Meant-To-Be Mother

chapter EIGHT


THE drive home was quiet.

James could have kicked himself for dragging Siena into such a domestic scene.

Siena was a jetsetter, a big city girl; she had been offered a dream job living in Rome, for goodness’ sake, and there he was showing off the great bits of his life—Coronas in the sun, afternoon barbecues, the kind of relaxed suburban lifestyle that could be found nowhere else like they did it in the tropics.

And, in his extended selfishness of not wanting to let her out of his sight, he had gone and dragged her into … well, real life.

When they reached the house Matt’s little red car was still outside but the others had gone. Kane was out of the car and in the house using the spare key from his backpack before James had even closed his car door.

Siena exited the car slowly as well. She shot him a straight smile.

‘Why don’t you come in and show Kane his new bike?’ he suggested before she had the chance to speak.

‘You show him,’ she said, flapping a hand across her face.

He reached out and took her by the hand, having no intention of leaving their great day together on such an awkward note. ‘Nope,’ he said. ‘Uh-uh. It’s your gift. You have to give it to him.’

Her hand curled inside his until it moulded into a perfect fit. She blinked up at him and he wondered if she thought it was too. Whatever she was thinking, behind her ocean-green eyes she smiled and with a short nod gave into his tug and followed him inside.

‘Kane, afternoon tea’s on now if you want it. Reheated barbecue sausages,’ he called once they were inside. ‘Reheated anything is his favourite meal so if he doesn’t come down within thirty seconds then I’ll know for sure he’s really ill.’

He waved through the kitchen window to Matt, who was scooping leaves out of the pool.

‘You think he might be faking it?’ Siena asked, delicately extricating her hand from his so she could head around to the safe side of the kitchen island. She leant her chin on her upturned palms and stared decidedly at some spot on the granite bench top.

Yep, she had definitely moved away from him again. Dammit.

She had held up her end, chatting with Mandy, knowing when to leave him alone, and reintroducing herself to his son. But they had let her down. He and Kane and the melancholic schtick they’d had going on for so long he couldn’t remember what life was like before.

Well, he would just have to reel her back in and fast. He reached in the fridge for a 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 pink, but there was definite attitude behind that smile. The attitude was definitely not James and she wondered if he had inherited that along with his brown eyes from his mother.

‘Do you want to see my room now?’ Kane asked and, buoyed by the hope radiating from within her, Siena actually said yes.

Kane grabbed a rolled up sausage in bread for himself, took a hold of her right hand in his sticky one and dragged her upstairs.

Halfway up the stairs Siena’s confidence failed her as memories swarmed in. Okay, so the demon she’d thought she’d kicked had been bruised, but it was still alive and kicking. She paid close attention to the differences since the last time she had been upstairs several years before.

The stairs had been carpeted in her time; now they were polished wood. The stair rail had been replaced, the polish and grain reminding her of the work in James’s workshop. She let her left hand trail along the wood, feeling the craftsmanship, imagining James putting long hours into the piece to make sure the quality was up to his exacting standards.

But, even with James’s stamp all over it, it was still the same staircase. She could have traversed the walk with her eyes closed.

The hairs on the back of Siena’s neck stood on end as she prepared herself to face the whisper of old ghosts she had been running from for years. The fights with her brother after her many teenage tantrums, the accusations that her behaviour was putting undue stress on her father’s poor heart, the day her father died.

Kane turned left at the top of the stairs. Some of the anxiety subsided as she saw that Rick’s room had been turned into a kind of games area for Kane. She’d have to tell him that, to be sure.

Kane continued dragging her into what had once been her old room. Her pink floral wallpaper, white lace curtains and posters of Nirvana and Pearl Jam had been replaced by plain yellow walls, heavy white curtains and Kane’s favourite toys, including a football signed by the North Queensland Cowboys. But even as Kane pointed out his computer, his stereo and other prized possessions, Siena’s eyes kept flickering to the half-open door at the other end of the hall.

The master bedroom.

No doubt now James’s bedroom.

Her dad’s old bedroom …

She hadn’t meant to be home.

She had gone AWOL from school. It had been swimming that day and she had forgotten her togs, so rather than get in trouble she had forged a sick note from her dad and had played truant.

