Falling For The Single Dad

‘Stay for the evening. We were going to have a barbeque and a real swim, and the children could lie down in front of a film with Nick’s mother while we sit outside in the hot tub and chill. What do you say?’

Emily hesitated for a moment, then thought of all the good reasons why not. Starting with the fact that Kizzy was out of milk.

‘That isn’t really fair on Liz, dumping three extras on her, and anyway, we can’t—we didn’t bring enough bottles for the baby,’ she said truthfully.

‘Well—Harry, why don’t you go and pick some up from home and come back? We’ll look after Kizzy for you, won’t we, Em?’

She met his eyes in desperation, hoping he’d catch on, and he did, bless him, but not in the way she’d thought. Instead he grinned and said, ‘Sounds like a plan. Except I’ve had a beer, so I can’t drive. Still, you could go, Em. I’m sure there are things you want to do at home—you said something about putting the washing on before you came out, and I don’t think you remembered.’

‘No—no, I didn’t,’ she said, grabbing the lifeline. ‘Um—so, I’ll go, then, and stick a load in and get everything. Back soon. Kids, be good for Harry, won’t you?’

And with a quick kiss for them both, she shot out of the door before Georgie could scupper her by offering to keep her company. The last thing she needed while she plugged herself into Buttercup was an audience!

But she escaped without intervention, and half an hour later she was on her way back, the bottles full and the washing on—just to make it less of a lie, because she hated that. She ought to just tell Georgie and have done with it, but she was afraid her friend would find it somehow repellent.

Still, she’d done her bit for the subterfuge now, and she arrived back armed with the milk and more nappies and clothes for Freddie and Kizzy, to find them all in the swimming pool, with much shrieking and giggling going on, and Nick and Harry with Dickon and Harry junior on their shoulders, battering each other with brightly coloured foam poles.

Dickon fell off with a great shriek, and the two Harrys punched the air and whooped.

‘We-e wo-on,’ Harry junior chanted, brandishing his hideous green pole overhead and grinning for England.

‘Me, me!’ Freddie yelled, reaching out to Harry, his little fists opening and closing in appeal, and so Harry took him on his shoulders, Nick took Beth and, as she’d known she would, Beth let her little brother win, falling into the water with a mock cry. Nick scooped her up instantly, hugging her and whispering something to her that made her giggle deliciously, and then she caught sight of Emily and waved.

‘Hello, Mummy! Come in the water, it’s lovely!’

Why was it, she thought, that the sea was somehow so much less personal, so much easier to be almost naked in? Because here, in the close confines of the Barrons’ pool, she felt suddenly hideously conscious of the scantiness of the perfectly normal one-piece swimsuit that only an hour ago had seemed quite adequate.

Not now, though. Now, it could have been made of gauze, and she could feel Harry’s eyes burning holes in it

She slid under the water, mmmed appreciatively and swam away from him to Freddie, bobbing happily in his waterwings and splashing Georgie with his pudgy baby hands. He snuggled up to her, giving her a wet, slightly chlorinated kiss, and she was glad to focus her attention on him. It gave her a chance to ignore Harry, although she could hear another loud and boisterous game behind her with him evidently in the thick of it.

‘Get the washing sorted?’ Georgie asked, and Emily was so, so glad she’d made the effort.

‘Yes, thanks. Baby clothes,’ she flannelled. ‘Kizzy and Freddie. They get through them so fast.’

‘So can’t Harry use the washing machine?’ she murmured, and Emily felt the colour creeping into her cheeks.

‘Of course he can—but he didn’t know where Freddie’s stuff was. I just popped a few of the baby’s things in to make up the load.’

Oh, she was going to be struck by lightning in a minute, and Georgie, who’d known her for years, was giving her a very odd look. She didn’t say anything, though, and Nick was getting out of the water and attending to the barbeque, the children were heading for the shower—one mess she was glad she wouldn’t have to clear up!—and Freddie was pulling the sort of face that meant she had just a few seconds to get him to a potty.

‘Oops. Got to fly,’ she said, and hoisted Freddie out of the pool, hauled herself up onto the side, grabbed him and ran.

