Libby unrolled the sleeping bags and set the suitcase at the side of the bed. She dug out the two torches just in case it was dark when they went to bed. Chloe usually fell asleep at 8 pm but all this excitement might keep her up later. Better to be prepared.
Libby zipped up the tent door to keep out the spiders, snakes, mosquitos, midges and whatever other bitey-creatures lurked in the long grass. This many people stomping about should have scared off the snakes, but she didn’t want to take any risks. Five years ago, snake safety wouldn’t have occurred to her but having a child changes the way you think even more than it changes your bra size.
Libby checked her ex-husband’s tent. No sign of Chloe. She wandered around to the back of her tent. No Chloe. Her chest tightened. She’d told Chloe to stay near the tent. It wasn’t like her to wander. She was usually too scared to let whoever was looking after her out of sight. She cupped her hands around her mouth and called out, “Chloe.”
“Yes, Mummy.” The little girl popped out from behind the next tent over.
Libby let her breath out in a puff. Chloe was fine. “Ready for dinner?”
“Yup. I’m so hungry I could eat a hundred sausages.” Chloe slipped her hand into Libby’s.
“Well, I’m so hungry I could eat a hundred elephants.”
“Yuck. I’m not eating elephants.”
“How about we stick with sausages?”
“Okay.” Chloe skipped down the gravel driveway alongside her mother.
They lined up at the barbeque. Libby took a couple of slices of buttered white bread from the pile and passed one to Chloe. “Let’s start with one sausage sanga and see how hungry you are after that.” Libby lay a slightly overcooked sausage diagonally across each of their slices of bread and topped them with a healthy squirt of tomato sauce.
They took their food over to the picnic rug and sat. While they ate, a hip hop band finished and another band set up. They hung a banner off the front of the stage declaring their name Bin Chicken. A black and white icon of an ibis stood proudly beside the title. Libby grinned. Those elegant birds were more aggressive scavengers than seagulls. She contemplated throwing the crust from her bread up at the stage but ate it instead.
“Do you want another sausage?” She asked her daughter.
“No thanks, Mummy. I’m full.”
“Do you want to wait here while I get myself another one or do you want to come for a walk?”
“Come for a walk. Can I have another marshmallow for the fire?”
“I thought you were full.”
“My sausage tummy is full but my lolly tummy is empty.” Chloe rubbed her stomach.
Libby chuckled. “Let’s go.”
Sausage sandwich in one hand and a paper cup filled with eight marshmallows in the other, Libby led the way to the fire pit and sat on one of the big logs. Chloe clambered up beside her.
“Where’s your stick?” Libby asked.
Chloe leapt off the log and went in search of the green stick she’d used earlier. “Here it is.” She thrust the stick high in the air and ran back to her mother.
“Don’t run with a stick in your hand,” Libby shouted.
Chloe slowed to a trot. “Why?”
“Because if you trip over you might poke yourself with it.”
“Oh.” Chloe held the stick out. “Can you put it on, please?”
Libby jammed a marshmallow firmly on the end of the stick and watched closely as her daughter toasted it over the fire. The large flames had died down to a steady flicker over a bed of coals. Someone would likely stoke it up again if they wanted it to last into the night. The sugar hit might keep Chloe going for a bit longer, but it was already her bedtime. Libby would need to get her into bed before her bouncy little princess turned into a grumpy dragon.
Libby bit into her sausage, tomato sauce squelching out the other end and running down her hand. She licked the sauce off her hand before it could run down her arm.
A man’s voice came from beside her. “You missed a bit.”
She looked over to see Paul sitting on the next log. She’d hadn’t noticed him sit. She twisted her hand around, looking for more sauce.
“Not on your hand, on your cheek,” he said.
Libby wiped at her left cheek with the back of her other hand.
“Other cheek.” Paul tapped at his face.
She smooshed the back of her hand across her right cheek. “Better?”
Paul chuckled. “Not quite. May I?”
Libby nodded. “So long as you don’t lick it off.” Where did that come from?
