As she worked her way quietly to the gully floor she heard a hint of noise off to the left. She was tempted to call out but the utter silence around her restrained her. If Leighton was frog watching he’d scarcely appreciate her dulcet tones echoing through the valley and sending every living creature darting for cover. Besides, she was being calm, cool Mum today, not anxious, clingy Mum.
That mum wouldn’t kick in for at least another five minutes.
A flash of bright red caught her eye. Her shoulders sagged with relief and she started towards her son. Then suddenly a shift of blue right next to him. A sky-blue T-shirt stretched tight over a broad back. She stumbled to a halt.
Clint.
Leighton was smiling. Not a polite, adult-pleasing smile. A bright-eyed, face-splitting, genuine boy grin, as he looked back and forth from where Clint lay next to him in the dirt to the swampy soak in front of them. She stopped and watched. Neither of them spoke but they seemed to be communicating in a kind of sign language. Clint’s efficient hand symbols reeked of the military but Leighton’s overengineered, highly dramatic efforts did somehow manage to communicate.
Her heart gave a little lurch. They were dusk frog watching together. It was postcard perfect. Everything she’d never had with her father.
And her son would never have with his.
Leighton was laid out like a miniature version of Clint. He unconsciously mirrored the exact way the older man lay in the earth, short legs stretched out next to long ones, torso propped up onto his elbows like his adult shadow. The ultimate Hallmark moment.
Never mind that L’s feet stopped a good metre higher than Clint’s. It put them dead parallel with a sinfully well-packed, denim-clad rear which was why it was so easy for Romy’s gaze to drift and linger there. She tore them back to her son. His wildly gesticulating hands were telling a silent story she couldn’t quite interpret. Clint seemed to be keeping up, though, and he gifted Leighton with his absolute, undivided interest.
Romy’s chest squeezed, watching how her son ate up the attention. How he blossomed. How the two of them were so very comfortable in each other’s muddy, mute presence.
Lord, what would it be like to feel comfortable around Clint McLeish? And what would that gentle gaze feel like if it was fluttering down on her instead of her son? It was a side of him she’d never seen.
It was a side of any man she’d never seen.
Instinctively she knew that he could be gentle. He would be gentle. In-between intimidating the heck out of her. The sudden fantasy of those enormous, mud-covered hands tracing over her skin took her by surprise. Her body physically jerked as though fingers really were sliding over her shoulders, or learning the lower curve of a breast. Her breath came out in short puffs.
Whoa—desperate much, Carvell?
Clint turned and his eyes found hers amongst the trees and locked on hard. He might as well have sensed her X-rated thoughts. Their burning regard held her frozen where she stood and her breath died mid-fill even as her heart thundered. The green depths were unfathomable but steady and sure, holding a promise. A question.
Romy wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer.
‘Leighton.’ His words were for the boy by his side but his eyes stayed glued to Romy’s. Leighton turned to where she stood in the trees. His cheeks coloured.
‘Mum…’
Uh-oh. That was not his happy voice. She cleared her throat. ‘Leighton, you didn’t ask to come down here. You have homework.’
‘Not now, Mum.’
Romy’s eyebrows shot up with her tension levels. Here we go…‘Leighton. Home. Now.’
He turned back to the frogs. ‘Later.’
Clint’s eyes hadn’t left hers. Romy was critically aware of their intense focus, of the expectation live in them. She was his security coordinator. She had to manage her son.
‘I won’t ask again…’ Her heart thudded painfully. Her father’s words spilling out of her mouth. She felt the rising anger of a parent being challenged in the same breath as she relived the memories of a child sick to death of battles. Her gut tightened.
His little body didn’t so much as move.
‘Leighton Carvell…get your butt back up to the house.’
This time he moved, but only to turn his head back over his shoulder and glare at her. That expression was so familiar. It was her own from twelve years ago.
‘Or what?’ He frowned.
She saw Clint’s eyebrows lift, just slightly. Crap! She didn’t want to do this. She didn’t want to threaten Leighton. Or mess with his mind. Or, God forbid, get physical. But Clint was measuring every move she made.
She went for threat.
‘Or I call Carolyn Lawson and say the sleepover is off.’ Her voice shook enough that nobody could miss it. Clint’s narrowed eyes certainly hadn’t.
Leighton scrambled around and up onto angry feet and screamed at her. ‘Hangout!’
Deep breaths, Romy. ‘Whatever. It’s off if you don’t get back up to the house and start your science homework.’
Stupid. Why were they fighting? He was probably learning more here in the boggy gully than fourth-grade science would ever teach. Still those green eyes watched. Assessed.
Leighton finally weighed his options and turned petulant eyes to the man lying still as a stone next to him. He turned the tantrum off in an eye blink. Strategically. ‘’Bye, Clint.’
Clint’s voice was carefully neutral. ‘See ya, buddy. We’ll do this again.’
Leighton nodded silently and then huffed past Romy, not meeting her eyes. A tight fist clenched around her lungs, but she forced words out as he passed. ‘Watch out for that pout, mate. You might trip on it.’
She turned to watch him go. When she trusted that he was genuinely heading for the house she turned back to her boss, humiliated that he’d witnessed the family altercation. He was on his feet, brushing off the loose, damp dirt. ‘Sorry about that,’ she said on a puff.
‘You asked again.’ His gaze was steady, half veiled.
‘What?’
‘Leighton. After telling him you wouldn’t ask him again to do his homework, you asked.’
‘So? He wasn’t getting me.’
‘Oh, he was getting you all right. He was ignoring you.’
‘Thank you, I’m well aware of that. Am I about to get a parenting lecture?’
‘Depends. Do you need one?’
Romy let her mouth drop open. Attractiveness be damned. ‘You knowing so much about parenting, of course.’
His eyebrows lifted. ‘I know something about little boys. Young men. I’ve trained enough of them. And it looks like I know a hell of a lot more than you about maintaining discipline.’
Romy settled both fists onto her hips. ‘Am I getting paid for this?’
It was Clint’s turn to look confused. He blinked at her.
‘If you’re about to give me some skills-development training? Is this on the clock?’
‘Romy…’
‘Don’t tell me how to raise my son!’ Her voice echoed through the little gully. Frogs and birds flew for cover in all directions.
Clint kept his cool. ‘When you say you’re not going to ask again and then you ask, Leighton wins. He’ll remember. And he’ll use it in his next combat.’
‘This