Kitabı oku: «Just for the Holidays: Your perfect summer read!»
Copyright
Published by AVON
A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London W6 8JB
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2017
Copyright © Sue Moorcroft 2017
Cover Design © Head Design 2017
Cover Illustration © Carrie May 2017
Sue Moorcroft asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008175559
Ebook Edition © May 2017 ISBN: 9780008175566
Version: 2018-05-03
Dedication
As Just for the Holidays features Leah the Cool Auntie it seems fitting that I dedicate this book to my nieces and nephews
Véronique, Lucy, Ashley, Dan and Ryan
who bring fun and laughter with them whenever we meet.
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Acknowledgements
The Lengths a Novelist Will Go to …
Love Sue Moorcroft? Then Read on for a Sneak Peak of Her New Book, The Little Village Christmas
Want to Join Team Sue Moorcroft? Then Read on…
About the Author
About the Publisher
Prologue
Michele : Re holiday … Alister wants to come! Says he’s never visited that region of France, it was planned before the break-up, he paid, there’s room, and what’s he supposed to do for most of August with the kids away? The gîte has good wifi so he can do his pre-term admin, blah blah. The children will hate me if I say no. Would you mind? Pleeeeeease don’t mind! x
Leah : Happy to step aside. Only said I’d come because you’d be alone with the kids. Maybe you and Alister will make up? *hopeful face* 
x
Michele : 
We absolutely WON’T make up and I NEED you there to defuse the TENSION. Pleeeeeease? xxxxxx
Leah Beaumont read the final message with a sinking heart. A few weeks ago, in a shock move – shocking even to husband Alister, apparently – Leah’s sister Michele had ended her marriage. Since then, Leah’s role had been to provide emotional support for Michele and the kids, Jordan and Natasha. Even Alister had turned up at Leah’s place for a long open-heart discourse on the hideousness of having to leave – ‘being kicked out of’ – the family home.
In the end-of-relationship wasteland, the family’s trip to Alsace had slipped down the ‘needs attention’ list until Michele received a cheerful e-mail beginning Soon we’ll be welcoming your family to our fantastic gîte, Mrs Milton. Here are a few things you’ll want to know! and instantly phoned Leah. ‘Will you come in Alister’s place? You know I can’t drive on the wrong side! And you don’t mind doing outdoorsy stuff with the children.’ Michele’s voice had been squeaky with tears and it would have taken a harder heart than Leah’s to refuse, though it would mean a dreary drive to France in Michele’s lumbering seven-seater known as ‘The Pig’ because Michele had had it sprayed pink. On purpose.
Leah’s phone beeped again.
Michele : Really absolutely definitely PLEASE don’t back out! Can you come round? xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Leah sighed.
Ten minutes later she was sitting in her sister’s kitchen. Michele’s curly bob corkscrewed randomly above one eye and the top button of her jeans was undone. ‘You’re not going to back out. Are you?’
Though Leah understood that ‘Yes’ would not be the correct answer, she wriggled feebly on the hook. ‘But now Alister’s going –’
‘If you don’t come, I’ll shoot myself,’ Michele promised, eyes swimming with tears. ‘But if you’re there to make the holiday bearable, maybe Alister’s presence might actually help the children. If we’re friendly and civilised they’ll know that whether we’re together or apart our love for them is the same.’
Though Leah didn’t see children as quite that easy to reboot, she knew better than to theorise when Michele scored fifteen years’ parenting and twenty years’ teaching to Leah’s nil. She propped her elbows on the oak table. ‘There may be enough rooms but it would mean taking two vehicles.’
‘Alister can drive The Pig, as it’s bigger than his hatchback, and I’ll be your passenger.’
A road trip in Leah’s middle-aged Porsche Cayman was definitely more of an incentive than being obliged to drive The Pig. ‘But putting me in the middle of your marital distress –’
‘It’s just for the holidays and you’re on gardening leave! You’ve landed a great new job and you’re being paid to stay away from the old one. It’s a free holiday!’
Leah’s neck prickled at the familiar sensation of a sisterly squabble brewing. ‘I did already have plans for my gardening leave – redecorating my lounge, a trip to see Mum and Dad and a track day with Scott.’ They hadn’t been firm plans, but they’d been plans.
‘Scott’s not even a boyfriend!’
‘What difference does that make? He’s my friend.’
Michele sucked in a long, wavering breath, eyes huge and tragic. ‘But – I’m pregnant again.’ And she burst into noisy tears.
Leah’s jaw dropped. ‘Pregnant? Michele –!’
‘I know, I know!’ Michele’s shoulders heaved. ‘It’s come at exactly the wro-wrong time. But tha-at’s why I nee-ee-eed you. Everythi-ing’s such a mess.’
‘If your life gets much messier, soap operas will be stealing your storylines,’ Leah agreed, though not without compassion. ‘Does Alister know about the baby?’
‘Of course! The poor man thinks I’ve undergone a personality transplant. I’ve still got to find a way to tell Jordan and Natasha! And what about Baby Three? What kind of family life is she or he going to be born into?’
Leah slid a comforting arm along Michele’s shoulders. ‘Is the baby Alister’s?’
Michele flung herself upright, tears on hold as her best indignant teacher’s voice cracked out. ‘Leah! If even you think the worst of me, I might really shoot myself!’
‘Sorry.’ Leah backtracked hastily as her sister’s face crumpled into a still more tragic mask. She did love Michele, no matter how much they jokingly referred to themselves as ‘Chalk’ and ‘Cheese’, Michele being eight years older, the very married and motherly Mrs Milton; Leah the resolutely single and child-free Ms Beaumont. Michele having a sensible job in teaching; Leah having what Michele termed ‘a silly job’ in chocolate products – though it paid better than Michele’s sensible one. Despite having the bossy and manipulative tendencies that she seemed to feel the right of an elder sister, Michele had also stuck up for Leah a million times and provided whatever was needed in the way of bolthole, wise counsel or shoulder to cry on.
‘All right, I’ll come,’ Leah capitulated, ‘if I get the garden annexe, as agreed. I’m not used to family life and I need my space.’
‘It would be better if Alister was out there.’ Michele grabbed a fistful of kitchen roll to trumpet noisily into. Then, catching Leah’s eye, ‘Oh, OK, if that’s what it takes. Thank you.’
