Chapter Three

As usual, it was Molly who was jumping up and down at the front door, school bag on her shoulder, shoes on her feet, all ready to go. Kat was still brushing her teeth.

“Mum, we’ll be late. Hurry up.”

Kat cringed and shoved her toothbrush back into the holder. Since when did five, very nearly six-year-old children have to shout at their mother to get them to school on time? How embarrassing. It didn’t seem to matter how early Kat set her alarm clock, she had this chronic inability to be ready on time. It wasn’t just in the morning, either. Her friends had grown to accept that they had to tell her to meet up at least fifteen minutes before they wanted her. That way she usually, give or take five minutes, arrived at an acceptable time. The trouble was, she’d now got it into her head they were doing that, and had started to mentally add the extra fifteen minutes onto the time she had to be there.

“Mum!”

Darting into her wardrobe, she grabbed the first pair of shoes she found and was running down the stairs before she realized that today Jake the carpenter was coming into school. She needed her heels. When he towered over her, he intimidated her slightly, and she wasn’t having that. Putting vanity before punctuality, she scooted back upstairs to find her high black patent shoes. They even went well with the dark grey skirt she wore. Bonus.

“About time.” Molly stared pointedly at her when she finally arrived at the door.

“I’ve got a feeling this conversation should be the other way round,” Kat replied dryly, giving her daughter a quick kiss on the top of her head. “Come on then, what are you waiting for? Get in the car or we’ll be late.”

Molly rolled her eyes at her before dashing outside to open the door of the cute little sports car that was Kat’s pride and joy. Not having a man in her life wasn’t the path she would have chosen, but as it seemed to be her destiny, she figured she might as well enjoy the occasional benefits. Having a two-seater sports car was one of them.

“Is that man coming to school today to talk about the new climbing frame?” Molly asked as they weaved their way through the quiet country lanes to the school.

It was only a five-minute journey, one they probably should walk, but as she barely made it to school on time as it was, adding an extra half an hour to their morning schedule wasn’t going to work.

“Mr. Holroyd you mean? Yes, he is. I hope you’ve got some ideas to give him. He was very insistent on finding out what you all wanted before he started designing one.”

Molly nodded. “I thought he looked nice. Nice but a bit sad.”

Kat glanced quickly over at her daughter. They often said children were a good judge of character. Molly seemed to have summed the dishy carpenter up just right.

“Well, let’s hope we don’t have to add frustrated, confused, or annoyed to that description after you’ve all finished talking to him.”

****

Jake studied the small chair he’d been given to sit on and then looked over at the group of children in front of him.

“What do you think?” he asked them. “Will it hold my weight?”

His question was met with a pleasing flood of giggles. Jake liked children. It might have been a while ago now, nearly thirty years since he’d been the age of some of those in front of him now, but he could still remember being a child. Those had been good times. Even now he found children much easier to talk to than many grown-ups. They didn’t pry, didn’t judge. And he pretty much always knew exactly what they were thinking.

“If you like, I’ll get you a chair from the office.” The lady who had introduced herself as Angela smiled over in his direction. Jake had to admit to a keen sense of disappointment that the pretty headmistress wasn’t around this morning. He’d set himself up to meeting her again, determined to show her he was, actually, a levelheaded person. When he wasn’t fleeing her school on the verge of tears, that was. Sadly it had been Angela who’d greeted him, and Angela who stood with him now in the library. Along with a group of noisy, expectant children.

“No, don’t worry.” He nodded his thanks toward the office manager. “It’ll probably be easier if I stand and draw on the whiteboard.” Walking up to the board, he took out a marker pen and proceeded to draw a basic swing. “Does this look about right for you?”

Again there were giggles. “Nah. It’s not got a slide.”

“Do you all want a slide?” he asked.

There was a loud murmur of agreement. “But not a straight one.”

Jake looked over to the owner of the voice, and recognized the head’s daughter from yesterday. “Ah, Molly, isn’t it?” She nodded, her curls bobbing around her face. “How would you like your slide to look?”

“Curved, with a cover so the leaves don’t get on it.”

“You mean like a tube?” He sketched it out on the board.

Gradually he got them to add to the sketch, shouting out all their ideas, arguing when he put things in the wrong place, laughing when he deliberately drew something silly. The time flew as he interacted with the group, feeding off their enthusiasm. By the time he’d finished he had four towers, a rope bridge, climbing wall, monkey bars, scramble net, and a fireman’s pole.

