He supposed he could excuse himself and retire to his room with the book. He didn’t want to, though. There’d be enough time for solitude later. He rolled his shoulders and tried to throw off his funk. ‘What are you hoping to gain from your move, Quinn?’ Considering her future—and the boys’—was a more promising option than trying to make sense of his. Still, he intended to retract the question if it made her look the least bit uncomfortable.
A breath eased out of him when it didn’t.
She nodded towards the boys and he had to remind himself not to hold her gaze for too long. Don’t let her see how much you want to kiss her.
He watched the two boys dive simultaneously into the pool. He clapped his hands and shouted praise.
He glanced from them and back to their mother. Steel flooded his spine. He was not going to mess with her. Him and her, they were on different courses and he had no intention of dragging her or her boys into his own private hell.
* * *
What are you hoping to gain from your move?
Aidan’s words scored through her. Quinn twisted her hands together and watched her boys. They were so absorbed in their splashing and diving, and her heart filled with so much love it almost hurt.
She pointed a finger at Chase, who looked as if he was about to tear off down the other end of the enclosure. ‘No running,’ she said for the second time. ‘Wet feet and wet concrete are not a good combination.’ Her second son had a tendency to learn his lessons the hard way.
She glanced back to find Aidan watching her with a queer light in his eyes. She didn’t know what it meant. Today he’d been so friendly that she’d started to think she’d been mistaken about the vibes she’d sensed last night.
He might not want you, but you still want him.
He must know lots of beautiful polished women. The idea of him being attracted to a single mother who wore next to no make-up and didn’t give two hoots about designer outfits was laughable.
She tried to push that thought aside, tried to shake off the heaviness that threatened to descend and to concentrate on what really was important—her move across the country.
What are you hoping to gain from your move?
‘Family,’ she finally said. ‘I’m hoping to give my boys, my aunt and myself a family.’
‘Family,’ he repeated, annunciating each syllable in a kind of slow homage to the word.
‘You’re close to your parents.’ She wasn’t sure if she was asking or stating.
‘I guess.’
But he’d become guarded, wary, and her heart burned for him. She refused to pry, though. He and his parents had suffered so much. She dredged up a smile and a shrug. ‘I found myself watching my friends in Perth over the last year and seeing what a source of strength their families were to them. I’m talking about extended families—parents, grandparents, siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles—and I started to envy them.’
Somewhere along the line she’d stopped walking. She kicked herself back into action, forced one foot in front of the other. Aidan’s long legs kept easy pace beside her. The sun had started to lower in the west and the scrub, low trees and sand all glowed orange and khaki. A sigh eased out of her. ‘I know their families were occasionally—even often—a source of frustration, but they were a source of happiness too.’ A source of belonging.
‘And you want that?’
‘Yes.’ With all her heart and she wasn’t ashamed to admit it. She knew her own strength. She knew she could continue to go it alone. But if she didn’t have to...
‘And as I only have one relation who is the slightest bit interested in wanting to know me...’ She’d made her voice tongue-in-cheek, but Aidan didn’t smile.
She reached out and pulled him to a halt. His arm flexed beneath her fingers and she sensed its latent strength. Reluctantly she released him. ‘I’m tired of feeling alone, Aidan.’
She didn’t know what it was about this man that made her so ready to confide in him. Maybe it was the innate ‘ships passing in the night’ nature of their association. It had broken down the usual barriers of reserve.
His face became gentle. He reached out as if to touch her cheek, but he drew his hand back at the last moment. The usual barriers hadn’t broken down that much.
‘Don’t get me wrong.’ She forced herself to start walking again. ‘I’m not lonely. I have friends, colleagues, not to mention my boys. I’m not unhappy. It’s just when I have to make a decision about one of the boys—should I go up to the school and make an issue about Chase’s appalling handwriting or another child’s constant use of a bad word, or should I let Robbie stay up late on the occasional Saturday night so he can watch a rugby test match, or any number of things like that. To be able to talk it over with someone who’s also invested would be such a comfort. Even if we didn’t agree.’