Leah ignored the whiff of reproach. Her claiming La Petite Annexe would force Alister and Michele into proximity in the main house. Maybe Michele’s uncharacteristic decision to hurl her family into upset and confusion might yet prove to be a feature of early-pregnancy hormones? Away from the daily stresses of home, of Michele being a teacher and Alister a head teacher, things might improve.
Then Leah could quietly pack up her car and give them privacy to realign their relationship. Behind her back, she crossed her fingers.
Chapter One
Three weeks later
Leah loved her sunglasses, and not just because they made her look cool or made driving her Porsche in the mellow sunshine of France more pleasurable. No. Those sunglasses were currently allowing her to pretend to leaf through a magazine in the sunshine outside La Petite Annexe while actually watching the first-floor balcony of the house next door where a workman had bared his tanned back to the morning sun.
His sure and easy brushstrokes were transforming the walls of the house from dirty grey to the gold of unclarified honey but Leah’s anxious gaze was trained on the youth behind him. Everything the youth wore was black and decorated with studs or chains. Having perched himself on the wooden balcony rail and hooked his feet around the uprights, he was now arching backwards into scarily thin air. Flexing his spine, he swung gently, chains dangling and winking in the sun.
Leah bit her lip against an urge to shout a warning, scared of startling the youngster into falling.
Then, as if possessing a sixth sense, the man turned. Demonstrating commendable reflexes, he dumped his paint pot and made a grab for the gangly figure. Bellowing with laughter, the youth allowed himself to be hauled to safety. Leah let out the breath she’d been holding and grinned at the man’s obvious exasperation as he gave the youth a tiny shake before dragging him into his arms for a hard hug. Finally, the man managed a laugh as he loosened his embrace, his dark hair lifting in the breeze.
Then his gaze snagged on Leah and, after a moment’s contemplation, he raised his voice. ‘Bonjour!’
Unnerved at being spotted through the leafy trees, Leah lifted her head as if she hadn’t been spying on them. ‘Oh! Bonjour.’
‘Vous êtes en vacances? Restez-vous ici en Kirchhoffen?’ The man settled his forearms on the balcony rail as his voice rolled over the sunny air. His front view was as pleasing as the back had been.
Leah smiled. Her French was just about equal to the conversation so far. ‘Oui.’
But then, ‘Enchantés’ launched him into a speech of fascinating undulating rhythm punctuated with urrrr and airrr, of which Leah caught about ten per cent. She did at least understand that when he paused it was to invite her to respond to a question.
Both oui and non carrying equal risk, she prepared to offer a shrug and her stock phrases, ‘Désolée, mon français est très mauvais. Parlez-vous anglais?’
But then Natasha bounded out through the door of the main gîte. ‘Dad says, aren’t you coming in for breakfast? We want to go kayaking.’ Both man and boy swung their heads to gaze Natasha’s way as, message delivered, she dashed back inside again.
Thus saved from confessing to her rubbish command of the native language of her host country, Leah put her shrug to good use and called ‘Excusez-moi!’ to the occupants of the balcony and went to join the family.
Curtis craned over the rail to watch the woman and girl out of sight. ‘Hot.’
Ronan quashed the reflex to call out a sharp ‘Don’t lean too far!’ His heart might not have recovered from Curtis’s last stunt but Curtis was one big growing pain these days and making it abundantly clear that he no longer expected to be treated like a child. He was a teenager and had embraced the language, rituals and social conventions with the fervour of a religious convert to a sect.
Instead, Ronan hazarded a suitably laddish reply. ‘Obviously, I won’t comment on a teenage girl, but the woman was hot.’
Curtis rolled his eyes. ‘How d’you know I didn’t mean the woman?’
Ronan tried to decide whether his teenage self would have had this conversation with his own father. It had been just him and Dad for a long time and Ronan had only good memories. But no, he couldn’t imagine openly staring at a thirty-something woman with long bare legs and a rope of streaky hair. Even when Ronan had been old enough to spend university holidays on big, bluff Gordon Shea’s building sites, he wouldn’t have sprouted four facial piercings, as Curtis had done this summer holiday. And what Dad would have thought of Curtis’s long hair at the front and shaved patches at the side …
Ronan took up his brush. ‘The hot woman seems to be the mum and the girl mentioned a dad so she’s taken anyway.’
Curtis jingled the four chains he wore in place of a belt. ‘Try not to be intimidated by convention, Dad.’
Suppressing simultaneous compulsions to laugh, scold, and suggest Curtis get himself a paintbrush and direct his energies to something more productive than being a smartarse, Ronan replied gravely, ‘Try not to gawp at other people’s wives, Curtis.’
With one of the lightning changes of mood that came with his teenaged landscape, Curtis began to whoop like an ape, ‘Oo oo oo!’, crossing his eyes and swinging his arms.
Glad they were joking around rather than arguing, Ronan tucked his left arm into his pocket to relieve his sore shoulder of its weight as he turned back to his task with a wry ‘How could she resist?’
The roomy kitchen was bright with colourful tiles and fabrics. Alister was attacking the shiny crust of a baguette and Leah realised guiltily that he must have been down to the boulangerie while she’d been lazing in the sun.
Natasha was already at the table, buttering chunks of bread, tutting as her knife made a hole, while Jordan stabbed at his phone with the intensity reserved by fifteen-year-olds for anything with a screen. ‘You’re coming kayaking with us, aren’t you?’ demanded Natasha.
‘Sounds fun.’ Leah washed her hands before opening the fridge in search of cheese and cold meats. She glanced at her brother-in-law. ‘Does Michele know kayaking’s on today’s schedule?’ It didn’t seem the obvious activity for a forty-three-year-old in the early stages of pregnancy.
Alister sawed energetically, his eyes fixed rigidly on the baguette through the lenses of his glasses. ‘Haven’t seen her this morning.’
‘I have,’ Natasha piped up. ‘She’s a bit under the weather so she’s going to stay here and rest. If the boats are two-person, can I be with you, Leah? Then it’ll be girls against boys.’
Jordan glanced up from his phone. ‘We’d spend all day waiting for you. It’ll be better if I go with Leah and you go with Dad.’
Natasha pointed an indignant butter knife. ‘I said Leah first. Just because Mum’s not here –’
‘Jordan, would you make the coffee, please?’ interrupted Alister, in his head-teacher voice that managed somehow to be both mild and authoritative. ‘Natasha, how many more slices?’
