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‘Fine. All right, then, I’ll go get them, since I’m not good enough,’ Lizzie replied, slouching off and looking a lot less perky.
It took a good five minutes, while Halle stared at the view of her empty study and ignored the couple at the end of the porch still staring into each other’s eyes with goofy expressions on their faces. And shoved the problem of how she was going to invent enough convincing anecdotes of a whole book tour of the US without gagging on her guilt into Future Halle’s domain.
The sound of a hissed conversation off-screen neatly sidetracked the guilt as her mum’s alarm bells began to buzz. Was that Lizzie and Aldo she could hear? What were they whispering about so furiously? And where was Trey?
Then Aldo popped into view and sat on the chair, followed by Lizzie, who perched on the arm and slung her arm over Aldo’s shoulders. Which was even weirder—their body language hadn’t been that friendly since Aldo was six.
‘Hey, Mum,’ Aldo said. ‘Lizzie told me to tell you I’m good.’
Told me to tell you … The alarm bells got louder. ‘That’s great, honey. Is everything OK?’
‘Yes, Mum, but …’
Lizzie nudged his shoulder. Hard. And he stopped talking.
‘But what, honey?’ Halle prompted.
Aldo stared at his sister, then turned back to her. ‘But nothing, Mum. Everything’s good.’
‘Are you sure?’ she said, suddenly feeling like a hostage negotiator. Her mum’s alarm bells were going bonkers. ‘How about at school?’
Maybe something had happened and they were trying to keep it quiet. She felt an odd burst of pleasure at the thought. While she certainly hoped Aldo hadn’t punched anyone, it would be wonderful to see Lizzie and Aldo being co-conspirators again. As they had been when Aldo was little. As Luke had suggested they still might be.
The thought of Luke brought with it the memory of a muscular arm around her waist and the musk of warm sexually satisfied male that had enveloped her when she woke up. Heat blazed into her cheeks. And she nearly dropped the iPhone.
‘Yes, Mum.’ Aldo rolled his eyes and stretched the syllables with the harassed patience of a bored ten-year-old. ‘But Marcus Ellis is still a total dick.’
‘Ignore him,’ she said on autopilot. ‘So what were you building on Minecraft?’
‘Huh?’
The alarm bells kicked off again, but before she could question Aldo further, Lizzie leaned across him. ‘Listen, Mum, we’ve got to go. Happy signing. Don’t get any hand cramps. Bye.’
‘Wait a …’ she began, but she was already staring at a blank screen where her children had been, her mum’s alarm bells now sounding off like the cannon fire finale from the 1812 Overture.
She made two more Skype calls, with no answer. Then tried Trey’s mobile and got no joy there, either. Finally forced to give up, she left Romeo and Juliet on the porch giggling like besotted teenagers and headed back down the path towards the cabins.
Each step she took, though, brought with it a rising tide of dismay … and apprehension. But her predicament as a mother, whose kids were clearly hiding something from her, paled in comparison to the much bigger problem posed by the man probably still lying sound asleep in her bed back at the cabin.
She had four days left at the resort, in the company of a man who was as irresistible to her now as he had been twenty years ago.
Four days that, according to Monroe’s very helpful brochure, would involve spending ‘quality time rebuilding the bonds of intimacy’.
I.e.: four days of waking up with Luke’s muscular arms around her. Four days of playing house with him. Four days of discovering even more about the fascinating man he had become. Four days of having his crazy new sex skills and magnificent penis entirely at her disposal. And four days of struggling against all the odds to stop from getting struck by lightning a second time.
Because what were the chances of her coming out of the next four days with her sane, perfectly happy, well-ordered and successful life intact, given the effect he’d already had on her?
On last night’s damning evidence, not a lot, frankly.
Turning round on the path, she took out her phone and hurried back towards the reception building, prepared to give free rein to her mum’s alarms bells, if they would just drown out the siren call of her still needy, still misguided and still stupidly reckless heart.
Luke gazed out onto Halle’s porch, the forest canopy giving the midday sun a muted glow. Kind of like the persistent glow in his nuts. That had been going most of the
night.
Halle had snuck out a good hour ago. He’d been half awake, his dick getting way ahead of itself as he listened to her skulking around the bedroom. But she’d gone before his consciousness had a chance to catch up with the call for action, leaving him to drift back to sleep, only to wake up again hard as an iron spike courtesy of the scorching-hot memories of their night together and the cloud of her scent that clung to the sheets.
Fully awake now, he levered himself up in bed and tried to get his head around exactly what had happened last night.
