should. It wasn’t as if this date were going anywhere. Yet she’d spent far too much time swallowing her opinions on the subject. She looked him directly in the eye and said, “It’s probably not as common as men who bury themselves in the office and expect their wives to take on sole parenting responsibility.”
And that was the nail in the coffin of a date already on life support. It made for an awkward drive home, though they both attempted a polite stream of chitchat. As they parted at her front door with a cordial handshake—he was smart enough not to go in for the kiss, at least—she figured it was for the best. Daniel wasn’t a bad man, even if he did have rather conservative opinions on gender roles. He was intelligent, successful, and responsible. He simply lacked the level of imagination Serena required in a mate. She’d already had a marriage that felt like one long business transaction, and she wasn’t about to jump into another.
“Did you have fun?” Allie, the teenage girl who babysat for Serena on occasion, popped up from the sofa in the reception room, a book in hand.
“It was nice, thanks.” Serena reached into her clutch and took out several banknotes, which she handed to the girl with a smile.
Allie stuffed the money into her pocket and picked up her purse. “They were super easy tonight, by the way. Let me know when you need me again.”
“Thank you, Allie. I’ll ring you.” Serena let the girl out the front door and watched until she got into her car and turned on the ignition. This little section of Nairn near the Moray Firth was quiet, almost rural, but her mum instincts wouldn’t let her rest until she knew the girl was safely on her way. When Allie backed out of the drive, Serena stepped back into her house, locked up, and kicked her patent-leather heels onto the rug.
Nice dinner or not, that had been a waste of stilettos.
Serena quietly climbed the sweeping staircase to the upper floor and peeked into the first room she came to. Max was sleeping sprawled the wrong direction on his single bed, one pajama leg shoved up above the knee, his fine dark hair wild from his restless sleeping habits. She didn’t move him—getting her three-year-old son to sleep was enough of a challenge without disturbing him—but merely covered him with his duvet, tucked his giraffe, Mr. Spots, in beside him, and pressed a kiss to his forehead. Next door, eight-year-old Em was hunkered under a purple floral covering, only the top of her head visible. Serena kissed her good night as well and tucked in the duvet more securely before continuing down the hall to her own expansive bedroom.
Serena’s mobile buzzed in her handbag, and she yanked it out before it could go to a full ring and wake the kids. A quick glance at the screen showed a familiar number: the home of her younger brother, Jamie.
“Checking to make sure I got home safely from my date?” she said with a wry smile.
An American-accented female voice answered, “No, but the fact that you picked up answers my next question.”
Serena laughed at her sister-in-law’s wry tone. “Hi, Andrea. I just got back.”
“So the hot date was not so hot?”
“Barely lukewarm.” Serena shimmied out of her pencil skirt and peeled off the body shaper she’d worn to make the old garment fit, then kicked it halfway across the room. The date had been a waste of Lycra too. “He was nice, but—”
“No sparks.”
“Not even a flicker. I’m beginning to think I’m asking too much.” She yanked on her flannel pajama bottoms over her cotton knickers and grimaced at the marks the stiletto heels had made on her feet. “Maybe at my age, I should be looking for someone stable and boring.”
“Oh, please. You’re not even forty yet, so I don’t want to hear ‘at my age.’ Besides, you’re just going through what we all went through.”
Serena put her mobile on speaker so she could slide off her jacket and wrestle out of her silk blouse. “Which is?”
“Dating the boring, safe guys while you’re waiting for the one who curls your toes and sweeps you off your feet.”
“Please stop right there. I don’t need any more evidence of how you and my brother can’t keep your hands off each other.”
“I already apologized for that, and you really need to learn to knock.” Andrea laughed. “It’s not as if I came to