Leah followed Alister’s lead in distracting the kids from bickering. ‘We’ll take the advice of the hire staff regarding distribution of paddlers between kayaks, shall we?’ As they sat down at the refectory-style table and she sliced Munster cheese onto her bread Leah added, ‘I could eat so much of this that I wouldn’t fit in a kayak.’
Jordan grinned. ‘You do have the appetite of the average gorilla.’ The conversation loosened with laughter, though Leah’s thoughts were less than cheery.
Three days they’d been in Kirchhoffen. For two of them, Michele had managed to contrive that the family went out without her. So far nobody had openly questioned it but Leah knew the oddness of this behaviour wouldn’t bypass the kids for long.
When breakfast was over, she slipped out into the hall and up the wooden staircase, its open treads sweeping up between thick spindles to the first floor, then up again to the rooms tucked beneath the gabled roof. Michele and the children had rooms on the first floor; Alister had been allocated space at the top, where there was only his room and the games room.
By treading at the edges of each step Leah found she could glide almost silently to Michele’s quarters. Without ceremony, she thrust the door open.
Dressed only in pretty underclothes and a towel swathing her hair, Michele jumped guiltily, pressing a button on her phone. ‘Come in, won’t you?’ A yellow summer dress was laid out on top of her neatly made bed.
Leah closed the door behind her. ‘Do you need anything before we go out? Natasha says you’re under the weather.’
Michele lowered her voice. ‘You know I feel lumpy in the mornings.’ Her skin did look pale and waxy.
‘We can hang on until you feel well enough to come with us.’
Michelle belted on a blue robe and dropped her phone into its pocket. ‘I can’t go kayaking in my condition and I don’t want to tell the kids why yet.’ She unwound the towel and began to rub her hair.
‘We can do something less energetic.’
‘I’d hate to ruin things for them. I’ll put my feet up today, have a lovely dinner ready for when you come home, then spend the evening with the children.’ Michele began to brush her wet hair sleek against her head. She looked different without her curls. Harder.
Or was that just how she was, these days? Harder?
Although Michele picked up the hairdryer and paused, poised, as if to hint she had other things to do than chat, Leah meandered to the bedroom chair and plumped down into its depths. ‘It’s turned out to be a good thing that Alister’s here, with you having morning sickness. I know you wouldn’t have put on me to take the kids out all the time.’
Michele’s eyes glinted oddly. ‘Alister told me last night that I’m acting like a stranger so I suppose I might do anything. What do you think? Do you still know me?’
Leah’s sympathy warred with exasperation. ‘Of course I do. I just don’t really understand what’s going on with you.’
Blinking, Michele fidgeted with the hairdryer, dropping her gaze. ‘Maybe you should.’
Leah leaned forward and covered her sister’s hands to still her fretful movements. ‘But all our lives you’ve known what you wanted. To be a wife and mother with a home in a nice area and a sensible car to ferry your kids around in. Now you’re suddenly less cautious than I am.’
Michelle shrugged. ‘Your choices are just as carefully thought out as mine. It’s just that they’re all about how to avoid having kids or a husband who would stop you from indulging yourself with car races or stunt driving. Why shouldn’t I want my life to be all about me, sometimes?’
‘Because you gave that up to have children. Shell, even if you stop being Alister’s wife you can’t stop being a mother. You’re in a strange place but none of this is easy on Jordan and Natasha.’
Michele’s shoulders began to quake. ‘I know. I’m the worst mum in the world.’
Though aware she was being manipulated, Leah was unwilling to damn Michele’s hitherto conscientious parenting. ‘You’re absolutely not, or the kids wouldn’t be so keen to spend time with you.’ She jumped to her feet and assumed a bright tone and matching smile. ‘Look, take today for yourself. Put on your pretty dress and flake out in the garden. Read, paint your nails, snooze. There’s even a hot workman next door to watch. Then maybe you’ll be ready to go out with the family tomorrow.’
‘Maybe.’ Michele managed a watery smile, picked up her hairbrush and switched on her hairdryer.
Unfortunately, the day’s kayaking on the River Ill in the forest of Illwald achieved a poor rating on the fun scale. Natasha, though she achieved her aim of sharing a boat with Leah, became tearful every time she was splashed, Jordan called her Gnasher, or one of the ugly grey bugs that plagued the river took a bite of her. As a result, she spent most of the day sporting damp eyes. Every ten minutes she’d sigh, ‘I wish Mum was with us,’ which made Jordan snap, ‘Shut up, Gnasher.’
Alister emerged from his thoughts long enough to say, ‘Bit kinder, maybe, Jordan?’ and Jordan fell to silent scowling, stabbing the khaki surface of the river with an angry paddle.
Leah drove home longing to hide away in La Petite Annexe and treat herself to a huge glass of pinot gris. Instead, as she shifted down a gear to encourage The Pig up the slope towards the gîte, she cast around for something to improve the mood. ‘Do you kids want to make mug cakes when we get back? Your mum’s preparing dinner but we could make dessert.’
‘Are mug cakes like cupcakes, only bigger?’ Jordan’s expression lightened.
‘No, a mug cake’s made in a mug, in the microwave.’
Natasha who’d managed to bag the front passenger seat coming home, looked more cheerful, her nose red from the sun. ‘Chocolate mug cake?’
‘Of course. Nice and gooey. We can put some cola in the mixture to make it moist.’
‘Any chance of coffee in mine? Good and dark?’ Alister smiled at Leah via the rear-view mirror. Smiling wasn’t something he’d done a lot of today and Leah grinned in return. Alister was a nice man. He’d been her brother-in-law since she was seventeen and it was painful to see him so sad, yet trying to cover it up. ‘Coffee, cola, nuts, orange, strawberries – everyone can choose.’
The atmosphere lightened as Jordan suggested ‘Marshmallow and Haribo’ and Natasha countered with ‘Banana and lime. And chocolate, obvs.’ Amazing what cake could do to lift the spirits.
When they pulled up in front of the gîte, Leah spotted that the workman from earlier had moved his area of endeavour to the front balcony of the house next door, while his studs-and-chains young companion leaned on the rail, playing with his phone. Both turned at the sound of the car. The workman flashed his grin, giving an airy wave of his paintbrush before turning back to his work. The teenager just looked.
‘Who’s that boy?’ hissed Natasha.
Jordan tugged her hair. ‘Someone too cool for you.’
