‘Le-ah,’ Natasha chided, proving diversion worked even when in pursuit of the truth about MILFs and BILFs, ‘you probably wrote half those recipes!’
‘I never give up the search for more, though,’ Leah replied solemnly. ‘I’m thinking about trying chocolate ice-cream with peanuts and caramel. What do you think?’
Natasha gave her a hard stare. ‘That sounds just like a Snickers ice cream.’
‘Oh, yeah.’ Leah pretended to look crestfallen but was glad she seemed to have diverted Natasha from the previous topic.
Their conversation had carried them to their own driveway, where Jordan and Curtis were waiting to invite Natasha to play Minecraft.
‘Yesssss!’ Natasha rushed to join them, fatigue forgotten in the joy of being included with the cool kids.
Leah snorted. ‘Bet the boys think they’re fooling us into saying, “Ahhh, isn’t it nice that the children are getting on together? We’ll let them stay up.” Let’s pretend to fall for it. I desperately need five minutes’ me-time.’ She rounded the corner of the house and made for the open back door, the kitchen light streaming out like a rock festival for moths.
Ronan halted her, pitching his voice in the I do not wish to be overheard register. ‘I cannot apologise enough for Curtis with his “MILF” remarks. I’ll talk to him.’
‘Oh, boys will be boys,’ she began airily. But, somehow an unladylike snort of laughter escaped.
‘For crying out loud, don’t,’ he groaned. ‘What the hell will he say next? I’m entirely mortified. As if I can’t get in enough bother on my own, without having to go around apologising for the little person. Can you imagine the conversation I have to have with him, now? “And what do those words mean, Curtis? And why is it wholly inappropriate for you to be using them about anybody, never mind a woman so much older than yourself?”
‘You make me sound about ninety.’ Leah felt better for having something to grin about. ‘I’d be tempted to pretend I didn’t know he’d said it.’
Ronan ambled over to where the garden loungers stood shrouded in darkness and let himself down into one, rubbing his shoulder absently. ‘Don’t think I’m not. But it’s not responsible parenting. I don’t mind about the language so much as the lack of respect, saying such a thing to Jordan and Natasha when he thought you were their mother! Worse, saying it to someone who would bring it up to nearly kill me with embarrassment.’ He closed anguished eyes.
Leah let herself stiffly down onto the lounger beside his. The wooden slats seemed to hold an echo of the heat of the day and she eased her sore body against them.
Ronan turned his head to watch her. ‘As he’s put the subject of your appeal on the table, though … I’d like to say something.’ The light from the kitchen left most of his face in shadow but for the gleam of his eyes. ‘I’ve not been as attracted to anyone for a long time.’
Leah’s heart put in a double beat of surprise. The few inches separating them came into sharp focus, the smell of his shower gel combining with the grassy freshness of the dewy evening. ‘That’s very … direct of you. Do you usually work this fast?’
His laugh was low. ‘We only have the holidays, right? Direct and fast seems the best way. We’re mature enough to admit feeling sparks, surely? You’ve no idea how relieved I was to discover you’re not married.’
Her stomach gave a pleasant little swoop. ‘Despite me nearly rattling your brains out with my handbrake turns?’
‘Could have happened to anyone.’
‘Despite most of my attention being on surviving the morass of family problems I’ve been sucked into?’
The laughter left his voice. ‘Probably because of it. Your resilience is enticing. That, and your looks – I am a man, after all.’ His fingers found hers as he added encouragingly, ‘I think this is where you tell me if you have a boyfriend/girlfriend/urge to extricate yourself from this conversation.’
The skin of his hand was slightly rough and she could feel a tiny pulse on his thumb. It felt comforting to be held, even in such a minor way. ‘None of those,’ she admitted huskily, heart bouncing gently at the direction the evening had taken. ‘What about you? You should know that I once got involved with someone who turned out to be not as divorced as I thought he was and I’m not up for that again.’
‘I’m completely divorced. Selina’s happily partnered up. I haven’t been in a relationship since she moved out.’
She felt her eyebrows shoot up. ‘What? No women at all?’
