had died. As a toddler, he’d adored riding on his uncle’s shoulders and playing football and going down the huge slide in the playground on Tom’s or his father’s lap, but since the accident he’d put huge barriers round himself.
Tom let his nephew go. ‘Sorry, Jojo. I didn’t mean to hurt you. It’s just I was very scared when I couldn’t find you. I’m so glad you’re all right.’
Joey stared at him and said nothing.
‘I know this afternoon’s been scary, but it’s all going to be just fine,’ Tom said softly. ‘I promise. I’m going to have to stay here until the fire’s completely out and everything’s safe, but maybe Mrs Bailey will let you sit in her office and do some drawing until I can get in touch with the childminder and see if she can take you home. ‘
Joey said nothing, and Tom had absolutely no idea what the little boy was thinking. Did he feel abandoned, or could he understand that other people relied on Tom to do his job and keep them safe and he had to share Tom’s time?
Flora was sitting on the low bench by the coat rack. ‘Or,’ she said, ‘maybe you could come home with me until your uncle’s finished here. I live on a farm, and I’ve got the nicest dog in the world. ‘
Tom looked at her. ‘But I’ve only just met you.’ Did she really think he’d let his precious nephew go off with a complete stranger—even if she had been brilliant and helped to rescue him?
She bit her lip. ‘I know, but Joey knows me. And my boss is here—I take it you know Nick Tremayne?’ At Tom’s curt nod, she said, ‘He’ll vouch for me. And it’s no trouble. I just need to pick up my paperwork from the nursery next door—the children will all have gone home by now, so I’ll have to finish the clinic next week anyway. ‘
So she did think he’d let Joey go home with someone he didn’t know.
Then again, Tom was usually a good judge of character and he liked what he’d seen of Flora. She was kind, she was brave, and she’d thought of the children before herself.
‘Is that all right with you, Joey?’ Tom asked.
Joey looked wary, and Tom was about to refuse the offer when Flora said, ‘You can meet my dog and see around the farm.’
‘Dog,’ Joey said.
And, for the first time in a long, long time, he gave a smile. A smile that vanished the second after it started, but it was a proper smile. And it made Tom’s decision suddenly easy.
‘Do you want to go with Flora and see her dog, Jojo?’ Tom asked.
This time, Joey nodded.
‘I can borrow a car seat from the nursery—they have spares,’ Flora said. She took a notepad from her pocket and scribbled quickly on it. ‘That’s my address, my home phone and my mobile phone.’
‘Thank you.’ Tom dragged in a breath. ‘This is going to sound really ungrateful. My instincts tell me to trust you, but—’
‘I’m a stranger,’ she finished. ‘You can never take risks with children. They’re too precious.’ She bit her lip and looked away, and Tom felt like an utter heel. She was trying to help and he’d practically thrown the offer back in her face.
‘Talk to Nick,’ she said. ‘And then, if you’re happy for Joey to come with me, I’ll be next door at the nursery.’
Somehow, she’d understood that this wasn’t personal—that he’d be the same even if the offer had come from a teaching assistant he didn’t know. ‘Thank you,’ Tom said and, making sure Joey was right by his side, went to find Nick Tremayne.
At half past seven that evening, Flora heard the car tyres on the gravel and glanced across at Banjo, who was standing guard over the child asleep on the beanbag. ‘All right, boy. I heard him. Shh, now. Let Joey sleep. ‘
She’d opened the kitchen door before Tom could ring the doorbell. ‘Joey’s asleep in front of the fire,’ she whispered. ‘Come in. ‘
He’d showered and changed; out of his uniform, and with his face no longer covered by a mask and soot, Tom Nicholson was breathtakingly handsome. When he smiled at her, her heart actually skipped a beat.
Which was ridiculous, because he was way, way out of her league. He probably had a girlfriend already; though, even if he didn’t, Flora knew he wouldn’t look twice at her. Looking the way he did, and doing the job he did, Tom was probably used to scores of much more attractive women falling in a heap at his feet. He wouldn’t be interested in a shy, plump nurse who spent most of her time looking like a beetroot.
‘He’s absolutely sound asleep,’ Tom whispered, looking down at his nephew, who was lying on the beanbag with a fleecy blanket tucked round him.
‘It’s been a long day for him—and a scary one.’ She glanced at Tom. ‘Um, I’ve already fed him. I hope that’s OK.’
‘That’s great. Thanks for being so kind,’ Tom said.
‘I could hardly let him starve.’ Flora shrugged it off. ‘Poor little lad. He’s had a lot to cope with, losing both his parents. I know what that’s like.’ She’d had to face losing both her parents, the previous year, so she had an idea what he was going through—though, being twenty years older than Joey, at least she’d had an adult’s perspective to help her cope. She looked more closely at Tom and saw the lines of strain around his eyes. ‘You look exhausted.’
‘Once the immediate danger’s passed, the real work starts—making sure we keep the site damped down so the fire doesn’t flare up again.’ Tom grimaced. ‘Sorry I’ve been so long. And I took time out for a shower, because if I turned up covered in smuts and stinking of smoke it might scare Joey. ‘
He’d put his nephew first; and no doubt the shower had been at the expense of taking time to grab a meal. It was good that he could put Joey first, but the poor man must be starving as well as tired. And if she made him something to eat, she could keep herself busy doing something practical—which was a lot easier than sitting down and having a conversation where she’d end up blushing and stumbling over her words and getting flustered. She’d learned the hard way that being practical and doing something was the best way of dealing with her hated shyness. ‘He’s perfectly safe and comfortable where he is, so why don’t you sit down and I’ll make you a hot drink and something to eat?’ Flora asked.
‘I can’t impose on you like that.’
‘You’re not imposing. I made a big batch of spaghetti sauce this afternoon. It won’t take long to heat it through and cook some pasta—that’s what Joey and I had.’
‘Thank you.’
The next thing Tom knew, he was sitting at the table with a mug of coffee in front of him and Flora was pottering round the kitchen.
The kindness of a stranger. Tom was used to women offering to cook him things—it was a standing joke at the fire station that, almost every day, someone dropped by with a tin of home-made cookies or cakes or muffins for Tom. Old ladies whose cats he’d rescued, young mums whose toddlers he’d got out of a locked bathroom—and even the hard-nosed local reporter had seen him in action, rescuing someone from a burning building, and had joined what his crew-mates teasingly called the Tom Nicholson Fan Club, turning up with a batch of cookies for him on more than one occasion.
Even though he’d explained gently that he was simply doing his job, he could hardly be rude enough to turn away things that people had spent time making personally for him. So he accepted them with a smile on behalf of the fire crew, wrote thank-you notes—again on behalf of the entire fire crew—and secretly rather enjoyed them making a fuss over him.
But Flora Loveday was different.
There was something about her—a kind of inner peace and strength that drew him. Here, on her home ground, she glowed. He’d been too frantic with worry about Joey to notice properly