Although she’d known that Michele was on her way, Leah felt somehow surprised to see her. Maybe some small mean part of her had suspected that all along Michele had been giggling in a big hotel bed with Bailey while she span outrageous lies designed to keep Leah deputising until it was time to go home. Or maybe it was just too much to grasp that suddenly here were both of Jordan’s and Natasha’s parents. Leah was free!
Leah felt like a spectator at a movie as Michele hugged and kissed her children, wiping the corners of her eyes and laughing, then hugging them all over again. For once, Natasha didn’t seem to have a single question but just hung on her mum and looked tearfully ecstatic. Jordan wore a heavy scowl, which Leah recognised as teen-boy technique to force back any tears that might dare to leak out.
Finally, Michele’s gaze fell on Alister and her smile faded. ‘Poor you. Oh, Ally. Does it hurt a lot? I’m so sorry.’ She stooped and dropped a soft kiss on his forehead. Alister looked stunned. Or haunted, or pained. Leah wasn’t sure.
Finally, Michele reached Leah and fell to her knees to drag her into a fierce hug. ‘Thank you! You are the best sister!’
It took several moments for Leah to return the embrace. It was too hot, too sweaty to be pleasant and the words that flew into her brain were better left unsaid. That was a virtuoso performance. Have you been planning it all the way home? Instead, she managed, ‘How are you?’
For an answer Michele gave into her emotions, beginning on a wail then burping out big sobs that made Leah feel still more hot and damp as the tears soaked into her T-shirt. Over the top of her sister’s head, Leah watched as the smiles of Natasha and Jordan faded uncertainly and Alister gazed pensively across the garden, chin on steepled fingers. Ronan sent Leah a sympathetic look, clapped Curtis on the shoulder and led him discreetly off in the direction of Chez Shea.
Finally, Michele unpeeled herself from Leah’s shoulder and settled in the chair that Ronan had vacated, gathering up paper napkins for eye-wiping and nose-blowing purposes. Where her skin wasn’t red from crying it was stark white.
She essayed a smile. ‘Oh, dear. I’m sorry. Things got a bit much.’ A tiny hiccup of a laugh. Spying the jug of water, she poured herself a glass and drank thirstily, then lifted her voice as if calling her class to order. ‘Right. Well. I owe you all explanations.’
Jordan and Natasha returned to their seats.
Michele gazed at each person in turn. Only Alister refused eye contact. ‘Right,’ she repeated, ‘you know I’ve been away to try and make decisions about the future, but my pregnancy sickness escalated into hyperemesis until I ended up in hospital.’ A rueful smile. ‘It wasn’t how I expected to spend the time but you’ll probably all be glad to know that it made it easy to see that things aren’t going to work out with the baby’s father.’
Jordan and Natasha exchanged uncertain glances, smiling then pulling their faces straight again as if smiling might be wrong.
Alister finally looked at Michele. ‘Is the baby all right?’
She gave a tremulous smile. ‘So far, so good.’
Alister nodded. Leah knew he was far too nice a man to wish harm on a baby but, even in profile, she could read pain through his veneer of courtesy. ‘What did the doctors tell you? Do you have to keep seeing someone local?’
‘I need to rest but I shouldn’t need immediate medical care if I continue as I am, able to eat a little, rest a lot.’
‘Have you notified your head teacher about the pregnancy?’
Michele shook her head. ‘September’s soon enough, so I can do it in person then. What about you? Have you told your head of governors about your injury? Are you going to be able to return to school in time for the new term?’
‘No, it’s a bit of a mess.’ Alister shifted his leg as if even the act of discussing it made it hurt. ‘I’m not allowed to return for health and safety reasons but we have an Ofsted due. My deputy head, poor Julia, will have to see it through. I can help with admin from home, of course.’
The stilted exchange made Leah’s heart ache. They might have been teachers in the staff room making polite conversation. She supposed the screaming matches must have happened weeks ago, but watching the children watch their parents so politely not loving each other brought a huge lump to her throat.
Quietly, she stacked some dishes and headed for the kitchen. The family needed time alone. The kids would turn to their parents; Leah would return to being Cool Auntie Leah.
She was shocked at the heaviness inside her at the thought.
