‘What do you think?’ Thea asked, waggling her eyebrows suggestively.
‘About what?’ asked Skye.
‘You know what,’ chastised Thea gently. ‘None of them had the courage to come up to you for a friendly chat. Maybe you could soften up a bit. Smile occasionally?’
Skye grimaced, but she did sigh and wiggle her toes. She hadn’t bothered to put shoes on in the garden as the weather had begun to warm up. ‘I’m totally approachable,’ she harrumphed moodily, slouching into her seat.
‘Hmm,’ said Thea thoughtfully. ‘You don’t let them stay for five minutes when they collect their kids; you run a mile when anyone approaches you at school, other than Felicity. You act as if they’ve all got rabies!’
‘Oh…’
‘You shuffle them out of the door so quickly that they don’t know if they’ve actually been inside. Miles has started picking on several other kids since ours keep out of his way. Billy’s mum says Miles is a menace and she wished she wasn’t so scared of Belle, or she would have put a stop to it ages ago. Loads of parents have complained to the headmistress, but she’s so busy fending off complaints about Miles from the teachers, that the mums don’t get a look in. I don’t know why she doesn’t just boot him out. I’m all for equality, but the boy’s a menace.’
‘She’s his godmother,’ said Skye.
’What?’ spluttered Thea, almost spitting out the fizzy orange she had just started to swallow.
Skye felt really smug at Thea’s surprised look.
‘That’s why she ended up at the school in the first place. She’s Belle’s oldest friend. They used to practically live together, their houses were so close. If she booted him out, it would cause an almighty fracture in the family.’
‘What the hell?’ said Thea, throwing her arms up and banging them down again on the table, wincing as they made contact with the smooth surface.
‘You really are a wuss these days,’ scolded Skye. ‘I looked her up, I’m surprised you didn’t, Thea,’ she tutted with good humour, her spirits much restored now that Thea was annoyed too. ‘I thought there had to be a good reason that Miles has never been suspended, for the amount of pencils he steals, at least. He could open his own shop with the rulers he’s acquired, too. Who needs forty bendy rulers, for goodness’ sake?’
Thea looked slightly miffed that she hadn’t thought to look up the headmistress, Mrs Moswell. It wasn’t as if Skye had much more than the internet to do a search with either. It must irke Thea that she was losing her edge with baby brain, sniggered Skye.
‘I knew it,’ said Thea, in exasperation.
‘No, you didn’t,’ joked Skye, nudging Thea’s leg good-naturedly and getting a swift jab in return. ‘Ouch,’ she complained, rubbing her shin.
Thea stuck her tongue out at her friend and Skye guessed that the childish gesture made her feel marginally better. ‘No wonder she lets Miles get away with murder. The teachers despair of him, but they can’t discipline him as Mrs Moswell always says it wasn’t his fault. Talk about nepotism! She’ll have to do something soon, or there will be a riot. I heard that two of the teachers have threatened to leave if he’s not disciplined soon. They’ve given up telling him off in class as his mum storms in after school and gives them an earful. They just ask him to sit outside the classroom and work on his own, which he loves as he gets to muck about there too.’
‘Maybe he finds the work too hard?’ suggested Skye. ‘Some kids are naughty to disguise the fact.’
Thea looked thoughtful for a moment, then shook her head, sending her curls dancing in every direction. ‘No… he’s just a little monster. Allie says he’s really clever, but he’s bored. His mum’s always busy and I think he likes the attention. At least when she’s sticking up for him her focus is on him, not her. The teachers at the school are great, they would have noticed if he was struggling. I think he’s simply spoilt rotten. He gets everything he asks for to shut him up, so he thinks it’s his right to take what he likes from others, as he’s never disciplined. His mum just laughs it off, if the staff mention it.’
Skye shrugged. ‘Miles seems to be leaving our kids alone now, so we’ll have to be content with that. I didn’t come here to solve everyone else’s problems when I have enough of my own.’
