Alister cleared his throat. ‘My children and Leah.’ Then, after an assortment of emotions had flitted across his face, ‘And my estranged wife, for some of the time, but she’s away at the moment.’
Confusion creased Myriam’s brow. ‘Your wife?’
‘Estranged.’
Myriam hesitated, glancing at Leah as if hoping for clarification.
‘In the UK, they agreed on divorce,’ Leah explained, uncomfortable on Alister’s behalf at having to air the painful details. ‘They both came on holiday so that they could each spend time with the children but Alister’s wife, my sister, has gone travelling with a friend for a while. We’re not sure when she’ll be back.’
‘Ah.’ With an expressive shrug, Myriam wrote on her form for several moments. ‘Your home in the UK, M. Milton, it is a house? Or an apartment?’
‘First-floor apartment.’
‘There is an elevator?’
Alister shook his head. His sad gaze flicked apologetically to Leah.
‘In your holiday home, in Kirchhoffen, is there a place where you could sleep that is not upstairs?’
Leah sent him a rueful smile. ‘Yes,’ she answered for him. ‘There’s a salon with a sofabed on the ground floor.’ The way forward became all too obvious if you just asked the right questions, she admitted to herself drearily. ‘But you should be clear that we can’t stay in Kirchhoffen indefinitely. The gîte is rented for the month of August. The children have to return to school and Alister to his job. I’m starting a new job, too. On Monday the 4th of September. In the UK,’ she added, just to be crystal.
Nodding along, Myriam added to her copious notes. ‘And you have a vehicle to drive home to England at the end of your stay in France? One in which M. Milton’s leg can remain elevated?’
Leah nodded, though she added, honestly, ‘But it would be much less tortuous for Alister to fly home.’
Gloomily, Alister shook his head again. ‘I asked a doctor today and he said there’s a significant risk of clots owing to the nature of my injury. I should go by vehicle.’
When Myriam had completed her questionnaire and promised to get it typed up and sent electronically to the insurance company she left, heels tip-tapping across the ward floor.
Alister broke the silence she left behind her. ‘I’m rather afraid the insurance company will advise my staying in Kirchhoffen to recuperate for as long as possible before attempting the trip.’
Leah sighed again. ‘And living alone right now wouldn’t be the best thing. I’m not sure how we’re going to get two vehicles home when the time comes, though.’
‘Sorry, Leah.’
Alister looked so woebegone that Leah forced herself to smile. ‘It’s not your fault! We’ll manage. Michele will just have to get over her fear of driving on the right.’
‘Not with Jordan and Natasha on board,’ he said, not joking about it this time.
‘Right.’ Leah frowned. ‘I thought maybe Dad would fly over to drive The Pig back but he and Mum will still be with Mum’s cousin in America.’ Leah wished she could just ring their parents. It would be a huge relief to her to see her dad taking charge. He was a proper parent.
Alister nodded sadly. ‘I thought so.’
‘And you still can’t see the surgeon till tomorrow?’
Alister looked still more morose as he shook his head. ‘I’m even losing hope about tomorrow. A doctor’s pointed out that August is a busy time on the French roads and there are always emergencies.’ He stared unhappily at his elevated leg, which looked a bit bondage in its black boot and velcro straps.
Hiding her disappointment, as it seemed obvious that the faster Alister had his op, the faster he’d rejoin his family, Leah moved on to the next items on her agenda. ‘Before the kids come back I have to ask you about a couple of things.’
At least Alister had been teaching too long to let anything concerning kids faze him and greeted her concerns over porn calmly. ‘Controlling software installed on all family phones and computers. Don’t worry.’
But he was unexpectedly emotional when Leah told him about Natasha starting her period. ‘My little girl.’ Misty-eyed, he shook his head. ‘Bless. My little girl growing up.’
‘I’ve promised she can talk to her mum tonight.’ She was updating him on Michele’s health as Jordan and Natasha bundled back into the room.
Rather than get upset about Michele this time, Alister gave Leah’s arm a pat. ‘You’re a diamond, Leah. You’ve saved us all.’ He sucked in a stabilising breath and turned to his children. ‘So, tell me what kind of “water” you drank in the cafeteria.’
‘Coke,’ admitted Jordan, promptly.
