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‘Mummy!’
She hadn’t realised she’d said it out loud. She threw an apologetic glance at her son. He was looking mildly scandalised and a little fascinated, because she simply didn’t swear—at least, not aloud, and certainly not in front of them. ‘Sorry, Philip. Right, let’s go and pay for this lot and we can go back to our cabin.’
Unloading the shopping half an hour later was a chastening experience. Bread, but no butter or marge. Peanut butter—they all hated peanut butter; she hadn’t bought it since David left—oven chips, a small pepperoni pizza, a pint of skimmed milk, not semi-skimmed as usual—the list of oddities and inconsistencies rambled on. Blue cheese, a tin of tuna, no salad or teabags—the man had distracted her so badly she couldn’t think.
‘So, what’s for supper?’ Philip asked curiously, eyeing the collection with distaste.
‘Um—I’m not sure. I’ve forgotten one or two things.’
‘We could eat out—they’ve got a pizza place in the square,’ Cassie was kind enough to point out.
‘Yeah, can we?’ Philip asked, his eyes wide and hopeful. They never ate out.
Molly, who cooked for a living, thought it sounded a very good idea all of a sudden. ‘Fine. I’ll put this lot in the fridge and we’ll go and swim, sort out where we all have to be and then have supper.’
The pool was wonderful. There was a wave machine, a flume, wild water rapids, a swirly river thing that swept you round an island, and, best of all, a hot whirlpool tub. The kids were strong swimmers, and sensible, so after they’d explored the pool complex together, she sent them off with strict instructions to keep an eye on each other and wallowed in the hot tub, watching out for them as they climbed the steps to the top of the flume.
‘Mind if I join you?’
Her heart jolted wildly, and she looked up to be treated to acres of muscular, hairy thigh and lean washboard abs that made her want to moan out loud.
‘Feel free,’ she croaked, shuffling up a little, and he squeezed in beside her. They were hardly alone, there were two other couples in the big round tub, and Molly was intensely grateful for them. Safety in numbers, she thought a little hysterically, and then wondered what on earth she was worried about. He thought she was a complete twit. Who wouldn’t, after the way she’d performed?
He settled in beside her with a big sigh, and she was enormously aware of him just inches away. His foot brushed hers, and she jumped as if she’d been bitten and shuffled a little further away.
He smiled knowingly. ‘Sorry,’ he murmured, but she knew he wasn’t. Damn.
They sat in silence, cosseted by the bubbles, while she tried not to think about his lean and very masculine body, so close she could reach out and touch it—and then the other couples climbed out and left them.
Molly scooted round a bit, not quite opposite him but not so close, either. ‘Where are the children?’ she asked to fill the silence and to quell the riot in her mind.
‘Seb’s keeping an eye on them. They all swim like fish, even Nicky, but he’s got her in the paddling pool and the others are going on the flume. I thought I’d take five, and Seb knows where I am.’ He propped his head back and closed his eyes with a sigh. ‘Are you here on your own?’ he asked lazily.
‘No—I’ve got the children with me.’
His eyes flew open. ‘Children?’
‘Yes, children. You know, those little bits of DNA that grow up to persecute us?’
He chuckled. ‘Them,’ he said with a smile, and studied her searchingly. ‘I didn’t realise you had children. You look too young. Are they in the crèche?’
She laughed a little wildly. ‘You have to be kidding. They’d skin me alive before they let me put them in there.’
He glanced around. ‘So are they with your husband?’
‘Um—no. I—ah—we’re here alone. They’re swimming.’
His eyes widened. ‘They can’t be old enough! Not unless you started at ten.’
Her laugh was getting a little hysterical. ‘You are too kind. I think you also need your eyes checked. I have grey hairs, and bald bits where I’ve yanked the grey out, and wrinkles you could hide inside!’
‘And I’ve parked my Zimmer just round that rock.’
She laughed again, softly this time. ‘I’m thirty-one—and you’re a million miles from needing a walking frame.’
He grinned. ‘At the moment, but I have a hideous feeling that’s all going to change. I’m doing a mountain-bike ride with Nicky on the back tomorrow morning that will probably kill me, even though it’s supposed to be gentle, and then in the afternoon for my sins I’m abseiling with Seb while the others do canoeing and finger painting variously.’
‘Let me guess—the baby’s finger painting.’
‘Yup. I hate to think what state she’ll come back in.’
‘She’ll be fine—send her in something old and tatty.’ Molly shifted a little so she could see him better. ‘So, where’s your wife while all this is going on?’
He met her eyes with a clear, level gaze. ‘I don’t have a wife. Where’s your husband?’
And that was direct! She filed the information about his wife and answered him frankly. ‘Australia—dodging the maintenance payments.’
‘Ah. Hence the magic act.’
‘No, not at all. That was to help out a friend.’
‘You were good.’
‘I was awful.’
‘I thought you were very funny.’
She gave a strangled laugh. ‘It was meant to be slick and fast and magical—not a take-off of Tommy Cooper.’
He tipped his head and grinned. ‘I could see you in a fez. I don’t suppose you want to do a repeat performance—?’
She laughed and shook her head. ‘Oh, no. It was definitely a one-off. Never again.’
He stretched, and she tucked her feet up just to be on the safe side.
‘So, what do you do, then?’
