want to kiss me again now?’ Her voice broke on a squeak.
‘I do,’ he conceded. ‘Maybe it’s because I find your sweater almost irresistibly sexy.’
She looked down at her shapeless wool smock and she winced. It really was dreadful. She’d bought it mid-winter at a clearance sale and wore it for comfort. It was almost as old as Matty. Until now, she’d never worn it out of doors.
Once it had been crimson but it had faded with constant washing so now was a dreary pink. There was a moth hole in the bottom hem. She’d worried it a bit and the hole had extended.
‘Who knows what would happen if I ever saw you in lingerie,’ Rafael said bluntly. ‘Though, by the look of that sweater, I can only imagine what your lingerie’s like.’ He shook his head, set his beer bottle aside and rose. ‘A man could go hot and cold just thinking about it. I think I need to go and take a cold shower. If you’ll excuse me…’
‘So there’ll be no more kissing?’ she whispered before she could stop herself and thought frantically, Why did I do that? It was as if she was pushing to extend the conversation. Which surely she wasn’t.
She hadn’t.
‘If you’re kissing me back because I look like Kass, what do you think?’ he said heavily and left her to her sandwich.
It was the pattern of their days. Working on their private projects. Avoiding each other.
In a way it was the ideal method of getting to know her son, Kelly thought as the days progressed. Matty had his own life mapped out in this castle. Up until now he hadn’t had a mother and hadn’t really seen the need for one. To have her thrust upon him, demanding a part of his life, would be likely to overwhelm him.
But Matty loved the idea that he had a mother. He was disappointed that she didn’t seem interested in his passion—which was definitely horses—but the rest… He took to including her rooms as part of his domain. He followed the routine set down before his father had died—rigid meal times, introductory school work, working with Crater—but in between he’d hurry up to his mother’s rooms to report the latest news, to make her feel included.
He was a gracious, loving little boy, Kelly thought. She was blessed. And when, at the end of the first week, he announced that Marguerite had sore legs and she couldn’t go very far and would Mama like to come with him instead on his afternoon walks, Kelly thought this was as good as it got.
She had her son again. She didn’t have to include herself any more than occasionally in the life of the castle.
She could swallow guilt about the load Rafael was carrying. He was still a de Boutaine, and the way he made her feel scared her witless. She was right to stay aloof.
But, ‘Why don’t you like my Uncle Rafael?’ Matty asked as he skipped ahead through the fabulous woodland around the castle and she thought, uh-oh, had it been as obvious as that?
‘I don’t not like him.’
‘You haven’t even seen his dungeon.’
‘He hasn’t asked me.’
‘Yes, he did. He asked you to see it on the day all his tools arrived and you didn’t say anything. It’s really cool down there. You should see the things he’s making. He’s working on a new base at the moment that will fit spaceships. He says I can have the pro…prot…protype.’
‘Prototype?’
‘Yes,’ Matty said in satisfaction. ‘Will you come and see it?’
‘I think your Uncle Rafael is too busy for visitors.’
‘That’s silly,’ Matty said and tucked his hand confidingly into hers. ‘I want to show you the… prototype. Can you come and see when we get back from the walk?’
There was a cost, she thought. She’d accepted Matty’s invitation to walk with him with pleasure. How could she make the boundaries clear when she kept crossing them?
He was looking up at her, anxious, sensing that things weren’t right. ‘My Uncle Rafael is very kind,’ he said, as if he felt the need to reassure her.
‘I’m sure he is.’
‘He might even make you something.’
‘He makes things for children.’
‘And for big kids too,’ Matty said. ‘Aunt Laura and I read about Robo-Craft on the Internet. It says it’s for kids from five to a hundred and five. How old are you?’
‘Twenty-nine,’ she said faintly.
‘See,’ Matty said. ‘It’s perfect for you. You will come and see it, won’t you? Oh, look, Mama! There’s a deer with a baby.’
He was finding it really hard to concentrate. There were so many intrusions.
Back in Manhattan, the intrusions had all been work-related. They’d been annoying but Anna had protected him from the worst and they hadn’t taken him out of his head like the intrusions here.
He was trying to develop a new base. He had it almost right. Manhattan was gearing up for production for the Christmas rush—that meant he had to get it perfect by the end of this month.
But so far today he’d had Matty three times, Crater twice about finances for the treasury and now an alderman from the town with a list a mile long and a need to talk to him about land stabilization above Zunderfied.
He knew nothing about land stabilization.
He had to learn.
At the end of the basement room there was a narrow window almost at ceiling level. It was ground level outside.
He could see Kelly and Matty out on the far side of the forecourt, heading into the woods.
For one daft minute he felt an almost irresistible urge to join them.
Yeah. As if he needed domesticity added to his duties.
He had to focus.
‘Maybe we need to get the land surveyed,’ the man said. ‘There are some who say the need is urgent. What if we contact the university and see if we can get experts to tell us what they think?’
‘Who says the need is urgent?’ Rafael asked uneasily, still looking out of the window. They looked great, he thought—Kelly and Matty.
She was still wearing that appalling sweater.
‘Only a couple of the old men,’ the alderman said soothingly, but he still looked anxious. ‘There seems no immediate threat. I’ll contact the university.’
‘Let’s do that immediately,’ Rafael said, thinking about the raw scar above the town and feeling more uneasy. ‘Can you set that in train? If we offer generous funding we should get people here straight away.’
The man’s anxious look faded. He left, relieved, and Rafael turned again to his mechanical base.
His mind wasn’t on it.
Instead, he stared out of the window again. Kelly and Matty were out there somewhere.
And a little town with erosion above it and waterlogged soil.
There was nothing more he could do. Was there?
Damn.
And then they came. The knock on the door was more tentative than Matty’s usual bang, but that was the only unusual part. Before he could respond, Matty had the door open and was dragging his mother inside.
‘He’s here. You don’t have to wait. He always says come in. Uncle Rafael, Mama has come to look at your prototype.’
Matty was tugging his mother by the hand. Kelly looked completely disoriented, embarrassed, confused…
Adorable.
He could so easily slip