‘Pamplemousse,’ declared Natasha with a giggle.
The three of them exchanged grins and Alister put his arms out for a hug, which Natasha snuggled into and Jordan looked embarrassed by, but accepted.
‘I’ll go down for a cup of coffee,’ Leah excused herself. The kids and Alister would profit by family time – and she was sorely overdue a little Leah-time. Sorely.
Peace. Quiet. Headspace. Bliss …
But when she’d secured a fairly peaceful seat in a corner of the cafeteria where she could sip coffee and text Scott an update she was surprised that, rather than wallowing in the break, she felt odd on her own.
Chapter Ten
Once back at the gîte, the kids vanished straight upstairs. Leah had barely finished stowing the shopping when a man knocked at the back door.
‘Ah, bonjour madame,’ he began affably, waggling fulsome eyebrows and smiling.
‘Bonjour monsieur,’ Leah returned, cautiously, all too aware that the man, not unreasonably, would not expect the conversation to halt there.
‘M. Milton, s’il vous plaît? Ou Mme. Milton?’
‘M. Milton est dans l’hôpital et Mme. Milton est dans Austria.’ Leah returned his smile, hoping it would make up for her shortcomings with the French language.
The smile vanished. The man’s eyebrows knitted over his nose and he began barking questions. When she tried to tell him that she didn’t understand and apologise for her bad command of his language, he barked the same questions but more loudly and slowly.
Patience thinning, Leah snapped, ‘I thought it was only English people who did that. I won’t miraculously understand your language just because you shout it.’
As the man began a further barrage, Ronan’s top half appeared at the fence, frowning with concern. ‘Are you OK, Leah? What in the hell is all this racket?’ He said a few words to the man in French.
Jumping on this promise of effective communication, the man started again with many gesticulations and urgent movements of the caterpillar eyebrows.
Nodding along until the discourse wound down, Ronan turned to Leah. ‘This world-class gobshite doesn’t speak English but he’s M. Simon and he and his wife own the gîte. He arranged with Alister that he’d keep the grass cut while your family was renting. As a matter of courtesy, the loudest man on earth here knocked on the door before he began, only to discover that his tenants have vanished and some crazy hot English woman is squatting in his property. He demands to know what your business here is and why he shouldn’t have you turfed out in the street. Probably he’s ready to call the gendarmes to arrest you for murdering Michele and Alister and burying them in his garden.’
Stifling the urge to giggle, Leah replied in the same mock-formal manner. ‘Can you convey the disasters that have befallen us? Tell him that Alister and Michele will be back in a few days.’
His face cleared. ‘Will they?’
She gave a short laugh. ‘No, I doubt it, but it’s probably best not to tell M. Simon. Get him to cut his bloody lawn if that’s what he’s here for and stop giving me a hard time.’ She smiled sweetly at the gîte-owner, who began to look less annoyed.
It took Ronan a few moments to summon up sufficient French to convey all that needed to be conveyed. Then M. Simon clucked sympathetically, shook Leah’s hand apologetically and
dragged a big red petrol mower into view.
As M. Simon got busy, Ronan swung himself over the fence, keeping his weight on his right arm, bore Leah backwards into the kitchen and closed the door as the lawnmower yelled into action.
‘Hello again,’ Leah managed, suddenly breathless at finding herself at agreeably close quarters with Ronan’s warm body. ‘Don’t you have to get back to Curtis?’
‘My phone’s in my pocket and he’ll know I won’t have gone too far. I’m grabbing five minutes alone with you.’
‘Then let’s hide out in the salon where we’re less likely to be interrupted by marauding teens.’ She led the way into the salon, shaded by the shrubbery outside at this time of day, cabinets of painted crockery standing like sentinels around the walls. ‘It’s a bit formal, which is why we stick to the kitchen and the games room, but I think when Alister’s discharged from hospital he’ll sleep in here on this sofabed.’
‘Let’s try it out for him.’ Ronan’s arm hooked around her waist and when she came down to earth she was sitting across his legs.
He kissed down from her temple, across her cheekbone, and Leah’s head tipped back as he moved down to the sensitive skin of her throat. ‘Should a man with an injured shoulder be hauling a woman onto his lap?’
