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'I'm glad you agree I have some uses,' Clare murmured drily.
David swung around on the piano stool and gave her a sensuous smile that made her regret her unwary words, but he didn't say anything, allowing her own thoughts to put her to blush and laughing softly when she obliged. After his restraint of the last day or so, his teasing warmth had double the impact. She realised suddenly how much she had missed it, even as she had told herself that she was grateful for the respite.
Watching David break down his art into its basic components for her son was indeed a revelation for Clare. For all the vast gap in age and experience, there was a mutual respect between the two that allowed them to communicate as equals. David made no attempt to impose his own highly individualistic style on Tim. When the boy made mistakes, David didn't take over to demonstrate the right way, his way, of doing things, but instead urged Tim to discover for himself how and why he had gone wrong. He was teaching Tim to listen outside himself, to trust his own ear and vision of how the music should be interpreted.
The two serious, absorbed faces, so unalike and yet so similar in that hungry quest for perfection, sent a pang through Clare's breast. She had lost him, she realised, that loving little boy who had nestled against her heart. He didn't need her nearly as much as her maternal jealousy had insisted that he did. Oh, he loved her and clung to her love because he knew it demanded nothing of him, but he was already reaching out for something else, the kind of stimulation and challenge that her efforts to cushion him from further hurt had denied him. She had striven so hard to create a sense of 'normality' for him, to make up for the loss of his father and his feelings of alienation. But Tim was not normal, and never would be. Perhaps only someone as special as David was could truly show him where he fitted in, could guide him to fulfilment.
She felt exhausted by her inner turmoil by the end of the intense session. A tiny voice of protest questioned her sudden about-face. Was it David Deverenko's personal magnetism that was swaying her, or reasoned judgement? Tim was still the same boy he had been a week ago when she had still been rock-certain of the wisdom of her guardianship, so was it Clare who had changed? David not only had her doubting her worth as a mother, but also re-evaluating herself as a woman whose feelings hadn't been buried with her husband. Moonlight, which had been a haven and home for eighteen months, was now taking on the inexorable shape of a trap with David Deverenko as the tasty, tempting morsel of cheese! If she took the bait, what then? What—or who—did he really want? And could she face it if it wasn't her? If she continued to reject his professional advice about Tim, would he disappear from her life as suddenly as he had appeared?
'Well, do you approve of my methods?' David murmured quietly as Tim packed away his violin after doing a few wind-down exercises. 'Perhaps I'm not the whip-cracking autocrat you expected me to be, mmm? It is Tim who sets the pace, not the teacher. A good teacher merely responds and guides. A good teacher also knows when a student has outstripped her.'
Clare stood up jerkily. 'Are you talking about Cheryl?'
'She admits it herself.'
'Then why hasn't she said anything to me?'
'She was unsure how to approach you. She knows how protective you are of the boy, and she knows that you have no desire to move away from Moonlight. That rather limits the options, wouldn't you say?'
Clare's fists clenched with the effort of restraining her temper, all too conscious of Tim's presence. Her voice was low and defensive. 'I suppose I've no need to ask which option you favour? After all, that's why you're here, isn't it?'
'It was certainly the reason I came,' he admitted, his murmur an octave below hers as he moved closer. The warmth of the central heating suddenly seemed stifling as his broad shoulders blocked out Clare's view of Tim, making her feel isolated, the sole focus of all that masculine warmth. 'But now I'm here, I'm discovering another, equally compelling reason to stay…'
Clare took a breathless step back, and his dark eyes narrowed with predatory satisfaction as he caught her hand and carried it to his lips to caress it silkily with his breath.
'I'm not normally a patient man, Clare, but I made an exception in your case. It looks as if that was a mistake. You're very adept at avoiding reality. I think you've become spoiled in this little peaceful niche of yours. Well, this time reality has come to you, and I won't let you hide from it.'
'What are you kissing Mum's hand for?' Tim came up alongside them before Clare could pull her hand away.
David didn't take his eyes off her. 'Because your mother's too shy to let me kiss her on the mouth.'
'You want to kiss her?' Tim frowned at him. 'Are you in love?' He turned the possibility over doubtfully in his mind.
Clare's eyes sparkled defiantly. Let him get out of that one! Her hands flexed helplessly in his steady grasp. David didn't seem in the least embarrassed by the question.
'I don't know. I find your mother very attractive. Men and women kiss each other for a number of reasons, Tim; love is only one of them. A kiss can be a very serious expression of affection, or it can be for fun.'
Tim wrinkled his nose. 'Who'd want to kiss girls for fun?' He sounded so disgusted that even Clare had to smile. David chuckled, relaxing his vigilance enough so that she could at last slip her hand from his.
'It's a purely adult concept of fun. I'm sure you'll learn to appreciate it as you mature.'
'You're talking about sex.' To Clare's further amusement, David actually pinkened as his condescension rebounded on him.
'I take it your mother's taught you about the birds and the bees,' he said when he had recovered from his momentary speechlessness.
Tim looked at him in askance. 'That's not about sex. Birds and bees can't mate—they're two different species. Only two of the same species can produce babies. That's how I was born. My—'
'Er—yes.' David cut Tim off before he could air the extent of his precocious knowledge, casting a darkling glance at Clare's suspiciously straight face that promised revenge. There was no stopping Tim once he was determined to home in on a subject of interest, and his curiosity about where babies come from had stemmed from the birth of some puppies that he had witnessed. Clare's edited lecture about sex had not been enough for Tim. He had insisted on knowing all the details which, once absorbed, had provided the basis for a school project about the origin of the species. To Tim, sex was just one tiny cog in a far greater diagram of the machinery of life on earth. 'I think we're straying off the subject here a bit, Tim,' David chose his words more carefully this time. 'What I'm trying to say is that I would like your mother and I to be friends, and to do that I need to get to know her as a person. How would you feel if she and I ate out tomorrow night?'
'Outside? In winter? Isn't it a bit cold and dark?' Tim looked dubiously out the window.
His instant literal interpretation of David's words was very revealing. David hid the satisfied gleam in his hooded eyes as he explained to Tim the alien concept of dating. 'No, I meant that I want to take your mother out to a restaurant in Rotorua, just the two of us.'
Clare opened her mouth, but Tim beat her to it. 'Why?'
'To… talk.'
