Instant Family (12 page)

"They are," he insisted. "I enjoyed hanging out with them today."

She glanced at him as he held the gate open for her to pass through.
"'Hanging out'? I thought you were all working."

"We were," he said hastily. "But we had to have a rest now and
again."

He pointed the automatic opener at the BMW. Seb and Julian piled
into the backseat. They'd been mightily impressed with his choice of
vehicle. Their own car was an aging Holden with no chance of an upgrade until it completely collapsed. Alex opened Chloe's door for her
and tried not to ogle her legs as she sat down.

"We'll nip down to Jamison first. Pick up some sausages and
drinks."

"What about salad?" Chloe asked. Typical female. Lucy was the
same. Or had been until she married Derek. Derek was a take-out
kind of guy. The greasier and easier his food, the better.

"Relax. I've got plenty at home. We can pick up some tabouleh or
coleslaw, if you'd like. And we'll need bread. What do you guys like
to drink?" He flicked a glance at Julian in the rearview mirror as he
pulled up at the traffic light on Bindubi Street.

"Beer," said Seb, and he laughed.

"No way," declared Chloe right on cue.

"Juice or water will do," said Julian. "Thanks, Alex."

"My pleasure." Alex smiled across at Chloe, who wore her perpetually worried face. "I have a very nice Hunter Valley Riesling in
the fridge at home for us."

"Oh." Her cheeks turned a delicious pink.

"Good thing you're not driving, Chloe. You can get plastered,"
said Seb with a convulsive snort from the backseat.

Alex caught her eye and grinned. To his amazement, she returned
his smile. A sweet, intimate, private smile just for him. A moment
shared and made all the more special because it was the first time he'd
seen her mouth curve just that way to reveal a single dimple in her
cheek. The first time he'd seen her eyes sparkle with genuine amusement. She'd been pretty and attractive and sexy before; now she was
deeply beautiful.

Alex's breath caught somewhere deep in his lungs. Something
shifted. Maybe it was the earth. Maybe it was the planets realigning.
Whatever it was, Chloe Gardiner smiled, and he fell in love.

"Light's green, Alex," called Seb.

"Earth to Alex, Earth to Alex," said Julian in his Texan Mission
Control voice. "Engage gears, depress the lever directly beneath your
right foot, and release the manual retardation system with your left
hand."

Chloe's smile widened before she looked away. Alex jammed the
gearshift into first and roared across the intersection, catching a
glimpse of Julian's grinning face in the mirror.

Alex swung into the parking area and stopped the BMW with a
jaunty flourish. The world dazzled him with its clarity and brightness. The sky was suddenly bluer than before, the puffy white clouds
whiter and puffier than they'd ever been. The Saturday-evening shoppers were his friends, even the ones he didn't know.

He waited for Chloe while the boys piled out of the car and headed
for the entrance. He didn't dare touch her, though his fingers longed
to slide down her bare arm to take her hand and hold it securely in his.
Instead, he walked close enough for his arm to brush hers and send a
shudder of electricity through his body. She edged away, and he smiled
to himself. His secret.

With that one smile Chloe had told him many things. Things Alex
was positive she didn't realize she'd revealed. She'd relaxed, decided
to enjoy their evening together, regarded him as a friend despite
her protestations to the contrary, accepted his friendship with the
twins, wasn't frightened of him, and he wasn't the ogre in the story
anymore. With that came his own realization-he wanted to be the
hero. Her hero.

He glanced at her face in profile. She was gorgeous. She attracted
him like no other woman, including Lucy at the height of their romance. That had been an immature attraction based on the overenthusiastic hormones of a couple of twenty-year-olds and fueled in part by
his father's disapproval. At thirty-one he was wiser, experienced, and
infinitely more cautious if not downright cynical about the existence
of true and lasting love.

This fledgling love exploding upon him in a sunburst was so totally unexpected and so totally out of character, he needed time to
examine it. Time to hold it in the palm of his hand, turn it this way and that and study all the ins and outs of its new, exciting shape. He
couldn't possibly tell Chloe. He couldn't even hint at it, or she'd run
so far and so fast, he'd never get near her again. Look how she'd reacted to the innocuous suggestion that they be friends.

This passion, while it lasted, was doomed to secrecy. But that was
all right. Alex grinned. He could enjoy her company, enjoy seeing
her open like a flower, seeing her smile, and perhaps even hearing her
laugh. He could enjoy learning about her. He wasn't in a hurry to develop a relationship with anyone, and Chloe Gardiner with all her
responsibilities was the least suitable woman to fall for he could
possibly have found.

"What are you laughing at?" she asked. Way ahead the boys had
already grabbed a basket and were heading for the meat section.

He smiled into her eyes, reveling in the soft acceptance of his
presence he saw there. "I'm happy."

"That's nice." She preceded him through the turnstile.

"Aren't you happy?" Her tone had made him frown. "I
mean..." He gestured vaguely. It was a stupid question, really, all things considered. "The kids are healthy, they're smart, and ..."

"In trouble with the police," she finished for him.

"But apart from that. Anyway, it's not all of them."

She shot him a wry look. "I've never thought about whether I'm
happy or not. Haven't had time, I suppose. I think more about
whether the kids are happy"

"I think they are. From what I can tell." He couldn't help himself,
couldn't resist gazing into those gorgeous eyes. "I want to know
about you."

"What sausages are we getting?" Chloe cut him off briskly and deliberately. "And bread, you said. I'll get that while you and the boys
organize the meat"

She strode away, leaving him with his unrequited love and his
unanswered questions and wondering what it would take to release
her from her self-imposed martyrdom to the family. Pondering the
problem, Alex joined the boys, who were busily discussing the merits
of various flavored sausages.