‘I used my other arm and kissing’s a well-known healer.’ His mouth moved on down to the first swell of her breast. ‘The further south I get, the more effective it is.’
‘Very believable.’ She made a noise in the back of her throat when his lips tingled across the skin above the scoop neck of her camisole top. ‘Natasha and Jordan are upstairs.’
He groaned, progress slowing. ‘We’re going to have to get rid of all these kids.’
With a sigh, Leah slid off his lap and onto the cushion beside him, the good feelings he’d begun to build in her fading away. ‘I thought the whole thing about kids is that you’re not allowed to do that. You’re stuck with them until you have to pay a university to take them off your hands.’
He looked at her blankly, his hair ruffled above his eyes. ‘It’s not hard to get rid of teenagers. In fact, one of their missions in life is to gain liberty. You just set them clear boundaries.’
‘Oh.’ Leah felt idiotic. ‘Of course. I’ve been so tense about taking responsibility for Jordan and Natasha that I’ve been thinking of them as if they were tiny. I’m so rubbish at this.’
He laughed, moved in on her throat again and licked hotly at the tiny hollow at its base. ‘You do have to take account of the fact that they’re not in their own country, but Kirchhoffen’s a great village and very safe. There are all kinds of places for teenagers to get breathing space: the park, a stream they can fall into, and a few shops where they can blow their holiday money. Tomorrow we can get Curtis to show Jordan and Natasha around. And then –’ he moved his face back up to hers ‘– maybe you and I can find a way to destress.’
Sinking against him, sliding her hand into the thickness of his hair, Leah had just begun to say, ‘That sounds like something we could discuss,’ when she heard footsteps on the stairs.
Heaving matching sighs, they disentangled. ‘I’m going to end up doing myself damage,’ Ronan grumbled, adjusting his board shorts.
The footsteps went into the kitchen. ‘Leah?’ bawled Natasha. ‘Can I ring Mum from La Petite Annexe now?’
Leah groaned under her breath. ‘I’d better go with her.’
‘I’ll leave.’ Ronan kissed her again, not leaving.
‘OK.’ Leah kissed him back, then, trying not to mind that the burgeoning heat between them was being rudely interrupted yet again, raised her voice. ‘On my way, Natasha.’
After wandering into the kitchen and saying a casual ‘’bye’ to Ronan, Leah slipped her arm around her niece’s narrow shoulders. ‘We need to talk, by the way.’ They stepped out into the late sunlight together, the scent of fresh-cut grass strong in the air. Leah smiled politely at M. Simon and he smiled and nodded, reining in his eager lawnmower at one edge of the grass to allow them to pass.
‘Talk about Mum?’ Natasha clung onto the arm Leah held around her as if to keep it in place.
‘About you.’ Leah unlocked La Petite Annexe, feeling a pang at the airless and unused stuffiness of the place. She pulled Natasha down onto the small sofa. This was the kind of woman-to-woman stuff where she felt on solid ground. ‘You probably know that when you have your period, your hormones can be in a tizz.’
‘Mm.’ Natasha looked down at the floor, already blinking shamefacedly.
Leah tried to tread the line between being understanding and leaving no room for doubt. ‘Well, I don’t know what you’ve heard, but that doesn’t mean having a period is an excuse to bitch-slap people who wind you up.’
‘Yeah, no, but Jordan–’
In her pocket, Leah’s phone vibrated but she ignored it to focus on Natasha. ‘Including Jordan. I’ll be letting him know he overstepped the mark today but I want to be able to ask Curtis to show you guys around the village tomorrow and enjoy a bit of your own space. I can’t do that if I think you and Jordan are going to act like brats.’
‘Lush! Do you think Curtis will?’ Natasha cheered up so abruptly that Leah’s conscience gave her a sharp kick for presenting as a treat something that she actually wanted for herself. She ought to check with Ronan or Alister whether parenting was really meant to include two-faced conniving.
‘His dad seems to think he will.’ To avoid looking at Natasha’s guileless smile, she pulled out her phone to check out the text that had made her phone buzz a moment ago.
Michele: Had to see doctor again as throwing up so much. They moved me straight to hospital for a day or two for them to rehydrate me and give me anti-emetics to stop the hyperemesis. Really sorry. Waiting to see obstetrician now so I’ll ring the kids when I’ve spoken to him but can you explain, first? Text me when you have. xx
Leah’s heart began a slow slither down to her boots. ‘Fu— Oh, dear,’ she murmured.
