to go to the movies with, no pets. I have a dog, I have nice furniture and I have, when I’m not sleeping with Nurse Candy, a very busy social life.’
‘Where’s your dog now?’
‘At my parents’,’ he said. ‘He’s a chocolate Labrador called Newman.’
‘Newman?’
‘You’ll …’ Steele stopped. He had been about to say she would see why when she met him but that wasn’t what today was about. No pressure, he reminded himself. Today was doing her good, he could see that already. Her cheeks were pink and she seemed more relaxed than she had since … well, since Macey had opened her mouth and knocked their worlds off their axes, but they were starting to spin again, tentatively, though. ‘He’s got blue eyes,’ Steele said instead. ‘And he’s the love of my life and he knows it.’
‘Does he sleep on your bed, Steele?’
Steele shook his head. ‘He sleeps on his bed for about seventeen hours a day and graciously lets me share it at night.’
After lunch they walked across the green and Candy laughed as she looked at it through what she imagined were Steele’s eyes. ‘I have this vision of all these old people doing Tai Chi …’
‘So do I.’
She stopped walking. ‘And then you’ll leave.’
‘That was the plan,’ he said. ‘Though this is a huge project …’ He looked around. Since his divorce he had never been able to imagine staying in one place for very long. Here, though, he was close, though not too close to his parents; here was the job he had been working towards his entire career. He looked over as a car pulled up and a man got out and gave them a wave as they walked over to him.
‘That’s the estate agent,’ Steele explained.
‘Oh.’
‘And that’s the renovator’s delight I’m hoping to buy, but I’m not telling him that.’
It was a huge rambling house with a small wooden gate, overlooking the green.
‘Are you going to come and take a look?’ he said.
‘I think I might just take another walk,’ she said. She didn’t want to see his future home, so she walked on the green as Steele inspected the house.
He looked at the cornices and the hanging-off doors; the windows would all need to be taken out.
Don’t start on the electrics, he thought as he flicked lights on and off.
And as for the plumbing! The estate agent tried to distract him from turning on taps but Steele was not easily distracted and when he turned on the taps the whole house seemed to rattle. Steele grinned as, in his head, he knocked another five grand off the asking price.
It was magnificent, though.
‘Could you give me a moment?’ he said to the agent. ‘I’d like to walk through it again on my own for a minute.’
The estate agent agreed and Steele took way more than a minute.
The last time he had looked at a home this size had been with his ex-wife. The natural assumption at that time had been that the bedrooms would soon be filled.
The natural assumption as he walked around now was that the bedrooms would be filled too.
It was more than an assumption. It was a feeling it was how it should be. He looked out of a window and could see Candy idly walking around. He wanted to go and fetch her, bring her in, ask her her thoughts, yet her thoughts were cluttered enough now.
His weren’t.
He thanked the estate agent and said that he’d be in touch then he walked over and joined her.
‘Maybe I can explain you after all,’ he said.
‘Sorry?’
‘I could just say to my parents that you’re a friend from work who needed a day out. You can meet Newman.’
‘No, thanks,’ she said.
‘Candy, can we talk—’
‘Please, not now,’ she said. ‘I just need this day. I just need a day of not dealing with it and then I need my holiday to start dealing with it on my own.’
Steele nodded. It was what they had agreed to after all.
They drove back to his flat to collect her case, which was no longer in the car, and Candy needed it as she flew tomorrow.
Candy, of course, fell asleep in the car but now it just made him smile.
She awoke to his lovely deep voice and the sight of his flat and then she turned and there he was.
‘I’ll go and grab your case,’ he said.
‘Can I borrow your loo?’ Candy said, because, as she was starting to find out, this was something she would be saying rather a lot in the weeks and months ahead.
She went to the loo and remembered the last time she’d been here—when her pregnancy had just started to become a possibility. As she looked in the mirror while washing her hands, she remembered the fear that had been in her eyes then.
The fear was gone now.
Yes, she was confused and exhausted and nervous about how she would provide for two children, but the terror was leaving and, after such a wonderful day’s reprieve, she was starting to feel a little more like herself.
‘Thank you for a lovely day,’ she said.
‘Do you want a cup of tea?’ he offered, and she nodded.
‘Make yourself comfortable.’
‘Ha-ha,’ she said, and stood and watched him make the tea instead.
Meaning …
She lifted her top and showed him the straining zipper that had simply refused to go all the way back up.
Only Steele didn’t really see that. He saw pink lace and a teeny flash of jet hair and the stomach that his mouth had kissed over and over.
And as she put down her top Candy looked at the teabag he was squeezing the hell out of with his spoon and, yikes, there was a sort of gravelly note to his voice as he asked her how many sugars she had in her tea.
‘The same as last time,’ Candy said.
‘Sorry, I’m a bit distracted.’ Steele smiled. ‘Two?’
‘Two.’
‘Do you really want tea?’ he checked.
‘No.’
‘Because I don’t,’ Steele said. ‘I want a glass of wine but I’m driving.’
‘Poor Steele.’ She smiled. ‘It really is a problem.’ Candy thought for a moment. ‘I know!’ she said brightly.
‘Do tell.’
‘Why don’t you have a glass of wine and drive me home later?’
He turned and faced her. ‘That’s so clever, but you’re stuck in those uncomfortable jeans. I insist you take them off …’
They started to kiss, the best kiss ever, because she’d got so lost in babies and feeling massive and unsexy but his tongue swiftly took care of that.
It hadn’t really entered her head that he might want her again in that way. Now his fingers were at her zipper and somehow she felt back to the woman she had been.
Out of her jeans, she moaned in relief.
‘Nice?’
‘Nice,’ she said to his mouth.
‘That bra looks a bit tight too.’
He