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hit the far side of the fire and as one took up residence on an empty straw mat. The bonfire no longer blazed, but embers glowed red-hot at the base of the gently licking flames.
‘It’s very quiet out here all of a sudden,’ she said, her voice soft.
‘I think we may officially be considered stragglers.’
‘Most socially uncool.’
‘No need to panic quite yet. We won’t be the very last. I’m told there’s always one fellow hanging about ready to douse the fire once all’s said and done.’
‘Then our party reputations will live to see another day!’ she said, but he saw in the flicker of her eyes that she heard what he’d really been telling her. They had a chaperone of sorts after all.
She crossed her legs frog style, sitting her drink on her far side and laying her hands in her lap—they fast disappeared into her ample skirt—as she looked into the fire.
Silence stretched between them. He wondered if she could feel the same electricity running up and down her arms that was creating havoc over his.
When she blatantly asked, ‘So where’s Ruby tonight?’ he knew without a doubt that she was well aware.
CHAPTER NINE
THE fact that Meg had to be the one to remind him of the participant in their relationship who wasn’t there brought Zach solidly back to earth.
Habit had him slamming his lips shut tight. But then Meg tucked loose strands of hair behind her ear and shot him an encouraging smile. And he couldn’t deny, even to himself, that talking to her helped. More than talking to Felicia, or the teachers at Ruby’s school, or the social workers who came to the house once a week.
Maybe it was the fact that she would be leaving in a few days. Maybe it was because sometimes she seemed to understand Ruby more than even he did. Or maybe it was because he simply enjoyed talking to her.
For whatever reason, he said, ‘She’s sleeping over at her friend Clarissa’s house. Her first sleepover since moving here. She was so excited when the invitation came through this morning I couldn’t say no.’
‘Did she tell you about the invitation before or after she made you pancakes?’
He thought back. ‘After.’
Meg laughed softly. ‘Getting you all nice and buttered up before going in for the kill. I love it.’
The affection in Meg’s voice didn’t surprise him, but again it moved him. Because of this woman, parts of himself he’d thought long since turned to dry ice had begun to melt. And he wasn’t the only one.
He patted the chest of his jacket and felt inside the card Ruby had presented to him that morning. A card she’d made, addressed to Meg. He’d brought it with him with every intention of giving it to her. He even got as far as reaching inside and touching the pink cardboard before his fingers curled into his palm.
Even as he’d slid the card into his jacket earlier that evening, he’d known he couldn’t ever tell Meg about the card.
Letting Ruby develop a fondness for her was a bad idea. A kid could only have the object of their affection snatched away from them so many times before they learnt it hurt less to simply never form attachments at all. It was his duty to protect Ruby from that kind of hurt as well. As such he could only in good conscience encourage friendships he knew would last.
Meg turned to him with a wide, lovely, genuine smile, and he wished he could be as conscientious with himself. He let his hand slide out of his coat pocket, empty.
She waggled a finger at him and said, ‘If I didn’t know better I’d think you’ve read the book after all.’
‘Which book is that?’
‘How to Father a Girl. It’s extremely hard to track down and even more difficult to decipher. Lots of hieroglyphics and double talk. But you seem to be following along beautifully.’
‘I don’t always get that same feeling from Felicia.’
Meg raised an eyebrow. ‘Do tell.’
He baulked. Then convinced himself that while keeping Ruby a step removed was one thing, sharing pieces of his experiences was fine. In fact, so far it had done him nothing but good. ‘She seemed to think I ought to keep Ruby home from Clarissa’s because a) she did have a sore throat, or b) she’d been hamming it up. Either way she should be spending the weekend in bed.’
‘You overrode the nanny?’ Her eyes widened. ‘Brave man.’
Zach laughed. ‘Letting Ruby have some fun felt right.’ He scooped up a handful of sand and let it run slowly through his fingers as he remembered. ‘Then after it was settled, for some reason I winked at her. I’ve never, not once in my entire life, winked. Didn’t even know I knew how. And you know what the rascal did?’
‘What?’
‘She giggled. No more amazing a sound have I heard in my entire life.’
Meg pulled her knees back to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. ‘I knew it,’ she said on a sigh. ‘You’ve so-o-o read the book.’
Zach brushed the sand from his hand and glanced at her from the corner of his eye. In the semi-darkness the angle of her body was outlined in gold from the dying fire—all curled into itself like a ball of shimmering red fabric. It wouldn’t matter who her father was, or the size of her trust fund, she would draw the eyes of those who knew quality when they saw it wherever she went.
He took in a deep breath, wood smoke tickling the back of his throat. ‘I may be faking it well enough to fool you, and perhaps even Felicia and Ruby. But the grim truth is I know next to nothing about kids, and less about girls.’
‘Many, many eons ago little Zach was seven.’
‘That is so. Yet my hope is that Zach at seven and Ruby at seven have very different experiences.’
‘Why’s that?’
The night was so quiet, the fire so mellow, the air so warm, Meg’s voice and presence in the darkness so reassuring. The uncomfortable truth of his childhood balanced on the tip of his tongue for a moment before he swallowed it down. He didn’t talk about it. Didn’t even like thinking about it. If having stopped flying to the ends of the earth and back meant all that purposely lost baggage might yet catch up with him …
He said, ‘She’s a girl, for one thing.’
Meg laughed and it echoed through him hollowly. All that virgin trust between them had been built for nought if he could still feign his feelings so easily. But it was too late to tell her now. The moment had passed.
‘To tell you the truth,’ she said, ‘what girls think, what we like, what annoys us, what we want isn’t really all that different at Ruby’s age or mine.’
‘And that is?’
She laughed again. This time he was quick enough to close down the exposed parts of himself so, instead of it making him feel so cool and alone inside, her laughter skittered hot and fast across his skin like sparks from the fire.
Her knees fell towards him, her hand reached out to give her balance and he could see more of her face in the firelight. ‘Better I don’t say. The more you think you know about womankind, the more you realise you don’t know. I’m not being any help to you at all, am I?’
‘You are. More than you know.’
‘Really?’ The flicker of surprise in her voice caught him off guard.
‘Really,’ he said, infusing the word with as much gravity as he could.
She watched him for a few long, hot moments before finding the fingernails of her right hand unexpectedly intriguing. ‘Well, of course I’m helping.