‘Wow,’ he eventually breathed.
She immediately cringed. ‘Sorry, that was probably way more information than you wanted and—’
‘Mum!’
Chase’s scream and Robbie’s shout had her spinning around, adrenaline flooding her every cell. Heart pounding, she raced for the gate, all instinct and fear.
Blood.
Blood in the water.
Chase in the water.
She tugged and tugged on the safety latch on the gate, but her fingers kept slipping and finding no purchase, as if she’d forgotten how to use an opposable thumb. Her breath came hard and short in little sobs. Please, gate. Please open.
It wouldn’t open!
In one easy vault, Aidan cleared the fence and, without breaking stride, dived into the water and pulled Chase into his arms. ‘He’s okay,’ he called to her.
Okay meant he wasn’t drowned. It didn’t mean he was okay.
Magically the gate opened and she flew to Aidan as he emerged with a howling Chase from the shallow end. There was so much blood!
She reached for him and Chase reached for her, but Aidan pushed her down onto the banana lounge that held the boys’ towels and shirts before setting Chase onto her lap.
She held him close and rocked him, murmuring nonsense in an effort to quiet him, while Aidan tried to stem the blood from the cut above Chase’s eye. She handed him one of the shirts she half sat on. They could replace a shirt, but she would never be able to replace one of her beautiful boys.
Her heart thunderstormed in her chest as she watched Aidan’s face, trying to gauge the extent of the damage by his expression, but he kept his face carefully schooled and she couldn’t read it at all.
Fear gripped her by the throat. If Chase were badly hurt...way out here in the back of beyond, it’d be her fault.
Please God. Please God. Please God.
She glanced up to find Robbie staring at her with fear in his eyes. She did what she could to swallow her own. ‘What happened, honey?’
Robbie scuffed a toe against the cement. ‘He, um...slipped and hit his head on the side of the pool before falling in.’
They’d been running! She should’ve been keeping a closer eye on them! She should’ve been watching them properly, not pouring her heart out to the first man who’d shown a modicum of interest in her in months!
Aidan straightened and her gaze flew back to him. ‘What?’ She couldn’t push anything else out.
‘He’s going to have a heck of a lump and a shiner tomorrow, and probably a corker of a headache tonight, but the cut’s not deep and it won’t need stitches.’
She closed her eyes and sent up a prayer of thanks. ‘There was so much blood,’ she whispered.
‘Head wounds bleed a lot.’ He sat back on his heels, a smile touching his lips. ‘With two young sons, I’d have thought you’d have known that.’
Crazily, she found herself almost smiling back.
Chase’s sobs had eased and Aidan gestured to him. ‘I’d like to check him for concussion.’
‘Hey, baby,’ she crooned. ‘Can you look at Mummy?’
Chase sat up a bit and touched
his head. ‘It hurts,’ he hiccupped.
‘I bet it does. That was a heck of a tumble,’ she soothed, smoothing his hair back.
‘There was blood.’ His lip wobbled.
‘You’re not wrong about that, buddy.’ Aidan crouched down in front of them. ‘We’re going to play a quick game.’ He hurried on before Chase could refuse and bury his head in her shoulder again. ‘How many fingers am I holding up?’
‘Three.’
‘What’s my name?’
‘Aidan.’
‘And what comes after D in the alphabet?’
Chase started reciting the alphabet under his breath. ‘E.’
‘Excellent, Chase, you got a perfect score.’
Chase snuggled into her and started to shiver. Aidan grabbed a towel and wrapped it around the child. ‘We need to get him warm and dry.’
‘How do you know so much about this?’ Aidan seemed so calm and professional—utterly unfazed, unlike her. Besides, talking kept the demons at bay.
‘I did a St John’s Ambulance course six months ago.’