“Spoilsport.” Paul stood, shoving his hands into his pockets. “If I were a true gentleman, I’d have a handkerchief.” He came up empty-handed. “Seems I’m just a regular bloke.”
“That’s okay. Hankies are disgusting, anyway. Who wants to carry around a pocket full of snot?” Why am I talking about snot?
“Hi, Sir Paul. Want a marshmallow?” Chloe popped up between them, waving charred confectionary in his face.
“Careful.” Libby reached out and caught the stick.
“I love toasted marshmallows. Would you really share it with me?”
“Yup.” Chloe blew on the blackened end of the stick, pulled the remains of the marshmallow off and held out her gooey hand.
“Paul doesn’t want that.” Libby pulled her daughter away from the handsome man.
“Sure I do.” He plucked a chunk of marshmallow from Chloe’s palm, threads of sugar stretching out between them, then proceeded to smoosh it onto his cheek.
Libby laughed. “What did you do that for?”
Paul shrugged. “I couldn’t find anything to clean your cheek so I thought I’d make you feel less out of place.”
“That was probably a better option than eating it.”
“You might be right about that. All I can small is acrid sugar.” Paul flicked the lump of burnt confectionary of his cheek, leaving a black sticky smear trailing down his jaw.
“Chloe,” Libby called.
“Yes, Mummy.”
“Could you run over to the picnic rug and bring back the baby wipes so Paul can clean his face?”
Chloe looked over to the rug and back to her mother, her brow furrowed.
“I’ll watch you the whole time.”
“Okay, Mummy. I can be the princess who rescues the knight!” Chloe raced off across the grass, grabbed the packet of wipes from beside the esky and ran back. She pulled out a wet wipe from and held it up in front of her. “Kneel, Sir Paul,” the tiny girl commanded.
With a deadpan expression, Paul got to one knee before the spunky pre-schooler. Chloe dabbed at his cheek, an intense look of concentration on her face. Ministrations complete, she bid him rise. Paul stood then joined Libby on the log.
“Can I chuck it in the fire?” Chloe waved the wipe at her mother.
“Can you clean my face, too? Then you can throw it in.”
Standing on tippy-toes, Chloe scrubbed away the sauce-smear then scrunched up the wipe and tossed it in the fire. It smouldered in the coals for a moment before bursting into flames.
“Want another marshmallow, Sir Paul?”
“You have the rest.”
Chloe chose the perfect marshmallow from the cup and carefully pushed it onto her stick.
“Maybe not so close to the flames this time,” Libby suggested.
Chloe waved the stick high above the fire. Libby left her to it, doing it that way would keep her entertained for a while.
“What do you do when you’re not playing in your band?” Not much, if he was anything like Daniel. All Daniel ever did was talk about what he would do the day that Bitter Mourning finally broke through and hit the charts.
“I’m a chippy. I mostly do fit-outs for new builds. Hanging doors, attaching skirting boards, that sort of stuff.”
“So that’s why you got the door open so easily.” Good with his hands. Libby fanned her face. She glanced over at the fire. Chloe was still happily waving her stick
above the coals. It hadn’t been stoked up.
Paul shrugged. “I don’t usually use a pink screwdriver though.”
“Pink ones work as well as any other colour, as long as they’re right-handed.”
Paul chuckled. “They tried that one on me when I was an apprentice. Told me to pass the left-handed screwdriver. Didn’t fall for it.”
“My dad’s a plumber. He loved sending apprentices out to get hammer grease.”
“They also tried the replacement bubble for the spirit level and the skirting board ladder. They got me with the long stand, though.”
“What happened?”
“Went into the hardware store and asked for a long stand. Bloke said they had one in the storeroom then left me there to wait for ages.”
Libby crinkled her brow.
“Standing for a long time. Long stand. Took me nearly ten minutes to realise. The boys waiting in the truck were pissing themselves laughing when I got back.”
Libby giggled. “I think they’d have got me with that one, too.”
“I’m thinking of starting up my own company next year, after this contract is done. I’d like to train up my own apprentice.”
