Nate slapped a hand over his chest and sighed. “Phew! You had me worried!”
The kids shared a look of exasperation. They so pitied their oafish father. Josh wiggled out of Nate’s arms and stood, holding Beth’s hand as always—and then, as if by agreement, all three of them looked at the stranger on the ground.
She was looking right back, watching their antics with a slight smile on her face—and what a face. It thrust Nate’s mind instantly into photographer mode. He saw her as if through a lens, his focus flitting from the way shadow and light danced over her dark skin, to the smooth sweep of her round cheeks into her broad nose, the curve of pouting lips into pointed chin.
She was wearing fuchsia lipstick and her eyes were dark and hot and startling as a shot of espresso. Everything about her was practically daring him to pull out his phone—God, where the fuck was his camera? — and take a picture. Just one. That wouldn’t be too weird, right? If he explained that she was walking art and it was his job to capture it?
Actually, that would definitely be weird.
“I’m sorry,” she said to the kids. “I didn’t see you coming. Would you like some marshmallows, to make you feel better? If you’re allowed, I mean.”
The kids perked up, all supposed injury to person and dignity forgotten. “Can we, Daddy?” Beth asked. “Can we can we can we—”
“Yeah, yeah,” Nate said absently. But the truth was, he’d barely heard the question. Recognition had just hit him in the chest. He’d seen that face most days since he started pre-school for Christ’s sake—only back then it had been softer, smaller, childishly undefined. Even when they’d hit their teens, she’d still looked like a little kid. She didn’t look like a kid anymore.
But he knew those sharp eyes. The full lips slightly parted by those too-big front teeth. That steady, strident tone…
And the energy snapping about her like an electrical current, as if all that cool composure held back something more intense than he could imagine.
“Hannah,” he said, suddenly certain. “Hannah Kabbah. Right?”
“Hello, Nate,” she said calmly, as if they bumped into each other on a regular basis. As if this wasn’t their first meeting in—God, almost fifteen years? When had he last seen her? The final day of school, maybe? He had no idea. Long enough that it had taken him minutes to recognise a face he’d once seen every day.
Although, he admitted, she did look different now. The same, but… yeah. Different.
Over the past week or so, he’d gotten used to bumping into people he’d once known. None of them had ever been his friends. Every single one had fallen all over themselves to act is if they were long-lost buddies.
But Hannah… he’d actually liked her. She hadn’t known it, because he’d never told her—and there’d never been any indication that she liked him, of course. But still. He had the oddest urge to ask her some clichéd, bullshit question like How’ve you been? or What are you up to these days? yet she was busy helping his kids pick out the biggest marshmallows, barely sparing him a look.
Which, now he thought about it, was just like her.
If she was still the same Hannah he’d known—or even slightly similar—she wouldn’t speak to him until she’d finished what she was doing. So, Nate sat there, and waited, and watched. He studied the way she smiled at the kids, noted the calming effect that her voice seemed to have on them.
She spoke so slowly—not in a boring way, but as if she had control of everything around her. As if the world could very well wait until she finished her sentence. And the kids reacted like they’d just been pumped full of Calpol and put down to bed for the night.
He wished any of the nannies he’d been interviewing recently had been half so effective. Christ, he wished the nannies he’d been interviewing had actually talked to his kids at all, instead of talking at them.
But he noticed other things, too. Like the hummingbird flutter of her lashes, and the slight dimple in her chin, and the careful precision with which she held herself. It was a precision that spoke of hesitation, of restraint. It made him wonder.
Once the kids were laden down with marshmallows, she finally looked up. At him. It felt sort of like being electrocuted. He had no idea why. Maybe that was why he blurted out,