‘I’m a nursery nurse—except I’m not. I used to run a crèche but I needed to be around in the school holidays after they grew up a bit, so I did a cookery course and now I’ve got a catering business. I make sandwiches and deliver them to various outlets every day, and I do the odd bit of catering for dinner parties and wedding buffets.’ She tipped her head a little and studied him. ‘So what do you do? Apart from keeping up with the children?’
He grinned, a lop-sided tilt of his mouth that creased his eyes and softened the angular planes of his face and made her heart hiccup. ‘I write crime novels—detective stories about people perpetrating convoluted and bizarre crimes on unsuspecting members of the public.’
She chuckled. ‘Like me, you mean?’
‘Absolutely. My current heroine is a little like you. She’s small and feisty—she’s a victim, but she escapes the final thrust and lives to tell the tale.’
‘I’m so glad,’ she said with a smile, and wondered if his heroine was like her, or if he was just being flattering. ‘Where do you get your ideas?’
His face closed a little. ‘I was a cop,’ he said lightly, but his eyes were suddenly shielded.
I was a cop. Just that, but it told her so much—and asked a million more questions. Like, had it been the end of his marriage—?
‘Did she walk out?’
He blinked. ‘She?’
‘Your wife.’
His mouth hardened, and she flushed and sat up in a flurry of bubbles and arms and legs. ‘Sorry, that was intrusive.’
To her surprise he answered. ‘Yes, it was—and yes, she did. She found it all too much.’
‘And left you with the kids.’
He looked down into the water. ‘Not exactly. Look, I have to go. I’ll see you around.’ He sat forward. ‘Where’s your cabin?’
‘Area B—by the lake.’ What did not exactly mean?
‘So’s ours. What number?’
‘B15.’
‘We’re B19—I’ll look out for you. Perhaps we can get together—it would make a change to talk to another adult. Talking to a strand of mutant DNA gets a little tedious at times.’
His mouth quirked, taking the edge off his words, and he stood up. Water streamed off his body, running in rivulets down his arms and legs and that fascinating chest with the little vee of hair between the nipples—
‘Jack?’
She looked behind him at the boy standing there, a little girl in his arms. They were nothing like him, the boy tow-haired and wiry, the girl blonde and baby-plump, reaching out chubby arms to her father. The oldest and the youngest of his brood, she remembered.
He took the baby in his arms and kissed her, then grinned at the boy.
‘Thanks, Seb. Going on the flume?’
‘The rapids. Amy and Tom are after an ice-cream.’
His voice cracked and he coloured, flicking Molly an embarrassed glance.
Puberty, she thought, was such a painful thing. Jack looked at her. ‘Why don’t you round up your children and join us at the pool bar?’
She shook her head and stood up, conscious of her figure in the snug black one-piece that left none of her curves or dimples to the imagination. ‘Sorry, no time. We have to check where we’re going tomorrow, and then apparently I’m treating them to pizza. Thanks, anyway.’
He nodded, his eyes sweeping her body, and she forced herself to stand straight and tall under his scrutiny. Well, straight, at least. It was difficult to stand tall when you were barely five foot.
‘We’ll see you round.’
She nodded, and watched as they went off together. Seb was quite a different shape from his father, she thought, watching them. Wiry and not so tall, but probably going to head on up and overtake him in time.
Like Philip. He was all arms and legs at the moment. Perhaps he’d grow into his height before he went up any more. She hoped so, because just now he looked like a stick insect.
Cassie, though, was tiny and dainty and just like her mother.
She wondered again what he’d meant by not exactly when she’d asked if his wife had gone off and left him with the kids. What a strange response. And they called him Jack.
Her curiosity piqued, she picked up her towel, hugged it round her shoulders and picked her way carefully round to the queues for the flume and rapids.
A boy cannoned into her and grinned, and she recognised him as Tom, Jack’s youngest boy, with a girl—Amy, was it?—in tow. Her own weren’t far behind, and she had to go on the rapids with them twice before she was allowed to drag them off to the activity checking point.
Philip was doing water sports all the next day, and Cassie was riding in the morning and canoeing in the afternoon.
So she’d see Jack and his brood again tomorrow anyway.
Odd, that little flicker of hope the thought generated.
Jack wondered what Molly was doing. Not the ‘gentle’ mountain-bike trek he was on, anyway.
Sensible woman.
His legs killed, his chest heaved, his body was streaming with sweat—and he’d thought he was fit!
Hah!
Nicky’s hot, sticky little hands on his back didn’t help, but it was curiously comforting to have her close like this. He wondered how the others were getting on—and what Molly was doing.
Watercolours? A pampering massage?
He groaned silently at the thought of her body stretched out naked, smeared with green gloop, with some unknown masseur kneading and squeezing the muscles.
Lucky b—
‘Jack?’
‘Hi, Nicky. You OK, sweetheart?’ He turned his head and smiled at her, and her little sunny face beamed back at him.
‘Need a wee,’ she announced cheerfully.
Oh, hell. It was the second time, and each time he’d had to struggle to catch up.
The joys of parenthood. Oh, well, perhaps sweating up the hill after the others would settle his libido down and quieten his raging hormones…
Molly stood on the edge of the building, her feet braced against the side, her body hanging out into free space, and wondered what on earth she was doing.
Abseiling?
For fun?
‘Just pass the rope through that hand and pay it out bit by bit—that’s it. That’s fine. You’re doing really well.’
She was? Sweat was breaking out all over her face, and the soles of her feet were crawling with nerves. The ground seemed a zillion miles away.
