Winter Beginnings Page 7

  So developing a crush on the man who was the source of her primary income was unspeakably foolish.

  Alice poured the steaming water between two mugs, stirred coffee and sugar into both, and drew a steadying breath before she trusted herself to return.

  When she walked back into the reception area, Dean reached for his coffee with damp, clean hands—washed, no doubt, in the small sink just outside the door.

  ‘It’s black with two sugars,’ she said, feeling suddenly shy and unsure of herself. ‘But I can change it—’

  ‘That’s perfect. Thanks.’ His smiling eyes followed her as she sat opposite him. When she was settled, he leaned forward in his seat. ‘I was wondering if I could trouble you for some advice?’

  She curled her fingers through the ceramic handle, thinking that none of the mugs here matched, just like at her house. She nodded and blew on her coffee.

  ‘I have this customer. Les Marks. He’s a regular.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘The thing is, he visits so regularly that I’m running out of things to do.’

  She kept her eyes on his, but she was still aware of the long, thick lines of him. The way he filled the chair and how small the mug looked nestled in the palm of his big hand. ‘How do you mean?’ she asked.

  ‘Les loves his Impala kind of like the way I love my kids, and he brings her in for a service every two months.’

  ‘Does he drive long distances?’

  ‘No.’ He waited as she considered what this meant. ‘I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve changed the oil, tensioned the fan belts and checked the tyres. The old man’s wasting his money.’

  ‘Have you told him this?’

  ‘I tell him every time I see him. He’s retired, he drives as far as the local bowling green, and I’m worried he’s going to send himself broke, but he waves me off and keeps rolling up.’ He made a wide sweeping gesture with his free hand then slumped back in his seat and drank, brows drawn together.

  For a moment, they watched each other over the rims of their mugs.

  Beautiful and morally sound, she thought. Maybe he could be both friend and employer. She said, ‘If you’ve told him, then he knows what he’s doing. Maybe it’s peace of mind. Maybe he doesn’t have anyone else to spoil with his money. It could be as simple as liking a routine and having something to look forward to.’

  Dean made a soft, considering sort of sound in the back of his throat. ‘You may be right. You know, that’s his car out there now. I swear I’ve done little more than poke at it for the last twenty minutes.’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t charge him for a service; it’s not right.’

  ‘So don’t. Have you tried giving him a firm next-service date?’

  ‘Often.’

  She laughed softly. ‘Then charge him or don’t charge him on a case-by-case basis.’

  They drank in silence again. The caffeine was elbowing ahead of Alice’s fatigue, overwhelming it, but with one work shift soon to finish and another soon to start, this was only the latest in what was sure to be many more coffees today.

  She wanted to sleep for a week. Pull the covers over her head and give the overworked battery inside her its first full charge in months. Years, even. Alice had juggled two jobs for a long time, but this was her toughest stint yet. Ben was old enough to be left at home now, however much she didn’t like it, which meant that she’d taken on longer hours, and more often.

  Whenever she could, she did something fun with Ben, but the money hadn’t been stretching far lately—the cost of living was steadily climbing and Ben was always needing one thing or the other.

  She needed to prioritise a haircut. Another couple of weeks and he’d be able to tie a fistful of his hair back with an elastic band.

  ‘You okay?’ The question was gentle, spoken quietly.

  Schedules, obligations and pressures tumbled and skittered out of her mind, and a few quick blinks brought Dean back into focus. ‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Anything I can do to help?’

  ‘I thought we were talking about Les.’

  ‘We were. And then you started worrying about everything that needs doing in the world.’

  Looking at his face, she wondered how it could be that a long-ago school acquaintance, a dirty mechanic and single father, could read her so easily. He saw things others hadn’t taken the time to notice, and wanted to help her without knowing what he was volunteering for. It felt … foreign. And nice. More nice than foreign, she thought, weighing them in her mind.