His smile gleamed. ‘I didn’t say that. “Want to see my helicopter?” is a pretty reliable chat-up line, but I’m not in the market for anything other than brief encounters.’ He hesitated. ‘The common thinking amongst single parents is you don’t go introducing your kid to every person you have a thing with. Even if, eventually, you decide the “thing” is more than a brief thing, you don’t get hot and heavy in front of your kid and you keep the private side of things private.’ He waited, and when she didn’t speak, he added, ‘Are you looking for something more committed?’
‘No!’ she replied frankly. ‘I’m dodgy enough at relationships without having to worry about kids being involved, even if they’re not actually my kids.’
He looked relieved. ‘Tell me about the married man.’
Leah felt her smile slide away and the familiar chill, like icy breath on the back of her neck. ‘A depressing story of naïveté. I was twenty-five. His name was Tommy. I met him at a track day; we quickly got involved and began to book the same events. He worked in sales and wangled a patch near where I live, which often meant overnighting at my place, so we saw a lot of each other. Until my friend Scott grabbed me at a track day to warn me Tommy’s wife had turned up. Not ex-wife.’
A light came on in an upstairs window and illuminated the hard line of Ronan’s mouth. ‘What happened?’
‘Tommy’s wife was … hideous to me.’ She paused to swallow, shying away from confessing the whole truth about the day she’d been irrevocably scarred by betrayal so brutal it had never stopped stinging. ‘So now I make damned certain I don’t mess with people’s marriages.’
‘Tommy’s loss, but I’m glad you’re single.’ He leaned in closer, hovering, giving her time to pull back. When she didn’t, he brushed a single kiss beside her mouth.
Leah closed her mind to the wretched memories and let desire ripple through her at the warmth of his lips. ‘I’m glad, too. Very few people love being single as much as I do, which is fortunate because my relationships never work out. Sooner or later the man begins to want me to compromise, to give up my life in favour of ‘our life’, to stop me going to track days or to record that weekend’s Formula 1 race and watch it later.’
He drew back. ‘Outrageous!’ But he was laughing. ‘Tell me about your friend Scott.’
‘He may be another reason my relationships don’t work out,’ she admitted, adding, hastily, as Ronan’s eyebrows shot up, ‘I don’t mean he gets intimidating. I don’t think he knows how to intimidate. And it’s not necessarily because boyfriends don’t like me having a male best friend, although it does happen. It’s because Scott’s such undemanding company that boyfriends seem high maintenance in comparison.’
‘I don’t see why that should apply to me,’ murmured Ronan, kissing her again. ‘After all, it would be just for the holidays.’
Ronan called up the stairs. ‘CURTIS!’
He heard a groan and something that sounded suspiciously like ‘Gotta go. The old man’s yellin’.’
Ronan watched Curtis come clumping down the broad wooden staircase and, knowing the conversation that lay ahead and because Curtis remembered to say ‘Thanks for letting me stay round’ to Leah, let being called ‘the old man’ slide.
Outside in the warm summer evening, Curtis began to yawn and, once home, he headed straight for the stairs, calling, ‘Night.’
‘Just a moment.’
Curtis turned, looking apprehensive at Ronan’s tone. ‘’Sup?’
Ronan push
ed open the sitting-room door and beckoned Curtis through it. ‘What’s up is that I’d like a word with you.’
The sitting room walls had already been repainted and the furniture was in roughly its rightful place. Curtis flopped into a chair, looking defensive.
Ronan fixed Curtis with an unsmiling gaze. ‘I’d like to know why you’d call Leah a MILF or a BILF.’
Jaw dropping comically, Curtis floundered around for an answer, eventually hitting on nothing more constructive than a sheepish ‘Sorry’.
Inwardly, Ronan sighed. Did any parent actually enjoy this side of parenting? It would be easy to say, ‘That’s all right, then’ and add it to his ‘let it slide’ list, but he hoped he was a better parent than that. Selina was sometimes too easy-going when it came to making Curtis a good citizen and Ronan was never happy with the result. ‘Suppose you explain what you think those words mean.’
Curtis cleared his throat and mumbled reluctantly, ‘Um … MILF means “mother I’d like to f-word”. BILF means the same but “babysitter”.’ Though he’d avoided saying the whole f-word, blood roared to his face.
