Over the last year he’d been attempting to patch their lives back together and for most of that time he’d had professional help. But today they’d left behind the hospital and all it represented. This was day one of their new life together.
To admit that he needed help…to have Bailey want help and to have it offered… It should feel bad, but instead it made his world suddenly lighter; it made what lay ahead more bearable.
‘We’d love you to read to Bailey,’ he admitted, and it didn’t even feel wrong.
‘Then that’s settled,’ she said, beaming down at Bailey. ‘I’m so glad you started school today. All weekend I’ll know I have a new friend. Right, you get into your pyjamas and clean your teeth and I’ll fetch a story book. I have my favourite in the car. It’s about bears who live in a house just like this one, but every night they have adventures.’
‘Ooh, yes, please,’ Bailey said and the thing was settled.
So Nick sat on the front step, watched the sunset and listened to Misty telling his son a story about bears and adventures-and he found himself smiling. Unlike the bears, they’d come to the end of their adventures. The house was terrible but they could do something about it. This place was safe. This place could work.
He’d chosen Banksia Bay because it was a couple of hours drive to Sydney. It had a good harbour, a great boat building industry and it was quiet. He should have come and checked the house before he’d signed the lease but to leave Bailey for the four hours it’d take to get here and back, or explain what he was doing… He’d have had to come during office hours, and those hours he spent with his son.
Choosing this house was the price he’d paid, but even this wasn’t so bad.
He couldn’t see the sea from here but he could hear it. That was good. To be totally out of touch with the ocean would be unthinkable.
He’d set up his office over the weekend. On Monday Bailey would start regular school hours. He’d be able to get back to work.
Work the new way.
The bear story was drawing to its dramatic conclusion. He glanced in the open window and Bailey’s eyes were almost shut.
He’d sleep well in his new home-because of this woman.
She was so not his type of woman, he thought. She was a country mouse.
No. That was unjust and uncalled for. He accepted she was intelligent and she was kind. But her jeans were faded and her clothes were unpretentious. Her braid was now a ponytail. She’d changed since she’d cradled the dog this morning. She’d lost the bloodstains, but she must have changed at school because this shirt had paint on it already.
She was stooping now to give his son a kiss goodnight, and her ponytail looked sort of…perky? Actually, it was more sexy than perky, he thought, and he was aware of a stab of something as unexpected as it was unwanted.
The thought of those curls… He’d like to run his fingers through…
Whoa. How to complicate a life, he thought-have an affair with the local schoolteacher. He had no intention of having an affair with anyone. Let’s just keep the hormones out of this, he told himself savagely, so when Misty came outside he thanked her with just a touch too much formality.
And he saw her stiffen. Withdraw. She’d got his unspoken message, and more.
‘I’m sorry. I should have given you the book and left. I didn’t mean to intrude.’
She was smart. She’d picked up on signals when he’d hardly sent them.
‘You didn’t intrude,’ he said, and this time he went the other way-he put more warmth into his tone than he intended. He gripped her hand, and that was a mistake. The warmth…
How long since he’d touched a woman?
And there was another dumb thought. He’d been shaking hands with nurses, doctors, therapists every day. Why was Misty different?
He couldn’t permit her to be different.
‘You want to tell me about Bailey?’ she asked and he did the withdrawal thing again. Released her hand, fast.
‘It’s on his medical form at school.’
‘Of course it is,’ she said, backing off again. ‘I left school in a hurry because I wanted to get to the vet’s, so I haven’t caught up with the forms yet. I’ll read them on Monday.’ She turned away, heading out of his life.
She’d see the forms on Monday…
Of course she would, he thought, and he’d been frank in what he’d written. He’d had no choice. There were a thousand ways that keeping what happened to Bailey from his classroom teacher could cause problems.
She had to know, and to force her to read the forms on Monday rather than telling her now… What was he trying to prove?
‘I can tell you now,’ he said.
He was all over the place.
He felt all over the place.
‘There’s no need…’
‘There is a need.’
Why did it feel as if he were stepping on eggshells? This was Bailey’s teacher. Treat her as such, he told himself harshly. Treat her professionally, with cool acceptance and with an admission that she needed to know things he’d rather not talk about.
‘I’m not handling this well,’ he admitted. ‘Today’s been stressful. In truth, the last year’s been stressful. Or maybe that’s an understatement. The last year’s been appalling.’ He paused then, wanting to retreat, but he had to say it.
‘I don’t want to interrupt your evening any more than I already have, but if you have the time… You’re Bailey’s teacher. You need to know what he’s been through.’
‘I guess I do,’ she said equably. ‘We both want what’s best for Bailey.’
That was good. It took the personal out of it. He was telling her-for Bailey.
He paused then and looked at her. She was a woman without guile, his kid’s teacher. She was standing on the veranda of the home he was preparing for his son. She was a warm, comforting presence. Sensible. Solid.
His parents would approve of her, he thought, and the idea sent a wave of emotion running through him so strongly that he felt ill. If he’d chosen a woman like this rather than Isabelle…
Someone safe.
Someone he could trust if he let his guard down.
When had he last let his guard down?
‘So tell me, then,’ she said-and he did.
There was no reason not to.
It took a while to start. Nick fetched lemonade. He said he’d rather be drinking beer but he hadn’t yet made it further than the supermarket. He apologised for there being no food but cornflakes. She said she didn’t need beer and she wasn’t hungry. She waited.
It was as if he had to find his mindset, as well as his place on the veranda.
Nick didn’t look like a man who spent a lot of time in an easy chair, Misty thought, and when he finally leaned his rangy frame on the veranda rail she wasn’t surprised. She was sitting on the veranda steps. The width of Bailey’s window was between them. Maybe that was deliberate.
For a while he didn’t say anything, but she was content to wait. She’d been teaching kids for years. Parents often needed to tell her things about their children; about their families. A lot of it wasn’t easy. But what Nick had to say…
‘Bailey’s mother was shot off the coast of Africa,’ he said at last, and the words were such a shock she almost dropped her lemonade.
No one ever got shot in Banksia Bay. And…
