won’t ask again…’ Her heart thudded painfully. Her father’s words spilling out of her mouth. She felt the rising anger of a parent being challenged in the same breath as she relived the memories of a child sick to death of battles. Her gut tightened.
His little body didn’t so much as move.
‘Leighton Carvell…get your butt back up to the house.’
This time he moved, but only to turn his head back over his shoulder and glare at her. That expression was so familiar. It was her own from twelve years ago.
‘Or what?’ He frowned.
She saw Clint’s eyebrows lift, just slightly. Crap! She didn’t want to do this. She didn’t want to threaten Leighton. Or mess with his mind. Or, God forbid, get physical. But Clint was measuring every move she made.
She went for threat.
‘Or I call Carolyn Lawson and say the sleepover is off.’ Her voice shook enough that nobody could miss it. Clint’s narrowed eyes certainly hadn’t.
Leighton scrambled around and up onto angry feet and screamed at her. ‘Hangout!’
Deep breaths, Romy. ‘Whatever. It’s off if you don’t get back up to the house and start your science homework.’
Stupid. Why were they fighting? He was probably learning more here in the boggy gully than fourth-grade science would ever teach. Still those green eyes watched. Assessed.
Leighton finally weighed his options and turned petulant eyes to the man lying still as a stone next to him. He turned the tantrum off in an eye blink. Strategically. ‘’Bye, Clint.’
Clint’s voice was carefully neutral. ‘See ya, buddy. We’ll do this again.’
Leighton nodded silently and then huffed past Romy, not meeting her eyes. A tight fist clenched around her lungs, but she forced words out as he passed. ‘Watch out for that pout, mate. You might trip on it.’
She turned to watch him go. When she trusted that he was genuinely heading for the house she turned back to her boss, humiliated that he’d witnessed the family altercation. He was on his feet, brushing off the loose, damp dirt. ‘Sorry about that,’ she said on a puff.
‘You asked again.’ His gaze was steady, half veiled.
‘What?’
‘Leighton. After telling him you wouldn’t ask him again to do his homework, you asked.’
‘So? He wasn’t getting me.’
‘Oh, he was getting you all right. He was ignoring you.’
‘Thank you, I’m well aware of that. Am I about to get a parenting lecture?’
‘Depends. Do you need one?’
Romy let her mouth drop open. Attractiveness be damned. ‘You knowing so much about parenting, of course.’
His eyebrows lifted. ‘I know something about little boys. Young men. I’ve trained enough of them. And it looks like I know a hell of a lot more than you about maintaining discipline.’
Romy settled both fists onto her hips. ‘Am I getting paid for this?’
It was Clint’s turn to look confused. He blinked at her.
‘If you’re about to give me some skills-development training? Is this on the clock?’
‘Romy…’
‘Don’t tell me how to raise my son!’ Her voice echoed through the little gully. Frogs and birds flew for cover in all directions.
Clint kept his cool. ‘When you say you’re not going to ask again and then you ask, Leighton wins. He’ll remember. And he’ll use it in his next combat.’
‘This is not a war. This is a family. My family.’ At least, she was working damn hard to keep it that way.
‘Sometimes there’s no difference. It’s the same psychology.’
‘I prefer a different kind of psychology. One based on love and compassion rather than threats and punishments.’
His laugh was genuine. ‘Let me know how that works out for you.’
‘He’s an eight-year-old child, Clint. Not a soldier.’ Just like she’d been.
‘Last time I checked, only one of us has been an eight-year-old boy. Trust me on what works for them.’
‘Trust me on what works for my son.’
He held her gaze, breathing in and out calmly. ‘Love and compassion has made Leighton the boy he is. He’s a great kid. But he’s going to start pushing your buttons more and more. Stretching you. Testing you. Trying to dominate you. I recognise the signs.’
She turned to follow her son up the hill. ‘That may be what you were like but it’s not Leighton.’
‘It’s all boys, Romy,’ he called after her. ‘It’s imprinted on us. We’re built to try to take charge.’
She spun around. ‘If you are so fired up about parenthood why don’t you sire a brood of your own? Go bully your own kids.’
He sprinted up the steep slope in three easy steps and swung around in front of her, halting her with a hand on her shoulder. ‘Managing your son does not make you a bully.’
She shrugged her shoulder away and glared. ‘Well, badgering me makes you one. And I think there’s a bunch of workplace laws that protect me from that.’
He dropped his hand and ran it through his thick hair. ‘Romy. I’m not trying to get under your skin—’
She stalked off, around him. ‘You do not get under my skin.’
Liar.
‘I just want to help you,’ he called after her. ‘Use some of what I’ve learned over the years.’
She turned back around and glared at him from the actual—and moral—high ground. ‘Well, Sensei, this little grasshopper is not interested in your wax-on-wax-off wisdom. Thanks all the same.’
He swore as she carried on up the gully, and then shouted an order after her. ‘We’re still on for tomorrow afternoon.’
She just held up an angry hand and scrambled, shaking, up the path to safety.
‘Ready to go?’
After a night of angry stewing and then a day of having to force her mind to stay on the job, Romy was more than ready. The faster they got started, the faster she’d be back home. She turned to where Clint stood in her doorway. ‘I’m not sure this qualifies as afternoon any more. It’s closer to evening.’
‘I thought I’d stay out of your way while you were working.