‘That was a great evening.’

She smiled warily. ‘Yes, it was.’

‘They’re lovely people.’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re lucky to have such good friends close by. Mine are scattered all over the world.’

And whose choice was that? she could have said, but she didn’t, she bit her tongue and headed for the kitchen. ‘Tea or wine?’ she asked, and he shrugged.

‘Whatever. I’ve had wine and beer already today. If you’re drinking I’ll join you, but I’m quite happy with tea.’

‘Tea it is, then,’ she said, glad she’d had the excuse of driving to refuse the wine, because while she was still expressing milk for Kizzy she didn’t want to drink.

And it would be lovely to reach a point where she didn’t have to take that into account at every moment of her life!

With a little sigh she put the kettle on, reached for the mugs and bumped into Harry.

‘Sorry,’ he said, throwing her an apologetic smile. ‘I was getting the mugs for you.’

But the damage was done. After a day of watching him running around on the beach and at the Barrons’ three parts naked, water sluicing off his powerful body and beading like tiny gems in the dark hair that covered his legs and arrowed down his abdomen, just the brush of his body against her was enough to start a wildfire that no amount of common sense was going to be able to put out. She’d nearly blown a fuse when his leg had brushed against hers in the hot tub, but she’d been safe there, with Georgie and Nick to chaperone and keep order. Here, there was no one to hold them back, nothing to stop them. Except her fleeting common sense.

Emily turned back to the tea, her fingers trembling, and dropped a teaspoon on the floor.

They bent together, bumped again and he laughed and apologised and moved away, giving her room to breathe at last and her heart time to slow.

‘So—fancy having a look at the garden tomorrow?’ he said after a long moment that sizzled with tension.

‘Sure. If you have the kids.’

‘I thought we could do it together—talk it through. It’s not as if it’s far away. The kids can come, too. After all, it’s the weekend. The painters won’t be there.’

‘No. OK. What did they say about the kitchen, by the way?’ she asked, desperately trying not to think about that arrowing hair on his washboard abdomen.

‘Oh, he’d been going to suggest it,’ he said, taking his mug from her. ‘Thought it was a good idea for a short-term fix. He’s going to do it.’

‘Colour?’

Harry shrugged and grinned. ‘I have no idea. Maybe sort of duck-egg, I think he was suggesting, but I can’t say I’ve taken an interest in kitchens, really. My flat’s got a stainless-steel and lacquer-red high-gloss laminate kitchen that’s a mass of fingermarks and a living nightmare to work in—not my choice, I have to add. It was the developer who put it in. The only bit of it I like is the walnut worktop, because it goes with the floor. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. This kitchen can’t look worse than it does at the moment, so duck-egg or cream or whatever, it has to be an improvement.’

They went through to the sitting room and she picked up the TV remote. ‘Want to watch something, or shall I put music on?’

‘Music would be nice,’ he said, and she went into her study and came back with a couple of CDs that she used for background while she was working—compilation albums of soft, easy-listening tracks, female singers mostly, but she’d never noticed just how intrinsically romantic all the songs were until that moment.

Damn. She should have chosen something different—something classical. She buried her nose in her mug and tried not to look at him. For a few minutes they sat in silence, then the third track came on, less romantic, and with an inward sigh of relief she shifted slightly so she could see him better and said, ‘Tell me about yourself. What have you been doing since I last saw you? Apart from the obvious, of course.’

He gave a quiet huff of laughter. ‘Nothing much. Flying about all over the world. It doesn’t leave time for much, really.’

‘You’d just left uni when your grandmother died, hadn’t you? You must have been twenty-one, I suppose.’

He nodded. ‘Nearly twenty-two. And you were nineteen, and home from uni for the summer.’

And they’d watched the sun rise, and then that night…

The memory was written on his face, and she looked away. ‘So what did you do then? After you left?’

