by Hill, Joanne
“We screwed up,” he said then. He shook his head. “Jack and Robyn trusted us to look after their children for two days and we have screwed up monumentally.” He ran his hands down his face, then looked back at her.
“I…” She had screwed up. It wasn’t his fault. It was hers. “I’m sorry. I really am.”
“Yeah, well, so am I. For being such a prick. It’s not your fault if you sleep like that. And everything is okay now.”
She felt some more of her antagonism towards him fade. It had been all her fault. Of course it had been. The whole potentially disastrous thing. “Well, I’m awake now,” she said. “So if you want to go back to your room and sleep, I’ll take it from here.”
He seemed to think about it, and then shook his head. “No. I’m up. I got some sleep just now.”
He glanced over to the bed, and she followed. He’d been lying just feet away from her.
He looked hastily back. “I’m going to go and put on some coffee and have a shower and then we can figure out what we want to do for the rest of the day.”
“Same,” she said. She felt disgusting, and she’d slept in her clothes.
“Good.” He hesitated a moment, and just stared at her. Her mouth went dry and she couldn’t think of a thing to say.
Tension seemed to sit between them, then flow, as if he’d felt it too. He took a step back.
I do not want anything with this man. He’s too big, he’s too male, and he’s too scary for me. I can handle the Barrys of the world. Not the Ethan McGraws.
“I’ll go and do the coffee,” he said finally.
“Make sure it’s not decaf,” she said.
His mouth curled, but the smile never reached any further than that. “See you in a bit.”
Sage came down to find Harry busy taking ingredients out of the cupboard.
“You’re up,” Harry said with relief.
Sage put her arms around her. “I’m sorry you were worried.” She pulled back. “Ethan told me.”
“Well, he was worried, too. Anyhow, you look okay now. I think we need cake.”
Sage zeroed in on the coffee, and went over to the bench to pour a cup. Eric was reading upstairs, and James and Ruby were watching a DVD in the family room. She really needed to do something decent with the children today so they could at least report back to Robyn that it hadn’t been a complete screw-up. She took a sip and thought of Ethan. She’d heard the shower running as she came down the stairs, and put a hasty stop to imagining him in there. In spite of her semi-drugged state, she possessed some self-control.
She pulled out a barstool as Harry began to measure and sift flour. “So you’re making a chocolate cake?”
Harry nodded. “And I’m going to try a ganache icing. There’s real chocolate in the cupboard. Hey, Ruby.”
Sage turned to see Ruby wander in. She looked bored. “What are you doing, Harry?”
“Making a cake. Do you want to smash up some chocolate for me so we can melt it?”
“Chocolate.” Ruby dragged her stool over to the counter, climbed up, and Harry set out chocolate and a board and a rubber mallet.
Guilt suddenly swamped Sage, and she looked over at Harry. She, Sage, was meant to be looking after the children, but instead she’d only made the situation worse. She was a disgrace. An absolute disgrace.
She said, “Look, Harry, I really am sorry you were worried about me.”
Harry began to smash up the chocolate. “It’s alright now, and Ethan was there. Though he was pretty annoyed. He kept going on about some deal.”
Sage winced. “There was,” she admitted, “an arrangement. It’s just that I fell asleep too early and woke up at midnight and it screwed up my sleeping patterns.”
“Ethan kept saying you were okay because you were breathing.” Worry lines crossed Harry’s face. “We just couldn’t wake you up. You were so out of it, Mum.”
“Well,” Sage said with forced brightness, “the main thing is that you’re okay. How are you feeling?”
“Good. Great. I’ll be okay for school on Monday.”
Monday. On Monday she and Harry would be back at home, and Ethan would be back in his place next door, and it would be life as normal, whatever normal was.
It was going to be strained; it was going to be a nightmare. It had to be, after the past twenty-four hours.
“Coffee,” a voice announced, and Sage’s heart thumped madly as Ethan strolled in.
