AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘No, it’s not,’ she agreed, but it wasn’t only the type of accident that was different. The man’s cheerful good humour was like the friendly phone call she’d had earlier. Somehow people seemed to have more time to chat, or perhaps felt freer to talk than they did in the city.
From time to time she checked on Mr Armstrong, but she had no time to think about the man as anything other than a patient.
Although he did have an engaging grin, and the kind of rugby-player build that made her think he probably could kick a ball.
Not that ball-kicking ability would have been top of her list of desirable qualities in a father for the boys—
Not that she had a list.
But as she walked home later that day, she was slightly startled to find herself thinking about a list. Well, not actually a list but what she might want to consider necessary attributes in a father for her boys.
Was she being silly, thinking this way?
Had growing up without a mother—wonderful though Dad had been—sown the seed about wanting a father for the boys?
But a father for the boys would also be her husband.
Was she ready for that?
For love?
Because, in all fairness, that’s what it would need to be…
She shrugged off the thought and had got to the gate before she’d reached any conclusion in the matter.
And now the ‘puppy’ was stopping her, standing behind the gate so she had to shove hard to open it, reminding it that this was her home not his.
‘You’re just passing through,’ she told him firmly, as he showed apparent delight at her return by standing on his hind legs to lick her cheek.
‘Here, boy!’
The male voice that wasn’t her father’s startled her, but the dog must have heard authority in it for he immediately stepped back from her before gambolling away towards the house.
Emma was moving in that direction herself when clear shouts of ‘Mum, look at us,’ had her turning towards the big mango trees that lined one side fence.
When she’d left for work the previous day, her father had been in the process of assembling a double swing set. She’d arrived home in the dark last night but now she could see what the excitement was about.
‘It’s like seeing double,’ she said as she walked towards the trees where two identical teenage girls were pushing two small, identical boys.
‘These are our friends,’ Xavier told her.
‘They’re called Milly and Molly,’ Hamish added.
The two girls laughed.
‘Mandy and Molly,’ one of them explained. ‘I’m Mandy.’
‘And I’m Molly.’
They’d stopped pushing the swings and moved towards Emma, holding out their hands as they introduced themselves.
‘Marty thought you might be looking for babysitters—well, a babysitter but we come as a pair, although we don’t charge double.’
Molly—or it might have been Mandy—was explaining this but Emma’s brain was still getting over a jolt of recognition. It had been Marty’s voice that had called ‘Here, boy’—Marty Graham, who didn’t do commitment so certainly wouldn’t make even a secondary list for a possible father for her boys!
But if his voice was here, so must he be.
The girls were pushing the swings again, so there wasn’t anything to keep Emma under the mango trees.
Nothing at all—
‘Emma, I’ve made a fresh pot of tea.’
Her father’s voice this time.
She had to go and join him and…
Well, whoever was with him.
Yet try as she might, she couldn’t figure out the reluctance that weighed her down as she made her way towards the house.
Marty stood as she approached the table.
‘Have you had a busy day?’ he asked, and she heard sincerity in his voice. But it wasn’t the tone of voice or even the words that held her in limbo on her approach to the table.
Something else—something she didn’t understand—had stopped the world for a moment. She could see the low table set with tea things and leftovers from Hallie’s basket, with another chocolate cake added to the feast. And there was a woman, sitting smiling at her, speaking words Emma couldn’t hear.
Because of Marty?
Couldn’t be!
He took her elbow, leading her forward, introducing her to his sister Carrie, mother of the babysitting twins, and probably maker of the new chocolate cake.
Marty dropped his hand, and the world righted itself again, so she was able to smile at Carrie and tell her how happy the boys seemed to be with her girls.
‘But it’s a bit of a shock,’ Marty said, his blue eyes smiling at her in a quite unnecessary way, ‘seeing the four of them together. I thought I was seeing double—which I suppose I was—but it was weird.’