‘He’s not!’ Natasha responded in indignation. ‘He’s just Goth. We’ve got loads of Goths at school. They’re not allowed to wear their piercings in school but they put up with it because Goths are big on tolerance.’
‘Being excluded if they don’t comply has a lot to do with that kind of tolerance,’ Alister observed.
He and Leah began to clear The Pig of the cans and bottles accumulated during the day. Jordan and Natasha dawdled off down the path at the side of the house as if the mess was nothing to do with them.
Overtaking the kids, Leah followed Alister through the back door and into the kitchen. The room was cool and quiet. She paused, listening, becoming aware of Alister listening in the same way.
She glanced at her watch. Six thirty. The kitchen looked exactly as it had when they’d left it this morning. No salad washed, nothing cooking. She glanced out of the window. No barbecue alight.
‘What’s for dinner?’ Natasha bumped through the door behind them. ‘Or can we start the cakes straight away? I’m staaaaaaaaaaarving.’
‘Can I have crisps?’ demanded Jordan.
One glance at the apprehensive expression that had settled over Alister’s face and Leah smoothly picked up the slack. ‘Dinner before the cakes,’ she suggested brightly. ‘I’ll whip up a risotto and we’ll have it with salad. There’s some of that fab bread left, too, I think.’
‘I’ll find Mum.’ Natasha trotted off through the hall.
Alister cleared his throat. ‘I thought Michele said she’d cook?’
‘She’s probably having a nap.’ Leah hoped. But, somehow, she didn’t think so – the house had had an empty air. She slopped a little olive oil into a heavy pan, popped it onto the hob to heat, took out two onions and topped, tailed and peeled them. With swift, machine-gun movements, she passed them under her flashing blade, ch-ch-ch-ch-CHAH, using the back of the knife to scrape the pieces from the chopping board into the pan, stirring briskly, then turning to the fridge for bacon, mushrooms, parmesan and cream.
Natasha bounded back into the room, eyes wide. ‘I can’t find Mum!’
Somehow Leah wasn’t shocked to hear it. She just tried to smile reassuringly as the delicious smell of sizzling bacon filtered into the air. ‘She’s probably gone for a walk.’ But she’d had all day. Why would Michele leave it until now, when she’d promised to have dinner waiting?
She glanced at the others to try and read their expressions but Jordan was frowning ferociously at his phone while Alister moved wordlessly to the fridge, took out a tall green bottle of Crémant d’Alsace and lifted down two glasses from the rack. He filled both and passed one to Leah. Unnerved by his silence, and in no way treating the sparkling liquid with the respect it deserved, Leah took a couple of big gulps. ‘How about one of you kids text your mum and see where’s she’s got to? Tell her dinner will be ready in forty minutes.’
Jordan and Natasha began to squabble about who should do the texting. Under cover of their noise, Alister hovered close to Leah. ‘Do you know where she is?’ His wineglass trembled slightly.
Her heart squeezed at his evident misery. All Alister had ever done was be Alister, steady and kind. Even if it wasn’t massively exciting, that had once been what Michele wanted. Leah took another slurp of wine, beginning to wonder if she might need a lot of it before this holiday was over. ‘No idea,’ she whispered.
‘Shit.’ Alister gave a short, bitter laugh. ‘I don’t even know why I’m surprised. What’s a forgotten meal when you can shuck off a marriage like an unfashionable coat?’
‘Mum’s on her way!’ cried Natasha, saving Leah from having to think of a response. ‘She says she’ll be ten minutes. I’ll go outside and wait.’
As she banged through the door Jordan observed loftily, ‘Natasha’s such a baby.’
Leah weighed out the rice and made up a jug of stock, remembering thirteen being a pretty confusing age even without the shock of a parental separation. ‘Good job she’s got a brother who’s a whole two years older to be kind to her, then. Eh, Jordan?’
‘Big brothers are meant to be kind?’ But he grinned sheepishly, as if taking Leah’s message on board.
It was nearly twenty minutes later that Michele finally strolled in, Natasha clinging to her arm. Leah looked up from grating parmesan. ‘Are you better? I thought you promised to make dinner.’
Michele looked better – except, perhaps, for a little guilt around the eyes. ‘Sorry! I forgot the time.’ She ruffled Jordan’s hair, as much as his hair would ruffle now he’d taken to lacing it with gel or gum or whatever was that week’s favoured product.
Under cover of topping up his glass Alister muttered to Leah, ‘Promises, eh? Like “Till death us do part”? Turned out to be crap.’
Leah stifled an inappropriate urge to giggle, though nothing about the situation was actually funny.
‘And I see it’s wine o’clock.’ Michele reached for an empty glass.
Alister halted his drink halfway to his mouth. ‘Really?’ He shifted his gaze meaningfully to her mid-section.
For a second Michele looked thrown, as if the existence of Baby Three had slipped her memory. Silently, she turned to the fridge and filled her wineglass with orange juice.
Chapter Two
‘I hope Mum comes out with us today.’ Head on hand, Natasha was playing with her croissant instead of eating it, a sheen on her skin from where the morning sunshine streamed in through the kitchen window.
Jordan had already wolfed a cheese doorstep sandwich and two croissants. ‘Yeah.’ His expression was hidden, absorbed as he appeared to be in fraying the bottom of what he termed ‘shorts’, despite their ending halfway down his calves. Calves that seemed too hairy to belong to someone Leah still thought of as a boy.
Anxious that the kids might be beginning to pick up on Michele’s uncharacteristically evasive behaviour, Leah debated whether to suggest a visit to the water park in nearby Muntsheim. Even if Michele was supposedly feeling delicate it surely couldn’t be too taxing to read or snooze while the kids hurled themselves down the chutes?
Alister got in first with a simpler plan. ‘How about we hang out in the garden? Then Mum won’t have far to go when she feels well enough to join us, will she?’
A smile lit Natasha’s face. ‘I’ll tell her.’
‘Cool,’ agreed Jordan.
‘But you’ll do something more active than playing Minecraft, won’t you, Jordan?’ Alister said, employing his mild-but-inflexible voice.
Jordan sighed and climbed to his feet. ‘OK. I’ll get my supersoaker to shoot Nat with while she plays boules.’ He sent Alister a challenging look but Alister, who picked his battles wisely, merely smiled.
The kids gone, Leah began to clear the table, admiring the delicate pale blue and green of the crockery. ‘I’m perfectly happy to play boules or get into water fights but are you and Michele going to be able to do it without … an atmosphere?’ She managed to bite back the urge to call it ‘public displays of animosity’.