  There was no point in denying what was so clearly on her face, so she nodded. ‘True. But now I’m back.’

  ‘Well, thanks for your advice.’

  ‘Anytime.’ And she meant it. Sitting across from Dean this way, talking like old friends—it was something time had been too pinched to allow her for so long.

  His lips curved devilishly. ‘Careful, say that and I may make a habit of this.’ He lifted his mug in the air, a small salute to the moment, then turned in his seat at the sound of laughter and hurried footsteps. ‘Sounds like we’re back on the clock—that’ll be our kids.’

  Chapter 9

  ‘You’re going camping?’ Ben made the question—more whine than wonder—last seconds. He flung his spaghetti arms over the reception counter and blinked owlishly at Dean. The shoulders and arms of his jacket were wet with recent rain, and his cheeks were flushed from the cold. Behind him, Rowan and Nina were hurriedly stripping off their winter layers now that they were within the furnace Alice called her office, but Ben didn’t appear to have noticed the sudden tropical climate.

  ‘I love camping,’ he said, and now his tone was almost savage. Accusatory.

  Dean registered the boy’s feelings of exclusion, but didn’t know how to respond. An invitation would put a smile back on Ben’s face, but Dean couldn’t offer him one—not when he hadn’t passed the idea by Ben’s mother, and he wouldn’t do that now with all these wide eyes watching.

  He opted for distraction. ‘Where’ve you camped, buddy?’

  Ben pushed his nose onto the reception counter and muttered something sullen, and the blossoming conversation died.

  Alice looked between Ben and Dean, and shrugged. She tugged a piece of paper from beneath Ben’s elbow and stapled it to another piece of paper.

  Nina opened her arms for a hug, and Dean obliged. He squatted, smushed her against him until she giggled and wriggled free, then he pivoted towards his son.

  Rowan punched Dean playfully in the arm, then took a single step back.

  Dean laughed, but through a tightening felt low in his gut. It was an unpleasant, unbalancing thing that made him want to sink onto the floor and hold his middle. Were they past reunion hugs now?

  Rowan seemed to be asking himself the same thing. His eyes searched his father’s face, and Dean wanted to offer him whatever it was he was looking for. A moment passed, and then Rowan must have found it, because then he was leaning against Dean’s chest and snaking his arms around Dean’s shoulders.

  Dean hugged him back. He propped his chin on Rowan’s little shoulder and closed his eyes until the boy was done.

  Another day, he thought, pushing himself to his feet and tousling Ro’s hair. At least one more day of this, before Ro got too old to hug his old man hello. Where did the time go? And how did he slow it down?

  ‘Was it fun?’ Ro asked Ben. ‘What’d you do?’

  Ben straightened and a little of the sulk went out of his mouth. ‘We went fishing, and we cooked our dinner over the fire and we ate marshmallows and we told ghost stories.’ He was smiling now. ‘It was really cool. And Mum had to pee in a hole, it was hilarious.’

  ‘Thanks for sharing that,’ Alice said, but she was smiling too. She turned in her chair and began filing the day’s paperwork into the beat-up filing cabinet that was older than she was. It groaned when she opened it, and sagged beneath decades of records Dean hadn’t thought about since they’d been put there.

  De
an was surprised. Not that a boy had found Alice needing to pee in a hole hilarious, but that she’d been there at all. She didn’t look like the kind of woman who’d sniff at the great outdoors, but nor did she look like the type to hitch up her sleeves and pitch a tent. Ben’s father hadn’t been in the picture for years, so had it just been the two of them? Mother and son amongst the wild, catching their dinner beneath the big country sky?

  His imagination conjured a third silhouette around the fire—indistinct but unmistakably male. It sat between the pair, one arm around each of them. Dean forced the image to distort then fade. If there had been another man there, that was no business of his.

  Nevertheless, Dean had an idea.

