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‘We waited for you so we’d only have to take one car,’ her father said as she walked up onto the veranda where the boys were explaining to the ever-patient dog that he had to stay and guard the house, although Xavier, Mr Persistent, was saying, ‘But Molly and Mandy would love to see him.’
She left her father to sort out the dog and hurried through the house to shower and dress. The green top her friend Sally had given her might look better with the jeans…
Annoyed with herself for such dithering—since she’d had the boys getting dressed usually meant pulling on whatever was closest and relatively free of food stains. And even more annoyed because, although she hated to admit it, she knew it was the fact that Marty would be there that was causing the dithering.
Why he, of all men, should be affecting her the way he was, she had no idea. Could it be because she knew nothing could come of it? Not that she wanted to start regular dating, as in going out with various men. That would be bad for the boys. Wouldn’t it?
But how else would she find a man?
She sighed. All she wanted was one man—one who’d want her enough to take the boys as well—a permanent, happy-to-be-with-her man, a friend to share her life, a father for her boys, but definitely not a commitment-phobe.
The green top made her eyes look green—a greyish green for sure, but better than dull grey…
CHAPTER FIVE
LUNCH WITH CARRIE turned out to be a party—a small party admittedly but more than a casual lunch. Mac and Izzy were there—well, like Marty, they were family—and another couple who were friends of Carrie’s from her work in the local government office.
And had the tall, bespectacled man Carrie introduced as Neil been asked especially for her—Emma—or had he kind of latched onto her because he didn’t know anyone else?
‘Neil’s the local agronomist, and he’s not been in town very long,’ Carrie had said by way of a succinct introduction, and although Emma’s mind connected the job description with agriculture, she really had no idea what he might do.
The polite thing to do was ask, and as Molly and Mandy had taken her boys off to play in the garden, and she and Neil were kind of in a space of their own, she did ask and was soon being treated to a lesson on crop yields and safer farrowing methods for free-range pigs.
She looked desperately around for someone to rescue her, but her father was talking to Carrie’s friends, while Mac had taken charge of the barbecue and Izzy was helping Carrie produce bowls of salad and plates of meat. Which left Marty, who was actually watching her, and must have been aware of her predicament as he was grinning with malicious delight.
She threw a murderous frown in his direction and suggested to Neil that they look at the garden, knowing how easily her boys could create a diversion.
Neil seemed a trifle taken aback, for he was in the middle of an extremely complicated—to Emma—story about a horse that had been cast in its stall. But he followed her—albeit reluctantly—out to the garden, where Marty had now materialised and was kicking a football with the boys—the two girls acting as goalies for the hectic game.
A side kick from Marty brought the ball to Neil’s feet and although even Emma’s instinctive reaction would have been to kick it back, there it sat.
‘Kick it here,’ Hamish shouted.
‘No, here,’ Xavier insisted.
But in the end it was Emma who kicked it, not to either of the boys but to Molly—or perhaps Mandy…
Yet the incident stayed with Emma for the rest of the day. At lunch she’d managed to sit down between her father and Izzy, Neil opposite her at the table, explaining something about mung beans to Mac, who was obviously a lot better at looking interested than Emma had been.
But Neil, although she had no doubt he’d been invited to meet her, wasn’t the subject of her preoccupation. No, it was Marty kicking the football right to Neil’s feet that had disturbed her.
Not because Neil hadn’t kicked it back—she’d been talking to him long enough to realise he probably hadn’t even noticed it—but that Marty had tested him in that way.
Because it had been a test.
Yet try as she might, she couldn’t recall ever mentioning to Marty her vague idea that a ball-kicking man might be good to have around for the boys’ sake…
Had he divined it?
Read her thoughts?
Had she told Joss and it had become hospital gossip?
She had no idea, yet she knew as well as she knew her own name that Marty had kicked that ball as a test…
Neil claimed her when lunch was finished, and, desperate for a conversation that didn’t involve farm animals or crops, she asked if he was going to the barn dance the following weekend.
