His Very Own Wife and Child by Caroline Anderson

Author:Caroline Anderson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2013-09-09T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

HE MUST be crazy.

If he’d had the slightest grain of sense he’d have driven off and left Sally here, but curiosity about her house and life and a ridiculous urge to flagellate himself further with her inaccessibility had him following her in through the door.

It was a new, ‘executive-style’ house on a small, select development tucked in behind a row of older houses, the sort of thing that most people would be delighted to own, and Jack was amazed at how much he hated it. It was so neutral. Characterless, almost. Not at all the sort of chaotic, warm, loving house he’d pictured her in all these years.

Not that there was anything wrong with the house itself. At first glance it seemed a good house, solidly built and well proportioned, but there seemed no personality about any of it—until he followed her into the kitchen and saw the kids’ drawings pinned on the walls, little messages to her held on the fridge with magnets.

‘Mum, please wash PE kit. Love you. Alexxxxxx’

A tiny drawing on a sticky note, with ‘Best mum’ carefully written on the corner and a picture of someone that could have been Sally. Long, dark hair and skirt, big smile and lots of hearts all around it. Different writing, so Ben, then, and saying so much in so few words. He wondered if it was new, generated by recent events, and his heart ached for them all.

‘What do you fancy? I’ve got eggs and potatoes and salad stuff, so I could do an omelette and salad, or egg sandwiches, or I might have a jar of pasta sauce and some mince in the freezer…’

‘Omelette sounds lovely,’ he said. Quick, too, so he could get out of there before he did something stupid.

‘Sit yourself down—do you fancy a glass of wine? There’s some white open in the fridge, or there might be a can of lager, or I can make tea or coffee?’

‘I’d better make it tea,’ he said, erring belatedly on the side of caution. The last time he’d had anything to drink around her he’d nearly seduced her on the dance floor. ‘Don’t let me stop you if you want wine, though,’he added, and she laughed—a little nervously?

‘Oh, I won’t. You can pour me a glass of wine and make your tea while I get the meal. Here, the mugs and tea and everything are all above the kettle, and the wineglasses are in the next cupboard along.’

Good idea. Give him something to do apart from watching her swift, economical movements as she walked around the kitchen retrieving ingredients from the fridge and cupboards.

He sat at the table, wondering which of the chairs had been David’s and deliberately picking one he thought would have been one of the boys’.

‘Nice house,’ he said, testing her reaction, and she gave a tiny hollow laugh.

‘I’m utterly indifferent to it,’ she said. ‘It was a ridiculous amount of money and it’s not at all the sort of house I wanted, but David liked it because it was well built and low maintenance.

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