He’d changed into black jeans, a dark and a long-sleeved T-shirt, His hair was still damp. It looked like he’d combed it, and then ruffled it up again. She doubted he’d done it intentionally. No doubt, she’d driven him to it. He poured coffee, then pulled out the seat next to her. Her skin prickled all up the side of her body closest to him.
Act normal. She took a deep breath. Act normal.
“What are we doing today?” Harry asked as she scooped chunks of chocolate into a bowl.
Ethan glanced at Sage. “What does Dr Lockwood think?”
Doctor Lockwood was beginning to feel like a complete and utter fraud. “Well, there’s the zoo. Western Springs. The regional parks would be great on a day like this, if the weather forecast is good.”
Ethan took a sip of his coffee. “I’ve been thinking. Would you mind if we went up to see Emily? Emily Randell? She’s just moved back to her old place in the country.”
“No, of course not.” Sage pounced on the idea. “What, would we all go?”
“Sure. If you like.”
“I’ll stay here,” Harry said. “I’ve got some work to do and I feel inspired to get a head start on my English essay before school starts back.”
“You want us all out of your hair, huh?” Ethan joked.
Harry grinned. “Am I that obvious? I have to wait for the cake to cool before I do the ganache anyway. It could be ready for when you get back.”
Sage felt Ethan turn to her, felt him watch her. Her skin prickled all over again. “What do you think?” he asked.
“I like that idea.” She also liked the idea of having another adult around. What for, she didn’t know, but the thought of being alone with Ethan made her more nervous than she’d felt in a long time. And she’d always felt some degree of nervousness around him.
He pulled his phone from his pocket and began to dial. “I’ll call Em and see if she’ll be at home. I’m pretty sure she will be. She’s been cooping herself up there with Bella for far too—Hey, Em?” He pushed himself off the stool and crossed the floor to the window. He chuckled, and opened the blinds wider to look out the window.
Sage watched him out of the corner of her eye. He was comfortable with Emily. He laughed again, and his voice lowered.
Harry suddenly leant over the counter. “Mum?” She lowered her voice, too. “Do you think that Ethan and that Emily are going to…you know.”
Sage turned back sharply as Harriet added, “Hook up?”
“What?” Sage shrieked.
Ethan spun around, looked at her, then said, “Yeah, we were thinking maybe in an hour or two?” He looked back out the window.
Sage cleared her throat. Emily and Ethan. There were times she’d wondered. Of course there were. But she hadn’t seriously, seriously thought it. Maybe she’d been blind.
“He hasn’t said anything. Not that he would,” she added. “I mean, we hardly know each other.”
“Men don’t say stuff, though, do they?” Harry began to soften butter in the microwave. When it was finished, she said, “Like you said, they keep their feelings to themselves. But you know, he doesn’t want kids, she’s already got one, and he really likes her. Both her and the baby.” She shrugged her shoulders as if to say, it’s so obvious.
Something gripped her heart, clenched, and tightened. At the same time, heaviness descended to her stomach, and stayed. Ethan and Emily. Was it possible? She swallowed on her dry throat. “I suppose they could be.”
“Makes sense.” Harry began to beat sugar into the melted butter with a w
ooden spoon, as Ethan pocketed his phone.
“All done,” he announced. “Em’s happy for us to go out and you too, Harry, if you change your mind.”
“Thanks but I’ll stay here.” She dipped a teaspoon into the sugar mixture and tasted it. “I’ve got tons to do. Are you going soon?”
“No point in hanging around,” he said.
Sage plastered a smile on her face. Ethan and Emily. How had she not worked it out? They even had names that both began with E, and if that wasn’t was sign, what was?
“Great,” she said with fake enthusiasm.
He frowned at her, took a long gulp of his coffee, and said, “Then let’s get this show on the road.