Ronan was reassured that Curtis’s mortification indicated that he at least understood his crime. ‘You know how I feel about you using bad language so let’s focus on the disrespect in you saying these things about Leah. Can you imagine her embarrassment when Natasha asked Leah what MILF meant and told her why she was asking?’
Even Curtis’s ear tips were glowing. ‘She never said it in front of Leah?’
‘Afraid so.’ Ronan let his stern expression relax. ‘Are you embarrassed by knowing Leah knows?’
‘Proper! And I’ve got to face her for weeks.’ He shut his eyes and groaned.
‘These things do come back to bite you.’ Ronan could remember being a cocky, klutzy teenage boy. He almost grinned at his son’s chagrin.
Still sheltering behind his closed lids, Curtis nodded.
After a moment’s study of his son, Ronan judged the message had got home. ‘OK. I suggest you just let it drop. An apology will only embarrass her more.’
Gloomily, Curtis nodded again, probably all too aware that no matter how much they both pretended, he and Leah would both know, next time they met. He climbed to his feet.
Ronan decided on a touch of sympathy. ‘Curtis, I do understand that you have feelings. You have to express them in a socially acceptable manner, but the feelings are perfectly normal.’
Dragging his feet as he made for the door Curtis tossed back, ‘Yeah? I think it’s you who has “perfectly normal” feelings for Leah, Dad. I’ve seen the way you look at her.’
Wrong-footed into silence, Ronan listened to his son’s moody progress on the uncarpeted stair and sighed. Navigating burgeoning attraction to a woman was a delicate enough undertaking and now Curtis’s snippy comeback reminded him, had he needed reminding, that everything he did had the potential to affect his son.
Aping Curtis’s actions of a moment ago, he closed his eyes and groaned.
Chapter Seven
For the second morning running, Leah was awoken by her phone. This time it was a call. Michele.
Leah raked her hair out of her face and pressed the handset against her ear to hear over a noise that she suddenly realised was rain pounding on the window. At least it would make a change from the unbroken sunshine they’d enjoyed since their arrival. ‘So you’ve finally turned your phone on? Well done.’
‘Sorry. We’ve been driving in the mountains. The signal’s rubbish and we had to stop every five minutes for me to be sick. My morning sickness is lasting all day long, Leah. I did mean to call the kids last night but they would have been asleep by the time I made it out of the bathroom so I just flopped into bed. I didn’t know anything had happened until I switched on my phone this morning.’
Slightly mollified by the explanation and realising that a journey interrupted by constant hurling couldn’t be fun, Leah smoothed the irritation from her voice as she launched into a description of yesterday’s accident and Alister’s current circumstances. Michele kept gasping ‘Oh, no!’ and ‘Oh, dear!’, but otherwise listened in silence.
‘I’ll know more when I ring the hospital this morning. Ronan’s going to make the actual call – unless you feel you should do it, of course,’ Leah concluded.
She eased her position on her pillows and waited hopefully for Michele to declare that of course she’d make the call instead, and of course she’d drive straight back to be with her kids at this tricky time. Then her mind clicked back to Michele’s opening words. ‘Hold on, what mountains?’
‘The Karwendel Alps.’
‘And where the hell are they?’
‘Austria and Germany.’ Michele sounded amused at Leah’s ignorance of mountain ranges. ‘We’re in Innsbruck but as the journey seems to have kicked off a constant need to throw up, I’ve done nothing but sit in the bathroom feeling wretched.’
Leah bolted upright, catching her sore elbow painfully on the nightstand and swearing. ‘Innsbruck? Austria? When you said you were going “away to talk” I didn’t know you meant two countries away!’
Michele sniffed dolefully. ‘I didn’t either, to be honest. Bailey booked it.’
The sisters listened to each other’s silence.
Irritation began to bubble back into Leah’s voice. ‘So how long will it take you to get back?’
‘It took us about seven hours to get here–’
‘I can expect you tomorrow, then?’