Alister watched her load the dishwasher. ‘I’m sorry. This is crappy for you. My suggestion we stay here today is an experiment.’
Leah abandoned her tower of crockery to give him a friendly hug. ‘I’m not going to ask about the nature of the experiment or what data you hope to collect. I’m just sorry it’s all gone wrong between you.’
His body seemed to sink in on itself as he sighed but whatever he opened his mouth to reply was lost in Michele’s entrance as she banged crossly in, throwing back over her shoulder, ‘No, stay up there, please, Natasha. I want to talk to Dad.’
‘I’ll leave.’ Leah turned for the door to the garden.
‘Appreciated,’ murmured Alister.
‘Why should you?’ Michele snapped simultaneously. ‘You’re involved in this Happy Families plan for today.’
Alister met her ire with coolly raised eyebrows. ‘Basing ourselves here will enable you to see something of your children without worrying about feeling queasy in the car or doing anything too active for your delicate condition. Does that cover whatever excuse you were about to trot out?’
Acutely uncomfortable as Michele and Alister glared icicles at each other, Leah resumed her escape. ‘I’ll get more loungers from the summerhouse.’
She closed the door on Alister’s low-voiced ‘Think what’s best for the children, Michele.’
Intent on keeping clear of the battleground, Leah dawdled as she set out the wooden sun loungers. Casting around the capacious summerhouse she located a paddling pool and a hose and dragged them out, too. The gîte and its neighbour were the only residences this far up the lane and there seemed to be nobody next door but the workman and his young assistant so she doubted it mattered if they had a water fight and it got a bit screamy.
She watched the clear water burble into the pool. Think what’s best for the children … If not for the kids, she’d reverse her car out of the garage and make a break for it instead of sticking around to share the death throes of Michele and Alister’s marriage.
But, as she was here, Leah could – probably – prevent spilled blood, and that definitely came under the heading of ‘best for the children’. Mentally polishing her halo she let herself into La Petite Annexe to change into her bikini. It didn’t cover as much as she would have liked, but she hadn’t had much time for holiday shopping and she was amongst family.
After slathering on factor 50 and grabbing her magazine, she reserved herself a lounger and settled down to try and Facetime Scott during his morning break. Scott had been her best friend since school and she usually saw him several times a week, sharing their love of all-things-car. She missed him. If anyone knew her deepest, darkest secrets, it was Scott.
‘Hey, you,’ he answered snippily as his image leaped to the screen, brown hair shining and spiked at the front. ‘Finally found time in your holiday schedule to remember the existence of your bestie?’
‘Don’t be grumpy. I’m feeling homesick and I wanted to hear your voice. As lovely as Alsace is, I’d rather be back in Bettsbrough enjoying the gardening leave I’d planned. Got to support Michele and family, though.’
‘Oh. OK.’ He looked mollified. ‘So what’s the place you’re staying like?’
Leah directed the phone screen towards La Petite Annexe so the camera would capture it for him. ‘This is my bolthole.’ Then she lined up on the gîte, panning around so he got the full impact of all three floors and the impressive timberwork on the outside. ‘And this is where the others are.’
‘FFS, it’s massive! Have you got a rugby team visiting or something?’
Leah laughed as she turned her phone so they could see each other again. ‘There aren’t quite enough spare rooms for that but it’s certainly not cramped.’ And she told him about the long drive over and the frost occasionally twinkling between Michele and Alister.
Leah’s spirits rose as, in return, he gave her a jokey rendition of his latest run-in with his boss, including his outrageous excuse that his work was suffering simply because ‘his bestie’ was in another country. Scott always made her feel better with his uniquely snarky affection and she sighed along with him when it was time for him to wind up the conversation with ‘Got to get back to work, I’m afraid. Get yourself home as soon as you can.’ He blew a kiss and disappeared.
Regretfully, Leah put away her phone as Natasha and Jordan burst into the garden, Jordan armed with a Rambo-sized water gun and Natasha with plastic bowls from the kitchen.
‘Girls against boys!’ Natasha yelled, frisbeeing a bowl in Leah’s direction.
With little choice but to join the fray, Leah snatched the bowl from the air and, taking outrageous advantage of Jordan’s exposed position at the pool as he filled his supersoaker, scooped up a healthy bowlful of glistening water and sloshed it down his bare back. ‘Girls against boys!’
‘Waaaaah, freezing!’ Jordan heaved harder on the plunger that loaded his weapon. ‘This means water war!’
‘Water war!’ Natasha, screaming like a chimpanzee, leaped into the middle of the paddling pool just as Alister emerged from the house. With no respect for his sombre expression she scooped a wave of water in his direction.
The arc of water hung in a shimmering rainbow in the air before sloshing over Alister’s head and chest. He flinched. Blinked. Then, resignedly, he dragged off his T-shirt, laid his bespattered spectacles away and calmly took up the garden hose. ‘OK, water war.’
‘You can’t have the hose, Alister, it’s not fair to outgun us by that much!’ Leah tried not to trip over her flip-flops as she raced to remove herself from the firing line.
‘Who said life was fair?’ Alister spun the tap to the ‘on’ position and pulled the hose trigger at the same instant as Michele stepped out from the house. The powerful jet of water met her head with an audible splat.
‘Oops.’ Alister took just a second too long to shift the jet away. ‘Sorry.’
‘Oh –!’ Michele gasped, one side of her hair plastered to her head and the corresponding eye streaming mascara.
Natasha screamed with excited laughter. ‘You got splooshed!’
With a Tarzan yell, Jordan aimed his supersoaker at his mother. ‘Girls against boys! Choose your weapon.’
For a second, Leah thought Michele would give everybody a good scolding or whirl around and retreat to her room. Time seemed to stutter while water glistened on bare skin and lush lawn.
Then Michele wiped her face and slicked back her hair. ‘Girls against boys,’ she growled dangerously, yanking the bright green hose off the tap, leaving Alister with an altogether empty weapon. Jamming her fingers into the stream of tap water she sent it spurting in his direction with deadly aim.
‘Unfair!’ he bellowed, slipping on the grass as he floundered to escape at the same time as attempting to rearm himself by stealing Jordan’s water gun.
‘Get your own weapon, soldier,’ snapped Jordan, wrestling it back and aiming at his sister.
