She’d wanted him as much as he wanted her. Hadn’t she?
Her look changed, the smile returned, but he knew he’d seen it.
‘What is it?’ he asked, but her smile settled back to the confidence, the certainty he knew. The impudent teasing that he somehow suspected was a mask.
‘Entirely inappropriate, that’s what it is,’ she retorted. ‘For me to kiss the parent of one of my students.’
Her student was whooping back to them now, trying to beat Took, who was practically dawdling. ‘Can I come back now?’ Bailey demanded.
‘Yes,’ Nick told him. ‘And you’re not to tell anyone.’ His eyes didn’t leave Misty’s. ‘That I kissed Miss Lawrence.’
‘Why not?’
‘People will tease us,’ Nick said and Bailey considered and decided the explanation was reasonable.
‘Like saying “kissie kissie”.’
‘Exactly. And then I wouldn’t be able to kiss Miss Lawrence again.’
‘I think you need to call me Misty,’ she said, no longer looking at him. ‘Bailey, when we’re on our own, would you call me Misty? Could you remember to call me Miss Lawrence at school?’
‘Sure,’ Bailey said. ‘Do you think you’ll marry Dad?’
What sort of question was that?
It was a reminder that fantasy had gone far enough. It was time for reality to kick in.
‘Um…no,’ Misty managed and the schoolteacher part of her took charge. ‘Kissing someone doesn’t mean you have to marry them.’
‘But it means you like them.’
‘Yes,’ she admitted, carefully not looking at him. She could feel colour surge from her toes to the tips of her ears. ‘But I gave you a kiss goodnight last night. That doesn’t mean I’ll marry you.’
‘It wasn’t a kiss like the one you gave Dad.’ Bailey sounded satisfied, like things were going according to plan. She cast him a suspicious look-and then turned the same one on his father.
‘Have you guys been discussing kissing me?’
‘No,’ Nick said, but the way he looked…
‘Has your father said he wants to kiss me?’ she demanded of Bailey and Bailey looked cautiously at his father and then at Misty. Truth and loyalty were wavering.
‘I’m your teacher,’ Misty said, hauling her blush under control enough to sound stern. ‘You don’t tell fibs to your teacher.’
‘Dad just told you a fib,’ Bailey confessed, virtuous.
‘Hey,’ Nick said. ‘Bailey…’
‘So you have been talking about me?’
‘I saw you kissing in the laundry,’ Bailey said. ‘I was sort of…up. But I hardly looked.’ He grinned. ‘But I saw Dad kiss you and later I asked if it was nice to kiss a girl and he said it depends on the girl. And then he said it was very, very nice to kiss you. So I asked if he was going to kiss you again and he said as soon as he possibly can. And tonight he did. Dad, was it okay?’
‘Yes,’ said Nick.
Misty glared at him. ‘You planned…’
‘I merely took advantage of an opportunity,’ Nick said, trying to look innocent. ‘What’s wrong with that?’
‘How many times do you have to kiss each other before you get married?’ Bailey asked.
‘Hundreds,’ Misty said and then, at the gleam of laughter in Nick’s eyes, she added a fast rejoinder. ‘So that’s why I’m never kissing your father again.’
‘Really?’ Nick asked and suddenly the laughter was gone.
‘R…really.’
‘It wasn’t just a kiss,’ he said softly. ‘You know it was much more.’
‘It was just a kiss. I’m your landlady.’
‘I’m not asking for a reduction in the rent.’
‘I’m thinking of putting it up.’ She started clearing things, trying to be busy, doing anything but look at him.
‘Why the fear?’ Nick asked and she shook her head.
‘No fear. You’re the one who wants to be safe.’
‘Hey, we went sailing.’
‘I won’t be safe,’ she muttered.
He frowned. ‘What sort of statement is that?’
‘Safe as Houses Misty. That’s me. Didn’t you know? Isn’t that why you kissed me? Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go say goodnight to Gran.’
He was questioning her with his eyes, gently probing parts of her she had no intention of exposing. ‘Misty, your Gran’s been in a coma for months.’
‘And I still need to say goodnight to her,’ she snapped.
‘Of course. I’m sorry. I’d never imply otherwise. You love her. It’s one of the things…’
‘Don’t,’ she said, panicking. ‘Nick, please, don’t. I need to go.’
‘It wasn’t just a kiss, Misty,’ he said gently, and he rose and took the picnic basket from her and set it down on the sand before she could object. ‘Was it?’
And there was only one answer to that. ‘No.’
‘Then let’s not get our knickers in a knot,’ he said and his sexy, seductive, heart-stopping smile was back. It was crooked, twisted and gorgeous, as if he was mocking, but there was no mocking about it. His smile was real and wonderful and it turned her knees to jelly.
‘Bailey’s going too fast for us,’ he said. ‘There’s no rush. There’s no need to panic. But still, it wasn’t just a kiss. We both know it.’ He took her hands and tugged her to him, only he didn’t kiss her this time, at least not properly. He kissed her lightly on the tip of her nose.
‘Let’s take this slowly,’ he said. ‘We won’t mess this up by rushing. But maybe we both know it could be something wonderful. If we play it right-it could be home for both of us.’
Misty took the dogs with her because she wanted to talk to someone. She left Nick and Bailey sitting on the beach, and they had the sense to let her be.
As they should.
‘Because they’re my tenants,’ she told Ketchup as she carried him. ‘I need to be separate.’
But Took was bouncing along beside her. Took was Bailey’s dog. Ketchup was her dog.
To separate the two would be cruel.
It felt a little like that now. She was aware of Nick and Bailey watching as she walked away. She was leaving Nick. She was leaving his laughing eyes, his sudden flashes of intuitive sympathy, his sheer arrant sexiness.
‘See, that’s what I can’t resist,’ she told Ketchup as she changed out of her sandy clothes to go to the hospital. ‘He makes my toes curl but he just thinks I’m safe. If I give into him…if I dissolve like he wants me to dissolve, then I get to stay here for ever. In this house. Mother to Bailey.’
Wife to Nick?
‘Maybe I want that,’ she said. Ketchup was lying on her bed watching her while Took roamed the bedroom looking for anything deserving of a good sniff. ‘Banksia Bay’s fabulous, and so’s this house. It’s the best place in the world.’
As if in response, Took leaped onto the bed and curled up beside Ketchup. Misty looked down at them. Her two dogs, curled on her bed, happy, hopefully for the rest of their lives.
But… There was a scar running the length of Took’s face from an unknown awfulness. Ketchup’s leg was fixed tight in its brace.
‘You guys have had adventures,’ she whispered. ‘Now you’ve come home, but I’ve never left.’
Don’t think about it, she told herself. Take your scrapbooks and burn them.
Nicholas had kissed her and he’d touched something deep within. To risk losing what he promised…
For scrapbooks?