After a day spent at the local video game arcade, she had bought herself an ice-block with her bus money and had spent an hour walking home.

She’d let herself in just before one o’clock, She’d clomped up the stairs and headed into her dad’s room looking for any spare change he might have left on his chest of drawers.

And she had found him there, on his bed, not breathing.

Her mouth suddenly went dry. And it was only when Kane called out to her that she realised she was at the end of the hall with her hand on the doorknob.

‘Siena!’ James called out when he and Matt made it back into the kitchen. His voice grew more insistent when there was no response, ‘Kane?’

‘You check upstairs and I’ll check out front,’ Matt suggested.

James took the stairs two at a time, hoping against hope he would find both of them there, though considering the way Siena had looked upon Kane like an alien the last time they had been together he wasn’t all that hopeful.

Buying a new toy for Kane or teaching him a new trick each time she came over wouldn’t endear Kane to her for ever. And he wasn’t entirely sure she had a clue of any other way to make a connection with him. But he wanted her to know he was more than willing to help her if she was willing to learn.

But was he only being selfish? Following his own desires with such blind abandon and not thinking through Kane’s wishes and welfare?

Or did Kane long for a new mother as James longed for Siena? With a blind reaching hope that one day it would all work out for him?

Please don’t be gone, he thought, please don’t be gone. If she’d done a runner … He didn’t even want to go there.

He slowed when he heard a murmur of voices coming from inside his bedroom of all places.

‘My dad made this one before I was born,’ he heard Kane say.

‘It’s beautiful,’ he heard Siena say, and his knees all but collapsed beneath him. He was overwhelmed by the relief flowing through his veins.

‘Dad didn’t make this one. It was Mum’s. She liked things a little flashier than Dad and I like. We like the classics.’

James leant back against the hallway wall and bit back a smile. What a funny kid.

‘What’s your mum like?’ Kane asked, out of the blue, and James’s smile slipped.

He almost decided to burst in to save Siena from answering that question but he knew he had to let this play itself out. Kane had brought it up. Kane was the one asking questions and talking about Dinah. And Kane had never once done that off his own bat with anyone bar James in the year since his mother’s death.

‘I never knew my mother,’ Siena said, her voice now a little quieter so James had to strain his ears to hear. He listened so hard his head hurt. ‘She died when I was born.’

‘Bummer,’ Kane whispered in some kind of awe that someone else he knew had lost their mother too.

‘My thoughts exactly,’ Siena said.

James was disappointed to think that might be the end of it until she said, ‘I wish I could have known her. Even for just a little while.’

Her voice was even, but he heard a creak of bed-springs and he knew she’d had to sit down. On his bed. Siena Capuletti was right now on his bed. How the heck had they ended up in his bedroom of all places? His mouth twitched as he pictured her snooping and Kane catching her out. If that was how it had happened, maybe he was in luck after all.

‘You’re lucky, Kane-o,’ she said. ‘I am?’ Kane asked. ‘But—’

‘Uh-uh,’ she said cutting him off. ‘No buts about it. You know what your mother looked like outside of photographs. How she laughed. What her favourite food was. What time she liked to get up in the morning. The type of furniture she liked, even. Right?’

Kane sighed and said, ‘Yeah, I do.’

‘And, besides all of that, you have a truly great dad. A dad who loves you so much that he would leave a perfectly nice barbecue lunch with sausages, and steak even, to pick you up early from school.’

‘You think my dad’s great?’ Kane asked, and James held his breath for longer than was probably healthy.

‘I do, Kane.’ She paused, and then said, ‘I think your dad is the greatest man I have ever met.’

James let out his breath nice and slowly. The greatest man. She hadn’t said the greatest dad, but the greatest man. Oh, boy.

‘Heck, Kane-o, I reckon to have a dad like that you are spoilt rotten.’

There was a small silence before the bed-springs creaked a little more and James imagined his son climbing up on to his bed beside the woman who had so quickly moved into his own heart.

Come on, Kane, he wished as hard as he could. Do right by the both of us, kiddo. Show her we Dillon boys are worth sticking around for.

