Happy Mother's Day! - By Sharon Kendrick Page 0,136

manager is in heaven as it has meant he can put prices on each piece which, since I am rarely at the showroom, I cannot veto.’

‘Okay,’ she said, holding up a hand like a traffic cop. ‘I get it. I probably couldn’t afford one!’

Again he laughed, and again he revelled in the feeling of using his lungs for more than just taking in oxygen for the first time in all too long.

‘But doesn’t being home all the time drive you nuts?’

‘Nope. I can work my own hours and there’s a permanently open intercom in the wall in case Kane needs me. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.’

He didn’t go so far as to admit that in the last few months his life had so come to revolve around Kane’s moods that he was pretty certain he could have turned the intercom off and known if and when Kane was distressed anyway. Even he knew that would put a damper on the whole chatting to a regular girl like he was a regular guy thing he had going on.

‘Yeah, I don’t know,’ she said, her two front teeth nipping uncertainly at her lower lip. ‘I wonder if I was staring at the same four walls all the time I might not go a little batty.’

‘Don’t the insides of your planes begin to look alike?’ he asked.

She seemed to think about it for a second before she said, ‘Nah. Not when you add two hundred new faces per plane to the mix.’

‘Fair point. So how long have you been flying high?’ he asked, suddenly needing to prolong this thing, this feeling, this whatever it was that was making him feel so loose as long as he could.

But he soon cringed as her right eyebrow flickered and threatened to shoot skyward. It had been so long since he’d had to ingratiate himself to someone new he was obviously pretty rusty. Had he said something wrong? Had it sounded like some sort of chat-up line? But he wasn’t trying to chat her up. He was just chatting.

She blinked up at him, her mouth twisting as she warily weighed his words. ‘Seven years,’ she said. ‘Why?’

‘I’ve never met a live one in the real world before. I had kind of reached the conclusion you guys were all well-trained robots kept in some warehouse up Max’s Port Douglas headquarters,’ he said before he had even tried the words out in his head.

Note to self—think before you talk.

Siena looked down at her bare feet, her shaggy curls flicking over her head. ‘Do I look like a robot?’

‘Oh, no. You seem plenty real to me,’ he said. And, okay, that time he meant every ounce of flirtation wholeheartedly. How could he not? It felt so darned good.

When she looked back up James was awarded a lopsided smile brimming with appreciation for his efforts and somewhere deep down inside him something shifted. Big time. Not at all prepared for such a shift, he tried to shift it back. But it was too late.

As James struggled internally, her eyes narrowed as though she was trying to figure him out. Or perhaps she was just trying to place him. Maybe they did know one another. Maybe that was all this shifting sensation was. Not attraction but familiarity. He was about to ask if they had met before, but even he knew that would absolutely sound like a line.

‘Firstly,’ she said, spare hand now firmly on her jutted out hip, ‘I am not just any old flight attendant. I am one of the top Cabin Directors on MaxAir’s international corridor. And secondly, the only reason I am in this get-up, rather than my favourite Dolce suit, pristine make-up, without a wind-up key sticking out of my back, thank-you very much, is because some kid spilt cola all over me on the plane up here from Melbourne. Please tell me Kane-o doesn’t drink cola.’

Kane-o? What was this woman on? Whatever it was he wanted some.

‘He doesn’t drink cola,’ James repeated like a good little acolyte, eternally grateful he had thought before saying that last gem out loud. ‘Matt showed Kane the cola and coin trick and Kane is now petrified of the stuff. He’s more scared of cola than he is of the dark.’

As he had really hoped they would, her bow mouth kicked up at the corner and her ocean-green eyes sparkled. Damn it, but she was lovely.

‘Excellent,’ she said, nodding so hard her curls bounced about her ears before settling