CHAPTER TWELVE
They spent two hours out at Emily’s farm, but it wasn’t easy. The children fought, Bella cried, Emily was frazzled, and the peaceful time she’d imagined, with walks in the fresh air and adult chatter, while the children played happily in picturesque countryside, rapidly became a long-distant dream. By the time they left, Sage sat in the truck, closed her eyes and acknowledged she was exhausted. She’d felt queasy in the truck on the way over and put it down to the side effects of the sleeping pill. Now, as she looked behind to double-check the children were buckled up, a short dizzy spell came over her, and she turned back and closed her eyes. Maybe it wasn’t the pills, after all.
Ethan appeared shattered as well. On the plus side, there hadn’t been anything to indicate that he and Emily were involved in any relationship other than old friends. There’d been no discreet kissing or embracing, no gazes that spoke of attraction or more. He hadn’t patted her bum, and she hadn’t swatted his.
No. There was nothing going on there, even if they were, she had to admit, an incredibly cute-looking couple.
She opened her eyes as Ethan checked the children were buckled in as well, climbed into the truck, and pulled away. They both winced at the deafening goodbyes of the children as they waved and yelled, “Bye, Bella” all the way down the tree-lined drive.
Out on the main road, silence ensued.
“Praise the Lord,” Ethan murmured.
Sage bit back an ‘Amen’ and focused on the farmland and the elegant properties as they headed up to the main road. As they reached the intersection, the road sign jogged her memory and she commented, “Don’t you live out this way, too?”
Ethan nodded. “About five minutes from here.”
That close. Sage stared out the window. Of all the places in the Auckland area where he could live, he lived five minutes away from Emily? Who, she wondered, had moved there first. Him? Or Emily?
When he’d turned out of the intersection, she asked casually, “So what attracted you to the area? Did you both buy at the same time?”
He pressed his lips together. “Actually, we did. At least,” he amended, “Brad and I did. Jack was thinking of buying out this way, but then he saw the site in Takapuna and went with that. Brad and I bought out here within a year of each other.”
So it had been Brad and Emily’s place.
Her tension dissipated. “What’s your place like?”
“Oh, it’s completely different to Emily’s. It was bare land, so Jack and I designed it. I did some of the work, but Jack’s company pretty much built it. We joke it’s the house that Jack built.”
“I want to see the house that daddy Jack built,” Ruby suddenly called out from the back seat.
“I want to see it,” Jamie replied. “I want to see it more than Ruby.”
“No,” Ruby yelled. “I want to see it first.”
Ethan sighed – a weary, heavy sigh.
Sage pressed her lips together to stop from laughing.
Ethan said, “You’ve already seen one of my houses, Ruby. Remember how you had a screaming fit when you saw I’d changed the colour in your room?”
“That’s not the house she means,” Eric piped up.
“I need to see the house that Jack built,” James said.
“We’re going to see the house that daddy Jack built,” Ruby began to sing.
Next to Sage, Ethan muttered obscene words under his breath.
“Okay,” he announced finally. Sage noticed his grip on the steering wheel had tightened. “We’ll go and visit my place. But we’re not staying long. You got that?”
“Let’s stay a long time,” Ruby sang out.
Sage turned away from Ethan again before she did laugh, and as she did her head swam a little.
You’re just tired, she told herself. That’s all it is. Just tiredness.
And she focused on the landscape as they sped to the house that Jack built.
Five minutes later, Ethan pulled his truck up alongside two rental cars parked in front of the garage. Josh and Anthony’s cars.
He climbed out, and pulled open the door for the kids. He reached in to unbuckle Ruby, and noticed that Sage seemed to be taking her time getting out of her seat.
“I can do it,” Ruby told him, and Ethan focused on her as she unclicked her belt with much grunting.
He stood back as she and James clambered out; Eric had already climbed out the other passenger’s side.
“Okay, you guys,” Ethan informed them. “It’s okay here to run around, and I’ll show you the house, but do not touch a thing. Not a thing. You got that?”
He walked around the front of the truck where Sage had climbed down.