‘She hated mornings,’ Kane finally said. ‘Dad was on morning patrol to get me ready for school but she was a night owl, so she always lay beside me on the bed until I fell asleep at night. I sometimes wake up thinking she’ll be there …’

More squeaking bed-springs. What was going on? James risked a peek through the slit of the doorway but he could only make out their legs—Kane’s skinny with knobbly knees below his school shorts, and Siena’s shapely, tanned, barefoot with hot red toenails and crossed neatly at the knee.

‘The last thing our mums would want is for us to be sad, Kane. Don’t you think yours would want you to be doing well in your school projects? And making friends in class? And smiling all the time like you do when you’re on your trampoline?’

‘I guess.’

‘And I think your dad would want that for you too. You must know that’s what he wants most in the whole world, for you to be happy.’

‘I know.’

‘So, be happy.’

‘Just like that?’

‘Just like that. Wake up, whack a smile on your face and aim to have a good day every day. It’s that simple.’ After a pause she added, ‘Okay, so it’s not that simple. But it’s a good start, right? And I think we would both do well to remember that a little more.’

Kane’s legs leant sideways, into Siena, and her legs instantly uncrossed and went knock-kneed and askew. James realised that Kane had hugged her. He put a hand against the wall to steady himself.

‘Right, okay,’ Siena said, her voice suddenly thick. ‘We’d better get downstairs or your dad will think we’ve run away and he might then eat all the sausages himself.’

James pushed himself away from the wall and ran down two stairs and waited for Kane to barrel out the door before taking a step back up.

‘Dad!’ Kane called, his eyes bright and lit by an inner fire that made James glow from the inside out.

‘Yes, buddy?’ he said, doing his best not to take the kid in his arms and hug him tight.

‘I left my hot dog in my room.’ And Kane ran off as if the wind was at his heels.

Siena came out of his room, her mouth falling into a shocked ‘O’ as she saw him at the top of the stairs. She glanced back into the room behind her.

‘Don’t tell me, Kane was showing off the camphor blanket box. He loves that piece. When he was younger and loved playing hide and seek he could be found there nine times out of ten. He smelled like camphor until he was five.’

She smiled at him, her eyes bright and her cheeks pink. ‘Yep. That was it. Now, where are those hot dogs? I’m starved.’

She slid past him, leaving behind a trail of expensive perfume, heat and bashfulness as she jogged down the stairs.

After the strangest afternoon tea date of her life, eating reheated sausages over the kitchen sink with a guy, a kid and an ageing hippy, Siena said her goodbyes.

‘Is that your bike at the front door?’ Kane asked, as they walked straight past it.

‘Oh, heck, I almost forgot! I bought it for you,’ Siena said. ‘Considering I squished your last one, I thought it was only fair. But you are only allowed to ride it if you tell your dad every time and you always wear your helmet and pads. And wake up every day how we talked about, deal?’

‘Wow! Sure. Thanks,’ Kane gushed, taking it in his hands and spinning the handle bars and testing the bell. ‘I promise!’

‘Say goodbye,’ James told his son.

‘Goodbye, Siena!’ Though Kane was gone to them now, running the bike round and round the lounge.

‘What was that all about?’ he asked, walking her to his car as she hadn’t been able to convince him he had no need to drive her home. ‘Waking up every day?’

She leant against the passenger door of his dark sedan and crossed her arms. ‘Nothing important,’ she said, more than glad he hadn’t come looking for them any earlier than he had.

He sauntered over and leant against the car beside her, mirroring her stance, folding his arms and half-smiling back.

‘So?’ he said.

‘So,’ she repeated, willing herself not to blush beneath the warmth of his gaze, ‘this afternoon has been … educational.’

James watched her but she had no idea what he was thinking. She had barely known him long enough to be able to read his verbal language much less his body language. Though, for some reason, all through the sausages and bread he’d been acting like the cat who’d caught the canary.

It had left her feathers feeling ruffled. That decisiveness, that straight stare, the constant half-smile—she found that side of him utterly sexy. Strong. Masculine. And attractive as hell. And she too hadn’t been able to keep her own smile off her face all afternoon.

