Single Dads Collection. Lynne Marshall
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and Dee tactfully started to pack things away in preparation for the return journey. They didn’t raise enquiring or teasing eyebrows in his direction or shoot him sidelong glances. He loved them for the space they gave him, the way they respected his privacy. He’d neglected them this last year and they’d borne it without complaint. He would never be able to thank them enough for their patience.
It didn’t mean he could move to help them clean up now, though. It didn’t mean he could think of anything to say to ease the situation.
I wish you were my mummy. The words froze him all over again. His temples throbbed. His eyes ached. All he could do was stare at Nicola and pray that …
What? That she could make this right?
I wish you were my mummy. He swallowed the bile that burned acid in his throat.
He had no idea how Nicola managed to maintain her composure, but she did, and while it was true that colour heightened her cheeks, she didn’t stumble as she explained to Ella that the kiss the child had witnessed had only been a friendly kiss and that she and Daddy were just good friends. She didn’t laugh at Ella, which would’ve cut the child to the quick. He was seized with a sudden fierce desire to hug her for her easy, confident manner with his daughter. With both his daughters.
‘But I don’t want you to leave Waminda!’ Ella suddenly wailed.
A chill trickled down his spine. He should’ve seen this coming—the fact that Ella might form an attachment to her temporary nanny. He should’ve taken it into account, but he’d been too hell-bent on ensuring Christmas went off without a hitch to have considered the possibility.
Perspiration prickled his scalp, his nape, his top lip. After Fran’s desertion, it was a possibility he should’ve considered. He’d left Ella open for rejection, not just by one woman, but by two. His hands clenched. His jaw clenched. He wanted to throw his head back and howl at the mess he’d made of things.
‘I love it at Waminda too.’ Nicola’s voice sounded clear and harmonious in the evening air. It filtered through the furore raging in his mind and somehow helped to soothe it, though he didn’t know how.
‘But you always knew I had to go back to my home in Melbourne. I have to go back to see my mother and my friends … and I have to go back to my job, remember?’
‘As a schoolteacher.’ Ella nodded, evidently proud that she’d remembered.
‘But it doesn’t mean we can’t be best friends for ever, though, does it? We can write to each other—letters and emails. That’ll be fun, don’t you think?’
Ella nodded again. And then she straightened and started to bounce. ‘We could Skype!’
His four-year-old had recently discovered the joys of the Internet and particularly Skype. His lips twisted. He could forsee a Skype addiction in the future. But suddenly that didn’t seem so bad, because Ella wasn’t crying or traumatised by the thought of Nicola’s departure from Waminda.
Nicola had managed to quieten Ella’s fears and at the same time pump up the little girl’s confidence with an ease he couldn’t believe. It occurred to him then that she might have foreseen a moment like this, and had come up with a plan that she’d implemented so smoothly nobody’s feelings were hurt and all seemed right with the world. Only …
In another three weeks, Nicola would leave Waminda, and that suddenly seemed very, very wrong.
He shot to his feet and immediately set about helping with the general clearing up and packing away. They always made an effort to leave the lake and surrounding as untouched as they could.
I wish you were my mummy.
The words burned like a brand. His gaze drifted to Ella and Nicola and his heart clenched at the way Ella rested against Nicola with all the trust in her four-year-old heart. And at the way Nicola held the child as if she were the most precious thing in the world.
Ella deserved a mother—a woman who would love her and provide her with a role model.
Nicola deserved the family, the children her heart craved.
Daddy, you could marry Nic.
The insidious thought slid under his guard and chafed at him. He tried to shake it off. It was a crazy idea.
I saw you kissing her.
His mouth dried. There was no doubt whatsoever that he enjoyed kissing her. No doubt whatsoever that he’d like to do a whole lot more than kiss her.
But marry her?
He shook his head with a muttered curse and set about packing the car.
Cade, Nicola, Ella and Holly—with a little help from Nicola—waved at the plane as it took off into endless and cloudless blue sky.
Ella slipped her hand inside Cade’s. ‘I’ll miss Grandma, Daddy.’
‘Me too.’ It took him a moment to drag his gaze from the way Nicola kissed Holly’s crown and then made her giggle by tickling her. He forced himself to smile down at Ella. ‘But she’ll visit again soon,’ he assured her, ushering them back to the car and helping Ella with her seat belt while Nicola strapped Holly into her car seat.
‘She said she’d visit for my birthday.’
He nodded as he started the car and turned it in the direction of the homestead. Dee was going to do her best to bring the boys back for a couple of days then too. He hoped he’d be able to return the favour and take Ella and Holly to visit for the twins’ birthdays later in the year.
‘Nic, can you come back for my birthday?’
Nicola stiffened. If he hadn’t been so finely attuned to her every movement he’d have missed it, it was so fleeting. But he was attuned. And he didn’t miss it.
He glanced at her sharply, but she barely met his gaze as she turned to talk to Ella in the back seat. ‘When’s your birthday, sweetie?’
‘Um … Daddy?’
‘The eleventh of March.’
Nicola shook her head. ‘That’s in term time so I won’t be able to make it.’
In the rear-vision mirror he watched the joy leach from Ella’s face.
‘But it doesn’t mean I can’t come to visit in holiday time … or that I can’t send you a present,’ she added on a teasing note.
Both assurances made Ella brighten, but they didn’t satisfy him. ‘What about Easter?’ he found himself demanding. ‘Could you come then?’
She met his gaze but he couldn’t read her expression and he had to drag his attention back to the dusty track before he drove over a mulga bush or fallen log or large rock and ripped a hole in the fuel tank or tore the muffler from the car.
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘You have plans?’ He couldn’t let it go.
‘I do.’
There was nothing left to say after that.
Something dragged Cade from the depths of sleep. He sat up in bed and tried to shake the fog from his brain so he could identify what had woken him.
Crying … Holly …
He was on his feet in an instant and stumbling in the direction of the nursery.
He paused in the doorway. Nicola was already there. She had Holly in her arms and was walking her up and down singing a low lullaby. He noticed the bottle of baby medicine on the nightstand.
When she turned to walk back towards the doorway and saw him, she shot him a smile that reassured him there was nothing seriously wrong with his youngest daughter. In time and tune to her lullaby, she sang, ‘We’re teething, Daddy, and it’s not very comfortable.’
Holly’s