Four hours! Where had the time gone? In drawing yurts. In exploring. In just…talking.
‘I’d like a picnic on the beach,’ she said and visions of gingham baskets rose again-to be squashed before they hit knee height.
‘There’s a great pizza place in town,’ she said. ‘I bribe them to deliver all the way out here.’
‘Pizza,’ Bailey said with joy, and Ketchup’s ears attempted to rise.
‘We’ve hit a nerve.’ She grinned. ‘Picnic pizza it is. If that’s okay with you, Mr Holt?’
‘Nick,’ he said and it was almost savage.
She made him take three trips to her favourite spot on the sand dunes, carrying cushions, rugs and food, because she was carrying Ketchup.
They ate pizza until it was coming out of their ears. Ketchup ate pizza, too.
‘I have a feeling Ketchup’s met pizza in a former life,’ Misty said, watching in satisfaction as he nibbled round the edges of a Capriccioso.
‘He looks like he might be a nice dog,’ Nick said-cautiously. He was feeling cautious.
He was feeling strange.
Ketchup and Bailey were lying full length on the rug. They were playing a gentle boy-dog game that had them touching noses, touching finger to paw, touching paw to finger, then nose to nose again. They were totally absorbed in each other. Bailey was giggling and Ketchup seemed at peace.
The evening was warm and still. The sun was sinking low behind the sand hills and the outgoing tide sent a soft hush-hush of surf over the wet sand. Sandpipers were sweeping up the beach as the water washed in, then scuttling out after the waves to see what had been washed bare.
Misty’s house looked out over paradise.
How could a man want adventure when he had this?
And this woman… She was watching Bailey with contentment. She seemed secure in herself, a woman at peace.
She was so different from Isabelle. A woman like this would never need adrenalin rush, danger.
A woman like this…
‘Why don’t you have a dog already?’ he asked and Misty stopped squashing pizza boxes, glanced at Ketchup and looked rueful.
‘We had a surfeit of dogs.’
‘Who’s we?’
‘My grandparents and me.’
He thought about that. It seemed safer than the other direction his thoughts were taking. Actually, he wasn’t sure where his thoughts were taking him, only that it seemed wise to deflect them. ‘Not your parents?’
‘My mother didn’t live here.’
‘Never?’
‘Not since she was eighteen. She left to see the world, then turned up only for brief visits, bringing things home. Weird people, artwork, dream-catchers. One day she brought me home. She didn’t stay any longer than the time she brought the dream-catchers, but she left me for good. Gran and Grandpa kept the dream-catchers and they kept me.’
‘That sounds dreadful.’
‘Does it?’ She smiled and ran her fingers the length of Ketchup’s spine, causing the little dog to roll his eyes in pleasure. ‘It never seemed dreadful. Sad, yes, but not dreadful. We saw her world through postcards, and that gave me a presence to cling to. An identity. And, as for needing her…I wasn’t deserted. Gran and Grandpa did everything they could for their daughter, and they did everything they could for me.’
‘But you stayed, while your mother left.’
‘I loved my grandparents, and they loved me,’ she said, sounding suddenly uncompromising. ‘That’s something I don’t think my mother’s capable of. It took me a while to figure it out but I know it now.’ Her smile faded. ‘It’s her loss. Loving’s fine. Like I fell in love with Ketchup yesterday. I’m a soft touch.’
‘You’ve never fallen in love before?’
‘With other dogs?’ That wasn’t what he’d meant but maybe she’d purposely misunderstood. ‘Of course I have. Five years ago we had four. The last one died six months ago. He’s buried under Gran’s Peace rose in the back garden. And now Gran herself…’
But something there gave her pause. She gave herself a shake, regrouped, obviously changed direction. ‘No. Gran’s okay. She’s had a couple of strokes. She’s in a nursing home but she’s only seventy-three. I thought… When she had the second stroke and our last dog died I thought…’
Pause. Another shake.
‘Well, it doesn’t matter what I thought,’ she said, almost to herself. ‘It’s right to get another dog. When you fall in love, what choice do you have?’
‘There’s always a choice.’
‘Like you could walk away from Bailey?’ Bailey looked up at that, and she grinned. ‘See? I defy you not to love that look.’
‘My son’s look?’
‘Your son.’
‘How can you compare a dog…?’
‘Love’s love,’ she said simply. ‘You take it where you find it.’
Where he found it? He’d thought he had it with Isabelle. He’d been out of his mind.
Bailey stretched out and yawned. The sun was sinking low in the evening sky.
Misty sat and watched the sandpipers, and he thought she was such a peaceful woman. She was also beautiful. And the more he looked… She was quite astonishingly beautiful.
He wanted, quite badly, to kiss her.
And that was a really bad idea. This was his son’s schoolteacher. His son was two feet away.
But not to touch her seemed impossible.
Her hand was on the rug, only inches from his. How could he not? He reached out and ran his fingers gently over the back of her hand and she didn’t flinch.
Her skin wasn’t silk-smooth like Isabelle’s had been. There were tiny scars. Life lines.
The world was still. Maybe…
‘No,’ she told him and tugged her hand away.
‘No?’ The contact had been a feather touch, no more. But she’d said no, and even now he knew her well enough to realise that she meant it. And for him? No was sensible. What was he thinking of?
‘Parent-teacher relationships are disasters,’ she said.
‘Always?’ The word was out before he could stop it.
‘Always.’
‘You’ve tried a few?’
‘That’s my business.’
He smiled but it was an effort, and that was a puzzle on its own. What was happening here? He had to get this back on a lighter note.
‘I’ve told you about Isabelle,’ he said, in a dare you tone.
‘You want me to tell you about Roger Proudy kissing me behind the shelter sheds when I was eight?’
‘Did he?’
‘Yes, and it was sloppy.’ She was also striving to make this light, he thought. That was good. She had a handle on things, which was more than he did.
‘When Grandma kisses me it’s sloppy,’ Bailey said dreamily from where he was snoozing against Ketchup, and the conversation suddenly lost its intensity. They were back on a plane where he could keep his balance.
‘Do you have one grandma or two?’ Misty asked Bailey.
‘Two, but Grandma Holt cries, and she gets lipstick all over me.’
‘That sounds yuck,’ Misty said. ‘Do you see your grandmas often?’
‘Gran Rose and Papa Bill live on a boat like we used to,’ Bailey said. ‘They came to see me in hospital lots of times. They gave me computer games and stuff. But Grandma and Grandpa Holt only came once. Grandma said computer games are the work of the devil, and Grandpa yelled at Dad when he said we weren’t going back to Pen…Pennsylvania. Then Grandma Holt cried, and kissed me too hard, and it was really, really sloppy.’
‘Double yuck.’ Misty smiled, then turned to Nick, her eyes lighting with laughter. ‘Would Grandma Holt be the no risk grandma? Someone should tell her you can share germs with sloppy kisses.’
And suddenly Nick found himself grinning.
The decision to bring Bailey to Australia had been made under all sorts of constraints. If he’d returned to the States, his parents would have given him a hard time. They’d give Bailey a hard time. But if he’d stayed in England…
Isabelle’s parents were based in England. They loved Bailey desperately, but loving had its own challenges. They’d smother Bailey, he thought, and maybe Bailey would react as Isabelle had reacted.