Though she thought that the conversation with Kane had had as much to do with her unbelievably high spirits as anything else.

There she had been, in her father’s old room, the place in which the hardest memories of her short life had taken place, and she had been stronger than she had ever thought herself able to be. She’d had to be, for there had been someone else in that room who had needed her to be.

‘You could stay,’ James said, and Siena was torn from her heroic daydreams.

She waited for him to finish his sentence and, in the silent moment that stretched on, she thought perhaps that was all he was planning to say and her heart swelled. Literally. She could feel it filling her chest until she could barely breathe.

But, after a pause, he added, ‘For dinner.’ And her expectant heart deflated back to its regular below average size.

‘Nah,’ she said. ‘I don’t think so. It’s my last night here and I really ought to spend some time with Rick’s family. Especially since I don’t know when I’ll be back again. If I do take the Rome gig it might be a while. A really long while.’

Not in the least put off by her assertion, a flicker of warmth lit his eyes and then he reached out and tucked a stray curl behind her ear. Siena could not stop the ragged sigh from escaping her lips.

‘So why not stay?’ he repeated, his deep voice gentle and personal and completely distracting. And this time Siena was in no doubt there would be no qualifier to his statement.

He was suggesting she stay, stay. In Cairns. For him.

Siena felt breathless and full of oxygen all at once. But, before she had the chance to frame a thought, much less a response, James leaned across and kissed her.

In the split second before their lips met, Siena half-expected James’s kiss to be timid and wary. Sheepish, even. So far as she knew, she was the first woman he had kissed since meeting his wife several years before.

But when their lips at long last touched, his were warm, determined and sure. He knew exactly what he was doing. And Siena ended up the one who felt nothing but shaky.

Her body wilted against the hot car.

Her eyes drifted closed.

Pretty soon she felt more than just shaky. Pretty soon, as his kiss deepened, as she realised that there was nothing in the least bit carefree and unprompted about it, she felt tender, fluttery, adored and cherished and as though a fire had been lit beneath her toes.

She felt more alive and more scared than ever before. She felt as if she had stepped into a lift shaft to find the lift was in fact not there. She was in free fall, but she knew that James would be there to catch her in the end with his strong, creative hands.

Though neither of them moved from their position side by side, their arms crossed, a foot between her warm melting body and his, Siena had never felt more intimate with a man.

James was communicating so much tenderness and hope and effortless sensuality to her that every last concern she had about him, about home, about family, about love, melted away. She wished with all her might that those creative hands were on her. Touching her. Teaching her. Holding her.

Nothing mattered in that moment but James. James’s lips. James’s warmth. James’s strength compared with her own mounting weakness. James’s desire for her to stay—despite her inexperienced heart and despite what she had thought had been an all-consuming love for his son.

As though he had heard the thought echoing in her cotton wool filled mind, James pulled away.

Siena leant towards him, continuing the kiss as long as possible.

She sighed in disappointment as his lips finally left hers. Her unusually heavy eyes flickered open, expecting to see some semblance of guilt or surprise in James’s eyes.

But he was simply smiling. Really smiling. His grey-blue eyes were jewel-bright. His mouth kicked open to show a set of neat white teeth which would do just fine in any toothpaste commercial. And the crease in his right cheek that had threatened to show itself again and again now came out in full force. It was as though he finally had something private and wonderful in his life worth smiling about.

Siena could do nothing but stare. This was one beautiful man. A man with a heartbreakingly handsome face, with bottomless soulful eyes, with a huge capacity to give, who filled out a pair of old jeans just right, who liked her. There was absolutely no doubting it now. He really, really liked her.

And silly, selfish her; she had gone and done exactly the opposite of what she had promised herself. When all the while she had been thinking of him, and while she hadn’t been paying attention to her own feelings, she had gone and fallen slap bang in love with the guy.

The thought landed with a thud at the base of her skull, and where before she had felt on top of the world, she suddenly felt numb from head to toe.

‘Dare I ask what is going on behind those stormy eyes of yours?’ he asked, his gorgeous smile still so devastatingly in place.

He uncrossed his arms to reach out and run his knuckles along her cheek. Her skin heated under his touch, leaving a trail of fire across her 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.