‘Course not. Go and get the files and I’ll nip home and put some coffee on.’
By the time Tatiana arrived at the Pritchard Jones’s house, having changed into more comfortable denim shorts, flip-flops and a faded Rolling Stones T-shirt, a delicious smell of fresh-roasted coffee was already wafting through the kitchen. Maisie’s interiors magazines and piles of fabric samples lay scattered over the oak table, and pictures of Dylan’s very pretty young wife were everywhere, from the fridge door to the pinboard to the walls, covering every inch of space not already taken up by Dylan’s landscape paintings.
‘Your wife’s gorgeous,’ said Tati admiringly, and truthfully.
‘Thanks,’ said Dylan, a tad stiffly.
‘How come I never see her at school?’
‘She used to pop in a lot.’ Dylan handed Tati a mug of coffee and poured another for himself. ‘But she’s pregnant now and she gets very tired, especially in the afternoons. She’s usually napping when I get home.’
‘Is she a designer?’ Tati flipped idly through the magazines, clearing a space on the table on which to plonk her giant stack of paperwork.
‘God no. This is all just for the baby’s room. She doesn’t work,’ Dylan said, a touch dismissively, Tati thought.
She sat down at the table, but Dylan gestured towards the sofa, kicking off a sleeping tabby cat to make room for the two of them.
‘Let’s work over here. More comfy.’
For a second, Gabe Baxter’s ‘Dylan Dick-Hard Jones’ jibe replayed in Tati’s mind. He’s only interested in what’s between your legs. But she quickly pushed the thought aside. Gabe Baxter was poisonous, an obnoxious little wide boy on the make. What did he know about Dylan’s intentions? Tati wouldn’t let Gabe ruin the one, genuine friendship she’d made since coming back to Fittlescombe.
In the end, she and Dylan got through the paperwork in record time. Once Dylan had shown her the ropes, it was easy. Of course, no one at St Hilda’s, least of all the poisonous Year Six teacher Ella Bates, had bothered to talk her through the system. Tati realized now she’d spent untold hours chasing her tail, quite unnecessarily.
‘I can’t bloody believe this,’ she complained to Dylan. ‘Those cows. They could easily have told me what to do. I hate working at that damn school.’
‘You don’t mean that.’ Dylan smiled his twinkly smile and cleared away the papers, his hand accidentally brushing Tati’s bare leg as he reached over to the coffee table.
‘I do,’ said Tati. ‘I mean, I love the kids.’
‘That’s because you’re a natural teacher.’
‘Do you really think so?’
Despite her outer confidence, she’d always doubted her own abilities. For whatever reason, Tatiana wanted to be a good teacher, to have a genuine skill that people valued and respected. That her father would have valued and respected.
‘I do.’ Dylan smiled. There was something so good about his face, so kind, beneath those unruly auburn curls. He wasn’t small-minded and petty like the other staff, or cold and austere like Max Bingley. ‘Just look at how far Logan Cranley’s come on since you’ve been helping her with her reading. That didn’t happen by magic, you know.’
‘Thanks,’ said Tati, suffused by a warm glow of pride. Used to compliments about her looks, it was rare for her to be admired for anything else. Since her father’s death, and losing her birthright to the Cranleys, her self-esteem had been particularly low. ‘I don’t know why you’re so nice to me,’ she told Dylan.
‘Don’t you?’
His voice had taken on a rough, throaty edge. He touched her leg again, but this time there was nothing accidental about it.