Natasha looked up with big eyes. ‘What?
She gave Natasha’s hand a compassionate squeeze. ‘It’s a message from your mum, sweetie. We can’t ring her right now because she’s still not well. She’s got to have some treatment to try and stop her being sick.’
‘In Austria?’
‘That’s right.’ Leah assumed what she hoped was a reassuring smile. ‘In hospital. I’m afraid they have to do this with pregnant ladies, sometimes. Being sick so much means they don’t have enough body fluids. They’ll give her some via a drip and give her some anti-sickness medicine, too, and she’s going to ring you after she’s seen the doctor again.’
Bottom lip beginning to quiver, Natasha’s voice climbed. ‘So Mum’s in hospital too?’
‘Just for a couple of days, till they get her sorted. We want her to be better as soon as possible, don’t we?’ Leah made to draw Natasha up into her comforting arms.
But Natasha shoved her away, face contorting into a rictus of grief as she burst into tears. ‘I hate that baby! I hate it!’ she bawled. ‘I hate Mum!’ Then, as Leah tried again to hug her, ‘And I hate you!’
Then she proved that she hadn’t been paying attention to the recent lecture because she eye-fived Leah in the face, too.
Chapter Eleven
In the morning, concealer and foundation took care of the bluish crescent beneath Leah’s right eye but didn’t help its tenderness, or her leaden feeling of despondency. It was the first time she could remember being on the receiving end of teenage contempt from either of the kids and it stung. Natasha’s mood had been further blackened when Michele eventually rang last night, sounding weak and wobbly as she explained the obstetrician had ordered at least forty-eight hours under the eye of the medical world.
This Deputy Mum stuff was a world away from being Cool Auntie.
Cool Auntie got to take Natasha shopping for shoes or cheer Jordan on from the football pitch sidelines then fill the kids with cake and give them back to their parents. Coo
l Auntie didn’t get smacked in the eye or feel sick every time she thought about how Jordan would react when he learned that Baby Three’s dad was his beloved soccer coach. Cool Auntie didn’t lie awake half the night feeling anxious that she was irreparably harming the kids with her bumbling Deputy Mumship. Cool Auntie was, however, glad Natasha’s next period would be someone else’s problem.
Even the prospect of pain au chocolat for breakfast wasn’t enough to cheer Leah as she trailed down into the kitchen.
She was glad when her phone buzzed.
Scott: What u up 2?
Leah: Feeling sorry for myself. Natasha and Jordan not dealing well with issues. Relying quite a bit on man next door, who has teen son and speaks French. Saviour!
In seconds her phone rang and Scott began to demand details in his best put-on gossipy voice. ‘Is he hot? While I’m driving to work for another week of crushing boredom are you enjoying a tumultuous holiday romance with the saviour next door? Tell all!’
Feeling better just for hearing Scott being an idiot, Leah laughed, though she felt an unexpected twinge of homesickness at the idea of him enlivening his morning journey by calling her on his in-car infotainment system while Bettsbrough, their hometown, bustled around him. Without her. ‘Very hot … and there’s not a thing to prevent the tumultuous holiday romance. Apart from awkward teenagers and a sister and a brother-in-law in hospitals in different countries.’ She updated him on the latest dramas, loyally omitting the little matter of Natasha thumping her in the eye.
But Scott evidently felt he’d shown enough interest in Michele’s family and interrupted, ‘Are you picking up the “interested” vibe from the saviour?’
Memories of yesterday’s snatched minutes in the salon flashed through her mind. She fanned her face, hovering between being self-conscious and being smug. ‘He’s not exactly hiding it.’
‘Ooh, get you.’ Scott camped it up. ‘You’ll make me jealous.’
Pressing the button on the coffee machine to start it heating, she laughed. ‘He’s not your type. Not arty, bitchy or dodgy enough.’ Although Leah only rarely met the men Scott hooked up with, he’d told her enough about them to know they weren’t usually the dependable types. Oddly, although he was equal opportunities sexually, the women he saw were organised and sane. His declared preferences were men with a bit of risk, women with none.
Just for the Holidays Page 14