Meant-To-Be Mother. Ally Blake

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СКАЧАТЬ a determined flourish she kicked off her red Jimmy Choos, tucked them neatly against the doorway with a quick prayer to the fashion gods that no suburban housewife with a discerning eye for designer footwear might happen by, and with her hot bare feet curling against the cool tiled floor she followed him inside.

      Her feet slowed once she realised that, though on the outside she never would have mistaken her old home, on the inside the ground floor was absolutely nothing like it had once been.

      Whereas the home she grew up in had been dark and overstuffed with fake Italian statues, old furnishings and too many rugs, James Dillon’s home was like the perfect summer day. Buttermilk-yellow walls, soft cream carpet and a collection of the most beautiful highly polished wooden chairs and side tables and cupboards created the illusion of endless space. Walls had been knocked down to create an open flow throughout a house which to her had always felt claustrophobic. She could see all the way through to skylights and bronze hanging pots in the spotless white and wood kitchen and a sunroom had been added to the back of the house, housing a small cane sofa overloaded with scatter cushions.

      Finding herself alone, she wandered to a shiny black piano, eerily situated exactly where hers had once been. And, just like hers, it housed a bunch of framed photos scattered across the closed lid.

      She laid her red handbag on the piano lid and leant in to get a closer look.

      James now wore his brown hair short with a sprinkle of ash throughout, but in the main photo he had longer hair curling about his face, he wore frayed shorts and a T-shirt and had Kane thrown over his shoulder as they ran down a tract of perfect white sand at the beach. She sighed, recognising the landscape as Palm Cove—the peaceful little hamlet where she ought to have been if Rick hadn’t guilted her into staying with him in the ’burbs.

      Her eyes devoured other photos in which James fished, jumped from planes and taught Kane how to ice-skate. And, in all of the photos, he was smiling. All big white teeth, pink wind-burned cheeks and crinkling blue-grey eyes.

      ‘Well, there you go,’ she said aloud, her voice echoing in the lofty space. Whereas polite, quiet James of the half-smiles and worn clothes was a looker, Action James was a true blue—no doubting it—gorgeous son of a gun.

      Siena gulped down a strange thickness in her throat. The very fact that she was thinking such thoughts about some guy with a kid should have sent her walking out of the house then and there.

      As her hand reached for the handle of her bag and her itchy feet made a move to do just that, Siena suddenly caught sight of a photo of a woman hidden amongst the two dozen of Kane and James. She reached in and took it in her hand.

      Sunlight gleamed off thick tousled blonde hair. Rows of neat white teeth beamed from a wide smile. Brown bedroom eyes looked not at the camera but at the person behind the lens.

      ‘Siena?’ James said from somewhere out of sight.

      ‘Coming!’ she called out, quickly placing the photo back on to the piano lid.

      ‘Through here,’ he called back.

      She followed the sound of his voice and found Kane sitting on a closed toilet seat while James was on his haunches searching through a cupboard in an airy bright white downstairs bathroom where her dingy old laundry room had once been.

      And, though there was a picture of a beautiful blonde on his piano, and she had almost hit his son with her car, and she had somewhere else to be, and it was none of her business, she couldn’t help taking a moment to reconcile James with the guy in the photographs.

      Okay, so there was definite gorgeousness still there, only in sepia rather than full Kodak-colour. He looked up to find her staring at him and his grey eyes flickered and narrowed.

      Siena blinked several times over, before doggedly turning her attention to the job at hand. Around a dozen different antiseptic creams, lotions and bandages lay on the wide bench top at his side.

      ‘Are you bunking in for a nuclear winter?’ she blurted out.

      ‘Somehow I don’t think this part of the world is at the top of the nuclear hit list, if it ever comes to that,’ he returned, his voice unexpectedly laced with sarcasm. And, since Siena was quite partial to a bit of that herself, she felt her stomach flutters returning.

      ‘Fine. But then what’s with the personal pharmacy?’ she shot back.

      ‘I’m thorough. Is there something wrong with that?’

      ‘Hey, I’m not complaining. Only a silly woman would put down thoroughness. Just making an observation.’

      James’s brow furrowed ever so slightly, his mouth hooked up at one corner, and he blinked long and slow. And, just like that, she sensed the game was on.

      ‘And what else have you observed?’ he asked, moving to sit back on his haunches, one muscular arm leaning casually along the top of the cupboard door.

      She glanced at a much safer Kane, who was watching her with big sad puppy dog eyes, completely trusting. ‘Well, I’ve learned that it’s always the big strapping ones who fall apart at the sight of a bit of blood. Now, are you going to sit there with your head in the cupboard all day or will you just move over and let me do it?’

      She gave James a little shove on the shoulder and he duly stood and moved to the far side of the room. She then grabbed a bottle of familiar brown liquid, which Rick had preferred when Siena the tomboy had come inside crying after getting in the middle of scrappy fight with local boys.

      She felt the temperature in the room change as James moved to sit on the tiled edge of a neat oval spa bath—watching her.

      ‘If I drop a dollop on this perfect white floor,’ she said, not looking his way, ‘I’m scared that sirens will blast and water will stream from jets in the ceiling.’

      ‘Don’t panic,’ he said. ‘We have a cleaner.’

      ‘Oh, do we now?’ she asked, pulling a la-di-dah face at Kane. Kane grinned back at her, all too-big teeth and goofy dependence, and her stomach flutters coagulated back into that odd sensation of longing.

      ‘His name is Matt,’ Kane explained. ‘He comes in most days and vacuums and gardens and turns on the dishwasher.’

      ‘The dishwasher?’ she repeated, sneaking a look at James. ‘My, oh, my. Whatever would we do without him?’

      She was surprised to find that the engaging half-smile had not left James’s face. She looked determinedly away.

      ‘And he picks me up from school,’ Kane continued, oblivious to the undercurrents swirling about the small room. ‘And he stays on sometimes when Dad has a job to finish or has to go out to see clients.’

      ‘I see,’ she said, though she clearly didn’t. The image of tousled blonde hair came to mind and she wondered briefly what the sunshiny, piano-top woman in their lives did when James had to finish a ‘job’ or see clients.

      But that hardly mattered. She was feeling decidedly better about being in the house of teenage hell than she would ever have expected—and there was no point in pushing her luck.

      She picked up a cotton swab.

      ‘Ouch!’ Kane was СКАЧАТЬ