Happy Mother's Day! - By Sharon Kendrick Page 0,166

plate of sausages he knew Matt would have left for them. He put them in the microwave, pressed the reheat button—every single dad’s favourite technological advance—and pulled up a barstool.

‘I don’t rightly know,’ he admitted. ‘He pulls stunts like this all the time, and I’ve let him. But today it just felt wrong, like I was giving into him rather than parenting him, and I told him as much at the school, hence the huff upstairs.’

Siena smiled though it didn’t reach her eyes. Of course it didn’t. This woman was happiest spending her days with pilots and businessmen and first class travellers, not sick kids and their clueless fathers.

‘Were you a huffer?’ he asked, doing his best to include her, to remind her that they were at least of the same species even if not of the same life experience.

‘As a kid?’ she asked. And, when he nodded, ‘Sure. World class. I was born twelve years after Rick, so it was inevitable that I become a pampered princess or a huffer. There was no way on God’s green earth that Rick would have allowed the former, and Dad was so busy working, as he thought that was the best way to provide for us after Mum was gone, to sway the balance.’

‘Sounds like they both deserved all they got.’

James had meant it as a joke, but the second the words left his mouth Siena’s face turned pale as paper. Then he remembered that her father had died when she was a teenager. Something in the way she had talked about it made him sure she thought herself to blame.

He’d been there. Losing the person you love the most and knowing deep down that there must have been something you could have done to stop it.

‘Hey, I didn’t mean anything by that,’ he said, reaching for her hand, but she pulled it away.

‘I know. It’s okay. Really.’

The microwave pinged, telling them the sausages were cooked. James got off his seat and rapped on the window to tell Matt food was on. Matt waved him outside.

‘I won’t be a sec,’ he told Siena, hesitating before leaving her with her thoughts.

The moment James left the room, Siena let her head fall until it hit the kitchen bench. Oversensitive, much? While seated thus, she heard a shuffle of sneakers on tile as Kane skulked in.

Excellent. Now, after their awkward meeting at the school, she had no idea what to say to the kid.

Should she laugh along with him that he’d got out of school early? Heck, she’d done so enough times to know a pro when she saw one. Or ought she lean down on her knees like Mandy until she was at his eye level and ask if he was feeling better? Well, that just gave her the heebie-jeebies. If anyone had baby-talked to her at Kane’s age she would have thought them imbeciles.

Kids were little people. They were no more stupid or ignorant than many adults she knew. So the only thing she could do with Kane was be herself.

‘So, do you want a sausage on bread or are you still feeling too rotten?’ she asked.

Kane watched her from beneath long dark lashes, his mouth twisting as he thought about it. She wasn’t sweet like Mandy. She wasn’t laid-back like Matt. And she wasn’t blinded by love like his dad. She shot him two raised eyebrows to show she was not one to be messed with.

‘So, what’s it to be, Kane-o? Tea or sympathy? As I see it, you’ve worked yourself into a corner so you can’t have both.’

He blinked, surprised at having been spoken to like that. Then he squared his small shoulders and moved around her to the bread box. He pulled out a loaf and a breadboard and set to plying a heap with tomato sauce and butter.

Well, there you go, Siena thought, more shocked that her bluff had worked than Kane had been at being bluffed. A glimmer of hope sprang from deep within her, like a ray of light at the bottom of a well.

‘Do you like mayonnaise?’ Kane asked without looking at her. ‘I hate it but Dad always has mayonnaise on his sausages.’

‘No, thanks,’ Siena said, moving to stand by Kane, bringing a spare knife from the cutlery drawer for use in the mayo jar. ‘Bread, butter and tomato sauce only for me. Anything else is just not Australian.’

Kane looked up at her with a small smile. He still looked tired, his eyes were still