“What about a zip wire?” This again came from Molly. She was by far the most talkative of the group.

He couldn’t help but think of her mother.

“You want a zip wire as well?” he asked in mock amazement. Eyes laughing, she nodded. Looking back at his sketch, he re-jigged a few things and drew in a reasonable zip wire. He wasn’t 100 percent certain it would work as he’d drawn it, or that her mother would be happy with the idea. But he’d find a way. There was no way he could disappoint a girl as sweet as Molly. “Okay then, team. Is this it?” he asked finally, putting down the marker pen.

As the children nodded their agreement, the door opened and Kathleen walked in. His breath caught in his throat. Boy, if anything she looked even more adorable today than she had last week. The high shoes she wore showed off her slender legs and made her hips perform a sexy sway as she walked. Quickly he raised a hand to his lips, relieved to find that his tongue wasn’t actually hanging out, as he’d feared.

“Miss Kingsway, look what we’ve designed.” One of the boys pointed eagerly over at the board. “It’s wicked.”

Jake watched her laugh, noting how the warmth from it flushed across her face and seeped into her eyes. It pulsed through him, too, he realized with a start. Quite a shock for a body that had been in hibernation for a few years now. He’d sure picked an odd time to notice women again, he thought with a wry smile to himself. Here he was, standing in front of a group of school children, in a school library no less, experiencing a curious mixture of discomfort and distinct arousal.

“It is, as you say, Robert, wicked.” Kathleen looked over at him now, but in the process of turning from the children to him, her face lost some of its sparkle, replaced by a more polite mask. “I hope you’ve got the ideas you were looking for, Mr. Holroyd?”

Suddenly he wanted to be one of the children. Someone she could laugh with. Not the handyman who’d come to make a climbing frame. “Yes, thank you,” he replied, knowing he sounded too stiff, too formal. How could he expect her to relax with him, when he couldn’t relax with himself?

“Good.” She turned back to the children. “What do you say to Mr. Holroyd for giving up his time to come and talk to you all?”

“Thank you, Mr. Holroyd,” they chorused back.

Jake accepted their thanks with a smile and a nod of his head, though he wasn’t convinced it shouldn’t have been the other way round. Him thanking them. After all, they’d made his job easy. He had the design. All he needed to do now was price it up.

As the last child left the room, silence descended. Awkwardly Jake nodded toward the white board. “Right then, I’ll umm…” He thrust a hand through his hair. For Christ’s sake, this wasn’t difficult. She was a customer, he just had to bloody talk to her. “I’ll just clear up here and jot down the sketch into my notebook.”

He moved toward the white board, but at the same time she headed toward the chairs to straighten them up. They collided.

Suddenly he had a sensation of warm, soft woman. He put out his hands to steady them both and felt a jolt of powerful, white-hot lust. Scalded, he instantly dropped his hands to his side. Jesus. It was clear his libido, having at last woken up from one hell of a long slumber, was well and truly raring to go. “Sorry,” he managed, before turning and retreating to the relative safety of the whiteboard.

He was aware of her watching him speculatively for a few minutes, but he kept his head down and finished off transferring the sketch into his book. He wasn’t ready to look her in the eyes again just yet. Not while what he was thinking would be so obvious.

The door let out a gentle thud, and he knew she’d left. Only then did he relax his shoulders. On the one hand, he mused as he packed away his things, it was a relief to find he was still capable of arousal. It was just a shame his body hadn’t found an easier target. Kathleen Kingsway was a single mother and his, albeit temporary, employer. More than that, she was warm, sweet and trusting. Absolutely the wrong type for a man like him.

****

Kat wondered if Jake would just disappear, or if he’d come and say good-bye. The latter would be what she’d expect, but with Jake she simply wasn’t sure. He was a curious mixture. A man with his looks, she’d assumed he’d be confident around women. Yet when he’d brushed into her in the library, he’d looked awkward and embarrassed. There had been no flashing smile, no flirtatious remark. Despite that, she knew he’d felt what she had—the flash of heat where they’d touched. The answering surge of adrenaline, the racing pulse. Kat could feel it even now. How long had it been, she wondered, since she’d experienced such a rush of raw desire? She’d have to go back to life before Molly, and even then she couldn’t remember it feeling like that.

“Right, I’ll be going then.”

She looked up with a start to find Jake standing in the doorway to her office, his large body filling the space.

