“Ah hell. Lena, I’m sorry. That’s rotten news.” He rested his forehead on hers, watching as the tears shimmered in her eyes.
She sniffed and blinked hard. A stream of moisture trickled down her cheeks. It was as if a dam broke when Adam walked into the café. His heart broke for her and there was nothing he could do but hold her and offer her a shoulder to cry on. Adam took her glass and placed it on the counter. Lena slid both arms around him and sobbed.
Chapter 27
Lena woke the following morning and groaned as the light hit her eyes. Her mouth tasted sour and it was as dry as sawdust. Shame washed over her. What the hell was I thinking? After Adam had found her drinking alone with only Spencer for company last night, he’d held her while she bawled her eyes out. And when she’d tried to come onto him, he’d had the decency to bring her home and not take advantage of her.
The guy was a true gentleman. It was a shame she had to pull that one on him. How the heck was she going to face him again? She threw back the blankets and rose from her pillows. Her stomach rolled and dizziness washed over her.
You’re too old for a hangover. “Oh bloody hell.” She lay down again and turned to the wall, intent on going back to sleep until she was over the worst of her first hang over in ages.
Her door burst open and Kyle called out to her. “Mum, come quick. Nona is crying and I don’t know what to do.”
She opened her eyes and winced in pain. The distraught look on her son’s face forced her to push aside her own emotions and try to concentrate on what he wanted. Now what? “What’s going on?” I want to sleep.
“I don’t know. You have to get up and come see her.” He stepped over and grabbed her arm, helping her up. On unsteady feet, Lena walked out to the kitchen to find her mother sitting at the table, her head in her hands crying as though her heart would break. Her father was standing at the kitchen counter, looking out the window, a forlorn expression on his face.
“What’s going on?” She stood at the table in her nightie waiting for someone to tell her.
Ben turned from the window and walked over to rest his hand on his wife’s shoulder. “It’s Simon. He’s dead.”
Lena shook her head attempting to clear the fog. “No. He’s in jail. Don’t be ridiculous. You saw him the other day, Papa.” Cold knives snaked up her thighs and into her bowel, twisting and teasing with shafts of pain. I knew I shouldn’t have gotten out of bed.
“He was killed in the early hours of the morning by another inmate. They haven’t found out who yet, but it was on the morning news. The warden called me earlier.”
“No. No!” Lena ran from the room and lurched toward the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind her. She wretched over the toilet bowl, hugging the cold enamel as she threw up everything in her stomach.
* * *
Kyle was wiping his hand over his face when he walked into Adam’s kitchen doorway. He rose to his feet knowing exactly what had upset the boy. “Kyle, hey what’s wrong?” Spencer jumped up the boy’s legs when he stumbled into the kitchen and Adam grabbed him, holding him tight and let him cry out his grief. When he calmed down a little, he pulled away and sat on the floor with the dog, stroking his ears as he composed himself. How the hell do I help him?
Adam poured a coffee and leaned on the breakfast bar watching. “Ready to talk about it?”
Kyle shrugged his shoulders. “Simon died. Mum and Nona are really upset and I don’t know what to do.” He wiped his sleeve over his nose and sniffed. “Mum’s sick, I heard her.”
Adam swallowed a smile. He knew she was going to regret her wine in the morning, but there was no telling her last night. Lena had to get it out of her system and she had by the sound of it. They’d sat in the café all night talking while she finished the bottle off by herself before she tried to talk him into taking her to bed.
As much as he wanted her under him again in his bed, he would prefer her to come to him sober because she wanted him, not because she was trying to forget something bad that had happened. Hopefully in time she would.
“Do you want me to go over and see if there’s anything I can do?”
“Papa is there. He’s not crying though, just quiet.” Kyle picked up Spencer and held him close. “It’s not fair, everything is going wrong. We should never have moved here.”
“Don’t think like that, Kyle. Everything will be fine, you’ll see.” He knew it was going to be hard to pretend he knew nothing about Simon but he hadn’t reckoned on Kyle and the chain reaction flowing through.
“It won’t. Mum is talking about her restaurant being a big mistake cause people got sick from the mushrooms we made. I hate this. I want everything to go back to normal again.”
“What’s normal, Kyle? Back in Sydney you mean?” Please don’t mean that.
The teen looked up at him with pain filled eyes. He shrugged his shoulders and buried his face Spencer’s neck.
* * *
It was three days before the health inspector rang her back. Three days where she’d stressed and sweated over the results he may come back with and then thought it didn’t matter. There were more important things to get upset over like Simon’s funeral and how she was going to face his wife and children.
“Lena,