  It no longer seemed so laughable to invite Alice along, just as Cal had suggested. Mother and son clearly had good memories, they were still smiling across the room at one another. And they were all friends here, hadn’t that been confirmed moments before the kids had barrelled into their conversation?

  ‘You should come.’

  These had been the very words building on Dean’s tongue, but they’d come from Rowan’s lips. Ro looked from Ben to Alice, and he seemed to see her differently now. She was no longer just a mum, she was … what, an adventurer? A wildcard?

  Dean didn’t realise his mouth was open until Nina copied his expression.

  Alice was looking over her shoulder at him. She raised a single eyebrow.

  ‘You should,’ he said, blessedly remembering how to speak.

  She smiled and looked away. Her fingers had never stopped working on the little pile of papers before her.

  ‘Anyone’s welcome,’ he went on. It wasn’t a closed invite, he didn’t want her to feel like she was intruding. ‘It sounds like you have the gear and I probably have anything you’re missing.’

  A bald-faced lie. Dean didn’t own so much as a sleeping bag, but he would by the time the weekend rolled around. Pretending he’d done all this before made him sound free-spirited, and he wanted to sound free-spirited to her.

  Alice finished filing then turned in her seat. He saw the no in the angle of her shoulders before he saw the apology in her eyes. The hazy vision that had been building in his mind of their silhouettes beside the fire went up in smoke.

  ‘That’s nice of you,’ she said.

  She was interrupted by Ben’s moan. He’d clearly heard those words spoken in that way enough times to know things weren’t going to go his way.

  She cast a stern look at him, which silenced him, then looked back at Dean. ‘But we can’t.’

  Dean didn’t point out that he hadn’t told her when they were going, he just nodded.

  Her answer wasn’t surprising, of course. Fledgling friendship aside, they didn’t really know each other. Their kids had recently been at odds and he was her boss. Even without her there, she was too new to Dean’s family to trust them all with her only son. It hadn’t been fair to put her on the spot like this, now she was the bad guy.

  Ben glowered at his mother. There was perspiration on his brows because he was still wearing his winter gear, but it made for a convenient exit. He was able to turn on his heel and stride outside without having to pause and dress. The wind swirled in with greedy fingers and made the posters snap and the papers dance, then the door closed and everything sagged back into place.

  Nina resumed her new game of staring with her mouth open. Rowan snickered, looked at his father, then pretended to cough.

  Alice did not react. In fact, she’d mastered such a complete absence of reaction that Dean guessed she was well-practiced at Ben’s abrupt departures. He wondered what that meant. Ben wasn’t a spoilt kid; he had good manners and maybe there was a little too much time between haircuts, but he didn’t seem to want for the essentials. He was mostly happy. He clearly adored his mother, and now Dean knew that they went on adventures together. So why was Ben acting like this moment was the latest in a series of disappointments?

  Alice lifted her handbag from the bottom drawer of her desk then stood. When she reached for the mug he’d been drinking from before the kids had arrived, he realised she meant to wash it before following her son outside.

  A friend wouldn’t have bothered. An employee …

  He lunged forward and cupped his hand over it before she could reach it. She drew her hand back, startled.

  ‘I’ll do these,’ he said, and nodded at the second mug near her keyboard. ‘See you tomorrow.’

  She hesitated, then dipped her chin in a tight nod. She retrieved her jacket, shuffled into it, then shouldered the straps of her handbag.

  ‘The heater’s on a timer, but turn it off if it’s making anyone uncomfortable.’

  If anything, this departure was making Dean uncomfortable.

  She looked like she could sleep where she stood. She carried her fatigue in the slackness of her shoulders and the droop of her eyelids. She might have gone home and relaxed, but now she was going into combat instead.

  He leaned towards her, over the desk. ‘I’m sorry about this. I was going to speak to you privately.’

  ‘It’s done,’ she said simply. And left.

  Dean looked between Nina and Rowan, who were infinitely less bothered by that moment than he was.

