‘So… three tickets for you guys, then?’ she asked brightly.
Connor eyed Kate. ‘I will if you will,’ he said.
‘I can’t go if neither of you go,’ Bella said. ‘I don’t know anybody else here well enough yet.’ She also eyed Kate. ‘Please? Please, please, please, Auntie Katie?’
Auntie Katie? Kate stifled a groan. That took her back to the days when her niece had been a small child and Kate had had something that Bella had wanted very badly.
Kate shook her head, realising that defeat was looming. ‘We’ll see.’
‘That always means yes.’
‘No,’ Kate said faintly. ‘It doesn’t. But we’ll buy the tickets anyway seeing it’s for such a good cause.’
Bella somehow got a hand free to give Connor a high five. ‘We’ll see you there.’
* * *
She was here.
Connor hadn’t really expected Kate to turn up but his reaction should have been no more than surprise, surely? Why was he feeling so pleased?
Just to be on the safe side, he avoided her for the first hour or two of the party but even when he was in the middle of the dance floor, he couldn’t help spotting her at regular intervals. What on earth was she wearing? A long black dress that had wide strips of white material pinned across it at regular intervals. Was she supposed to be… a prisoner?
That would be a bit Freudian, wouldn’t it?
And didn’t convicts have arrows rather than stripes?
He could ask Bella but she was floating around in a pretty, puffy pink dress and a sparkly tiara and was never short of a dance or conversational partner. Kate always seemed to have someone to talk to as well. Who was that guy in the panda suit?
Oh, yes… Lewis Blackman, head of the pathology department. Not that it was any of his business but Connor noted that they seemed to be getting on very well and he found himself frowning. For goodness’ sake, Lewis was far too old for Kate. He was at least sixty and Kate couldn’t be any more than around his own age.
He didn’t see Kate dancing. Not even once.
Bella must have noticed her aunt’s lack of participation as well because when Connor finally had the opportunity to dance with the best-looking princess of the night, she turned him down.
‘Ask Kate,’ she urged.
Connor was about to say ‘No way’ but something in Bella’s gaze stopped the words emerging.
‘Please?’ Bella added. She twinkled at him, rather like the imitation diamonds in her tiara.
‘Fine,’ Connor growled reluctantly. ‘I’ll dance with the prisoner.’
‘Prisoner?’
‘That’s what her costume is, isn’t it?’
Bella laughed. ‘No! She’s being a pedestrian crossing.’
Connor was still grinning as he made his way to where Kate was still talking to Lewis. A pedestrian crossing. Smart. Different.
He liked that.
He extended a hand as he got closer. ‘May I have the pleasure…?’
Kate shook her head. ‘Thanks, but I don’t dance.’
No surprises there.
