style="font-size:15px;"> That left Jess and ten-year-old Daisy, who was gifted with an inquisitive mind.
‘Do you see Annapolly and Ella, Daisy?’
Annapolly was explaining to Ella in her childish way all about how the dolls were going on a road trip to get to a new house where they’d live happily ever after with a frog that laid golden eggs. Ella listened with awed attention, even though she didn’t understand.
‘Yes.’ Daisy’s brow wrinkled and she pushed her glasses up her freckled nose. She had dark hair like her father. They all did. Daisy had the same considering expression, too. ‘What about them?’
‘They’re happy in their make-believe world. They can enjoy their imaginations and make up whatever stories they want.’
Daisy pondered for a second. ‘If that’s why kids want to believe that babies come from under a cabbage, or the stork drops them, I suppose it’s okay.’ She sniffed. ‘But it would make more sense if they had a pelican drop them. Then they could tell themselves that the baby could be kept warm and safe in the pouch in the pelican’s beak until it got dropped off.’
‘They could.’ Jess stifled a smile over Daisy’s pragmatic logic, and made a mental note to tell Dan this discussion with his daughter was coming, if it hadn’t happened already.
Dan…
Despite his absence today, Jess had thought of him often. She’d asked herself how he was getting on in Sydney, had tried to remember whether he truly looked as handsome as she had thought on first meeting and again this morning when all of her awareness of him hadn’t exactly been evaporated into oblivion.
Dan had phoned twice. Jess had assured him things were going well, and let whichever children had been hovering at the time have a quick chat to him. She’d at least attempted an attitude of professionalism on the surface.
After that second phone call Luke had tried to grill her almost aggressively about her personal life, why she was by herself and a few other questions that could have become a problem if Jess had let them. Instead, she’d stated only that being the mother of Ella was the greatest joy of her life and firmly turned the conversation elsewhere.
‘Time to go in, I think.’
Ella was getting sleepy. Annapolly and Mary were rubbing their eyes. Even the boys had lain back on the veranda floor after finishing their watermelon. And Jess had let her thoughts wander far enough. ‘It’s been a big day. Thanks for all trying hard today.’
There was the expected chorus from the younger ones of not wanting to go to bed but an hour later they were all in their rooms. It would be a while before some of them slept, Jess suspected, but she wouldn’t be helping that if she hovered. She spent time doing chores and by then it was quite late and all the children were asleep. Well, she didn’t know about Luke. His door was shut and she didn’t feel she could intrude to check.
Jess curled up on the couch in the living room to rest until Dan got home.
She had five children and a baby to take care of tomorrow. The day after was Saturday and she had other children while their mothers worked at their Devonshire teas business.
Jess was an excellent daycare mum and trained to care for older children too. She would give that service to the very best of her ability; she would find her way forward with Dan Frazier’s children. And when she got her first pay cheque she would go to the council and pay some money onto the overdue account there and talk to them about a more realistic payment plan. She didn’t need to panic.
Things would be all right. And Dan would be back soon, and Jess was looking forward to seeing him. Just a little, and there was nothing wrong with that, provided she stuck to professional anticipation…
‘Dan.’ Jess spoke his name and sat up on the couch.
She’d been dozing when Dan unlocked the front door and stepped into the house.
‘Hi. It’s late. Sorry.’ Dan’s words were pitched low. He couldn’t explain why they also emerged in a soft, deep tone. But coming home to find a woman sleeping, waiting for him, was something Dan hadn’t done for years. Maybe the memory of that was what made him stop and take Jess in from the top of her head, with its messy cap of hair, to her bare feet with their high arches and purple painted toenails. It had to be memories, didn’t it, even though Jess was nothing like Rebecca? He couldn’t actually be truly attracted to Jess Baker.
‘Was it very tiring, the trip into the city and the workload?’ Jess’s voice was soft and scratchy. Her cheeks had turned a gentle rose-pink as she met his gaze.
Because she was aware of him?
Rather arrogant to think such an appealing young woman would even notice you, Dan!
He took a step towards her. And then veered to the right to dump his briefcase on the couch because what would Dan do once he stood in front of Jess? Want to run his fingers through that fine, silky hair? Ask her to sit with him while he talked about his day? ‘The financial examination process is very thorough. I won’t mind not having to think about numbers until tomorrow.’
Dan needed to ask her about her work. How the children had fared today. He’d phoned in, but he wanted to hear more than those brief words. ‘You’d ring me if there was a problem, not wait until I checked in?’
‘Immediately.’
‘I’ll just look in on them. You don’t mind? Then you can tell me how things went today overall. I don’t want to hold you up from getting home.’ He had to be businesslike about this.
‘See them first, then I can give you a progress report.’ Jess nodded. ‘Ella’s fast asleep in her travel cot. I can wait.’
Dan disappeared to the upper reaches of the house to check on his children.
In the living room, Jess watched his receding back until he disappeared from sight.
By the time Dan returned Jess had smoothed her hair. She didn’t need to look like something that had been dragged backwards through a house, five children and a baby, she justified. She’d boiled the kettle and she tried to be very casual as she gestured, ‘Would you like tea?’
That was suitably employee-like, wasn’t it? And of course that was all Jess intended to be. Not that she’d been invited to be anything else. Not that she’d want to be invited.
Yes, you do.
No, you do not.
Dan smiled. ‘At this point a good cup of tea would be worth crushing stones with my fingers for.’
Jess laughed, a low, startled sound that filled the kitchen and wiped Dan’s face clean of the light-hearted expression that had accompanied his statement. In its place came the kind of tension that appeared in kitchens in the middle of the night when two people stood close together over a boiling kettle with nothing but silence around them. And a man’s smile that had softened a girl’s heart just a little more than she was ready for, so that she forgot to be careful and just enjoyed him for a moment.
Well, that kind of enjoying had to stop, didn’t it?
‘I’ll