She closed her eyes and put her hand to her head, and he frowned. “Are you—”
Suddenly, she slumped to the ground.
He was down on his knees alongside her in a flash. “Sage?” She’d only fainted. Surely, she’d only fainted. “Sage? Can you hear me? Sage?”
She didn’t respond.
Panic rose up in him fast as his mind careened into overdrive. What if Harry had been right? What if there was something seriously wrong with her after all? What if—
She opened her eyes and stared blankly at him.
He pleaded, “Sage?” If anything happened to her, if she was seriously ill…
She gave a groan. “What happened?” Her voice was confused.
“You passed out. One minute you were standing, the next you were on the ground.”
“I fainted?” she asked slowly.
He nodded. “Do you feel okay?”
“Yeah. I think so.” She began to struggle up, but he gripped her arm. “Take it easy. You’ll only pass out again if you get up too quick. Have you got low blood pressure?”
“A bit.” She closed her eyes. “But I’ve been feeling weird ever since we left Emily’s. I think I might have caught Harry’s virus.”
The virus? Of course. It was the virus.
“I need to get home,” Sage mumbled, and in the same breath, she leant forward on a groan and buried her face in her hands.
He said, “You need to not go anywhere.”
“No.” She took a breath. “I need to go home.”
He had plenty of room here and he could drive the children back to Jack’s and get Mrs Parker or Harry to mind them. “I’ve got spare rooms,” he told her. “You can stay here.”
“I think I’m okay.” She sounded as if she were trying to convince herself.
He stood up. “You’re a grown woman, Sage. So if you say you feel fine, even though you look anything but fine, then who am I to tell you otherwise.”
“Thank you.” Slowly, clumsily, she got unsteadily to her feet. “For your faith in me.” She straightened, gave a strange smile. “Right. I better keep an eye on the—”
A strange look passed over her face, and she half-collapsed against the truck door. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Like I said,” Ethan told her as he put his arm around to help her, “you are staying here. With me.”
Inside his house, with Sage leaning against him, he helped her down the hall and into his bedroom. He hoped it was just a virus. Prayed it was. Not that there was any ‘just’ about any virus. But he knew what they were dealing with then. He’d had the experi
ence of Harry.
Please don’t let it be anything worse.
After last night, he wasn’t going to assume it was anything that would pass over in twenty-four hours, like Harry’s. He pulled back the covers, and Sage climbed in clumsily, her head hitting the pillow fast.
“Better. Much better,” she sighed. Seconds passed before she opened her eyes and looked at him.
“You need to sleep it off,” he told her.
She bit down on her bottom lip. “Ethan?” She looked at the ceiling for a moment. “About last night. When I was asleep. There’s something I should tell you.”
He shook his head. “Whatever it is can wait. You just need to stay in bed and get better.”
She looked relieved. “You’ve seen me in bed a lot lately.”
“And yet every time you’ve been fully clothed,” he mused.
She managed a weak smile. “Funny that.” She closed her eyes again.
He sat down on the edge of the bed and assessed the situation. Josh and Anthony were with the children, giving them a guided tour of the grounds. They had families of their own, they knew how to handle children.
Sage, however, looked like death.
He scratched his chin, his mind churning. “Robyn and Jack will be back home in a few hours; they’re probably at Melbourne airport now.” He exhaled as he went through the options. “What say I take the kids back to their place and ask Mrs Parker and Harry to mind them until the happy couple get home. I can keep an eye on you, then.”
“You don’t need to look after me,” she protested weakly. “I should go home and just sleep it off. It’s probably my own fault anyway. I’m not sure I’ve even got Harry’s virus. It might be – well, it might be some – medication I took. Recently. ”
“It doesn’t matter what it is, Sage. But the thing is, I know I don’t need to look after you.” Ethan reached over and smoothed back her hair. She opened her eyes and looked straight at him, but didn’t move. His hand lingered a moment longer. Something within him didn’t want him to move away, just wanted to take care of her, to make her better again.