It Started With... Collection

Jessie’s expression, when she saw him waiting for her by his car, was a mixture of surprise and irritation. Her daughter’s big brown eyes carried curiosity and delight.

Introductions were made rather reluctantly, with Jessie calling him Mr Marshall.

Emily gave him an odd look. Some of the delight had gone out of her eyes. ‘Are you my mummy’s new boss?’ she asked. ‘The one who made her late?’

‘I am,’ Kane confessed. ‘But I’m going to make it up to you both by driving you home, then ordering a couple of pizzas to eat for dinner so that Mummy doesn’t have to cook tonight.’

He’d opened both passenger doors invitingly whilst delivering this plan for the evening to a frowning Emily. When he glanced up at Jessie to find out her reaction, a rather strange smile was playing on her generous mouth.

‘Is there a problem with that idea?’ he asked, looking from mother to daughter.

‘Mummy won’t let me go in any car that hasn’t got a proper car seat,’ Emily announced primly whilst Mummy just kept on smiling. ‘And Mummy won’t let me eat pizzas. She says they’re rubbish.’

‘Aah. Headed off at the pass,’ Kane muttered. ‘Calls for right-flank action. OK, how about I walk home with you and Mummy? That way I’ll know where you live for future reference. Then I can come back and get the car whilst you find out from your mummy what I can buy you both for dinner.’

‘We always eat with Dora on a Monday,’ the little powerhouse of information countered. ‘Today is a Monday. Isn’t that right, Mummy?’

‘Yes, sweetie,’ her mother said. With great satisfaction in her voice, Kane noted ruefully.

‘Checkmate, I think,’ Jessie added with a wicked gleam in her eyes.

Kane’s teeth clenched hard in his jaw. He’d see those eyes glitter for a different reason one day. Or he wasn’t the guy voted most likely to succeed!

‘Is that the correct metaphor?’ he asked, his soft voice belying his hard resolve. ‘Besides, chess is just a game. This is war. I will reconsider my tactics on the way to your house.’

Slamming the car doors, he zapped the lock, slipped the keys in his trouser pocket, then faced the enemy with one of his how-to-win-friends-and-influence-people smiles.

‘May I carry your bag for you, little lady?’ he offered, reaching for the small backpack which Emily had been dragging along the pavement.

‘I can carry my own bag, thank you very much,’ she informed him pertly. Although she needed her mother’s help to put it on.

Kane slanted Jessie a droll look. ‘A new feminist in training?’

‘No. An independent spirit. Everyone needs to be one of those these days to survive.’

‘You could be right. OK, how about you carry the bag, Emily, but I’ll carry you?’

Without waiting for her next objection, Kane hoicked Emily up to sit on his shoulders, one leg on each side of his head. She really was very light, even with a bag on her back.

‘You wrap your arms around my neck and I’ll hold your feet,’ he told her. But when he grabbed her sandal-clad feet, a shower of sand sprayed down the front of his designer suit.

‘What the…?’

‘Emily spends a good deal of each afternoon in the sandpit,’ Jessie explained without any apologies.

‘Right,’ Kane said through gritted teeth.

‘It’ll brush off easily enough,’ Jessie told him blithely. ‘Here… Look…’

He stiffened when she started brushing him down.

‘I think the sand’s all gone now,’ he said curtly after a minute’s torture.

She kept on doing it. ‘I don’t want you blaming me for ruining your lovely suit. Italian, is it?’

‘Yes.’ He named its designer.

She rolled her eyes at him. ‘I should have guessed.’

At last, she took her hands off him.

‘OK, you’ve been returned to your usual sartorial splendour. Let’s walk.’

Kane was very relieved to walk. Still, his reaction to her merely brushing his hands down over his chest gave him an inkling of how incredible it would be to have her touch him without clothes on.

‘It’s fun!’ Emily’s excited voice brought Kane back to the moment in hand. He’d loved riding on his father’s shoulders as a child.

‘It’s a bit like horse-riding,’ he said. ‘Have you ever been horse-riding, Emily?’

‘Yeah, I take her every weekend,’ Jessie muttered under her breath beside him. ‘When I can fit it in between the ballet and the violin lessons.’

Fortunately, Emily didn’t hear her mother’s sarcasm.

‘No, I haven’t,’ she said politely. ‘Mummy, can I go horse-riding?’ she asked in all innocence.

‘There aren’t any horses in the city, sweetie,’ Jessie replied. ‘We’d have to drive out into the country and we’d need a car for that. We don’t have a car.’

‘I’ll take you,’ Kane said, and was rewarded with the most savage glare from Jessie.

‘You don’t have to do that,’ she bit out.

‘But I want to,’ he said. ‘I’d enjoy it.’

And it was true. He would enjoy it.

‘When?’ Emily chimed in. ‘When?’

‘Soon,’ Kane promised.

‘Not till after Christmas,’ Jessie intervened abruptly. ‘We’re all too busy before Christmas. On top of that, Mr Marshall would have to get a proper child seat before we could go anywhere in his car. Such things take time.’

Her slightly smug smile suggested to Kane that she thought that getting a car seat would be just too much trouble.

‘Kane,’ he said firmly. ‘You are to call me Kane. Not Mr Marshall.’

‘Very well. This way…Kane.’

She led him round a corner that brought them into a tree-lined street that was much quieter than the road the day-care centre was on. Emily had fun picking leaves off the trees, her happy chatter distracting the two adults from their verbal foreplay.