‘Eeep! Noooooo!’ Natasha flew across the garden with the water playing square between her shoulder blades. ‘All onto Jordan, girls!’
For the next hour the air was filled with screams, protests, laughter … and a lot of water. It was sufficient to swill away the tension – temporarily at least.
Finally, puffing hard, Michele held up her hands. ‘Enough! Ceasefire or I surrender or whatever I have to do.’ She fell onto one of the now damp loungers.
Glad that the atmosphere had warmed a degree or two, Leah flopped down on another, wringing out her hair. ‘I’ll get drinks when I’ve caught my breath.’
Michele closed her eyes and tipped her pale face to the sun. ‘Thanks. I think perhaps I overdid it.’ Her clothes clinging damply didn’t deter her from plummeting almost instantly into sleep.
Alister regarded his estranged wife sheepishly. ‘Maybe she did overdo it. She’s zonked.’
‘It’s to be expected, I suppose. She’s very pale.’ Leah’s eyes darted towards the youngsters, their heads bent over their phones as they recovered from the water war via their world of constant communication. When were they to be told about their brother/sister-to-be? Would they leap on the news, hoping against hope that the baby would reunite their parents? Her heart twisted to think of yet another bitter disappointment to poison their young lives. Since the first shock of their parents splitting up, when Natasha had cried for days and Jordan had shut himself in his room, they’d coped almost unrealistically well. It was as if they’d been able to grow thin protective shells.
But if those shells were put under pressure they’d surely shatter.
Keeping these uncomfortable thoughts strictly to herself Leah managed to bask in the sun for an hour before Natasha announced herself once again to be ‘staaaaarving.’ Michele stirred but sank back into her slumbers so, stifling a sigh, Leah laid down her magazine. ‘We’ll eat out here. Lots of lovely salad.’
‘And cakes?’ Jordan suggested, hopefully.
‘With ice-cream?’ supplemented Natasha.
‘For afters,’ Leah agreed.
She wasn’t sorry to go indoors and get a break from the powerful sun. The smooth tiles of the kitchen floor felt cool beneath her feet as she put eggs on to boil, then washed watercress and lamb’s lettuce for the salade verte. Humming quietly as she moved on to slicing big firm tomatoes that were so red they glowed, she became conscious of a man’s voice speaking French outside. Then Michele, evidently restored by her nap, replying. Alister joined in. Leah didn’t bother trying to follow a conversation that was way above her command of simple French phrases. Her sister and brother were Francophiles; French Language was Alister’s teaching commitment in his junior school and Michele loved to compete in airing her command of the language.
As Leah whisked together the ingredients for a quick pecan toffee pudding, covered it with brown sugar and poured boiling water over it before sliding it into the oven, she did catch Michele insisting, ‘Oui, oui, il est notre plaisir!’ It was good that something was giving Michele pleasure because not much seemed to, these days.
There was a little rice left from the risotto and Leah made a quick rice salad, chopping in tomatoes and spring onions with almonds while the eggs cooled, pausing only to call through the back door, ‘Could someone carry the table and chairs onto the lawn, please?’ and check that they did.
Finally, she grabbed napkins and cutlery and stepped out once again into the shimmering heat of the garden. ‘I’m ready to bring lunch out, if someone wants to help me.’
At the same moment, Michele called, expansively, ‘Welcome! Come and join us.’
‘Pardon?’ Leah halted in confusion.
Then two figures rounded the corner of the house and a deep voice replied. ‘Thanks. This is nice of you.’
Leah jumped as she recognised the workman and the teenager from next door. ‘Oh!’
‘This is my sister, Leah.’ Michele beamed.
The workman’s dark hair looked as if the wind had just blown through it, his even darker eyes smiling from his tanned face. ‘I’m Ronan Shea and this is my son Curtis. Great to meet you.’
‘You’re not French!’ Leah exclaimed.
‘No, indeed.’ If anything, she could detect a touch of Irish in his voice.
‘But you spoke to me in French!’
He grinned disarmingly. ‘I’m a big fat showoff.’
‘Leah, I’ve invited them to join us,’ interrupted Michele, ‘so they’ve brought their lunch and we’re all pitching in.’
As if to prove her words Ronan opened a cool-bag to display three different hunks of cheese, a whole cooked chicken, a portly loaf of bread and bottles of wine and cola. ‘I hope it’s not too inconvenient?’ His gaze remained steadily on Leah’s face, whereas his son seemed unable to lift his eyes above Leah’s neck. Although they weren’t far below it.
She felt colour sting her cheeks at the sudden realisation that she was standing chatting in her bikini for goodness’ sake. She forced a smile. ‘No, of course not. Just excuse me for a minute.’ Acutely aware of what felt like acres of flesh on display Leah tossed the cutlery on the table and set off for La Petite Annexe, forcing herself not to break into an undignified gallop.
Michele, perhaps realising belatedly that Leah wouldn’t have chosen to be wearing only a purple high-leg bikini when introduced to a strange man and his wide-eyed adolescent son, called after her, ‘You take your time and we’ll bring the food out.’
‘Good of you,’ Leah muttered, bolting through the annexe door.
Having let her embarrassment cool under a tepid shower before covering herself in cropped jeans and a T-shirt, Leah rejoined the party to find the table was busy with conversation and everybody had already heaped their plates. Leah quietly took the only vacant chair.
Which was between Ronan and Curtis. It would have to be.
‘Thanks,’ she murmured, when Ronan passed her a plate and napkin. She poured herself a glass of lemonade. Only Alister seemed to be doing damage to the wine bottle in the centre of the table.
Ronan fell into easy conversation with Alister, and as Curtis, Natasha and Jordan had found common ground in the belief that all software should be free, Leah’s residual bikini embarrassment began to fade.
Curtis, she discovered by listening in, was, incredibly, only thirteen, despite being six feet tall and wearing head-to-toe black Goth gear. Leah wondered at a boy quite that young being allowed piercings in eyebrow, nose and both ears, and his alternative hairstyle dangling perpetually in his eyes. Whenever he was offered anything from the table he replied with an endearing ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, fanks.’ Aside from their height there wasn’t much similarity between father and son: Curtis sandy and hazel, Ronan uncompromisingly dark.
Curtis politely helped Natasha and Jordan clear the first course as Leah brought out dessert. The sight of the steaming pudding with its accompanying chocolate sauce and fresh fruit silenced the gathering momentarily.
