The Beautiful Widow

‘He’s my boss. It’s just not … done.’

‘Nonsense.’ Vivienne whisked Daisy up into her arms.

Toni gave her mother a helpless glance and then decided not to pursue the conversation, aware of little ears flapping. Determined she was still going to put the girls to bed—Steel had known what she intended when he’d accepted her mother’s invitation after all—she sent her mother downstairs and supervised the twins’ bath time. Once they were in their pyjamas, looking impossibly angelic with flushed cheeks and tousled curls, Amelia declared she wanted to go downstairs to say goodnight to the steel man. ‘I want to see him, Mummy. Just for a minute?’

Toni kept her voice bright and pleasant when she said, ‘He’s talking to Grandad, honeybee, so maybe another time.’

‘Ple-e-e-ase, Mummy? Please.’

Daisy glanced from her twin to her mother and then added her own plea, tugging on Toni’s skirt. ‘Me too, Mummy. Me too.’

As they’d been speaking Toni had heard her mother coming upstairs. Vivienne had obviously caught the gist of what they’d been saying as she now put her head round the door, saying, ‘I can take them down.’

The twins, sensing an ally in their grandmother, increased their entreaties. ‘Please, Mummy. Just for a little while.’

Toni found she was hanging onto her patience by a thread. She didn’t want her children getting to know Steel, or any other man for that matter; her home was a place apart from the world outside its four walls. But that was the rub. This wasn’t her home, it was her parents', and her mother had every right to invite whomsoever she liked in for coffee.

Was she being ridiculous and churlish? she asked herself wearily, knowing the answer was in the affirmative. Sighing, she said to the two little faces looking up at her so imploringly, ‘Just a quick goodnight, then, I mean it, and then I’ll read you a story in bed before you settle down.’

The twins shot off, Vivienne following more slowly with Toni bringing up the rear. When she walked out to the patio it was to see Daisy—shy, timid little Daisy—standing in front of Steel with one small hand resting on his knee as she told him some story or other about what had happened at nursery that day. ‘An’ Miss Brown told him to come back an’ say sorry but he wouldn’t, would he, Melia?’

Amelia, who was sitting on her grandfather’s knee, shook her damp curls. ‘He put his tongue out at Miss Brown,’ she volunteered.

‘An’ that’s very naughty, isn’t it?’ Daisy said indignantly.

Steel nodded seriously. ‘Very, I’d say.’

‘Tyler?’ Toni asked over her daughter’s head.

‘The very same,’ Steel said solemnly.

Daisy looked up at her mother. ‘He put a flutterby—’

‘A butterfly,’ Amelia corrected. ‘They’re called butterflies.’

‘He put a butterfly in the crayon tin an’ wouldn’t let it out an’ tried to kick me when I got the lid off an’ it flew away.’

‘You did that?’ asked Toni, amazed. Daisy was frightened of Tyler; all the children were. ‘You got the tin away from him?’

Daisy nodded vigorously. ‘It was only a little one an’ it was scared. It wanted its mummy.’

Toni touched her child’s curls. ‘That was a kind thing to do, my sweet, but now this mummy wants both her little girls tucked up in bed, so say goodnight to Grandma and Grandad and Mr Landry. Quickly now.’

Daisy ran to her grandfather and he gave both little girls a kiss and then Vivienne did the same; when they reached Steel they clearly expected him to follow suit and he didn’t disappoint them. Toni’s heart seemed to stop beating for a moment as he bent forward, tenderly kissing each small forehead as he said, ‘Goodnight, Amelia. Goodnight, Daisy. I hope Tyler behaves himself tomorrow.’

‘He won’t,’ said Amelia, turning as Toni led the girls away.

‘He never does,’ added Daisy, beaming at Steel, who smiled back. ‘Miss Brown says he’s got ants in his pants.’

The twins were asleep even before Toni finished reading the story they’d chosen, but she continued to sit for a moment in the quiet room, faint echoes of conversation and laughter from the garden drifting up to her. She felt so het up her nerves were stretched to breaking point and her stomach was in knots, and yet really nothing was wrong. Her mother had invited her boss in for a coffee when he’d been nice enough to drop her home. What was wrong with that?

Nothing and everything. When the boss was Steel Landry.

She’d just stepped onto the small landing when her mother came upstairs. Toni took one look at Vivienne’s face and said, ‘What? What have you done, Mum?’ as her stomach plummeted.

‘Now don’t be cross, dear, but I’ve asked Steel if he’d like to stay for a bite to eat,’ Vivienne said defensively.

Toni said nothing; she couldn’t. Words had failed her.