He stopped and put on a shirt. The least he could do was to pretend he knew what civilisation was.
And when he walked into the kitchen he was pleased he had. The girls looked lovely. They were in dresses. Karli’s was a cute, jonquil-yellow dress with a white sash and Jenna was wearing…
A cute sundress?
Nope, he thought, and suddenly his throat felt dry. It wasn’t cute. It was a simple frock, pale green, with a scooped neck and short sleeves slit to the shoulders so her arms were almost bare. The dress clung to her waist and flared out around her hips, ending up just above her knees. It was the sort of dress you might find anywhere- you might see anywhere. But she was sort of…
Sort of what?
Her hair was still coiled in a plait on her head-she must have figured this was the only way to wear it when she couldn’t wash it. She wore no make-up. Her legs were bare and she wore simple sandals.
She was as far a cry from the women he’d grown up with as he could imagine-and she took his breath away.
‘Do you think we look pretty?’ Karli demanded. Her voice was anxious, and Jenna looked up from the pot she was stirring, saw him in the doorway and she smiled.
His breath got taken away all over again.
‘Of course he thinks we look pretty,’ she said. ‘We’re in our party clothes, Mr Jackson.’
Thank God he’d worn a shirt.
‘Um…a party?’
‘It’s Karli’s five and three-quarter’th birthday.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah. We found some candles, which made us think about birthdays. So we figured it out while we were dusting. Karli was in school on her fifth birthday and we couldn’t be together and Karli was feeling sad about that so we thought-well, her birthday is the tenth of June and now it’s the tenth of March, so today is her five and three- quarter’th birthday.’
Her eyes were sending a silent message. He didn’t need it. He read the message in Karli’s entire stance.
This was important.
‘Well, well,’ he said and smiled. ‘I’ve come home just in time for a birthday. How about that?’
‘Jenna gave me a present,’ Karli told him. She opened her hand and there was a tiny soap in her palm, the sort you might find in a cheap hotel. She beamed. ‘It’s a baby soap. It smells like flowers. I wanted to use it in the shower but Jenna said not to waste it on your yucky water.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘But that’s rude.’ She looked at him again, suddenly anxious. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude. And Jenna says only special people give presents on five and three-quarter’th birthdays so you don’t have to give me anything. And Jenna’s made a cake.’
‘A cake. Amazing.’ He sat down with caution as Jenna dolloped out casserole. It smelt fantastic. ‘What’s this?’
‘It’s called Jenna’s Surprise,’ she told him. ‘While we were cleaning your cupboards we found more cans. Some of them date back for years, but there are expiry dates and some of them hadn’t expired yet. So we mixed old cans and new cans and got this. It’s mixed-can casserole and it’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience.’
‘I bet it is.’
‘And there was flour and cocoa and something called dehydrated eggs and sugar and we’ve made sort of a chocolate cake,’ Karli told him.
‘It’s more a chocolate crunch,’ Jenna said darkly with a warning glance at him. ‘But it’s something to put our candles on.’
‘Candles?’ He was feeling way out of frame.
‘I told you. There were candles in the bottom drawer,’ Karli said proudly. ‘That’s what made us remember it’s my five and three-quarter’th birthday. I found them and said they looked like great big birthday candles and Jenna said, “Let’s do it.” Do you want to see?’ She hauled open the door of the refrigerator to show him.
The ‘cake’ stood in all its glory. It was as Jenna had said, a sort of chocolate crunch-a layer of brownish biscuity substance that covered the plate. The candles were huge emergency household candles and they’d squeezed on five full candles, with one that had been a quarter burnt in the centre.
‘The three quarters for three quarter years is the one in the middle,’ Karli told him and he smiled.
‘Hey, I figured that. Well done you.’
‘Well done us,’ Jenna said, and grinned. ‘Eat, Mr Jackson.’
‘Can I have a beer?’ he said faintly, and Karli sighed in five-and-three-quarter-year-old exasperation.
‘Beer’s horrid.’
‘Beer’s essential.’
‘I took it all out of the fridge,’ she told him. ‘It was really hard to get the cake in. I packed it into the cupboard but Jenna found it and made me put some back.’
‘Thank you, Jenna,’ he told her, and he smiled at her across the table.
She smiled back.
Whoa. What was happening here?
She was just smiling-but what a smile!
He rose to get a beer. Fast. Because it wasn’t the beer he wanted. He wanted to break whatever was happening between the two of them.
This was really dumb. This woman was from a way of life that had nothing to do with him. She was here for another two nights and she’d be gone.
She had no business smiling at him like this.
He took a long time to get his beer, to open it and to sit back down at the table, and when he did he had himself under control again.
Almost.
Almost wasn’t enough.
He worried her.
Jenna had far too much to be worried about to add Riley Jackson to her list, but still he worried her. He sat across the table and ate his casserole with evident enjoyment, but every move he made spoke of almost indescribable weariness.
He filled the room with his presence. His smile was magnetic and his gentleness with Karli was wonderful. He was a man who should be in a comfy home with a wife and children who loved him to bits. Instead of which he was here. Looking like this.
His face shocked her. The moment she’d seen him as she’d come out of the shower, it had been all she could do not to exclaim in dismay. His face was almost grey with fatigue and his eyes were bloodshot and exhausted. Had he worked solidly for the last two days? By the look of him he’d worked every waking minute, and there’d been far too few sleeping minutes.
He should be in bed right now, she thought. But at least she could feed him. The cake was probably dreadful, but the casserole had turned out okay and he looked as if he was relishing every mouthful.
‘There’s more on the stove,’ she told him and he looked up and grinned and her heart did this silly little sideways skip.
‘There won’t be more for long,’ he told her.
‘Don’t you eat while you’re out working?’
‘I have my beans.’
‘Yeah? You’ve eaten beans for two days straight?’
‘I can do it for a fortnight before I risk scurvy.’
‘But why would you want to?’
‘There’s work to be done and only me to do it,’ he said briefly before he re-addressed himself to the casserole.
It didn’t make sense. The man had to have money. Where had the plane come from?
‘The plane’s yours?’ she said tentatively and he looked up again, surprised.
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Then…why don’t you sell the plane and live somewhere a bit closer to civilisation?’