Alister passed around clean plates. ‘Leah makes fantastic desserts.’
Ronan turned his dark gaze on her. ‘You’re surely not baking on holiday?’
‘It’s something incredibly easy –’
Michele broke in. ‘Leah only has to look at food and it jumps around and becomes something delicious.’
‘But still.’ Ronan smiled. ‘Surely nobody works on holiday?’
‘You’re painting a house.’ Leah reached for one of the local yellow plums called mirabelles and bit into its sweet juiciness.
Ronan watched her lick juice from her lips. ‘We’re only kind of on holiday. My dad built the house when my mam was still alive and, hilariously, they named it “Chez Shea”. After she died, he and I spent a lot of time here and eventually I inherited it from him. As I’m off work for a few weeks I thought I’d come out and give it some TLC. But anyway, why does food jump around and make itself delicious for you?’
‘I trained as a chef but I work in chocolate products.’ Leah reached for another plum, her hair swinging over one shoulder.
‘She’s a chocolate taster!’ giggled Natasha. ‘It must be the coolest job in the world.’
Curtis’s eyes grew round in astonishment. He stared at Leah. ‘Seriously? You taste chocolate? For a job?’
Leah’s eyes twinkled. ‘Before you apply, there’s more to it than just scoffing chocolate down all day. I source ingredients, come up with new recipes or test other people’s. I’m lucky to possess the correct palate.’
‘So much so that when her last employer discovered she was moving to Chocs-a-million she was instantly put on gardening leave to remove her access to planned products,’ put in Michele, drily. ‘All right for some.’
‘Like teachers don’t get paid for taking the summer off?’ Leah sent her sister a sidelong look.
‘But “desk” isn’t a four-letter word for me as it is for you –’
Jordan interrupted, evidently focused on the important stuff. ‘She can make amazing cakes, Curtis. Talk to her nicely and she might make you something.’
Curtis gazed at Leah hopefully.
‘She’s on holiday,’ Ronan reminded him.
But Leah obviously recognised suffering when she saw it. ‘Maybe if we have a bad-weather day we can have a bit of a bake off. The kitchen in the gîte has a big oven and hob.’
‘Yeah! Bake off!’ gloated Jordan.
‘Bake off, bake off!’ sang Natasha.
Curtis switched his hopeful gaze to Ronan and Ronan softened. ‘Sounds as if you’re in luck.’
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, fanks!’ breathed Curtis. ‘I like making stuff. ’Specially stuff I can eat.’
‘And we could have a chocolate tasting –’
‘I’ll get the chocolate.’ Jordan raced off towards the gîte, leaving Leah halfway through her sentence.
Ronan felt his mouth stretch in a grin, in no doubt that she’d had no intention of the chocolate tasting taking place on the instant. Catching his eye, she managed to pull her face out of its expression of dismay, giving only a small eye roll before Jordan came loping back to the table, cradling three coloured packs in his hands.
‘I’ll have to move my stash to La Petite Annexe,’ she observed, drily. She set one of the packs aside. ‘This is open and, anyway, we need only two. OK, those who are taking part in the tasting, you need to drink water and eat a little dry bread to cleanse your palate.’ Alister declared himself a spectator, Michele occupied herself with her phone, but Ronan joined Curtis, Jordan, Natasha and Leah in nibbling on crusts of bread while Leah went on. ‘I’d normally taste in quite different surroundings. A product development kitchen’s a cross between a kitchen and a science lab. It’s clean and quiet and free of other tastes and smells. But this is only a demonstration so we’ll pretend we can’t see the remains of lunch or each other.’
She picked up the first large slab, enveloped in a deep brown paper with a dull sheen. Her hands were shapely, the nails short and plain. ‘I’d normally make sure it was room temperature but France in August is hotter than I’d keep my kitchen so this has been in the fridge.’
Ronan found himself unexpectedly engaged. He enjoyed chocolate as much as the next man but his attention was more on the subtle shifts in Leah as her professional persona took over, showing itself in the confidence in her voice and body language. ‘What difference does the temperature make?’ he asked.
‘Partly consistency but mainly that over-cool temperatures hinder my ability to detect flavours.’ She gave him a quick smile. He found himself watching her mouth again. ‘So here’s the speed-dating version of how I’d assess a chocolate that’s new to me, starting with the packaging because quality chocolate usually gets quality wrapping. This looks good to me.’ She slipped a finger under the brown paper and pulled back the foil beneath to expose a dark slab of chocolate divided neatly into rectangles. ‘Of the chocolate itself, I note that the surface is smooth and free from bloom – the whitish marks we sometimes see on cheap products, those that have been around too long or stored badly. The colour’s good. The surface has a sheen which, in dark chocolate like this, lets me see other colours. It’s a sort of brown rainbow visible to the practised eye.’
Ronan inspected the slab. He saw dark brown. No rainbow. Curtis flicked him a what’s she on about? look.
‘The precision in the moulding is another sign of quality. Then I listen.’ She picked up the slab and broke off a rectangle, then broke it again. ‘It should resonate when it snaps. Hear it?’
‘Seriously?’ Curtis demanded. ‘Talking chocolate?’
Leah laughed. ‘Buy a cheap bar and you’ll be able to hear and see the difference. You won’t get that snap and the product will be grainy and without lustre.’ She turned the pieces of chocolate in her hands. ‘See how this snapped? It has a sharp edge. That’s how it should be.’ She broke off four generous portions and handed them out. ‘Don’t eat it yet. Smell it. Enjoy the aroma and prepare your taste buds.’ She inhaled, her eyes half shut. ‘Smells good to me.’
‘Yum,’ agreed Natasha.
‘So now – being glad that at a chocolate tasting we don’t have to spit, as we would at a wine tasting – place a piece on your tongue. Don’t chew unless it needs breaking slightly to release the flavours. Letting it melt on your tongue releases the cocoa butter and counteracts any bitterness. We’re not eating, we’re tasting. Close your eyes. Let yourself experience the flavour.’
Instead of closing his eyes, Ronan watched her close hers, observing her focused expression, and Jordan snaffling a second piece while Leah wasn’t looking, then blushing when he realised Ronan was.
Slowly her eyes opened again. ‘A beautiful, rich flavour. This is good chocolate, high in cocoa solids, well presented, great aroma, just the sweet side of bitter. I’d expect it to temper well and I could make high-quality chocolate products from it.’
‘What’s tempering?’ Ronan put in.