On the other hand … she paused to stare over the fence to the honey-coloured house next door.
Restless after the unexpectedly abrupt end to lunch, Ronan took to his sofa to check his email. Nothing from Selina and she still wasn’t answering his phone calls. He even blocked his number so she wouldn’t know who was calling, but she’d got wise to that one very early in their estrangement.
Henry had responded to Ronan’s request that pilot’s effects be added to the insurance claim: Noted.
‘One word?’ Ronan seethed. Snatching up his phone again, Ronan tried Henry’s mobile. The call went to voicemail; irritating rather than surprising. He’d had the same result the last couple of times he’d tried.
Drumming his fingers, he brooded on the reasons that might be making Henry act like this. He should have no additional flying duties because of Ronan’s absence – he was a pilot short but then he was an aircraft short, too. He debated calling the Buzz Sightseer landline but it made for too public an arena to air a private matter.
Kneading the tightness in his shoulder, he experienced a moment’s intense nostalgia for the smell of Avtur in the hangar, the silver aircraft gleaming, the kick it gave him every time he met and briefed passengers who were revved up to be flying in a helicopter or in awe of even the simplest pre-flight check procedure. He missed the beat-beat-beat of the rotors, the incomparable sensation of a helicopter dropping its nose and lifting beneath him.
He wished he could shake the feeling that the future was like a slumbering dragon and it was only a matter of time before it woke up and he discovered he was on its menu.
He was jolted back to the present by a flash of gold-brown passing his window. With a lighter heart, he scrambled up to open the door, surprising Leah in the act of knocking. In an instant he’d grasped the hand she’d raised and dragged her through the door and into his arms.
She gave a muffled squeak. ‘Pleased to see me?’
‘Every inch. I thought you’d be deep in family stuff.’ He kissed her soundly, kicked the door shut and led her back into the sitting room, where he dropped to the sofa and managed to land with Leah neatly tucked beneath his good arm. A stirring in his groin signalled his appreciation of her hip and thigh against his.
‘I think the Milton family need to be alone. I started to do my kitchen-porter bit, then I suddenly thought –’ she gave a shrug, her breasts rising and falling with the movement ‘– I’m liberated! It was a toss-up whether I came to see you or went out in the Porsche.’
‘I won over your Porsche?’
She grinned. ‘It doesn’t kiss well.’ She lifted her head, her hair sliding across the arm he’d curled around her. ‘I was thinking –’
A door banged upstairs. Heavy footfalls thumped on the uncarpeted stairs.
With a neat sideways lunge along the cushions Leah left Ronan’s arms and positioned herself decorously in the opposite corner of the sofa.
Curtis strode in, face alight. ‘The others are coming.’
Sure enough, even as he spoke the tall figure of Jordan and slighter one of Natasha passed the window. In what seemed like a twinkling the room was full of teenagers.
‘What about dessert, Leah?’ Jordan folded down onto a black leather footstool, propping his elbows on his knees.
Natasha claimed the arm of the sofa and slid her arm chummily along Leah’s shoulders. ‘Are we going to make pudding? Or just have ice-cream? You didn’t mean it about fruit salad, did you?�
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Ronan felt a laugh climbing up into his throat at Leah’s astounded expression. ‘I thought you’d be with your mum and dad,’ she managed.
‘Mum’s gone for a nap and Dad’s on the phone to someone at school.’ Natasha screwed her body around so she could gaze hopefully into Leah’s face. ‘What can we have? Can Curtis have some, too? And Ronan,’ she added, perhaps realising it wasn’t good etiquette to leave someone out of dessert plans when you’d wandered uninvited into their house and were doing your best to hijack his guest.
Ronan moved promptly to foil the hijacking. ‘How about we stroll down to the salon de thé? I’ll treat us all to cakes.’
A chorus of ‘Cool!’ attested to the popularity of the suggestion.
Having locked the door of Chez Shea, Ronan fell in step with Leah in the wake of the three teenagers as they led the way down the hill to Rue Paul Deschanel. ‘It seems your niece and nephew don’t see that your role as Deputy Mum has ended.’
Her eyes were hidden behind her sunglasses but her mouth curved into a smile. ‘I can’t have copied them in when I sent my letter of resignation.’
