She made a quick decision and announced, “A fry up.”
He burst out laughing.
Isabella stared.
God, she forgot how handsome he was when he laughed. She thought she remembered but she sure as heck didn’t.
Or, maybe it was that he looked better now.
She hid her reaction to his laughter and calmly waited until he got over his bizarre hilarity.
He turned his attention to the coffee, saying, “You feed my kids a fry up before school, they’ll be asleep within fifteen minutes of hitting their desks.”
“Children,” Isabella retorted, her voice cold and authoritative, “I’ve read, need a good breakfast before school. Brain food.”
Prentice turned to her, leaned a hip to the counter and sipped his coffee, his eyes never leaving her.
Then he replied, “Porridge is brain food. Make them porridge. There’s instant –”
She cut him off by declaring evenly, “I’m not making instant oatmeal.”
He studied her for a long moment then grinned and gave in, saying, “Suit yourself.”
With relief, she tore her gaze from his sexy, grinning face and walked away, murmuring, “I will.”
She didn’t go the way of the fry up (it wouldn’t be good if the kids fell asleep in school that would be yet another thing the villagers could hold against her).
But she did make scrambled eggs with cheddar cheese, bacon and toast coated in butter and lime marmalade.
And she made it for all of them.
Including Prentice.
While the kids were leaving the kitchen and Prentice (she thought) was in his study, Isabella caught Jason and said, “I’ve done the ironing, including your father’s shirts. Can you take them upstairs and put them away before school?”
“Can’t I do it tonight?” Jason asked.
She leaned in conspiratorially and asked in a teasing tone, “Honey, have you seen his shirt?” Then she shook her head. “No, you can’t do it tonight. You might forget and I don’t know when I’ll be back. It must be done,” her voice lowered jokingly to indicate the gravity of the situation, “and it must be done now.”
Jason grinned at her dramatic delivery then his eyes slid to the side, caught on something and he let out a little snicker.
Isabella felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She slowly turned and saw Prentice there, arms crossed on his chest, eyes on her, facial expression indicating that, perhaps, he heard every word she said.
“Is there something wrong with my shirt?” he asked in a low tone.
Yes, he heard.
Oh dear. What did she do now?
Well, she might as well be honest.
Her eyes dropped to his chest then went back to his face.
“It’s a lovely shirt. It just needs ironing.”
His hands went to the buttons while he enquired, “Should I do that now?”
“No!” she (nearly) cried, taking a swift step forward and putting a hand up, not wanting to see his chest again, ever, until the day she died.
He went on, “I wouldn’t want to embarrass the Cameron name.”
He couldn’t do that even if his shirt was in tatters.
And his pants.
He looked over her shoulder and winked at his son.
Isabella relaxed.
Prentice was teasing, not her, but Jason. She could deal with that.
“I’ll get you another shirt,” she offered on a whisper, not looking at him and moving toward the mudroom.
“I’d be obliged,” he murmured as she rounded him and felt his eyes on her.
There were, luckily, no more incidents but Sally demanded Isabella stand on the front steps and wave them away “until we’re out of sight”.
Which she did.
“How are things with Mr. Broody-Hot?” Mikey asked, taking Isabella out of her thoughts.
Mr. Broody-Hot. Where did Mikey come up with this stuff?
“If you mean Prentice,” Isabella answered, “they’re nearly one day closer to me being out of here.”
“That bad?” Mikey asked quietly.
Isabella looked at her friend’s profile. “Next time you love a man for twenty years, return to him and he thinks you jilted and made a fool of him and you have to sleep under his roof for a week, slowly falling in love with his two children then you can tell me how bad it is.”
“I’d say that’s bad,” Mikey returned.
Isabella didn’t reply because she didn’t need to.
“You’re falling in love with his children?” Mikey asked, voice still quiet.
Mikey knew all about her quest to get pregnant. He’d lived through it with her, though he’d been in Chicago and she’d been, well, globe-trotting with Laurent.
“There’s a good deal to love.”
Mikey sighed. “I noticed they’re good kids.”
Isabella was again silent.
“They like you,” Mikey said.
Isabella looked out the window. “More fool them.”
She felt Mikey squeeze her thigh. “There’s a good deal to like, girlie-girl.”
Hardly, she thought but she kept her silence.
Mikey slid to a halt outside Prentice’s house and ogled it through her window as he had that morning when he came to pick her up.
“I’ve got to say, Bella darling, this house is something else.”
She couldn’t agree more.
She stared at the house, sprawling and imposing on its cliff, somehow looking like it erupted from the cleft where it was situated and belonged there.
She hadn’t seen any of his other work but if this was anything to go by, Prentice was very talented.
Not for the first time she thought her father was an idiot. Even Carver Austin, who could find fault in anything, wouldn’t have been able to find fault with this house.
She pulled her eyes from the house and turned back to Mikey while saying, “Thanks for the ride.”
But she said it to no one. Mikey was out of the door and closing it.
She didn’t have a good feeling about this.
Isabella got out her side and slammed the door, calling, “Mikey, what’re you doing?”
“Bumming a meal off Mr. Broody-Hot,” Mikey scarily answered. “I’m famished.”
Isabella, mind scrambled near to panic at the very idea of Mikey sharing a meal with Prentice and his family without a variety of other distractions available to Prentice, Sally, Jason and Mikey, opened the backdoor and grabbed one of the bags of groceries she’d bought (it was early enough for her to intervene in takeaway and she fully intended to do it).
“You’d be bumming a meal off me,” she told Mikey. “I bought the food and I’m saying no, you can’t stay.”
Mikey reached in, grabbed the other bag then threw the door to. “You can’t say no, it isn’t your house.”
“You can’t stay,” Isabella retorted, standing out in the crisp, chill air and perfectly willing to stand out there until Christmas if it took that long to talk him out of staying for dinner.
“Why on earth not?” Mikey enquired.
Mikey loved her unreservedly. Isabella had no problems being honest with Mikey.
“Because you can be unpredictable,” she answered.
Mikey mixed with Prentice mixed with Sally, for God’s sake. That was a recipe for disaster.
He grinned at her. “Life’s a lot more fun that way.”
Life was never fun at all in Isabella’s estimation.
He started marching to the door, Isabella’s panic escalated, she opened her mouth to protest but the door opened and Sally shot out of it, screeching, “You’re home!”