“Being your own boss would make it easier to travel for gigs.”
“Maybe, but I only want to do local stuff.”
“Don’t you want to be the Next Big Thing?” Libby asked, using air quotes.
“Nah. Rick has big dreams, not me. If the band became work, it would suck the fun out of it. What do you do for work?”
Libby took a moment to process. A muso who wasn’t obsessed with fame and fortune? Was that really possible? “Um. I’m a disability support worker. I work in a day centre for adults with an intellectual disability. The hours are perfect so I can be around for Chloe whenever she needs me. Daniel has joint custody, but she’s with me most weekdays.”
“Wow. You must be a special person to do that.”
“I’m not special, I just care. And have plenty of patience.” Libby chuckled. “That’s one skill I gained from parenthood.”
Paul placed his hand on her forearm. “I think you’re special.”
Libby turned to face Paul, the warmth from his hand travelling to her chest. Their gaze locked for a moment then Libby looked away. “You don’t even know me.” But I’d like you to.
5
Her skin was so soft. He’d been touching her arm for a moment too long but he didn’t want to let her go. She looked up at him with those pale blue eyes. Saw right through him. She was right. He’d only met her a couple of hours ago. He didn’t know her. Not really. But he knew enough.
“I know you’re a great mum. I know you have a good heart. And I know you like to dance.”
She smiled, those pretty eyes crinkling at the corners. “Chloe is the one who loves to dance.”
“You were having fun, too. I could tell.”
“Yeah. Maybe.”
‘That’s the only thing I don’t like about playing in the band, I can’t dance to our music.”
“Like those couples who were doing those fancy moves?”
“Yeah.”
“That would make me dizzy. Those girls seemed to do nothing but spin around.”
“There’s more to it than spinning. Want to give it a try?”
She hesitated. “I can’t leave Chloe alone.”
“We can dance right here.”
“So long as you don’t spin me into the fire.”
“We can move to the other side of the log.”
“But the music doesn’t sound like your band.”
She had a point. You couldn’t really rockabilly to hip hop. But the thought of holding her in his arms drove him on. “Just tune out that other stuff. I’ll hum the baseline.”
Libby shook her head. “Okay.”
Paul grabbed her hand and led her a little further away from the fire. Her slender fingers gripped his, making him feel like a teenage boy walking into the high school formal.
“So, what’s this rockabilly dancing thing?”
“It’s a bit like rock-and-roll or swing dancing, but faster.”
“Whoah. Why don’t you start me off with one of the slow ones?”
“The rockabilly steps are easier, it’s the music that’s faster.”
She stood facing him, her hand resting lightly in his. “Well, hum slowly, then.”
He chuckled. “Sure. Copy me. Pretend I’m a mirror.”
Libby’s gaze slid from his feet up to his face. “I think I need to shave.”
Paul ran his right hand over his two-day stubble. “I think it suits you.”
She laughed. “Come on, Fred Astaire. Show me what you’ve got.”
He had plenty he’d like to show her. If only she’d meant it like that. “Fred was more of a ballroom guy. I don’t like to dance with that many rules.”
Paul began to hum. Stepping side to side, he slowly circled anti-clockwise around her. Libby moved her weight from foot to foot, following his lead. He picked up the pace a little then lead her into a single gentle spin.
Chloe scrambled over the log and skipped over to join them. “Can I do dancing, too?”
“Sure.” Paul took the little girl’s hand and simultaneously twirled the mother daughter duo. Maybe having a part-time family wouldn’t be so bad.
Naomi, the rockabilly dancer, approached, standing off to one side. “I didn’t know you could dance, Paul.”
Paul grinned, twirling Libby then Chloe. “Not as well as you.”
Libby slipped her hand from his and stepped back. “You should dance with her.”
Yes. That was a great idea. Then Libby would know what rockabilly really looked like. She hadn’t stayed around during his set long enough to see. “Okay. It’s easier to proper music but we can make do.”
Libby took her daughter’s hand. “He’s a good hummer.” She sat on the log to watch, Chloe climbing up onto her lap.