Another silence. Then Michele made a sound that was suspiciously like a sob. ‘I can’t face that journey back on those twisty turny roads until I’m feeling less nauseous. And I do need to talk things through with Bailey, Leah. The situation I’m in isn’t to be taken lightly.’ She gulped, piteously. ‘We haven’t talked yet because I’m hanging over the loo most of the time. I’m really, really sorry’
Leah took a slow breath. ‘It does sounds miserable,’ she allowed, ‘but when I agreed to help look after your children I didn’t bargain for being left with them on my own, hauling them into Strasbourg to visit their dad in hospital, and hoping they’re coping emotionally with everything that’s going on. I don’t even know whether Alister will be able to come back to the gîte when he gets out, or whether his medical insurance company will want him flown home. In either event, it’s going to be a bastard to get both vehicles back to the UK, isn’t it?’
A low groan echoed down the telephone line. ‘I can’t think about that. I can’t even think of getting back in Bailey’s car until this disgusting sickness passes.’
The rain became heavier, drumming against the glass behind Leah, and thunder rumbled in the distance. Her hand tightened on her handset. ‘Just as long as you’re aware that your children have only their fairly clueless auntie to turn to.’
‘They adore you! They’d much rather be with Auntie Leah who bakes and jokes and does cool stuff with cars than with their parents, who make them do as they’re told and act sensibly. I’ll bet they’re having a fantastic time.’
However sympathetic she was trying to be, Leah couldn’t let that go by. ‘Actually, they’re having a horrible time. Their mum’s left them and their dad’s in hospital. The holiday’s hardly living up to expectations, is it? In fact, it’s less a holiday and more like being stranded.’ Leah had to raise her voice over the escalating hiss of the rain. ‘Judging by your last pregnancy it could be weeks before the sickness passes. How about coming back by plane? I’ll fund the ticket if necessary.’
A mulish note crept into Michele’s voice. ‘I can’t. I’m sorry. I have to wait for this extreme nausea to pass, both for my sake and the baby’s.’
Leah gave up. She couldn’t push back against any possibility of damaging an unborn child. Resignation stole around her like dreary fog. ‘At least leave your phone on so your kids can be in touch with you. All the time. All the time, Michele. No exceptions. All. The. Time.’
Michele agreed faintly, then added, ‘I have to go back to the b
athroom.’
When the call ended, feeling in need of a jolt of caffeine, Leah padded down to the kitchen in her pyjamas. She barely had time to get the coffee machine going before first Natasha then Jordan turned up, barefoot and bed-headed. She gave them bright smiles. ‘We’re all early birds, aren’t we? Juice?’
Natasha got the glasses while Jordan sat at the table, scratching his head and watching Natasha slop orange juice on the work surface, then stoop to lick it up instead of getting a cloth.
‘Good one, Gnasher.’
Leah shot him a look of reproof but decided not to point out to Natasha that ‘licking up’ wasn’t approved in any hygiene training. Instead, she passed her the cleaning things then opened the fridge in search of eggs. ‘Good news! I talked to your mum on the phone this morning. She’s been in a low signal area. Less good news is she’s still quite under the weather. She’s very sorry to hear about your dad, of course, and sent loads of hugs and kisses to you both.’
Natasha gazed into her glass, watching the orange pith settle. ‘When’s she coming back?’
‘Not sure yet.’
Jordan scratched his chin. ‘Where is she?’
‘Austria.’ Leah elected to be truthful but try to sound airy about it.
‘Why?’ Natasha looked puzzled.
Leah gave her a big hug. ‘Because that’s where she went to talk but she didn’t realise that she was going to feel so ill. She needs to feel better before she can start the journey back to be with you.’
Natasha’s brow crinkled anxiously. ‘So she’s very very ill?’
Leah had no idea how many ‘verys’ were applicable to extreme pregnancy sickness so hunted for a calming comparison. ‘She’s vomiting a lot. Like a bad tummy bug.’
‘Bleurgh.’ But Natasha looked reassured.
‘Do you know who her boyfriend is?’ Jordan’s sombre eyes followed Leah’s movements as she returned the eggs to the fridge.
Silently cursing Michele for creating an appalling muddle and leaving Leah the unwilling keeper of secrets, Leah grabbed a slab of dark chocolate instead of answering. ‘Let’s make our own pastries. I have a mad craving for pain au chocolat and double espresso.’
Just for the Holidays Page 9