An hour later, Juliet was pulling her car into the driveway, the tyres crunching against the gravel as she pressed her foot on the brake.
‘Mommy!’ Poppy’s voice carried across the yard. Juliet was only halfway out of the car, one leg on the gravel, the other still in the foot well. She grabbed her purse and bucket of flowers she’d rescued from the shop, too old to use at work, but too pretty to throw away. A smile worked its way across her mouth as soon as she set eyes on her little girl.
‘Hey honey. How was school?’ She dropped her things on the porch, reaching out just in time for Poppy to throw herself into her arms. ‘Where’s Melanie?’
She looked around for Melanie Drewer – the babysitter who picked Poppy up and watched her at home every Thursday. It was strange that she was nowhere to be seen.
‘She started being sick after teatime. It was yucky. The smell made me want to throw up too.’
‘She’s sick?’ Juliet looked around. ‘Where is she, in the house?’
‘Nah, ah. She went home.’
‘And left you on your own?’ She felt her voice rise up an octave, like some kind of panicked soprano. ‘She can’t do that.’
‘It’s okay. Ryan told her to go. He said I could play with Charlie until you came home.’ Poppy shrugged as if it was the most natural thing in the world, going to play with a practical stranger and his son.
Her mouth turned dry at the thought of what Thomas would say if he ever found out.
‘Poppy, come look at this,’ Charlie called out. Poppy turned and ran down the porch and back to the house next door, her hair flying out behind her. She
came to a skidding halt next to Charlie, the two of them kneeling down at the corner of the house, both of them staring at something.
Her gaze rose from the two of them to the deck above. That’s when she saw Ryan, sitting on the comfy two-seat sofa, a laptop propped up on his denim-clad legs. He was frowning at something, using a mouse to click at the screen.
He wasn’t even keeping an eye on the children. Anything could have happened to them.
Turning on her heel, she walked back down the pathway and over to the Sutherland house. He looked up when he heard her footsteps, his blue eyes meeting hers.
‘Hey. How was your day?’
His question stole the breath from her lungs, the same way his smile stole her good sense. How long had it been since anybody had asked her that? Even Melanie was usually too busy trying to get supper on the table on the nights she worked to even acknowledge much more than Juliet’s arrival. As for Thomas, well, he’d never really been interested in how things were going.
‘Um, fine.’ She blinked a couple of times. ‘I was a bit surprised to hear Melanie was sick. She should have called me, I would have come home right away.’ She felt all kinds of awkward, looming over him as he looked up at her. Why the heck was she getting so flustered at the way his eyes crinkled as he smiled?
‘She was going to call you, but I told her I’d take care of things. She looked as green as a dragon, I thought the best thing to do was send her home before she spread her germs all over the neighbourhood.’
‘You should have called me,’ Juliet said. ‘I can’t have Poppy being looked after by strangers. It’s not right.’
‘I haven’t got your number.’
‘Well, Melanie should have given it to you. What if something had happened? What if Poppy had hurt herself when you were looking after her, and needed me? You can’t just … I don’t know … make decisions about other people’s children like this.’ Not even if the way he filled those jeans was making it hard to find the right words.
Ryan was looking at her as though he couldn’t understand a word she was saying. Three furrows lined his otherwise smooth face, half-obscured by his sandy hair. ‘If something had happened we would’ve tracked you down. But nothing did happen, and it wasn’t likely to, either. Unless you count those two getting covered in mud.’ He gestured at Poppy and Charlie, who were currently on their knees, digging in the earth. Charlie pulled a worm from the soil, holding it in the air and wiggling it toward Poppy. ‘We’re neighbours, we’re hardly strangers. And I know you’d do the same for me if I needed help.’
The common sense of his answer took the wind out of her sails.
‘I’m sorry,’ she finally said, her voice quiet. ‘I’m not used to getting any help.’
Ryan was silent as he stared at her. She felt scrutinised, but not in a bad way. Still, she could feel herself flushing under his inspection, her chest and cheeks pinking up as the blood rushed to her skin.
‘You know, that’s one of the reasons it took me so long to come back here,’ he said, closing up the laptop and putting it on the table beside him. ‘This whole notion that nobody else is responsible for your kids except you. It only happens in places like America. In the rest of the world, the less civilised places, raising a child is seen as a village project. If one parent isn’t around to watch them, the others take charge. If a kid misbehaves, they get chastised, doesn’t matter who by. If they’re crying they get comforted. It’s seen as everybody’s responsibility to make sure the village raises strong, well-rounded kids. Because all of us benefit in the end.’
The timbre of his voice – all low and mellow – was hypnotising, but it was his words that took her breath away. She reached out, steadying herself on the balustrade that ran around the outside of his deck.
‘That sounds almost beautiful,’ she said. ‘But nothing like we experience over here.’
Ryan frowned. ‘But you had your husband didn’t you?’