He laughed. ‘I’m not complaining. It creates reasons for us to be together and I’d rather see more of you than less.’ He let his arm brush hers and looked forward to an afternoon of what had become familiar: the company of this beautiful woman and three capricious teens.
When they returned in the late afternoon, the kids escaped into the gîte while Leah lingered with Ronan out of sight behind the shrubs in the front garden, a few minutes she would remember more for the heat of his mouth and the tingle of his fingertips trailing up her sun-warmed skin than for any words spoken.
When he’d reluctantly returned to Chez Shea to catch up on chores, Leah surveyed the detritus of lunch littering the garden table and wondered, despite the way she’d yearned for their return over the past nine days, how much she was actually going to enjoy having the kids’ parents around if it meant two more people to look after, Alister being hors de combat and Michele having taken up extreme napping.
Unwashed plates and cutlery being an unhygienic affront to her soul, she cleaned down. And afterwards … well, that seemed the ideal moment to search out Michele.
Finding the door of her bedroom closed, she shoved it briskly open with the suspicion that Michele had reclaimed it as her own again.
Sure enough, Michele looked up from a prone position on the bed, magazine in hand. ‘Hello, little sis.’ She treated Leah to her widest smile. ‘I was hoping you’d come up for a chat. I’ll bet you’re dying to know what happened.’
‘If you want to tell me.’ Leah began gathering up her things and stowing them in the bags she’d brought from the annexe. ‘Looks like you’ve left me the choice of the salon’s sofabed or Alister’s old room in the eaves.’
Michele had the grace to look sheepish. ‘Thank you for sleeping near the children and for holding the fort. You’ve been an utter star and I can never repay you.’
Leah just nodded.
‘None of it was on purpose, Leah. I’m sorry you copped the fall-out.’
‘But not so sorry that you’ll move to another room?’ Leah wound up the flex from her phone charger and tucked it in the pocket of a bag.
Politician-like, Michele blithely ignored the question. ‘I knew I was doing the wrong thing almost as soon as I left. Bailey was so excited, as if he thought I was going away with him for good. He drove and drove, through France and into Switzerland, up into the mountains. I felt worse and worse, terrible for leaving Natasha and Jordan, sick from the travel and the pregnancy. I couldn’t decide whether to tell Bailey to turn around or whether I had to stick it out and find a way through the horrible mess I’d made. In the end, all I could think about was getting Bailey to stop the car while I got out to heave.’
Drawn in despite herself, Leah abandoned her packing and perched on the corner of the bed to listen.
Michele’s eye sockets looked sunken and shadowed. ‘The sickness just went on and on, and Bailey was so useless. I had to tell him I needed a doctor, tell him to go down to reception and ask for help, tell him what to say on the phone. When I didn’t get better he got petulant and impatient, like a kid.’
‘He is a kid.’
Michele closed her eyes for several seconds. ‘He’s a man.’
‘Only in age. Emotionally he’s a few years behind.’
Michele opened her eyes again with a sad little laugh. ‘I’ll give you that one. I’d never realised he was so disorganised. He began to run out of money and his credit card was maxed. His boss rang him because he’d only booked a few days off and just hadn’t gone back to work. He sulked and wanted me to make him feel better whereas I wanted to talk about the baby, about Natasha and Jordan, about what being a father means. He seemed surprised that Jordan and Natasha were even a consideration. Out of that conversation I suddenly realised we had no future. I don’t know who was more stunned – him or me.’
Leah’s stomach dropped as if she’d just stepped unexpectedly down a hole. ‘So you don’t love him after all? That’s it? After everything you’ve put us all through, it was just–’
Michele slapped her hands over her eyes. ‘If you say infatuation, I’ll scream! I do love him, but not enough to give up Natasha and Jordan, and he loves me, but not everything I am already. He’s unreliable, but I love him, he’s a weak reed, but I love him, he’s immature, but I love him! I just can’t have him because having him would be wrong for my children. All three of them.’ She sagged back on her pillows, tears trickling from the corners of her eyes.