Paul took Naomi’s hand and began to dance. “Naomi, isn’t it?”
Her face lit up. “Yes. You remembered.”
Paul picked up the pace, sinking back to counterbalance as Naomi leant out into each move. He spun her three times in a row, her eyes meeting his as she whipped past. Spotting, so she didn’t get dizzy. Good. Dropping his dance partner wouldn’t be the way to impress Libby.
He glanced over to see if Libby was wide-eyed and grinning. Or at least smiling. She wasn’t even watching. Libby and Chloe were walking away.
Paul continued dancing, watching the mother daughter duo each time he circled as Libby piggybacked Chloe up the gravel driveway and disappeared into the largest tent. Paul wasn’t the type to party until the sun rose but he had no plans to turn in before the sun went down. Even if it was daylight savings time, 8pm was too early for a grown man to go to bed. Unless he wasn’t going there alone.
Paul turned his attention back to Naomi. The song in his head had been on repeat and the poor woman was running with sweat. He twirled her in for a final dip.
“Wow.” Naomi gripped his upper arm to steady herself and looked him in the eye. “A musician and a dancer. What other talents do you have?” She squeezed his bicep then trailed her fingertips down his arm.
Perhaps she hadn’t been steadying herself. “I know how to use a hammer.”
Naomi’s gaze slid down to his groin. “Is that what you call it?”
It would be so easy. She was throwing herself at him. “Don’t you have a boyfriend?” He took a step backwards.
“Andy’s already half-cut. He won’t notice if I’m gone for a while.” She closed the gap between them.
Was his ‘no groupie’ policy really that important? Maybe Rick was right? He looked down at the hand planted firmly on his chest. He watched as her fingers curled into his shirt. Then he looked up, past her shoulder to the tents in the clearing. One tent a little taller than the rest.
He placed his hand on hers, halting its progress south. “Go back to Andy.” Groupie or not, she had a boyfriend, and
that was one rule he’d never bend. He released her hand. It dropped to her side.
“Your loss.” Naomi stalked away.
Paul’s gaze wandered back to Libby’s tent. Maybe he’d see her again over breakfast?
Until then, he’d keep company with a cold beer or two.
Paul’s feet were flying as he danced with the brunette only a few metres from where Libby sat. With Chloe’s added weight on her lap, the roughened bark of the log cut into the back of her thighs. “You’re growing up so fast.” Libby kissed the top of her daughter’s head.
Chloe’s hand darted up to cover a yawn. “I’m a big girl.”
“Yes, you are. And I think it’s time for big girls to go to bed.” Libby wasn’t ready to sleep but Chloe wouldn’t settle in the tent unless she was by her side. Chloe was fine in her own beds, the one at Libby’s and the one at Daniel’s, but camping was unfamiliar territory.
“Okay, Mummy.” Chloe stood on the log and jumped off towards the fire, one hand pinning the plastic crown to her head.
“Careful.” Libby’s warning was too late to have made a difference but Chloe was nimble and landed safely. Libby swung her legs over the log and picked up the packet of wipes. The picnic blanket and esky could stay put until tomorrow. There were only two bottles of vodka premix left. Libby didn’t mind if someone helped themselves while she was gone. She followed her daughter around the fire then caught her hand.
“Bye, Sir Paul,” Chloe called as she walked away, her little boots scuffing in the gravel.
Libby glanced back at Paul. He was so enthralled with the brunette, he didn’t even notice them leaving. Would it be rude to leave without saying goodbye? No ruder than ditching the girl you were dancing with for a better offer. She took her daughter’s hand and they walked towards their tent. “Why did you call him Sir Paul?”
“Because he saved me just like a knight.”
Libby glanced over her shoulder. “He did, didn’t he?”
“Mummy, my legs are sleepy. Can you carry me?”
“Why yes, fair maiden. Climb upon my back.” Libby squatted so Chloe could hop on her back, then piggybacked her daughter up the driveway.
Be Mine: Valentine Novellas to Warm The Heart Page 13
