of anxiety in her pale green eyes.
For him?
Surely not! He was a grown man and quite capable of shopping and getting a cab home.
But it could hardly be for herself.
‘Thank you, yes, of course I’ll manage,’ he responded, but at the same time, contrary now, he wished she’d stay—shop with him, share the cab, maybe come in and meet Hamish and Juanita—neighbourly…
‘Stop kidding yourself,’ he muttered under his breath when, goodbyes said, he was striding down the refrigerator aisle in the supermarket. ‘One silly little smile across a coffee table and suddenly you’re attracted to the woman!’
Not that anything could happen! It was Sod’s Law once again. The one woman in the world he’d felt a physical response to in four years and she wanted children.
Well, she wanted to be a grandmother…
Why?
He recalled a depth of emotion in her voice and guessed the grandmother thing might be a cover for something else.
He shoved yoghurt and butter into his trolley, then had to go back for cheese, knowing it wasn’t quite true about the physical attraction. There’d been a couple of women but nothing serious, nothing he’d wanted to pursue.
So maybe an affair with this woman…
What was he thinking! He’d barely met her, didn’t know her at all, and just because she looked like one of his mother’s figurines, it didn’t mean he had to go loopy over her. Besides, there were a whole raft of reasons why he shouldn’t get involved. The effect it would have on his relationship—what there was of it—with Hamish for one. Two, she was a colleague. And three, well, he wasn’t certain about three, although he knew there must be a three—didn’t things always come in threes…?
Having worked the previous weekend, Kate had what was left of Monday off, but given the proximity of their houses and not wanting to run into Angus McDowell again, she chose instead to go back to work. There was always book work to be done, and reports to write up—work she was usually happy to ignore until the last possible moment.
It was almost dusk when she finally walked down the road to her house, dawdling until she reached the place where Angus McDowell now lived, then hurrying, looking busy, in case he happened to see her. But once past the boundary fence, she paused and surveyed the mess in her front yard. She should have hired a skip before she began moving the old furniture. She could have thrown things straight into it.
‘It’s a terrible mess.’ The young, accusatory voice came from somewhere behind an old yellow sofa and the rolled r‘s told her it must be the four-year-old from next door.
‘It is indeed,’ she agreed, walking towards the sofa and peering over the back to see the little boy with wide blue eyes beneath a tousled thatch of white-blond hair, crouched there, a tunnel through the hedge behind him revealing his access from the neighbouring yard. ‘Does your dad know you’re here?’
‘He’s out…’ It sounded like ‘oot’ to Kate, who had to smile, though if the child had been living in the U.S., surely his accent should be American rather than Scottish.
‘And Juanita told me to get out from under her feet,’ the small explorer finished. ‘I was looking for an adventure. Me and McTavish—he’s my dog but right now he’s quantined—we like adventures.’
Kate nodded. She’d liked adventures herself when she’d been four. Unexpected pain hit her as memories of Susie’s death flashed before her eyes. They’d shifted to this house soon after and here the family had fallen apart…
‘Adventures can be fun but you need to be careful where you have them,’ she told him. ‘Perhaps you and McTavish, when he’s back with you, should have your adventures in my backyard. Come on, I’ll show you.’
She opened the side gate and led the way around her house, pushing through the branching arms of the untrimmed camellia hedge, to where the bushes grew even more thickly in the backyard, although there were patches of rather dry lawn here and there.
‘See, you can come through the hedge here—’ she pointed out another little tunnel ‘—and play safely. With the gate shut, McTavish won’t be able to run on the road.’
‘Hamish!’
The thunderous roar startled both of them, but Kate was first to respond.
‘He’s here, in my backyard. You won’t fit through the tunnel so you’ll have to come around the side.’
There was some muttering from the other side of the hedge, then the sound of next door’s side gate opening.
Hamish, meanwhile, had read the situation well and disappeared through the hole in the hedge, back into his own yard and was even now calling out to Juanita, so when a scowling Angus McDowell appeared, Kate was the only one in his sights.
‘Didn’t you think to check that someone knew where he was?’ he demanded. ‘Surely if you’ve been involved with the childcare centre you’ve some notion of children’s behaviour! We’re going demented in there, looking for him and you’re here chatting to him in your own backyard.’
There was more than anger in his eyes, there was fear, as well, but his tone had tightened Kate’s nerves and she was in no mood to be conciliatory.
‘Well, I’d hardly be chatting to him in your backyard, now would I?’ she demanded. ‘You were “oot,” he told me, and Juanita sent him to play. As it happens, I found him in my front yard, and because there’s only a low brick fence that a crawling infant could get over, and a front gate that doesn’t shut properly, I brought him around the back to suggest if he goes adventuring he should use the backyard.’
She considered setting her hands on her hips and giving him a good glare but the shadows she saw again in his eyes had killed her anger. This man had suffered pain. Was still suffering it? Was his move to Australia part of a healing process?
It’s none of your business, her head warned, but having known pain—strong emotional pain—she couldn’t help but wonder.
‘Adventures! It’s all he thinks about,’ Angus muttered, still angry in the aftermath of anxiety but not seething any more. ‘Some fool gave him a book that has a story about a boy and his dog that go on adventures and he’s been mad for them ever since.’
He looked at the woman he’d been yelling at only minutes earlier and caught a hint of a smile she’d tried to hide.
‘It isn’t funny,’ he snapped, not sure it was the smile or his reaction to it that had riled him.
She looked up at him, really smiling this time.
‘It’s a little bit funny,’ she pointed out. ‘Four years old and he’s trespassing on my property and telling me it’s a terrible mess. I’m sorry I didn’t call out to Juanita to tell her he was with me, but it was a matter of a minute or two to show him the backyard where I knew he’d be safe. Take a look—could you get a better place for an adventure? And wouldn’t you be more worried about him if he wasn’t off having adventures? If he did nothing but sit around in front of the television all day?’
Angus