‘You’re probably right,’ sighed Thea, picking up her drink and sighing at the cooling sensation in her parched throat. ‘We should count our blessings and lighten up.’
Skye gave Thea a sharp look to see if that was another dig at her, but she had picked Flo out of her pram, sitting next to her by the kitchen wall, and was now making cooing noises into her daughter’s face. Skye got up from the table and started to round the children up for their next task, before the horde of nosey parents arrived to give her another headache.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Skye jumped in surprise when someone sat down heavily next to her, in her regular spot on the low wall that ran behind the bike shed. No one else usually sat there, as it was prone to damp and moss and there were some perfectly good benches to rest your posterior on, just by the school gates. Skye had sussed out pretty early on that she wouldn’t be drawn into any gossip from here, plus she had a great view of everyone who walked through the school gates. She must have been too distracted, working on ways to smile at these women, rather than grimace, and hadn’t expected anyone to join her here. Skye looked up in annoyance, before remembering what Thea had said about looking less frosty. She had been trying to decide how to be nicer to people, but she hadn’t had much practice over the years and she didn’t really know where to start. She wasn’t sure if she really wanted to know about their toddler’s bowel movements or the colour of underwear they were wearing to excite the latest bloke they were shagging. Plastering a polite smile onto her face, she was astounded to find Zack sitting next to her, smiling at her strangely.
‘You look like you were about to break my legs,’ he joked, not knowing the thought had actually crossed her mind when she had first met him. When she didn’t reply, Zack sighed and ploughed on. ‘I wanted to apologise for being an arse in front of Emmie.’ When Skye put her head to one side, measuring him up, and didn’t gush that it was okay like he’d obviously expected, he continued, slightly wrong-footed. ‘I’ve been trying, and failing miserably, to discipline my daughter, but she starts to sniffle and I give her what she wants every time.’ Skye nodded as she already knew this fact, which was probably rather annoying to him, but she didn’t care.
‘I was at the end of my tether that day,’ he explained, ‘and I took my irritation out on you. I’m sorry.’
‘Apology accepted,’ said Skye simply, not making a fuss.
‘Oh… great,’ he said, smiling into her sparkling eyes with obvious relief. Skye thought she had been relatively easy on him, so she wasn’t sure why he was sweating slightly. It was all a bit embarrassing, but he was twitching like an adolescent who hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her and this was the only idea he had come up with to approach her without looking like a total creep. He probably hated apologising for anything, and had an ex who complained all the time that he had done something wrong and he would bow down to her to keep the peace, even if it wasn’t his fault. He looked the type. Skye wished she didn’t psychoanalyse everyone she met. He looked like he wasn’t used to someone accepting an apology with good grace either.
‘You okay?’ he asked as she looked around to see if the other parents were staring at them. No one was watching, they were all busily catching up on the day’s gossip and not paying them any attention. They couldn’t really see them from this angle, in any case, as the bike shed was in the way.
Skye thought for a moment before answering and decided that actually, yes, she was okay. Her chat with Thea had allayed most of her fears and she had finally been able to make some peace with Reece’s death. It was time to move on. She sent Zack a dazzling smile, which seemed to surprise him so much he almost fell off of the wall in shock.
‘I’m f
ine, thanks.’
‘Great… I was wondering if I could ask you for some help?’
‘Sure,’ she replied, interested to see how this might pan out. Being so near to Zack was making the hairs on Skye’s skin stand up on end, and she was sure she looked like a school kid herself, wanting to talk to the cool guy.
‘I’m having a party to launch a new product I’ve designed,’ said Zack.
Skye’s eyes went wide in surprise, as though this was the last thing she expected him to say. For years, she had had to compute every possible outcome of every situation, but she was completely out of practice and hadn’t done any homework on Zack. Maybe she should look him up? He really was gorgeous in a rugged, manly sort of way, and her thoughts were getting muddled as his leg kept brushing hers. It was taking all of her concentration not to jump off the wall and hide in the bushes, it had been so long since she had been so near a man. If Zack noticed that Skye was distracted, he didn’t show it. She knew she would have to practice her charm skills if she wanted to dip her unpainted toes back into the dating pool.