“When do you think you’ll be able to come back to me with a cost?” she asked, once more noting how attractive he was. She liked the way he’d bothered to dress more smartly to talk to the children, the dark jeans of last time replaced by cotton chino trousers and a light blue shirt. It showed respect. Then again, maybe he was on his way to a lunch date.

“I’ll bring it over first thing tomorrow morning.” He looked down at his notepad. “Would you like to approve the final design?”

God, he was so ridiculously stiff and formal. She wanted to take him by his big hunky shoulders and shake him. “No, if it’s what the children wanted, then it’s okay with me, as long as it’s built to the correct safety standards…”

“It will be.”

She sighed. If anything, he was looking more stony than before. “I’m sure it will. So all we really need now, is the price.”

“Which you’ll have tomorrow.”

Their eyes met, and once more she felt that flash of awareness, the shiver of sexual tension. Abruptly he dropped his gaze. “Well, I’ll leave you to get on.”

He’d disappeared before she had a chance to say good-bye.

****

As she settled Molly into bed, Kat slid in beside her for a cuddle. It was the way she loved to end their evening together. A time to talk, without the distraction of the television. A time to hold tight to her daughter’s small body and let her know how much she loved her.

“What did you and Abby get up to after school?” she asked her, smoothing the curls back from her forehead. Abby was Molly’s best friend. Molly often went round after school for a while, allowing Kat to catch up on her paperwork. It helped that Abby’s mum was Mary, Kat’s best friend.

“She showed me the Wendy house her dad is building for her at the bottom of their garden.” Frowning, she turned to Kat. “Who is going to make me a Wendy house?”

Kat closed her eyes, absorbing the quick jolt of pain. It wasn’t that she missed Molly’s father anymore. There had been a time when she had, of course. A time when she’d thought they were both in love. That was before he’d fled as soon as she’d said the words “I’m pregnant.” Now, while she didn’t regret what had happened for a single second, it did upset her that Molly didn’t have a father in her life. Particularly at times like this. “I could try and make you one, darling.”

Molly sniggered. “Mum, you know you’re rubbish at that sort of thing. You couldn’t put a shelf up in my room. We had to get Granddad to come and do it.”

Thank goodness for her parents. At least, in her grandfather, Molly had a steady male presence in her life. “Well, maybe Granddad could make you a Wendy house.”

“Umm, maybe. What about Mr. Holroyd? He makes things out of wood, doesn’t he? He could make me one.”

For a second Kat found it hard to know what to say. How simple everything was to a child. “Well, I’m sure he could, but we’d have to buy it from him. That’s how he makes his living. Selling things he makes.”

Molly considered that. “He seemed really nice. I’m sure he wouldn’t cost much.”

Kat smiled at her daughter’s mispronounced words. “You’re sure he wouldn’t charge much.”

“Yes, that too. Can you ask him? It could be my birthday present.”

“Okay, little one. I’ll ask him. Now it’s time you went to sleep. Good night.”

Tiptoeing down the stairs, Kat wondered quite what the serious-minded carpenter would think if she asked him to build her daughter a Wendy house. Somehow she didn’t think such an item was quite his style.

****

Inside the cold, shabby bedsit that Wade now called home, he took a drag from his can of lager and reflected that things had changed a bit in the three years he’d been inside. The high street looked like it always had, but the betting shop had gone and charity shops had sprung up all over the damn place. His local was still there, though the pretty blonde bartender who’d looked down her nose at him had been replaced by a chubby brunette. She hadn’t given him the time of day either. He crunched up the can and threw it across the room, aiming for the bin. Predictably it missed, bouncing off the wall, leaving a splash of lager on the drab, peeling wall. Wade reckoned it was an improvement.

Staring down at the name on the piece of paper in his hand, Wade thanked God that one thing hadn’t changed. His contact in the police station would still divulge information, given the right incentive. Which meant he now knew where the cop had moved to. And apparently he wasn’t a cop anymore, he was a sodding carpenter. The thought made his lips twitch. He pictured the big bad cop sanding down a delicate chair leg. The twitch turned into a grin. Before long he was howling with laughter, tears running down his face. Clearly the guy didn’t have the balls to be a cop anymore. Boy, oh boy, how the mighty had fallen. And how he was going to enjoy shoving the bastard even further down.

He stopped laughing, but his smirk remained. He was going to push the ex-cop so far down that he’d never get up again. Ever.