a voice like Kody’s: deep, powerful, raw, with an underlying guttural edge that never failed to send a shiver down her spine. After he’d first approached her that fateful night at the pub, she’d been mesmerised by his voice and the bad boy on stage.
‘How about you check your study schedule and get back to me?’ He pointed at his walking boot. ‘Because I’m not going anywhere.’
‘Okay.’ Isla swivelled on her seat to face her. ‘Dessert ready, Mum?’
Tash quashed her feelings of being left out and nodded. ‘Sure is.’
Tash placed the cake and crumble in the middle of the table, followed by bowls and spoons. When she passed Kody’s chair, she resisted the urge to give his shoulder a reassuring squeeze to indicate she understood how huge teaching Isla guitar was for him. Instead, she resumed her seat and forced a chuckle as Isla and Kody tried to outdo each other in fitting the biggest spoonful of dessert into their mouths.
After finishing her tiny serve of chocolate mousse cake—turns out a sugar hit didn’t ease the hurt inflicted by her father or the feeling of being ostracised in this pseudo family of three—she sent a pointed glance at the clock on a nearby wall. ‘Isla, do you have homework to do?’
Isla rolled her eyes. ‘Yeah.’
‘Hey, kiddo, the more homework you get done every night, the more time you’ll have to practise.’
‘But I don’t have a guitar.’ Isla slouched in her seat, channelling every moody pre-teen on the planet.
‘It’s better to have a few lessons, see if you’re really into it, before investing in an instrument,’ Kody said.
Tash nodded her agreement.
‘I guess.’ Isla shrugged and straightened, eyeing another piece of cake. ‘If I get to take some of that mousse cake home, I’ll go now and get started on my homework.’
‘Deal,’ Tash and Kody said in unison, and this time, when Tash joined in Kody’s laughter, she didn’t have to force it.
‘There are plastic containers in the cupboard over the sink,’ Kody said, standing to help clear the table. ‘Make sure you leave some for me, though.’
‘No worries.’
To Tash’s surprise, Isla made quick work of dishing the remaining cake and crumble into containers and snaffling one for herself before she picked up her backpack from near the door.
She waved. ‘Great hanging out with you, Dad. See you at home, Mum.’
And with that she was gone, a whirlwind in her navy school uniform, jogging across the five hundred metres that separated their houses.
‘She’s in an awful hurry to get started on that homework,’ Kody said.
‘Yeah,’ Tash said, wondering what Isla was up to and hoping her rush to leave the two of them alone wasn’t some lame attempt to matchmake. Dinner had been fine, but if Isla hoped to make it an ongoing thing she’d be sorely disappointed. Despite Tash’s physical reaction to Kody, he’d be leaving sooner rather than later and no way would she encourage Isla to build false hope where her parents were concerned.
‘I’ll help clean up then I’ll leave too,’ she said, bustling around the table, stacking plates and bowls with expertise mastered at the roadhouse.
Kody smiled. ‘Just how many of those can you carry without the whole lot tumbling to the floor?’
‘This is nothing,’ she said, giving a little jiggle that set the crockery clanking. ‘You forget, I’ve been doing this for thirteen years.’
His lips compressed into a thin line. ‘So you’ve waitressed all that time?’
‘Yep,’ she said, as she rinsed off the plates and stacked them in the dishwasher. ‘I got a job at The Watering Hole not long after I returned to town and have been there ever since.’
‘Do you like it?’
‘I like having a job that pays the rent, the bills and whatever Isla wants to do.’ She wondered if he heard a hint of resentment in her voice and rushed on: ‘Plus it’s rare to find a job where your co-workers are more like family and that’s what Ruby, Alisha and Harry are.’
‘You’re close to them all?’
For a second Tash thought she glimpsed jealousy, but that probably had more to do with her overactive imagination than any real caring on Kody’s part. Besides, even if she were involved with anyone, it was none of his business.
‘Ruby is the new boss—her mum, Clara, gave me the job in the first place, but she died unexpectedly last year. Alisha is my best friend. And then there’s Harry.’ It was wrong of her to torment him but she wanted to see if her suspicions were correct.