‘I live in the estate house now,’ he said. When she didn’t look impressed or fall at his feet, he clenched his teeth as if he was trying to keep his ego in check. ‘I also run a tree climbing business, CloudClimb, on the estate. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it?’
‘Thea has mentioned it,’ Skye conceded, trying not to look at his lips as he spoke. ‘My son, Leo, has asked me to take him one day.’
‘Would you have time with the self-defence classes you run?’ Zack joked, eyes sparkling.
Skye smiled and blushed a little. ‘You’ve heard about that too? I just found out today that the kids had squealed on me. I’m waiting for Belle to try and lamp me one.’
Zack laughed, a deep baritone sound, and Skye’s mouth went dry.
‘I think she only picks on weak men like me who don’t look like they can cope on their own,’ he said and, seeing her grin, continued. ‘I’m pretty sure she hasn’t heard yet, but you might want to think about moving out of the area when she does.’ Zack seemed determined to make some sort of truce with her and although she was responsive to him, she decided to make him work a little at winning her over.
She was so out of practice at trying to get men’s attention that she had no clue of her success rating, or if they even noticed her, so Zack could be her trial run. ‘I had heard she has a penchant for sexy estate owners,’ she parried, winking at him. ‘You might want to move out first.’
Zack’s eyebrows shot up and he smiled into her eyes. He now knew she found him sexy and was confident about telling him so. She wondered if he had never met anyone as straightforward as her before. She was annoyed with him, but forgave him without any drama and she thought he looked good, so she told him so. It was probably a refreshing change from all of the games Thea mentioned that Emmie’s mum played and the subterfuge that Belle created.
‘Maybe we should hide in the woods together?’ he said, grinning at the way she blushed and looked away, stuttering that he had called her bluff. Maybe she wasn’t so confident after all, she sighed.
Skye had forgotten how to flirt with handsome men, although it had been part of her everyday life when she was working. She had thought nothing of charming information out of them. She had been sleek and groomed then and hadn’t doubted the effect she had. Now, she was a messy shadow of her former self, but she could feel the first flicker of attraction and she actually allowed it to unfurl instead of shutting it down. It had been years since anyone had excited her, and she’d barely noticed anyone’s interest in her, beyond assessing how much of a threat they could be to her family.
‘The party?’ she queried, trying to change the subject and get rid of the very vivid image of them both naked in the woods.
‘Hmm?’
Skye raised a questioning eyebrow at his memory loss and wondered if he had drifted into a similar fantasy, which made her legs turn to jelly.
Skye had touched Zack’s leg to get his attention and he stood up rapidly as if his trousers were suddenly uncomfortable. She was surprised at his knee-jerk reaction to her touch. ‘Yes, the party. My main business is building apps, but since my granddad ran off with the local barmaid and left me with an estate full of debts, I’ve been trying to save the place, as Emmie loves it here.’
Skye looked at him curiously, as he seemed to be blushing himself now and was babbling like a schoolboy. The thought that her touch had made him react like this made her want to run her hands down his chest and tease him some more.
‘Is your granddad the eccentric man in a cravat?’ she asked jovially.
‘That’s him. I thought you only moved here recently. Have you met him?’
‘I saw a poster and article about the estate in my old library. There were photos of your granddad in front of the house. His smile captivated me and I loved his taste in cravats, so I called the phone number on the advert and rented a cottage in the grounds. Your cottage, I guess?’ she asked, feeling strange that she had been sleeping in his bed all this time. The thought made her kind of giddy.
‘What a coincidence. That must have been a fairly old article. It took me a while to update the cottages. You would have been living in a hovel if you’d got there when Gramps was here. They were disgusting!’ exclaimed Zack, wrinkling his nose up at what Skye assumed was the memory of the smell when he had first set foot in one of the cottages.
