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He turned green and held up a hand. “Never use that word.”
“How do you think a woman gets pregnant?” Isobel suddenly felt faint. “Please tell me you know how babies are made?” It wasn’t as though the conversation had ever come up, something Isobel had been incredibly grateful for, and she’d assumed Jack had found out at school. The same way she’d found out about the birds and the bees. There had been absolutely no chance her parents would have given her the information. Isobel’s mother still insisted that she bought her four children at the local department store. Apparently Mairi had been on sale.
“I know what sex is.” Jack looked disgusted. “I just don’t want to think about you doing it.”
“Good.” Isobel sank into a kitchen chair. “Let’s keep it that way.”
“How am I supposed to do that when you’ve got the local nut job shouting about you having his kid? Don’t you know about condoms?”
“Jack!” Isobel felt her cheeks burn and fought the urge to run. Jack would follow her anyway. There was no hiding from your kids when they wanted to know something. A fact she was reminded of every time she wanted to go to the toilet alone and her three-year-old followed her in.
“Who is this guy? What’s his deal? Have you been seeing him? How long? And when? You’re always here, or at the shop. When did you have time for a guy?”
Isobel could practically see his brain working. She tried to change the topic. “Why aren’t you at school?”
“Half day. I told you this morning. Are you going to marry this guy? They talk about him at school. Laugh about him. Everybody knows he’s brain-damaged from the war.”
“He isn’t brain-damaged!” Isobel was more outraged on Callum’s behalf than she was about her son thinking she’d jump into another marriage. Hell, she was still suffering from the last one. “I think he has PTSD.”
He frowned.
“Post-traumatic stress disorder. It’s when you have mental health problems after you experience something awful, like war.” In truth, she had no idea why Callum was living like a hermit in Nowhere, Scotland. All she knew for certain was that he’d been in the armed forces. And that he had muscles and he knew how to use them. Her cheeks heated again.
“Oh, sick, you’re thinking about him!” Jack pulled open the food cupboard and came out with a family-sized bag of crisps.
Isobel made a mental note to get more snacks. She was always making mental notes to get more snacks. Jack ate enough for ten people, and she could barely keep up. Where he put it all, she didn’t know. He’d stretched up the past year, towering over her now, but he was still pretty much skin and bone. Sometimes it stole her breath just thinking that she had a sixteen-year-old son.
“I don’t want to talk about Callum.” Isobel used her eldest-sister voice, which didn’t seem to work as well on her son. “I’m an adult and have a right to a private life.”
He snorted. “Yeah, right. Can we talk about the freezer in the garage instead? Why’s it suddenly got a padlock on it?”
Isobel groaned and rubbed her temples. She needed aspirin. Lots and lots of it.
“Does it have anything to do with the guys who visit the beach at night?” Jack studied her and didn’t miss her shock.
“What do you know about that?” She’d done her best to shelter him from the things she had to deal with—the boat people, the loan shark, the money problems. Her face hurt from faking a smile twenty-four hours a day.
“First, you asked me to get rid of a strange
bag and not look in it. I looked. Of course I looked. Seriously, mum, did you really think I wouldn’t?”
“Yes. I really thought my son would do what he was told!”
He gave her a pitying look as though she was sorely deluded. “Secondly, I’m a teenager. We don’t sleep at night. I see you sneak out. I know you’re watching the cove.” He stilled. “Unless you’re meeting the weirdo down there.”
“What? No! I barely know Callum. I’m not sneaking out at night to meet him. And don’t call him a weirdo.”
“How come you’re having his baby if you don’t see the guy?”
“I am not pregnant!”
“I can hear you halfway down the street,” Mairi said as she came into the kitchen carrying Sophie. There was chocolate all around the three-year-old’s mouth.
“Where’s m–” Jack started.
“Here.” Mairi smacked a paper bag against his chest. “Bottomless pit. That’s what you have instead of a stomach.” She put Sophie down, and she ran straight at Isobel.
“I’s had a choccy doughnut!” Her grin melted Isobel’s heart as she wrapped her in a tight hug.
