He’d been scratched and bitten in the undergrowth, shot at from all directions and generally tortured by the whole experience. Running at a crouch, zigzagging through the bracken and crawling flat on his stomach were things from his past, things he’d done long ago and thought he’d left behind.
And he’d enjoyed it.
Perverse! Seb had enjoyed it, too, and seemed particularly proud that neither of them had been ‘killed’ by the ‘enemy’. Jack was glad they’d both got through it without getting hurt or lost. He wondered how the younger kids were, and if they’d been all right left for the day. They’d had a packed lunch, and all of them were doing water-sports for the whole day, so they were together at least.
And Nicky, he thought, was with Molly and would be fine.
Funny how he just knew that. He’d had to trust people with her over the past couple of years, just to get anything done in his life, but he’d hated doing it. Now, leaving her with Molly, he felt completely at ease.
Because she was a woman, not a child. A real woman, with children and responsibilities and common sense.
And the sexiest legs he’d seen in ages, and soft curves, and a wide, smiley mouth that nearly did him in.
He groaned, and Seb shot him a curious glance. ‘You all right?’
‘I’ll live—just a few aches. I’m not as young as you,’ he flannelled, and cuffed Seb gently round the head. ‘You all right, sport?’
‘Yeah—that was cool. We trashed them,’ he added victoriously.
‘Mmm. I think we ought to get back—make sure Molly’s all right. I expect by now Nicky’s driving her up the wall.’
Seb chuckled. ‘Probably. We could always buy pizza or something tonight so we don’t have to cook to make up for it.’
‘Ah—I need to check something on the way home. I was going to take Molly out for a meal as a thank-you and get a babysitter for all you kids together, with a few pizzas and some popcorn or something.’
Seb looked utterly unimpressed. ‘A babysitter,’ he said flatly.
‘For her children, really,’ Jack added, hastily soothing his ruffled feathers. ‘We thought it would be more fun for Amy and Cassie and Tom and Philip if they were together, and if it’s in our cabin then Nicky can just go to bed, and I felt it was too much to ask you to cope with all of them alone.’
Seb screwed up his face thoughtfully. ‘Do I have to be there?’ he asked.
Jack recognised the tone of voice. There was something else coming—some hidden agenda that was probably going to have emerged later. ‘Where else did you want to go?’ he asked carefully.
Seb scuffed a stone with his toe and shrugged nonchalantly. ‘There’s a disco in the village square—fourteens to eighteens. I thought I might give it a look.’
‘What time?’
‘Eight till eleven.’
Jack nodded slowly. ‘Well, I don’t see why not. You’re sensible. Can you make your own way there and back? We’ll be at the Lakeside Restaurant—if they can find a babysitter for us, that is. You can always come and find us.’
Only please don’t, he added mentally as they climbed into the minibus that took them back to the village centre. Let me have this one evening alone with her—just a little time out, a glimpse of how it used to be, when I had the time and the energy and the opportunity for socialising.
Nothing else, though. Not with Molly. It wouldn’t be fair.
Well, maybe a kiss. Just one.
Or two.
Nothing more…
‘It’s all arranged,’ Jack told her, lounging in the doorway as he picked Nicky up. ‘Babysitter’s coming at seven-thirty and so’s the pizza, Seb’s going out at eight to the disco in the village square and our table’s booked for eight-thirty, so if we leave once the pizza arrives, we can have a drink first.’
Molly smiled a little stiffly. ‘Great. Thanks,’ she murmured. Her heart was thumping, her head ached and all she could think was that she didn’t have a decent dress to wear and she wanted to look her best—
‘What is it?’
He looked worried, studying her searchingly with those eyes that could see the slightest nuance of her emotions. Policeman’s eyes that missed nothing. She shrugged and tried to laugh. ‘I’m being silly. I haven’t really got anything to wear.’
His face cleared and he smiled, reaching out to graze his knuckles gently over her cheek. ‘You’ll be fine in anything. Have you got a skirt?’
She nodded. ‘I’ve got a dress, but it’s a sundress really. I suppose if I wear a cardigan over it to cover up the bare bits…’
‘Seems a shame,’ he murmured, and she was reminded of his remark about it being time she learned to enjoy life.
Oh, lawks.
‘Maybe if I wear enough make-up and jewellery it won’t look odd,’ she mused.
‘I’m sure you’ll be fine. It doesn’t matter, anyway. So long as you aren’t downright scruffy they won’t worry.’
But I will, she thought, because I haven’t had a date in what feels like a hundred years, and for some reason this really does matter to me. She looked up into his grey eyes, their expression gentle and reassuring, and all of a sudden she didn’t care because she knew he didn’t.
Perhaps he didn’t see it as a date.
Somehow, that didn’t comfort her as it should have. She thought about it all through bathing the children and getting them ready for bed, through putting on her sundress—a plain white dress with scoopy neck and no sleeves that was a little short for elegance—through fiddling with the bead necklace that dressed it up a little, through the last critical glance in the mirror that probably wasn’t necessary, and then she told herself to stop fretting and trundled them along to Jack’s at seven twenty-five.
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