AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘It’s early. Seven o’clock.’ She put his arm back where she’d found it.
‘We’re okay for another couple of hours, then. Ava never surfaces before ten on a Sunday and Mum and Dad like a lie-in too.’
‘So they won’t catch us here.’
‘No. No one’ll catch us. Go back to sleep. I’ll go and get some coffee.’
She laughed sleepily. ‘Bet you spill it, climbing back up again.’
‘You want coffee up here?’ Lucas had intended to set the table in the kitchen and cook breakfast for her.
‘Of course I do.’
‘Then I’ll just have to be careful, won’t I?’ Lucas untangled himself from her limbs, tucking the quilt around her, and found his shoes. While the coffee was brewing, he’d find the booking form for that conference in India and put it in his briefcase. He’d need to get that off on Monday morning if he was to be sure of a place.
* * *
Fresh coffee and warm croissants, in a tree, on a warm, bright Sunday morning. And Lucas to shake her gently awake again. If that wasn’t heaven, Thea didn’t know what was.
She sat up on the cushions they’d slept on, straightened her T-shirt and ran her fingers through her hair, almost expecting to find it tumbling down her back, the way it once had.
‘When did you cut your hair?’ He was watching her thoughtfully.
‘When I got back from Bangladesh. Do you hate it?’
‘No. I hate the reason you cut it. I hate the reason that you wear grey all the time when red suits you better.’
‘I wore red last night.’
‘Yeah. Do you regret that?’
She knew what he was asking, and it wasn’t about the dress. ‘No. I don’t regret one minute of last night.’
‘Me neither.’ He flopped back onto the cushions, surveying the branches above his head.
‘What’s that?’ Lucas had changed his creased shirt for a T-shirt when he’d gone to make the coffee. She could see a thin blue line tracing out from under one of the sleeves.
He grinned. ‘I indulge
d in a little body art. While you weren’t looking.’
‘How many?’ Thea bit back the temptation to ask where. That might well turn into something she couldn’t handle at the moment.
‘Two. Both here.’ He laid his hand on the top of his arm.
She breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Well, what is it, then? An anchor? Sea serpents? Let’s see it.’
He sat up and pulled at the sleeve of his T-shirt. ‘That’s really nice.’ Thea didn’t usually go for tattoos, but this one was tasteful and understated. A curved design, with roman numerals in the centre. She ran one finger across them and felt the muscle flex at her touch.
‘Is that a date?’
‘Fifteenth of May. It’s Ava’s birthday. When I first adopted her, she tested me, all the time. Wanted to know that I wasn’t going anywhere. One of the things that she threw at me was that I’d forgotten her birthday the previous year and turned up with a present a week late. I promised I wouldn’t do that again, but she said that was easy to say.’
‘So you had her birthday tattooed on your arm.’
‘Seemed like an idea at the time. Of course, I hadn’t reckoned on her wanting one too. She was only seven.’
Thea choked with laughter. ‘What did you say?’
