Captivated By The Single Dad. Barbara Hannay

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СКАЧАТЬ his pride in his workmanship, he set it on the floor.

      ‘Oh,’ Holly said again when she saw it properly. ‘It’s…it’s a puppet theatre.’

      He was grinning. ‘I made the stage high enough for Anna and Josh to stand behind.’

      ‘It’s perfect.’ Holly meant it. She was amazed and she felt so silly for thinking he’d been avoiding her. She wasn’t even on his radar.

      ‘They’ll love it,’ she said. ‘Wow. You’ve even made a pointy roof and a little wooden flag to go on top.’

      ‘And Janet’s making red velvet curtains.’

      ‘Fantastic!’

      So Janet was in on this, too? Holly felt as if the rug had been pulled from beneath her. Here she’d been, all week, stewing about Gray’s sensitive reaction to their conversation, while he’d been busy creating a wonderful surprise for his children.

      ‘It’s a fabulous idea,’ she said, running her hand over the smooth silky wall of the stage and admiring the fine craftsmanship. ‘Did you say you’re going to paint this?’

      ‘I thought the kids would like something bright.’ He scratched at the side of his neck. ‘But don’t ask me about colour schemes. Apart from painting the roof red, I’m a bit stumped.’

      ‘You can’t just nip down to a hardware store, so I suppose it depends on what paint you already have.’

      ‘Practically every colour under the sun, actually.’ He went over to a cupboard against the wall and flipped it open to reveal several shelves lined with spray cans. ‘Last year there was a ringer working here who moonlighted as a rodeo clown and I helped him to make his props.’

      Holly laughed. ‘So you have enough colours to make a rainbow.’

      ‘I guess I do.’

      ‘Rainbow walls would be fiddly, but they’d look fabulous.’

      Gray considered this, a smile pulling at a corner of his mouth. ‘I’m no Vincent Van Gogh.’ He shot her an amused glance. ‘What about you? Are you handy with a spray can?’

      Holly had wielded many a spray can while making children’s library displays, and she’d discovered a creative streak she hadn’t previously known she possessed. ‘We—I mean you—would need to work from the top down,’ she said. ‘And you’d have to use something like cardboard as a shield.’

      ‘You’d help me, wouldn’t you?’

      She knew she shouldn’t feel so flattered. ‘I’d be prepared to give it a go.’

      ‘Terrific,’ he said, matching her enthusiasm.

      And then, looking straight into her eyes, he smiled. Oh, man. His smile packed a wallop.

      Not that she should be noticing.

      It shouldn’t have been so much fun—working hard and staying up till nearly midnight to get the last rainbow stripe in place. Holly enjoyed every second of the project.

      Early in the evening, while the undercoat was drying, Gray boiled a billy on a small gas ring and made tea. He had milk and sugar in a battered old cooler and even a packet of cookies.

      They sat on rickety camping stools in the middle of the messy shed, drinking sweet hot tea from chipped enamel mugs and eating cookies.

      ‘Yum,’ Holly said as she helped herself to a second one.

      ‘Good to see a girl with an appetite.’ Gray took a second cookie as well. ‘Chelsea was always so careful about what she ate.’

      ‘All dancers seem to diet. They’re very strong-willed,’ she suggested.

      ‘Obsessed,’ Gray said tightly.

      Holly now knew better than to pursue this sensitive topic. After all, she’d come here to hold out an olive branch.

      Smiling, she said brightly, ‘So tell me, Gray, does your hat still fit?’

      He looked at her with puzzled amusement. ‘Last time I tried it. Why?’

      ‘Janet and Ted have both been praising you to the skies this week and I thought you might have a swelled head.’

      Looking down at the curls of shaved wood on the floor, he shrugged. ‘That pair are biased.’

      ‘Maybe, but they’re not easily hoodwinked. They told me you’re a brilliant cattleman, highly respected and looked up to by others in your industry. Ted said that when you took over the reins here ten years ago, you dramatically improved the carrying capacity and diversified the cattle breeds. And you placed yourself at the cutting edge of land management and water conservation.’

      Gray was staring hard at his mug. ‘Sounds a bit grand when you put it like that, but when I’m out, driving around, I listen to a lot of agricultural radio programmes. It’s a good way to learn things.’

      ‘According to Ted, you hoard all that info in your brilliant memory and then put it into practice.’ Holly smiled. ‘He also said you’re fantastic with figures. He called you a human calculator.’

      Gray shrugged again. ‘That man has far too much to say. I’m not paying him to gasbag.’ His eyes flashed a cheeky challenge. ‘And why are you trying to flatter me?’

      ‘I’m not flattering you. I’m giving you positive feedback. You can blame my teacher training.’

      ‘Yeah, right.’ He gave a smiling shake of his head. ‘But shouldn’t we be working out how we’re going to paint these rainbow walls?’

      They decided on a plan. They would start at the top with orange just beneath the red roof, then progress downwards through blue and purple to finish with green at the base.

      With the plan settled and the undercoat dry, they got back to work. After a short trial run, Gray admitted that Holly could produce the most even spray paint finish, so they agreed that he should hold up the cardboard shield for her.

      As they worked, she engaged him in safe topics—mostly about the twins and their first week of school. She told him that Josh was very clever at arithmetic and had developed a passion for Natural Science—particularly frogs.

      ‘I hope you don’t mind. This afternoon we converted a pickle jar into a tadpole aquarium,’ she told him.

      Gray laughed. ‘I was mad about spiders when I was a kid. Tried to start a redback spider farm in an ice cream container.’

      ‘Eeeeww.’ Holly gave an elaborate shudder, then told him that Anna was the twin who was curious about spiders. ‘She also has beautiful handwriting and a musical ear and an exceptionally vivid imagination.’

      Holly enjoyed herself immensely, which surprised her, considering that once upon a time she’d looked forward to sharing this sort of task with Brandon. She’d even been silly enough to imagine that she and Brandon would paint a nursery for their first baby, and she’d actually picked out a colour scheme of white СКАЧАТЬ