She struggled to her feet. In another year Chase would be too big for her to carry. But she could still manage it at the moment. ‘What made you decide to do that? Not that I’m not grateful, of course, but—’
She broke off. Daniel. The car accident.
Right.
In his grief, Aidan had chosen to do something positive rather than negative. Good for him.
‘Thank you,’ she murmured when he opened the gate for her.
‘You’re welcome.’
And then he draped a towel around the shoulders of a too quiet Robbie and rested his arm across her eldest son’s shoulders in a gesture of comfort and companionship and walked them back to their room.
It didn’t make her knees weak. It didn’t make her pulse quicken. But it did make her heart tremble.
* * *
Aidan was sitting to one side of her door in a camp chair when she slipped out of her room that night. He rose and set another chair out for her.
And then he handed her a can of beer.
And a chocolate bar.
Tears pricked her eyes. A big lump lodged in her throat, making it impossible to squeeze out so much as a thank you. She sat.
‘Thought you could do with a pick-me-up.’
She nodded, sniffled and pulled in a breath that made her entire frame shudder. And then she opened her beer and took a gulp. She tore open the wrapper of her chocolate bar and took a big bite.
She closed her eyes, sat back and let the tension drain out of her. She drank more beer. She ate more chocolate. It was a disgusting combination and she relished every single mouthful.
Aidan sat with his legs stretched out and eyes to the front, quietly surveying the night. No rush or impatience or expectation. His stillness slowly eased into her. She finished both the beer and the chocolate bar. ‘That’s exactly what I needed.’
‘Good.’
‘Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome.’
She turned to him as much as her tired limbs would allow. ‘I want to thank you for springing into action so quickly today.’
‘It was no big deal.’
‘It was a huge deal to me. I couldn’t even get the rotten gate open.’
‘You would’ve eventually.’
She shuddered. ‘Chase could’ve drowned by then.’
‘Stop exaggerating,’ he chided. ‘He was holding his head out of the water when I got to him.’
He had been? A little more of the residual fear eased out of her.
‘He was just a bit dazed and in pain. How is he now?’
‘Asleep, thankfully. They were both exhausted.’
‘And how are you?’
She sent him a wan smile. ‘Well, I’ve slowed down on the blame game and I’m slowly recovering from the fright.’ She stared out towards the scrub beyond the circle of light cast from the motel, but she couldn’t see a thing. It was all deep blackness. ‘I never knew I could feel so afraid until I had children.’
‘Did I really say earlier that I wanted them?’
She laughed. ‘It’s worth it.’ But not if you worked in excess of eighty hours a week. She glanced at him. She opened her mouth. She closed it again. None of your business.
They were both silent for a while. ‘Funny, isn’t it?’ she eventually said. ‘How love and pain can be so closely linked. Not just romantic love, but love for one’s children and parents and friends.’
Though this man knew more about that than most. ‘Still—’ she pulled in a breath ‘—life’s not worth living without it.’
‘Which makes the human race either incredibly stupid or incredibly brave.’
‘I’ll go with brave if they’re the only two options on offer.’
She was rewarded with a lopsided grin and a shake of his head.
‘I thought you were very brave today. I’m in your debt, Aidan. I doubt I’ll ever be able to repay you, but if there’s anything I can do...ever...’
He turned to her and behind the tempting brightness of his eyes she sensed his mind racing. ‘There might be one thing you could do...’
The look on his face made her breath catch and her stomach do slow loop the loops.
He wouldn’t!
He rose. ‘I’ll give it some thought and let you know in the morning. Goodnight, Quinn.’
She could only stare after him, wondering what on earth he was playing at. Or if he was playing at anything at all.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE NEXT MORNING Quinn and the boys enjoyed a picnic breakfast at a table near the pool. It wasn’t fancy—cereal and toast. Quinn had lugged cereal and long-life milk with her from Perth. She’d bought fresh bread from the roadhouse that morning.