He shrugged. ‘Bummed around. Took the gap year I’d never had, saw some of the world, worked in a radio station in Brisbane, got a job on a newspaper in Rio, linked up with a television crew in Nepal, and that was it, really. I started doing odd bits for them, earning a living but nothing great, working as a news researcher when I came home. Did a bit of local television news, then got the break into overseas reporting when I was about twenty-five. I’ve been doing it for six years now.’

‘And you’ve never married?’

He shook his head. ‘Well, except for Carmen, and she didn’t really count, because I’d realised by then that I’d never marry. It just doesn’t fit with the job.’

‘You’re not telling me all those reporters are single?’

He laughed. ‘No, of course not, but they find it hard to have a normal family life. I didn’t want anything in the way. And anyway, I’d never met anyone who made me feel like settling down.’ He tipped his head on one side. ‘So tell me about you. I know about Pete but what did you do before you met him? How old were you then?’

‘Twenty-four. I’d finished my degree, decided biology didn’t really qualify me for anything and, anyway, I’d discovered I loved gardens, and so I did a garden design course and started work.’

‘Here.’

She laughed. ‘Well, yes, my father let me do their garden, and I did some others, and then I worked for one of the garden centre chains—the sort of thing you were threatening me with yesterday.’

He grinned. ‘Hardly threatening.’

‘Blackmailing, then. Anyway, that’s what I was doing when I met Pete.’

‘And you stopped when you had Beth?’

‘Only for a while,’ she told him, remembering her reluctance to go back to work full time. ‘I wanted to freelance, to break out on my own and work from home, but he said we couldn’t afford the risk. What he really meant was that he wasn’t prepared to fund me while it got off the ground, but Pete never really said what he meant—not until he walked out, and even then he didn’t discuss it.’

Harry shook his head. ‘I can’t believe he just legged it while you were at the supermarket.’

‘Pausing only to stop the credit card,’ she reminded him. ‘Still, water under the bridge and all that. And I’m much happier now than I was then.’ Except for the fact that she couldn’t afford to house her children without her parents’ generosity. That was a bit of a killer, always nagging at the back of her mind.

As if he’d read that mind, he said quietly, ‘And the house? I don’t imagine if you weren’t living here your parents would want to keep something this big on into their retirement.’

She shook her head. ‘No. Ideally they want to downsize and buy somewhere in Portugal, as well, to be near my grandparents. Well, my mother does. My father would be quite happy here, pottering in his garden, but he loves her, and whither thou goest and all that.’

He frowned. ‘I can’t imagine a woman in the world who’d want to follow me wherever I go.’

Or a woman, presumably, who he’d follow?

‘To the ends of the earth,’ she murmured, realising that, were things different, if she hadn’t had the children and if he’d asked her, she would follow him anywhere he asked her.

‘It sometimes feels like it,’ he replied. ‘And, like I say, no sane woman would want that.’

No sane woman, possibly, but where Harry was concerned she could never be accused of being sane. If she was sane, she wouldn’t have ended up sharing her roof with him, making him welcome, feeding his child for heaven’s sake!

‘So how’s Dan?’

Dan? ‘He’s fine,’ she said, reining in her rambling mind and concentrating on her brother. ‘He’s working in New York. He breezes in from time to time, sometimes without warning—he’s got a partner, Kate, but there’s no sign of them getting married, to my mother’s disappointment. She wants to see her firstborn settled, she says, before she turns up her toes.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘Is she sick?’ he asked, and she laughed.

‘No, not at all. She’s just despairing of Daniel. No, she and Dad are fine. Enjoying life.’ And she was holding them back, interfering with their plans for retirement. Oh, damn.

‘Em, are you OK?’

She met his eyes, gentle and concerned, and could have crumpled, but she didn’t. ‘Yes, I’m fine,’ she said. ‘Just a bit tired.’

‘Why don’t you turn in?’ he suggested.

She gave a wry smile. ‘Another appointment with Buttercup before I can go to bed, but I’ve got half an hour or so to kill, at the least. I might go and sort out the washing and tidy the kitchen.’