Seeing that Michele had realised what the right thing was at last, however close she’d come to doing the opposite, Leah stretched out on the bed and opened her arms. ‘Oh, Shell,’ she murmured as her sister’s face crumpled. ‘I’m so sorry.’ However much of a mess she’d made, however she’d followed her heart rather than her head, Michele was paying a high price for committing the age-old crime of falling in love with the wrong person.
It took a while for the storm to blow itself out but, at last, Michele lay quietly in Leah’s arms. ‘He’s on his way back to England. He says he’ll never get over me. I know I’ll never get over him.’
‘You won’t be able to make a clean break because of Baby Three, I suppose.’
‘Of course not. He’ll want to see his child.’ Michele wiped her eyes.
Leah sighed for her poor troubled sister and looked for a more cheering direction for Michele’s thoughts. ‘Your kids have been fantastic, by the way, considering everything they’ve had to cope with.’ Disregarding every cross word, mutinous moment, terrifying absence and high-five in the face she related the heart-warming episodes, the funny moments, how grown-up the children had been when Alister broke his leg and Natasha had her nasty experience in the lake. It felt almost like updating a colleague whose work she’d covered while they’d been on holiday, handing over the responsibility. And, in this case, putting down the guilt.
But Michele remained resolutely uncheered. ‘Do you think they’ll forgive me for going?’
‘You might have to work on regaining their trust. Show you’re prioritising them.’ Leah tried to be honest but diplomatic.
‘Of course I am!’
Leah smothered the ‘Seriously?’ that jumped to her lips along with a pithy observation that Michele taking herself off for a nap almost immediately she returned and leaving the children to search out Leah to fulfil their dessert needs didn’t really come under the heading of ‘prioritising’. Michele had to work these things out for herself.
Michele sat up. ‘Where are they now?’
‘Up in the games room with Curtis, I think. Do you want to come clean about Bailey? I’ll fetch them down if you do.’
‘Not yet,’ Michele groaned, clenching her eyes tight shut. ‘One agony at a time, Leah. Jordan looks up to him. He’s not going to take it well.’
Understatement. ‘But if Bailey’s to be involved in the life of Baby
Three …’
Michele heaved a huge sigh. ‘I can’t deal with it yet.’ She peeped at Leah under her lashes. ‘I don’t suppose you could tell them?’
This time, Leah didn’t bother to bite her tongue. ‘Seriously? You actually think that would be OK?’
‘I guess not. I have to face them myself. I’ve just got to screw my courage up first.’ Michele fished in her pocket and came up with Leah’s phone. ‘Anyway, you left this on the table. Scott rang so I answered.’ She gave a watery smile. ‘He wanted to know if you were off having sex with the hot man next door. Were you? Are you and Ronan embroiled in a holiday romance?’
Leah snatched her phone back. ‘He has Curtis and I’ve had Jordan and Natasha. Teenagers are worse than chastity belts.’
‘Sorry.’ Michele gave Leah’s hand a squeeze. ‘But are you?’
‘Yes,’ Leah admitted crossly.
‘Then tomorrow I’ll invite Curtis here for the evening. I’ll barbecue and do a quiz, with prizes, and you can slip next door and, um, spend a little time with Ronan.’
Irritation fading, Leah’s frown flipped rapidly into a smile. ‘That sounds too good to be true. You’d really do it?’
‘Unless you think Ronan’s unwilling?’
Leah felt herself blushing. ‘Doubt it.’
‘That’s a plan, then.’ Michele sounded almost eager. ‘I owe you a thousand favours. I’ll go upstairs now and invite Curtis. Then we ought to change the bedclothes on this bed.’
‘We?’ But Leah was smiling as she jogged downstairs to dump her stuff in the salon and text Ronan with the good news.
Chapter Sixteen
‘So, all proper happy now your mum’s back?’ Curtis tried not to pant and groan as he heaved himself up on the pull-up bars in the park.
‘S’pose.’ Jordan fought to raise himself too, waggling his legs as if he could gain a foothold in the air.
Natasha watched, sitting cross-legged and reminding Curtis of a dainty elf amongst the dandelions and daisies. She wrinkled her nose. ‘She’s all clingy, though. You know, this morning? She was like, “What do you want to hang around a park for?” Leah just let us come if we wanted.’
Just for the Holidays Page 19