Part 26 (2/2)

'Here, let me give you a hand,' he said.

'I'm all right.'

He ignored her and started to take things out of bags.

'No not that one!' she screamed as he put some tampons down on the table.

'Christ, woman, I do know women menstruate. It's of no great surprise to me!' He moved his attentions to a carrier that looked full of bulky veg to save her further blushes, though. 'By the way, you had a call from someone called Crystal. Wanted you to phone her back,' he dropped casually.

'What did she say?' asked Stevie. Trying to sound as casual in return.

'Nothing really. Funny, she kept getting my name wrong and calling me Damme MacQueen.'

b.u.g.g.e.r!

'Oh...er...she's like that. Bit old and doddery. Thanks for taking the message.'

He grinned behind her back. 'I thought I might take you and Danny out for a pizza, if you like.'

'There's really no need.'

'I want to. I fancy a pizza and didn't want to eat out alone.'

'Thank you for the offer,' she said, not looking directly at him, 'but I don't want my son getting too excited about you being here and becoming attached to you. He's already far keener to see you than I ever expected. I don't want him getting hurt.'

'Okay, I understand,' said Adam and he did, but he could not quite manage to mask the note of disappointment in his voice. He liked the little boy. Danny reminded him of himself at that age, quiet and intense with a head full of stories about outsmarting life's baddies. Not that his mum had been anything like Stevie, and that, he considered, was a great shame.

As a courtesy to Stevie, Adam made himself scarce after saying a quick h.e.l.lo to Danny when he came in from school. He went off for a long run, making sure he wasn't back before Danny went to bed at half-past seven. He returned warm and sweaty to find Stevie outside deadheading a few of the roses that trailed up the front walls of the cottage, twisted up with the sweet perfumed honeysuckle.

'Hi,' he said, going into the cottage. 'Can I get you a cold drink?'

'I'm okay, thanks,' she said, and carried on snipping. He wondered if she was wis.h.i.+ng each one was his head. He had gone a bit far the other day, chucking her on the floor and tickling her. Although Matty Boy's reaction had proved the end justified the means. He had seen the spark of jealousy flaring in his eyes, the anger that Adam was messing with something he still considered his. Matthew actually looked as if he might hit him at one point. In saying that, he was still living with Joanna, so they weren't quite home and dry yet.

He heard Stevie yelp and the secateurs drop to the ground and rushed out to see what the matter was.

'I think I've just been stung,' she said, trying to shake off her glove. Sure enough, in the crook of her arm was a still-throbbing sting.

'Here.' He pulled out her arm, then pincered out the sting, lowered his lips and started to suck.

'Ow!'

'Wheesht, woman, I'm trying to help you.'

He sucked and spat, sucked and spat.

'Christ, can't they get a f.u.c.king room,' said Jo, who had just gone to the sink for a gla.s.s of water and seen them in pa.s.sing. She couldn't bear to stand and watch, but she couldn't move away from the window either. The sight of Adam with her was driving her mad. He was actually kissing her up the arm in full view of the street. They looked b.l.o.o.d.y ridiculous. She tore herself away and jumped onto Matthew's lap on the sofa, knocking away the newspaper he was engrossed in.

'Make love to me now,' she said. Take away the picture I have in my head.

'Er...okay,' said Matthew, as Jo unleashed her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, but in the end, it was only her he satisfied. There was a picture in his own head that just kept getting in the way.

Stevie watched Adam's lips work on the soft skin on the inside of her arm and suddenly felt a greater sting inside her than the now-dead creature had given her. She gently pulled her arm away.

'I think that might have done it,' she said stiffly, to over-compensate for the swirly, heady feelings that were taking over her brain. Obviously the effects of insect poison. 'Thank you.'

'Poor wee thing,' said Adam.

'Sorry, wasp,' said Stevie.

'It's a bee,' Adam corrected her. 'Wasps just keep on stinging, but alas, when a bee does it, it gives its all.'

Stevie felt ridiculously and inexplicably tearful.

'I didn't even feel him on my arm or I would have knocked him away.'

'Her,' said Adam. 'The drones don't have stings. They're only made to mate. It's the women that dae aw the damage.'

'Bee expert are you now?' said Stevie, the snap in her voice masking the wobble in her legs.

'My granda' used to keep bees. We lived on honey piecesbread and honeywhen we were wee. He knew everything there was to know aboot bees.'

'Is there that much to know?' said Stevie.

'You'd be surprised. I could wax lyrical, or should that be ”beeswax” lyrical on the subjectthey're marvellous wee creatures. For instance, did you know honeybees dance to tell aw the others where the nectar and pollen is? It's called a waggle dance. And that b.u.mble bees come oot earliest in the year because they're basically wearing fur coats. And did you know that the bee is the only insect that produces food eaten by man? Unless you're partial to ant spittle, that is.'

Stevie smiled. Bees with fur coats on, bees dancing. Danny would have been fascinated by all that.

'I'll go in and get a plaster,' she said, suddenly uncomfortable in the silence that hung warm and heady between them, thick and sweet as the honey in their conversation. She retreated inside.

Adam looked across at Matthew's house. The light had just gone on upstairs and Jo was holding the curtains. She looked down at him, glared, and tugged them shut. Yes, it was the women that did aw the damage.

Chapter 45.

Jo had a headache the next day and phoned in sick. Although she put it a little more dramatically than that, Matthew noticed as he eavesdropped over the upstairs balcony. She seemed to sob a little and say she couldn't get in and would explain later. Matthew volunteered to stay off and keep her company but she said she just wanted to sleep it off. For once, he didn't try to change her mind and went out to the car alone. The sight of Adam MacLean's fancy car across the lane greeted him once again, and though he wasn't a violent man, he wanted to rush across to it and smash into it with a sledgehammer.

Later at work, Adam was trying to catch up on some paperwork in his office but his head was all over the place. He thought of little Danny's face lighting up every time he saw him. He thought of his own heart warming up every time he saw little Danny. Then he thought of little Danny's mother and he didn't know what the h.e.l.l happened to him when he saw her. She was quite the most infuriating woman he had ever met, the ant.i.thesis to everything that had ever attracted him in a woman. She was nothing like Jo or Diane, or the others before them, in their tall, slender, cold, dark-haired moulds.

There was a confident knock on his door, and he yelled out his customary, 'Come awn in.'

It wasn't a member of staff wanting help or keys or a word. It was a woman looking tall and slender, cold and beautiful in a powder-blue suit with long, swishy dark hair and eyes the colour of mola.s.ses.

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