Fall From India Place

  Liv scowled at him.

  With a sigh, he turned in his seat to look over at Lily, who was sitting with Ellie at the kids’ table. “That’s a bad word, honey. Don’t use it. Daddy shouldn’t have and he’s sorry.”

  Lily gave him this cute, serious nod of agreement. My God, was it possible to die from her adorableness?

  Nate turned back to Liv. “Happy? Can we not discuss this in front of the kids?”

  “Of course.” She shrugged nonchalantly, returning her gaze to her plate. “But I don’t know why you’re so upset. If you’d bothered to look in the bag I put at the side of the bed yesterday afternoon, you’d have seen I called the charity, explained the mistake, and went and collected your irreplaceable crap.” She glanced over at him. “I would like to remind you, though, that the only things in your life that are irreplaceable are sitting in this room with you.”

  “Hear, hear,” Mum murmured.

  Nate’s expression slackened with confusion. “You got it all back?”

  “Of course I got it all back.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because now I have leverage against you anytime I screw up. I’ll just remind you of the past forty-eight hours where you acted like a petulant schoolboy because I accidentally gave your Borg T-shirt to charity.”

  “It was the T-shirt I was wearing when we met,” he told her quietly.

  Her eyes narrowed. “Oh, no, you’re not pulling semi-romantic excuses for your behavior out of your petushy to screw me out of leverage.”

  “Leverage?” I asked. “Marriage is about leverage?”

  “Yes.” Every single married person at the table answered.

  I wrinkled my nose.

  Ellie waved her fork at me. “When you screw up, and if you’re married you’re bound to screw up at some point, it’s good to have detailed notes of your partner’s screwups because that way you can remind them, and forgiveness for your screwup comes much more quickly. Peace reigns.”

  “In this case,” Liv said, her eyes alight with triumph, “I screwed up a little but Nate screwed up more, so the next time I screw up, he’ll forgive me way faster.”

  “It sounds… mature,” I answered sarcastically.

  “What it lacks in sophistication it more than makes up for in effectiveness,” Adam attested.

  “Married people are weird.” I turned to Cole. “Remind me never to do that.”

  “To do that, you have to agree to go on a date with a man,” he reminded me instead.

  I shot him a filthy look, but before I could say anything, Adam said, “Hannah, that reminds me, you didn’t tell me you knew Marco D’Alessandro.”

  Jo tensed at the name, her eyes swinging to meet mine.

  “What?” Adam asked softly, picking up on the sudden change in atmosphere between us.

  I drew in a deep breath, unlocking my gaze from Jo’s and turning to Adam. “I didn’t realize you knew him.”

  “He’s a joiner in one of our construction crews. The foreman, Tam, speaks highly of him and is absolutely convinced he’ll be foreman himself in a few years’ time. I don’t doubt it. He’s always on hand when Tam isn’t and knows almost everything that’s going on on-site. I’ve known him for a couple of years. He seems like a really good guy. Hardworking and responsible. He didn’t realize we were related. Your schoolteacher friend’s husband told him.”

  “Oh,” was all I managed.

  “Oh?” Adam’s eyebrows puckered. “From the way he spoke you two used to be close.”

  I looked at Ellie, wondering if she’d known Adam was going to ambush me with this, but she looked just as surprised as I was. Not really wanting to discuss it in front of my parents, I shrugged. “We were really good friends in school.”

  Adam still looked confused. “Isn’t he older than you?”

  “A few years.”

  “Well, he says he’s been trying to get in touch with you.”

  Cole snorted at my side.

  I ignored that, giving Adam another innocent shrug. “I got a couple of his messages.” A deeper snort from Cole. “But I’ve been really busy.”

  “You didn’t tell me he was in touch,” Jo piped up, concern in her gorgeous green eyes. “Are you okay?”

  “Who is this boy, Hannah?” Mum quizzed suddenly.

  “How long has he been back?” Jo asked.

  “He couldn’t have been a boyfriend.” Mum shook her head at the idea. “Because you would have told me, right?”

  Jo leaned toward me. “When did you meet? Did he explain anything?”

  “Where’s he from? Where did he go? I’m so confused. Is —”

  “Hannah, will you help me with dessert, sweetheart?” Dad asked loudly, standing up.

  I pushed back from the table, throwing my dad a grateful smile. “Of course.” I hurried out of the room, happy to escape the questions as I followed him into the kitchen. “You’re a lifesaver.”

  Dad gave me a soft smile and began pulling bowls out of the cupboard. “No problem.”

  We were silent as we dished out the trifle.