‘It’s a faffy procedure involving heating and cooling the chocolate slowly to avoid the cocoa butters separating out or crystallising. A product development kitchen for chocolate products will have a machine to do it with precision because it ensures smooth glossy chocolate for dipping and coating.’
‘Your sensory perceptions must be well developed.’ Ronan just stopped himself from using the word ‘sensual’ instead of ‘sensory’. The sensual experience had been his, watching her.
‘Can we try the other bar?’ demanded Jordan.
‘It is interesting to compare,’ she agreed. ‘It often helps me fully explore my impressions of one product to compare it to another. We need to cleanse our palates again, though.’
Nobody objected; in fact Jordan almost knocked his glass over in his haste to co-operate. Soon they were running through the process again, everyone closing their eyes and solemnly sucking chocolate. Unanimously, they scored the first bar higher than the second and Leah pointed out economies in the packaging of the second that hinted at a slightly lesser quality.
Generously, she let the kids ‘taste’ chocolate until it had all disappeared, then Curtis, Jordan and Natasha wandered over to the shadier part of the garden – ‘which means they don’t want us to listen in,’ observed Alister – and Michele stowed her phone and did the polite-company thing in asking Ronan all about himself. ‘So are you being paid not to work, this summer, like Leah?’
Ronan caught the faintly exasperated look that Leah sent Michele. He’d worked out that the two were sisters but thought some of Michele’s digs were a bit uncalled for.
Before Leah could respond, however, her phone buzzed to claim her attention, and Ronan responded courteously. ‘I broke my clavicle and had to have it pinned. Luckily it was my left side and painting uses my right.’ He rubbed the dull ache that made his shoulder heavy and stiff. From the corner of his eye he could see Leah tapping rapidly at her phone screen. The phone buzzed again almost straightaway and she snorted with amusement before resuming her tapping.
‘Poor you,’ said Michele. ‘How did that happen?’
‘I’m a helicopter pilot and I had a bit of an incident, but in a few weeks I should be passed fit to fly again.’ He deliberately glossed over what had happened. Those who didn’t fly treated it like a big deal to get an ailing helicopter to the ground rather than the simple good airmanship that it was. Now the op was over and the healing well under way he didn’t want to indulge avid requests for information. He just wanted to enjoy the extra time with Curtis.
Happily, Michele seized on his job as the interesting element of his explanation. ‘Helicopter pilot? Glamorous! Makes teaching look boring.’
Alister smacked his lips over his wine. ‘Ha! Maybe, though that depends on the teacher.’
Michele sent him a death glare and Leah hastily put away her phone and butted in. ‘A helicopter pilot? That’s cool.’
She had her work cut out as peacekeeper between her sister and her husband, Ronan decided as he smiled at her. ‘Flying’s my life. I work for an air tours company called Buzz Sightseer, flying tourists over London. I’m the chief pilot and helped build the company up from day one.’
Leah found herself fascinated as Ronan talked, relaxed and easy in his chair, long legs crossed at the ankle.
He lived on the southeastern fringe of London’s urban sprawl, was divorced, and shared Curtis’s care with ex-wife Selina. He’d been brought up in Ireland, ‘the rocky bit, right at the top’, but his dad had moved the family to England, where he helped Ronan through university and on his way to his commercial pilot’s licence before he passed away. ‘Dad would’ve been pleased that I got the career I love,’ he concluded. He gave the impression of calm control, of not wasting words, except to occasionally inject flashes of dry humour into the conversation.
When Leah finally glanced at her watch the time had whizzed around to almost four. Regretfully, she searched around in the grass for her sandals. ‘I’d better get off to the supermarket, unless we’re eating out tonight.’
Ronan sat up. ‘The supermarket in Muntsheim? I don’t suppose I could beg a lift? My car’s having work done and the garage said it should be ready round about now. I was going to call a cab.’
Alister sloshed more wine into his glass. ‘You can leave Curtis here if he wants. He seems to be stopping our two from bickering.’
Ronan grinned. ‘And miss a ride in your pink car?’
Alister snorted. ‘Not my car.’
‘I did think it was a bit pretty.’ Ronan went to check with Curtis, who looked up only long enough to say that the others had given him the password to the wifi and he was quite happy where he was. Ronan going off without him was, apparently, ‘Cool beans’.
‘I’ll come with you.’ Michele began to get to her feet.
Although she understood the eye-roll Michele directed towards Alister, Leah suddenly found she’d used up her quota of sisterly compassion for the afternoon. ‘Sorry, no room, I want to give my car a run,’ she whispered. Once she’d dropped Ronan at the garage she could blast out into the countryside, letting her satnav bring her back to Muntsheim to do the shopping when she was happily chilled. Surely she was entitled to snatch a few moments from this tense, unholidayish holiday, to open her car windows and let the wind blow it all away?
Refusing to hear Michele’s ‘But –!’, Leah ducked into La Petite Annexe for her keys and purse then emerged with a brief ‘’Bye!’ and a hasty ‘C’mon’ in Ronan’s direction.
Ronan, with a last word to Curtis, allowed himself to be collected up and chivvied out of the garden.
From his position, prone on the cool grass, Curtis watched his dad follow Leah up the path beside the house.
He turned back to his new friends. ‘Your mum’s a MILF,’ he muttered, too quietly for the adults to hear. He’d been waiting to use the line ever since he’d seen American Pie on DVD when his mum and Darren had been out one evening but, frankly, mums usually weren’t.
‘What’s a MILF?’ Natasha screwed her neck to try and see what Curtis was doing on his phone.
Jordan groaned. ‘You must need your eyes testing. And don’t even think it. She’s our mum.’
‘Still a MILF.’
A throaty roar emanated from around the house. Jordan cocked an ear. ‘Leah’s taking the Porsche. Hope your dad doesn’t scare easy.’
Curtis stared. Jordan had short back ’n’ sides dark hair. Curtis wished he, too, had dark hair, like his dad, instead of being sandy with freckles, like his mum. ‘Why do you call her Leah?’
Propping his chin on his hand, Jordan treated him to a condescending stare. ‘Because … it’s, like, her name?’
‘Duh! But why don’t you call her Mum?’
Jordan frowned. Then he began to laugh. He laughed so hard he had to slap the ground making that ‘Huuuurgh!’ sound between peals that people did when they couldn’t even inhale for mirth.
Curtis gave Jordan a shove. ‘What?’
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