Happy Mother's Day! - By Sharon Kendrick Page 0,171

face.

‘I’m thinking you ought to call me a cab,’ she said, making sure there was no inflection at the end of her sentence. No question. She had to go. And fast.

A cab would be quicker than Rufus, and less likely to ask pertinent questions.

‘You’re a cab,’ he said, not letting her off the hook that easily.

A strange movement caught her attention out of the corner of her eye. Siena looked up at the first floor to find the heavy white curtains in her old bedroom flapping back and forth.

They had an audience.

Oh, great. How long had Kane been watching them? It had felt so good to be able to help someone who reminded her of herself as a kid stay on the right track. The very last thing she wanted was to be the one to send Kane into confusion, spiralling him further off course.

‘Siena, don’t do this. Don’t run—’ James began.

Siena cut him off before he said anything either of them would regret.

‘James. I really think you ought to call a cab.’ She gestured towards the window and, like a moth to a flame, his eyes sought out his son, who now had his nose and palms pressed against the window.

James’s brow furrowed, his smile waned and his jaw set hard and tight as he reconciled how much he wanted her with the fact that Kane may have seen it all.

‘Right,’ he said, his voice barely above a whisper. ‘I can drop you home.’

‘Stay here. I’ll be fine. But Kane needs you.’

And I don’t. I love you, but I don’t need anybody!

James nodded once. ‘That he does.’

Siena reached into her handbag for her mobile phone and she called directory assistance for the number of a cab company. And this time James didn’t try to stop her.

She tried a beaming smile on for size. But even she knew it didn’t quite fit. Because she knew deep down that he loved Kane so much that he would let her go. There was too much to consider, and with James at her side, looking so stunning and smelling so good she just couldn’t consider anything bar kissing him again.

As though the fates were sending her a sign, the cab arrived in record time to spirit her away, and James leant in the passenger seat window to wish her goodbye.

‘I’ll call you later,’ he said.

I might not answer, she thought.

‘Tell Kane I hope he’s feeling better. And that he’d better stick to the footpath on that new bike of his.’

She turned to the cabbie and gave Rick’s address.

‘Goodbye, James,’ she said as the cab pulled away from the kerb.

This time as she drove away she kept her eyes dead ahead.

CHAPTER NINE

AFTER taking a long cool early shower, during which she had thought herself in circles until she felt more confused than ever, Siena changed into her red velvet pyjamas and went downstairs to find Rick alone in his den, drinking a brandy and reading that morning’s sports section.

‘So why aren’t you out with your young man?’ he asked, not looking up.

‘He’s not my young man,’ Siena said, realising she had perhaps been a bit too vehement when Rick looked at her in disbelief.

She regretted sitting down when he folded his paper. ‘And why not?’

‘Because I never have young men in my life. Not in the way that you mean. I.I can’t.’ ‘Why can’t you?’

‘Because until recently I thought that relationship-wise I was little more use to any man than rat poison. And, though I’m not so sure that that’s the case any more, I’m still feeling pretty raw.’

She stared at her fingernails, cleaning out an imaginary speck of dirt.

‘I had a conversation with an eight-year-old this afternoon that made me realise how ridiculous it was that I have always blamed myself that Dad died that day.’

‘You what?’ Rick practically exploded on the spot, his newspaper rustling as it half fell to the floor in great flapping black and white sheets.

She glared at Rick, her thoughts, and memories, and emotions on high alert, all akimbo and mixed up and backwards since James had gone and kissed her and liked her and made her fall in love with him.

‘Come on, Rick. The day he died, the day I played truant from school and came home early and found him on his bed, so cold and so still. You blustered in and yelled—and I quote–“Now look what you have done”. But it wasn’t my fault, Rick,’ she said, looking her big burly brother dead in the