‘I love my granddad, even though he’s a complete nightmare and a liability; the old goat is my family and he always manages to make Emmie laugh, even when he’s being incorrigible.’
‘I’m sure it wasn’t you I spoke to when I rang the estate. The man sounded much older and really posh,’ said Skye.
‘Gramps had an estate manager, it must have been him. I would be surprised, though, as he never actually did much. I think they met in the pub and decided that, as he could cut grass, he could manage the estate so that Gramps didn’t have to. I think he paid him in beer. He retired recently, when I came. From what I saw he spent his days asleep in the barn with the dogs at his feet. He did handle the bookings for the cottages, though. I was just too snowed under to care at that point. Sorry.’
‘Your Gramps sounds like quite a character.’
Zack sighed heavily and Skye remembered his granddad’s smiling face from the magazine article, then imagined his apologetic face when he abandoned another mess of his own making. ‘He buys random places, has mad ideas for making them into something that will make him millions, he spends millions… then loses interest and flits away, leaving my dad, and now me, to sort out the mess. If we left all of the places he’s bought alone, they would fall to pieces and cost us another fortune to look after. These great big buildings are wonderful, but they eat money for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Gramps usually meets a new wench in each place, then gets distracted by another one and disappears with her, surfacing months later in a new location with a completely different woman.’
‘Family trait?’ Skye teased, enjoying finding out that there was more to Zack than tight pecs and a cute bum.
‘Hardly!’ he laughed out loud. ‘Emmie’s mum left me holding the baby, as we were broke, and ran off with a millionaire with halitosis. I haven’t had a lot of time to date since then, what with bringing up a child I had no clue how to raise, and attempting to build a fledgling business every night while she was asleep. I think I was sleepwalking for the first few years of her life.’
‘Sounds familiar,’ Skye smiled, empathising with the struggle of bringing up a child alone, and how isolating it could be. ‘Although I didn’t come across a millionaire with halitosis, thank goodness. You can’t exactly be broke to run an estate like yours,’ she said candidly, then put her hand to her mouth in surprise at her own rudeness, but Zack laughed heartily. She liked the sound of his voice and squirmed a bit with embarrassment.
‘Say what you mean, Skye,’ he said with mock sarcasm.
‘I always do,’ she blushed, liking the
way he said her name.
‘My granddad spends all his money and I refused to take any anyway, which frustrated the hell out of my ex, Kay. When she left me I was on the verge of a breakthrough with my app design, but she just walked away and said she’d heard it all before.’ Zack looked at his feet and kicked a random stone into a nearby hedge at the memory. Skye was sad that it still made him so angry, even after all these years.
‘How could she walk out on us like that? I pretty much begged her to stay,’ he admitted as the school bell pealed.
They looked around like guilty lovers, stepping away from each other and anxiously noticing a few stares coming from a group of mums who had just detoured round the bike sheds to avoid the sudden rush of children into the school playground.
Noticing Felicity sitting on her own a bit nearer to the school, dabbing the tears from her eyes, Skye said a reluctant goodbye to Zack, touching his arm softly as she left and enjoying the warmth that seeped through her palm. She felt a weird sense of responsibility for the timid woman, now that she had thrust her into the lion’s den, and her gut feeling was telling her it could only get worse.
Just before she went over to Felicity, Skye turned back to Zack as an afterthought and spoke quietly. ‘Why don’t you and Emmie pop over to the cottage at six tonight and we can chat about the party then?’
Zack looked surprised at the offer, but when he nodded his head in assent, Skye gave him a quick grin, then went to see what disaster had struck the resident artist now. She was too distracted by Flick’s distress to think about whether it had been a good idea to invite Zack and Emmie round but, from the way the little girl had peeked over the wall with such longing, and the speed at which she ran to her dad every night while doing her best to avoid Miles, who was often clinging onto her school bag until he got a glowering glare from Zack and scuttled off to his mum, it was the right thing to do. Not that Skye had been watching him, of course! Maybe a new, gentle friend like Leo would be good for Emmie, too?
Ninja School Mum Page 14