While it might not be fancy, the warm morning and the novelty filled the boys with glee and took their minds off eating in the roadhouse restaurant. It wasn’t that she needed to count every penny, but she did want to be careful. Besides, she wanted them to eat as healthily as she could manage whilst on the road.
She was blowing on her coffee when Aidan sauntered into view. The steam floated up into her face, haloing him in a smoky soft focus. He looked like a mirage, like a man walking out of the desert. A sigh breathed out of her and more steam drifted upwards.
She shook herself and then blew on her coffee until the steam blinded her. When he reached the table, she smiled in his direction, but took a moment to hand Robbie a paper napkin so she didn’t have to address him. Of course, that didn’t block his scent when he sat beside her. She breathed him in, and the knot in her chest unwound.
‘Morning, troops.’
The boys sing-songed their greetings back to him through mouthfuls of Vegemite toast.
‘Have you eaten?’ She sort of half glanced at him. His hair was damp as if he’d just showered and he wore a different T-shirt than he had yesterday. The T-shirt had obviously come in a packet and two creases bisected his chest and another his stomach. He looked utterly different from the man who’d begged her for a ride. Her father wouldn’t have approved. She did, wholeheartedly.
‘Help yourself.’ She gestured to the cereal boxes and pile of toast. ‘There’s another cereal bowl in our room if you’d like it.’
He nodded behind him to the roadhouse. ‘I’ve already eaten.’
She hoped his breakfast had been healthy. She opened her mouth. She closed it again. None of your business.
He glanced at their table. ‘But this looks nice.’
She couldn’t mistake his wistfulness, though it was harder to explain the burn in her heart. ‘Well, you’re absolutely welcome to join us for soggy cereal and cold toast tomorrow.’
He laughed as she’d meant him to, but the burn in her heart only intensified.
He glanced at Chase. ‘How’s the head, buster?’
‘It’s better.’ He glowered at Quinn. ‘I keep telling Mum I’m all better and that I can go swimming in the pool again, but she won’t l
isten.’
She had to bite back a smile. Both of her children would need to be seriously under the weather to resist the lure of a swim.
‘Your mum is probably right. A quiet day could be just the thing.’
Chase heaved a sigh, evidently exasperated with clueless adults.
‘Which is why I want to run a proposal by you all.’
Aidan ran a hand down his shirt as if to smooth out the creases and she suddenly realised she’d been staring. She shook herself. ‘Proposal?’
His look told her he was thinking of last night and her ‘returning the favour’ remark. The boys glanced to her and she sat up a little straighter. ‘We’re all ears.’
‘I was thinking we could all do with a day off from driving.’
She’d been working on the theory that it’d take them ten days to reach Aunt Mara’s, longer if they decided to tarry somewhere. With the NSW school holidays currently operating, the boys weren’t missing any school. This was only day four of their great ‘across the country’ expedition, so they weren’t even halfway through their journey yet, but she didn’t say anything. She was too curious to see what Aidan meant to propose.
In the morning sunshine his eyes twinkled. It could’ve been the reflection cast up from the pool, but she didn’t think so. She had a feeling it came from within. She hadn’t seen him fired up with enthusiasm before, except for that moment when he’d talked about his law firm. Now, though, he smiled and twinkled and she could barely drag her gaze away. An answering enthusiasm built through her. ‘A day off?’
He leaned in towards her, his smile growing and she pulled in a great breath of him. ‘I know you don’t want to drive longer than five hours a day if you can help it...’
They’d had to drive five and a half yesterday. It made the boys restless. And look at what had happened at the pool afterwards.
‘But if we drove to Penong today—’
‘How long?’
‘A bit over six hours.’
She grimaced and gestured for him to continue. ‘The thing is, Penong is close to a place called Cactus Beach.’
‘A beach!’ Robbie and Chase gazed at her as if pleading for her to accept any proposal that included a beach.
Road Trip with the Eligible Bachelor Page 7