But the kitchen was tidy, and the washing could wait for the morning so she could put it on the line, so she just pulled it out of the machine into the plastic basket ready for the morning. She’d stick it by the door and then she wouldn’t forget, she thought, but he was in there with her, right behind her again, so that when she straightened up and stepped back with the washing basket in her hands, she cannoned into him and felt her head connect with his chin.

‘Ouch!’

‘Oh, Harry, I’m sorry!’ she said, turning to see if she’d hurt him, and found him ruefully rubbing his jaw, the fingertips rasping over the stubble and sending shivers skittering over her nerve endings.

He took the laundry basket out of her hands and put it down again. ‘I think it needs a magic kiss,’ he murmured. ‘Like the ones you give Beth and Freddie when they hurt themselves.’

‘Big baby,’ she teased. She must be mad. She shouldn’t rise to it, he was just being silly. She hadn’t really hurt him. Still, she lifted his fingers away, went up on tiptoe and pressed her lips to the spot, just because it was so irresistible.

‘There. Magic kiss, all better now,’ she said softly. And just as softly he replied, ‘You missed. It was here,’ and, turning his head, he touched his lips to hers.

For a moment her heart lodged in her throat, but then it broke free, beating wildly against her ribs, deafening her with the clamour of its rhythm. Deafening her to reason, certainly, because instead of moving away, taking herself out of reach, she went back up on tiptoe, slid her arms around his neck and kissed him right back.

He groaned softly, easing her closer, and she felt his fingers thread through her hair and cup her head, anchoring it against the onslaught of his mouth. Then the kiss gentled, and he lifted his head a fraction, dropping a daisy chain of hot, open-mouthed kisses over her cheek, her eye, down the side of her jaw. He traced a line around her ear, his breath teasing her hair and making it stand on end, then he moved on, down the side of her neck, across her throat, pausing over the wild fluttering pulse before continuing down, down, across her collar-bone, her shoulder, the slope of her breast.

He lifted his head and stared down at her. ‘You’ve caught the sun,’ he murmured, one finger trailing over the sensitive skin of her cleavage. ‘Do you have any idea,’ he went on gruffly, ‘just what you’ve been doing to me all day, running about in that little scrap of black Lycra?’

He traced the line the costume had followed, down, up—back down again…

She sucked in a breath and her ribs lifted, bringing his knuckles into contact with her breast, and he groaned again, his hands sliding down to bracket her waist, easing her closer as he trailed his tongue over the sun-warmed skin, leaving fire and ice in its wake. With a muttered oath he lifted her vest top out of the way, unclipped her bra and tenderly, reverently, cradled the burgeoning fullness of her breasts in his hard, hot hands.

He sucked in a breath, his head lifting so he could stare down at her, and his pupils were huge, his eyes dark as midnight with desire. His thumbs dragged over her nipples, sending sensation arrowing through her and bringing a cry to her lips, and slowly he lifted his hand and stared at it.

There was a bead of moisture on his thumb, pearly white, and as she watched he lowered his head and touched his tongue to it.

His eyes were still locked on hers, smouldering with unspoken need, but the touch of his hands had triggered her natural response, and she felt the milk beading on her nipples.

‘Harry, no,’ she moaned, anguished, and lifting her hands to his shoulders, she pushed him away, her heart clamouring, her body aching for him but common sense, finally, making itself heard.

And he dropped his hands and stepped back, swallowing convulsively, and turning on his heel he strode away, up the stairs and into his room, closing the door softly but emphatically behind him.

With a whimper Emily crumpled against the worktop, her hands trembling too much to deal with the breast pump for a moment. And so she stood there, her legs like jelly, until her breathing had slowed and the world had righted itself and her hands were hers again.

Then she gathered all the bits and pieces from the steriliser, went into her study and shut the door every bit as firmly. Two doors between them was the minimum they needed at the moment.

She sat down, set up the equipment and reached for her CD player to relax her—and then remembered that her favourite, most relaxing CDs were in the sitting room.

And she’d never be able to listen to them again without thinking of him.

Five more nights, she told herself. That was all it was. Five more nights until he was back in his own home and she had her house back to herself.

It couldn’t come a moment too soon.

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