Chloe sat under the new awning and watched Alex and Seb concentrating on the barbecue. Secret men's business-and they took it so seriously. Julian, having arranged plates and cutlery on the wooden
table, wandered about the garden. From over the fence occasional
bursts of childish laughter mingled with adult voices in the warm
evening air.

Alex glanced across and caught her eye. He smiled, and she
grinned back and raised her glass to him. Juice. She'd declined the
Riesling. She liked wine but rarely drank these days. Seb was right
about getting plastered. She mustn't.

"Are you sure I can't do anything?" she called. "I feel guilty doing nothing."

"There's nothing to do," said Alex. "Enjoy your drink."

"And shut up," added Seb.

"Bit of respect, if you don't mind." Alex clicked the barbecue
tongs in Seb's direction. "Julian, nip in and get the salads from the
kitchen, please, mate. We're ready to go here."

Julian hurried across the lawn and bounded up the terrace steps.

Chloe fingered her glass thoughtfully. Both boys seemed very
much at home in Alex's house, and he seemed very comfortable with
them. In control but not like Attila the Hun-more like friends. She
was the outsider, the guest. It was an odd experience, being waited on
like this by Seb and Julian in a house that wasn't their own.

She looked up idly at the cream-colored awning. It was a good
idea. It stretched overhead between two newly erected corner posts
and the house, shielding the terrace from the midday and afternoon
sun but allowing any cooling breeze to waft over the recliners and
diners. Seb and Julian had proudly shown her the concreting they'd
done to anchor the posts while Alex had used the electric drill on the
brick house wall to secure the other two corners. The whole area
smelled of newness-freshly turned earth, newly sawed wood, cement, and paint. Jasmine or maybe a grapevine was going to be trained
up the wooden poles to hide the bareness, Seb said.

She'd hadn't seen him so enthused about anything except sports for
ages. And Julian too. Perhaps Simone was right, and they needed a
masculine role model. If that was the case, who was she to prevent
them from getting to know Alex? Unless it was just a novelty for them
all. School began on Wednesday. Life would return to normal for the
boys, and then she'd be able to judge more accurately the depth of this
relationship.

Julian placed two bowls in front of her. One overflowed with
lettuce, tomato, cucumber, and olives. The other held potato salad,
lightly mixed with mayonnaise and a garnish of fresh parsley. The
fresh rolls they'd bought were already in a basket on the table covered by a tea towel.

"Who made the salads?"

"Alex, before we came to pick you up. I peeled the spuds, though."

"Don't you think I can cook?" asked Alex, setting a platter of
sizzling sausages on the table. The hot-off-the-barbecue aroma set
her mouth watering in anticipation. "Help yourself, Chloe. Dig in,
guys."

Seb and Julian pounced on the food. Chloe speared a fat sausage
with her fork and ferried it to her plate. "I haven't thought about it at
all. But now that I do, I suppose if you live alone, you'd have to learn
to cook something."

Alex smiled. "Steffie stays with me on alternate weekends, but
she has a very limited menu."

"Where does she live the rest of the time?" asked Julian.

"With her mother and stepfather in Giralang."

"Pretty close."

"Yes."

"How long have you been divorced?"

"Seb!"

"What?" He looked at Chloe blankly.

She frowned. "Alex might not want to discuss his private life
with us."

"It's fine, Chloe. There's no secret. Lucy and I split up four years
ago, when Steffie was two. It was pretty much a disaster from the
start, and we never should have gotten married. She's happy now.
Derek's not a bad bloke. He loves Steffie, which is the main thing."

"Half the kids in my class last year were from divorced families,"
said Julian.

"It's sad," said Chloe.

"You are too," pointed out Seb. "Dad was your stepfather."

"But my real father never married Mum, so it's different. Bevan
was the only dad I ever had." She smiled at the boys, and they returned her smile briefly before turning their attention to their food.

Alex watched the brief interaction. How did a man like Bevan
learn to be such a good father? By example? His own father hadn't
set up any guidelines he'd want to follow. Was that why he struggled
with parenting?

"Steffie's coming tomorrow," he said. "Just for the day. She's been
with her aunt in Sydney for the last ten days."

"You must miss her," said Chloe.

"Yes." Her sympathetic tone encouraged him to say, "But it's not
easy coping with a little girl. I don't really understand small childrenwasn't ever very keen on them, to be honest. It's a bit better now that
she's older, but she's definitely better off with her mother. Every now
and then she says she wants to live with me, but-I don't know."

"Bring her over for a swim in our pool," said Seb.

Alex looked swiftly at Chloe for her reaction. She was in midswallow but didn't choke or gag in disgust. "Thanks, Seb. That's very
kind. I'll see what she wants to do. She's having swimming lessons,
so she needs as much practice as she can get."

Chloe said nothing. She sipped her drink and placed the glass
precisely on the table before serving herself more green salad.

"Would you mind?" he asked.

She shook her head slowly. "Half the neighborhood's in our pool
most of the time. Two more won't matter."

"Come anytime," said Seb.

"Thanks. I'll ring you to confirm."

"Congratulations on being a finalist for an award," said Chloe
suddenly.

"Thanks. I'm pretty pleased. It's real recognition." Alex refilled
her glass. She'd relaxed. The worried frown had left her face, and
she smiled readily when he offered her more food.

"What's it for?"

"Housing Industry Awards. I'm up for best private house extension."

It was all he could do not to touch her at every opportunity. The
random, accidental contacts became amazingly monumental in significance. When he reached for the sauce or she leaned across to replace the salad bowl and their arms brushed. When he extended
his left leg under the table and discovered her right foot next to his. Incredible how such slight brushes of bare skin against bare skin
could spark such longing. Incredible how during the meal he'd begun to manufacture innocent-seeming ways of making contact.