Single Dads Collection. Lynne Marshall

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СКАЧАТЬ Beth’s invitation at the time, and this morning he had convinced himself that a party would be a good thing for Lily, no matter how little he might feel like it himself. Beth had assured him that it would be a casual barbecue, and that several families would be there, so Lily would have plenty of other children to play with.

      Will hadn’t seen his daughter play once since they had arrived in St Bonaventure, and he knew he needed to make an effort to get her to interact with other children. But, watching Lily trail reluctantly along in Beth’s wake, Will was seized by a fresh sense of inadequacy. Should he have reassured her, or gone with her? He was bitterly aware that he was thrown by the kind of everyday situations any normal father would take in his stride.

      ‘Come and have a beer,’ said Roger, before Will could decide whether to follow Lily and Beth or not, so he let Roger hand him a bottle so cold that the condensation steamed. There wasn’t much he could do about Lily right now, and in the meantime he had better exert himself to be sociable.

      The two men spent a few minutes catching up and, by the time Roger offered to introduce him to the other guests, Will was beginning to relax. He didn’t know whether it was the beer, or Roger’s friendly ordinariness, but he was definitely feeling better.

      ‘Most people are outside,’ said Roger, leading the way through a bright, modern living-area to where sliding-glass doors separated the air-conditioned coolness from the tropical heat outside.

      Will was happy to follow him. He had never minded the heat, and, if he was outside, he’d be able to keep an eye on Lily at the pool. Roger glanced out as he pulled open the door for Will, then hesitated at the last moment.

      ‘Beth did tell you who’s staying with us, didn’t she?’ he asked, suddenly doubtful.

      ‘No, who’s that?’ asked Will without much interest as he stepped out onto the decking, shaded by a pergola covered in scrambling pink bougainvillaea.

      He never heard Roger’s answer.

      He saw her in his first casual glance out at the garden, and his heart slammed to a halt in his chest.

      Alice.

      She was standing in the middle of the manicured lawn, talking to a portly man in a florid shirt. Eight years, and he recognized her instantly.

      Even from a distance, Will could see that her companion was sweating profusely in the heat, but Alice looked cool and elegant in a loose, pale green dress that wafted slightly in the hot breeze. She was wearing high-heeled sandals with delicate straps, and her hair was clipped up in a way that would look messy on most other women, but which she carried off with that flair she had always had.

      Alice. There was no one else like her.

      He had thought he would never see her again. Will’s heart stuttered into life after that first, jarring moment of sheer disbelief, but he was still having trouble breathing. Buffeted by a turbulent mixture of shock, joy, anger and something perilously close to panic, Will wasn’t sure what he felt, other than totally unprepared for the sight of her.

      Dimly, Will was aware that Roger was saying something, but he couldn’t hear it. He could just stare at Alice across the garden until, as if sensing his stunned gaze, she turned her head, and her smile froze at the sight of him.

      There was a long, long pause when it seemed to Will as if the squawking birds and the shrieking children and the buzz of conversation all faded into a silence broken only by the erratic thump of his heart. He couldn’t have moved if he had tried.

      Then he saw Alice make an excuse to the man in the ghastly shirt and turn to walk across the garden towards him, apparently quite at ease in those ridiculous shoes, the dress floating around her legs.

      She had always moved with a straight-backed, unconscious grace that had fascinated Will, and as he watched her he had the vertiginous feeling that time had ground to a halt and was rewinding faster and faster through the blur of the last ten years. So strong was the sensation that he was half-convinced that, by the time she reached him those long years would have vanished and they would both be back as they had been then, when they’d loved each other.

      Will’s mouth was dry as Alice hesitated for a fraction of a second at the bottom of the steps that led up to the decking, and then she was standing before him.

      ‘Hello, Will,’ she said.

       CHAPTER TWO

      ‘ALICE.’ Will’s throat was so constricted that her name was all he could manage.

      Roger looked from one to the other, and took the easy way out. ‘I’d better make sure everyone has a drink,’ he said, although neither of them gave any sign that they had even heard him. ‘I’ll leave you two to catch up.’

      Will stared at Alice, hardly able to believe that she was actually standing in front of him. His first stunned thought was that she hadn’t changed at all. There were the same high cheekbones, the same golden eyes and slanting brows, the same wide mouth. The silky brown hair was even pulled carelessly away from her face just the way she had used to wear it as a student. She was the same!

      But when he looked more closely, the illusion faded. She must be thirty-two now, ten years older than the way he remembered her, and it showed in the faint lines and the drawn look around her eyes. Her hairstyle might not have changed, but the quirky collection of dangly, ethnic earrings had been replaced by discreet pearl studs, and the comfortable boots by high heels and glamour.

      Alice had never been beautiful. Her hair was too straight, her features too irregular, but she had possessed an innate stylishness and charm that had clearly matured into elegance and sophistication. She had become a poised, attractive woman.

      But she wasn’t the Alice he had loved. That Alice had been a vivid, astringent presence, prickly and insecure at times—but who wasn’t, when they were young? When she’d talked, her whole body had become animated, and she would lean forward and gesticulate, her small hands swooping and darting in the air to emphasise her point, making the bangles she wore chink and jingle, or shaking her head so that her earrings swung wildly and caught the light.

      Will had loved just to watch the way the expressions had chased themselves across her transparent face. It had always been easy to tell what Alice had been feeling. No one could look crosser than Alice when she was angry; no one else’s face lit like hers when she was happy. And when she was amused, she would throw back her head and laugh that uninhibited, unexpectedly dirty laugh, the mere memory of which was enough to make his groin tighten.

      Ironically, the very things that Will had treasured about her had been the things Alice was desperate to change. She hadn’t wanted to be unconventional. She hadn’t wanted to be different. She’d wanted to be like everyone else.

      And now it looked as if she had got her wish. All that fire, all that quirkiness, all that personality…all gone. Firmly suppressed and locked away until she was as bland as the rest of the world.

      It made Will very sad to realise that the Alice who had haunted him all these years didn’t exist any more. In her place was just a smart, rather tense woman with unusual-coloured eyes and inappropriate shoes.

      ‘How are you, Alice?’ he managed after a moment.

      Alice’s СКАЧАТЬ