducked back inside when she spotted Belle marching through the front gates. Belle knew that woman was gutless. She saw Marlo frantically wave her arms around from her hiding place just in Belle’s line of vision, as they had both just seen Skye walking towards them from the other direction.

  Skye frowned when she saw Marlo’s weird mating dance, then evidently realised what she was doing when Marlo pointed at Belle before moving further back into the building. Skye shrugged and walked towards Belle, which made Marlo rush forward again with excitement to watch the inevitable explosion. Belle was ready for a fight. She’d discovered that most parents at school now knew about Skye’s self-defence classes and were sad that they would soon be stopping. They were very excited that she was opening a new assault course with training sessions, though, which sounded much like the ones she had run from home. The school grapevine even said that Skye had discussed with Zack the possibility of running adult classes in the evening as a future business add-on, fumed Belle, who had needed to call in a few favours to find this information that should have been readily available from her friends. She would certainly be ‘talking’ to them later.

  Marlo had gossiped to her friends that she was enjoying watching their fledgling romance grow, and that Mike took every opportunity to wind his friend up about it whenever he could, too, as Zack couldn’t seem to stop touching Skye at every opportunit
y. The man was acting like he’d never had sex before, which was disgusting. Seeing Skye approach Belle at a leisurely pace while Belle strode ever nearer, Marlo darted a glance round for a first aid kit and Belle sent her an evil glare.

  ‘Nice to see you here, Belle,’ said Skye in a friendly voice. ‘I had been expecting you to talk to me while we were at school,’ and appeared surprised it had actually taken the grapevine so long to get the news about the kids to her, which made Belle flinch with embarrassment. She noted Marlo was peeking around the edge of the office door, but hadn’t come to join them. Some wingman she was.

  ‘Really?’ hissed Belle, looking about to see if anyone was around to witness Skye’s downfall and peering down her nose at Skye’s toned legs, which were encased in a pair of tiny black jean shorts that looked like they had been severed at the legs by a pair of scissors, from the amount of loose strands that hung down her tanned limbs. The girl really needed to learn how to dress. Disappointingly, there didn’t seem to be anyone else here other than Marlo, who was still peering out from the building next to them, but hadn’t walked over; the coward. She was a friend of Belle’s and she would have expected her to have told her about this. Okay, maybe they weren’t close, but still… ‘I’ve just been informed that you’ve been running an unauthorised after school club and, as chair of the PA, it’s something we take quite seriously.’