  ‘I bet they get takeaway,’ Ro said. ‘She’s too mad to cook.’

  Dean could see Nina thinking about this, then she glanced at Dean with building mischief.

  He pointed at her. ‘If you make me mad, I’ll make you cook.’

  * * *

  ‘We don’t know them well enough,’ Alice said. Her eyes were on the road, on the wide country bends slick with rain beneath a sky smudged with low cloud, but her mind was on the weekend. ‘When it’s been more than a few weeks—’

  ‘You still won’t be able to go,’ Ben grumbled. His arms were crossed so tight over his chest he looked like he was holding himself together. He stared out the passenger window, his body turned from her.

  Alice was confused. Was he mad that he couldn’t go, or was he mad that she couldn’t?

  True, if they’d had a few months under their belt and Alice had a better measure of the men who’d so recently re-entered their lives, she would have said he could go. But Alice wouldn’t have gone. Alice would never be able to go, because people camped on weekends, and she worked on them.

  So was this about camping, or was it about her jobs again?

  She tested this new theory.

  ‘I’ll make it up to you,’ she said.

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw Ben’s shoulders loosen with sudden interest.

  ‘I’ll take a weekend off,’ she went on, ‘and we’ll go camping again.’

  She wouldn’t really take a weekend off—she had a spiteful shift manager who would tell her she couldn’t be spared, or worse, assign her less convenient shifts to punish her. She would call in sick. Quietly, away from the keen ears of the boy she was trying to be a good example for.

  Ben turned in his seat. ‘This weekend?’

  There was a wedding on Saturday night with a guest list teetering on two hundred. She couldn’t call in sick this weekend, not in good conscience. Also, if she called in sick this weekend Ben would want to go camping with the Fosters. Her availability didn’t change how little she knew Dean and his entourage. She didn’t want to be testing the water from a camp chair in country-nowhere.

  ‘Not this weekend,’ she said, and decreased the wiper speed. The rain was passing. ‘I’ve already been assigned my shifts. But soon. As soon as the weather’s good.’

  Ben looked up as if he might find a calendar in the sky.

  They drove the rest of the way in silence; Ben brooding, and Alice trying to think how she could get to know her boss a little better, while still keeping him at arm’s length. How exactly was she supposed to encourage such a one-sided relationship? She needed Dean to open up enough that she felt she could trust him with her son, but her life, her business—that needed to stay off-limits. But if Ben got closer to Rowan and Nina
, what then? Did she ask her son to lie for her? Of course not.

  If Ben kept walking home with the Foster kids, it was only a matter of days before everyone knew she was leading a double life.

  She was on borrowed time. The people of Denman were designed to share, it was in the fabric of their DNA. The first thing Dean had said when they’d had lunch together was ‘tell me about yourself’, the second thing had been, ‘where’s Ben’s dad?’

  Did Alice honestly believe that she could hoard this secret?

  Maybe as her friend, Dean would understand. If not as a friend, maybe as a single parent. A single parent of two kids. He would know about the limitations of a single income, about needing to do a million different things, and be a million different things for his family. Failing friendship and empathy, maybe he would understand because he was a decent human being.

  The man who had fired her for daring to have a second job had not been a decent human being. Yes, she had lied to her employer. That was on her. And yes, she was lying to her employer again … Alice cringed.

  Was she creating a cycle?

  Yes, she decided, she was, and she resolved to break it.

  She’d find a way to please everybody, herself included. Ben would have his friends and his weekend getaways, Dean would have an honest employee, and she would sleep better at night knowing she wasn’t in danger of being ‘discovered’.

  When they pulled into the driveway and parked, Ben gathered his things together and stepped from the car without speaking. He didn’t slam the door, but he didn’t look back at her either as he strode across the gravel to let himself inside the house.

  Alice let her shoulders drop and her back curve. She pressed herself into the driver’s seat, her eyes on the front door, and wondered what she’d do if Dean asked her to choose.