Happy Mother's Day! - By Sharon Kendrick Page 0,127
‘get over yourself and go talk to the guy’ phase.
‘I’m Siena Capuletti,’ she said in a lilting voice, holding out a thin hand.
‘James Dillon,’ he said in return, moving to her to shake.
Her hand was warm. And almost impossibly delicate. This was a hand that had known more manicures than manual labour. For the first time ever he actually felt self-conscious of the work-hardened calluses marring his own large hands.
He let go first but she whipped her hand back with equal speed. As she tucked it into the back pocket of her dark low-rise jeans, James caught a flash of flat tanned stomach.
His insubordinate gaze flickered upward, but he then had to contend with those eyes. Big, green, framed by the darkest thickest lashes he had ever seen. Suddenly he wasn’t quite sure where to look.
‘This is my car,’ the woman said, pointing at the green Ute when he said nothing. ‘Well, it’s my brother Rick’s. I would never buy a T-shirt in such a colour, much less a sixty thousand dollar car. I was only going slowly, thank goodness, but I didn’t see Kane until he was upon me and when I did I braked as hard as my size sevens would allow, and I swerved, and I missed him completely.’
Suddenly she turned at the waist and pinned Kane with a stare. ‘You are quite sure I missed you completely?’
Kane nodded earnestly, watching Siena with extreme interest, and James could see that the kid was as captivated as he was himself.
‘Oh, thank God,’ she continued, crossing herself with a flourish. ‘This car is just so bloody big and powerful and. excuse my French. I think I may have hurt your gutter and I have definitely hurt the car and Rick is going to kill me but I will, of course, pay for any damage to your garden, or driveway, or tree or anything.’
It took James a few moments to realise she had come to the end of her speech. He looked back down at Kane, who was now leaning beside the car, sniffling but no longer crying. He was cradling his elbow but, of the two of them, James was pretty certain Siena Capuletti had come out of it the more afflicted of the pair.
James offered the woman a smile by way of acceptance of her apology. Thankful for the reprieve, she smiled back, her eyes glittering like the sun off the coral-laden waters off Green Island.
He stamped out his own smile before his imagination got the better of him. He leant over and picked up the bike and rested it against his thighs, creating a wall between himself and the winsome stranger.
‘If Kane says you missed him,’ he said, ‘then you missed him. He shouldn’t have been riding out on to the road as it is.’
She shook her head, her riotous dark curls swishing about her ears. ‘I should have been more careful, especially driving down a suburban street.’
She looked up at his house, staring at it for a few moments, her face haunted, overly so he believed, considering how little damage had been done to either person.
She swallowed and then looked back over at him, her big green eyes blinking nineteen to the dozen. He couldn’t help himself—he just stared right on back. Was it because she was familiar? Perhaps she lived locally and he had seen her at the supermarket.
No. That wasn’t it. He had never seen this woman before. But there was definitely something tugging at him. Something potent enough that he found a sudden need to drag his eyes away and down to Kane.
‘Now, what have you done to your arm, buddy?’
Kane twisted his arm to show him the nasty scrape. And blood. Seeing blood dribbling down Kane’s arm clouded James’s mind until he felt as if he was watching the world through a pinhole.
At the behest of each and every counsellor who had drifted in and out of Kane’s life over the past year—the first recommended by the hospital, yet another organised through Kane’s school and even a private one who James thought smelled of his old gym bag but Kane liked him and that was recommendation enough—James had pared his life back to one core mission: devoting himself to Kane. To protect him. To keep him safe. To shield him from all further pain. So how the hell had he allowed this to happen?
‘Maybe we should whip you down to the emergency room to make sure.’