Alice glanced at the three expectant faces in the rear-view mirror and knew although it was Thursday and technically a Dan night, his neat and very adult townhouse lacked anything the children would consider a surprise. And Dan wouldn’t welcome her arriving with three kids in tow.
Thankfully, there was a kids’ CD in the car’s player and she turned it on. With the children momentarily distracted by the music she tapped out two texts before driving the hundred yards out to the road and heading west.
“Sorry to do this to you,” Alice said for the second time as she accepted a glass of sparkling water. “Bit of a domestic crisis at Burrunan. I offered to take the kids out to give Libby and Nick some space, but the weather’s stymied me.”
“Nothing to be sorry about. It’s good to see you after—” Harry glanced around, noticing the proximity of the children. “It’s just really good to see you.”
Alice knew by the earnest look on his face that if the children weren’t there, he’d be asking her how she was going. As much as she appreciated Harry’s concern, she wasn’t ready to disclose the sordid story that surrounded her conception and birth. “Thanks for all those silly photos.”
“Did they make you smile?”
“They made me laugh.”
“Job done then. Mind you, I’m not sure Brutus will forgive me any time soon for the cow costume.”
“I should thank him for his sacrifice. Where is he?”
Harry rolled his eyes. “You arrive with three new and noisy children and you ask me that?”
“My bad. He’s in your office under the desk, isn’t he?”
“Got it in one.”
“Big bird.” Leo pointed to the pelican. He’d been staring at it ever since they’d arrived.
“You can touch it.” Hunter demonstrated by wiping his hand down the long and regal beak. But Leo kept a good foot gap between himself and the sculpture that dwarfed him.
“Look, Alice!” Indi was clutching a wand, wearing a tiara in her hair, a rainbow-colored T-shirt of Holly’s that fell to her knees and a Superman cape. She spun around and around, fascinated by the flow of the cape.
“You’re a very good twirler, Indi,” Harry said. “Just like Alice.”
“Alice doesn’t twirl.” Indi almost took out Leo with the wand.
Harry steered the little girl away from Leo and the coffee table. “Alice twirls. I’ve seen her do it.”
“When?” Holly and Hunter asked almost simultaneously and equally suspicious.
“In Bairnsdale. You two were at school.”
“You didn’t go go-karting, did you?” Hunter asked accusingly.
Holly crossed her arms and pouted. “It’s not fair you went to Bairnsdale without us.”
Alice hadn’t seen Holly do the dramatic teenage gesture before. Were the kids upset they’d missed out on a trip to Bairnsdale or was it something else? “Your dad and I didn’t go to Bairnsdale together. I just bumped into—”
“Alice twirled into me when I was coming out of the bookshop.”
“So, can we go go-karting this weekend?” Hunter asked, clearly relieved he hadn’t missed out.’
“Show me?” Holly demanded.
“Show you what?” Alice was fast losing track of the conversation.
“How you twirled into Dad.” Holly was pushing back furniture.
“There’s really nothing to sho—”
“Come on, Alice.” Harry laughed. “Give the audience what they want.”
Hunter started slow clapping and Holly chanted, “Twirl. Twirl. Twirl.”
“You’re all mad,” Alice said.
But Harry was grinning at her from across the room and his arm was extended toward her, encouraging her to spin. The little girls had joined in the clapping and the chanting and Leo had plonked himself down on the rug as if he expected a command performance.
“It’s really not that exciting, but if you insist …” Alice took off her scarf, unfurled it and held it above her head. “Drum roll, Hunter.”
The boy grinned and trampled his feet noisily on the bare boards.
Alice rose on her toes and spun, her full skirt billowing around her. As she twirled the length of the long room, lightness trickled through her. The horrors that had tried to bind to her over the last week, and define her existence as shameful, loosened. Her parents loved her. They’d kept her safe from a brutal man and given her the best chance in life to be happy. They’d shielded her from being tainted by her conception and birth.
Even though she still believed they should have told her the less sordid part of her story—that she was their niece—she wasn’t certain if it would have helped or exacerbated her teenage feelings of inadequacy and the pain of being different. The three of them had worked long and hard to overcome the deficits her mother’s illness had inflicted on her and she owed it to her parents and herself not to let the truth taint her life.
She was Alice Hunter. That was all that mattered.
She could have happily kept spinning and soaking up the freedom it offered, but the room ran out. Harry caught her around the waist and she tumbled into his chest. Light headed and laughing, it took her a moment to realize he was holding both her hands in a dance position and then she was twirling out again and spinning back.
“Again, Alice. Again,” her nieces called.
Harry twirled her in and out three more times before he spun her into him. With her arm across her front and his firmly on her waist he tilted her back. Trusting him not to drop her, she willingly fell into a deep dip. Laughing, she looked up into Harry’s face and their eyes locked. His moss-green gaze, usually full of worries and concerns, was lit with longing. A delicious and unambiguous shiver shot through her.
“Can you teach me that, Harry?” Lucy asked.
Harry’s mouth twitched wryly and then Alice was back on her feet, feeling the loss of his hands on her.
“Me too!” Indi said. “Teach me too.”
“I didn’t know you could dance, Dad.” Holly sounded both accusatory and impressed.
“Glad I can still surprise you. When you grow up in a household obsessed with ballroom dancing, you don’t have a choice not to learn how
