Her face a mask of good manners, she said softly, “I’m sorry, Prentice, do you mind? You’re standing in front of the granola.”
He examined her makeup free face and, even with that detached expression he thought, since she’d been back, she’d never looked lovelier.
Feeling the need to be perverse, instead of moving out of her way, as she clearly wanted him to do, he twisted, grabbed the bowl of granola he was blocking, twisted back and handed it to her.
She took it.
“Thank you,” she said quietly and politely.
She moved to the stove and used a graceful hand to sprinkle granola on the pancake before she set the bowl aside, in the opposite direction to Prentice, and flipped it expertly.
Prentice watched her do this like it was fascinating which, bizarrely, it was.
“Well?” Sally shouted.
Prentice stopped watching Isabella’s hand and looked at his daughter.
“Can I go too?” Jason asked quietly, his eyes on the tiled floor of the kitchen.
Prentice froze at this request from his son who hadn’t been willing to participate in much of anything since his mother died.
Strangely, he felt Isabella freeze at his side too. Slowly, she turned and looked at Jason. Her profile was not polite and detached. It was soft and warm and unbelievably striking.
Again, Prentice felt that weight hit his gut.
Then her head twisted, her features rearranged swiftly back to aloof and she looked up at Prentice enquiringly.
“Sorry kids, you need clean clothes and I need to do laundry,” Prentice answered.
“No you don’t,” Sally proclaimed. “Mrs. Evangahlala and I’ve been doing laundry all morning.”
Prentice’s body turned to stone.
All except his eyes which narrowed and sliced to Isabella.
Instantly, Isabella whirled to the stove and started to fidget with the skillet on the burner.
“We’ve done two loads!” Sally announced triumphantly.
“You’ve been very busy,” Prentice murmured and he watched Isabella’s body get stiff, her hands fisted tightly and she moved to a cupboard. Unfisting her hands with visible effort which Prentice found peculiar and vaguely disturbing, she pulled down a plate, got cutlery, slid the pancake on the plate and handed it all to Prentice.
“The butter and syrup are on the counter,” she informed him softly, tipped her head to the counter and then immediately dismissed him and moved away.
Prentice put his coffee cup down next to Isabella’s, walked to the other counter and, while he prepared his golden, fluffy, delicious-looking pancake, he said to his children, “We’ll all go.”
Sally threw her hands up so fast she nearly teetered off the stool as she shouted, “Hurrah!”
Prentice smiled at his daughter.
He’d hoped that Annie and Dougal’s wedding would bring some happiness to his family, cutting through the undercurrent of despair Jason was always emanating that Prentice, for the life of him, had no idea how to chase away, likely because he couldn’t cut through his own.
It appeared this was working, even for Jason.
Regrettably, Isabella was the catalyst for it.
But Prentice would take what he could get.
Including her doing the laundry which was a chore he detested, something else Fiona did. And her brewing f**king heavenly coffee.