  And then… “Hannah.” Dad stopped what he was doing, staring at the table, his body tense. “This Marco… he isn’t…?”

  I swallowed, my heart beating hard against my chest. “Dad.” I didn’t want to lie. Not to him.

  He glanced at me sharply, anger in his eyes. “Does he know?”

  I shook my head.

  “Why is he back?”

  “He wants a chance to explain why he left so abruptly. After… he went back to America before it…”

  Dad exhaled, the anger melting. “How long has he been trying to get back in touch?”

  “We met at a wedding a few weeks ago. He’s been persistent ever since.”

  “Before… what kind of man did you take him for? Was he kind to you?”

  For some reason the question opened a flood of emotion in me, my throat constricting, my nose and eyes stinging with tears. “Yes. He was very kind to me. We met because he was protecting me from this really horrible boy that was bullying me. Anytime I missed the bus Marco would walk me home, make sure I got there safely.”

  God, I’d loved him so much. Maybe the foolish, naïve kind of love, but I’d felt it deeply nonetheless.

  Dad slid his hand across the table, covering mine in comfort. I looked up into his eyes. “Maybe he deserves a chance to explain, then.”

  I was surprised. “I thought you’d be angry at him.”

  “I’m still angry at his choices, but I can’t be angry at him for what happened afterward. He didn’t know what you went through, Hannah. If he explains and it’s a terrible explanation, we can go back to being mad at him. But maybe he’s got a reasonable explanation for leaving you.”

  “I don’t know how you can be so rational.”

  “Well,” Dad said with a sigh, “I didn’t know him, so I don’t understand everything that happened. What I do know is that I have a strong daughter who’s rarely fazed by anything. If this man knocks you off balance a bit, then maybe there’s something to that. When I met your mum I was knocked on my arse.”

  I laughed gently and nudged him with my shoulder. “All these happily married couples are making you soft, Dad.”

  “Nah, that’s just old age,” he joked, and grabbed a couple of bowls to take through to the dining room.

  “Dad.” I stopped him from leaving. “Don’t tell anyone. No one else knows.”

  Dad nodded slowly. “Okay, I won’t. But I want you to ask yourself why you’re protecting him if you don’t care about him?”

  More confused than ever, I watched my dad walk out of the kitchen, pondering his question. No answer came. With shaking hands I picked up a couple of bowls and ventured back into the dining room, glad when I got there that Marco was no longer the topic of conversation.

  CHAPTER 10

  A

  lull in the discussion during the night’s adult literacy session made me smile. “You know, for people who co
mplain that this is the worst part, you certainly had a lot to say.”

  Duncan smirked while the others laughed. With the exception of Lorraine, who’d barely said a word all class.

  I’d found that a good way to help along the class reading skills was to have them read something for homework and come in and chat about it as a group. These guys had very basic reading skills, but they were coming on by leaps and bounds. I found that in discussion they unearthed a better understanding of the words they’d read because what one didn’t understand, another did, and they helped one another out without even realizing it.

  “Well done, folks.” I stood. “Read chapter six for next week, please, and I shall see you all then.”

  We bade one another a good night, the class filtering out until only Lorraine remained. Since the night I’d spoken to her, she’d turned up for every class. Still, she stubbornly refused any one-on-one assistance, and the reading challenges I set them made her uneasy. I’d quickly discovered that she was the kind of woman who preferred someone to be straightforward with her, rather than pussyfooting around her.

  “Is it me?” I asked her.

  Her head jerked up from her bag and she frowned at me. “Is whit you?”

  “Am I the reason you don’t want to speak up in class?”

  She shrugged.

  I raised an eyebrow. “It’s not the others. It can’t be. You’ve seen them struggle, and you’ve witnessed how patient and kind the class is with one another. You yourself have shown patience. Kindness. So if they’re not the ones who make you uncomfortable, who make you afraid, is it me?”

  “I’m no afraid,” she snapped.

  I strode toward her and gently took the book out of her hands. Opening it up to the chapter we’d just been discussing, I handed it back to her. “Read the first two sentences out to me.”

  Lorraine looked at me incredulously. However, I saw what she was so desperately trying to hide. I saw the fear.

  She snatched the book out of my hands and pulled it toward her face. She swallowed. Hard. With painstaking care she began to read to me. Almost near the end, she faltered on a word. Glancing up at me warily, she flushed.

  I kept my face perfectly blank. “Sound it out.”

  The anger flashed in her eyes and yet she looked back at the page. “It’s no a word.” She frowned. “Fuh-ri-gid,” she said, pronouncing it almost like “frigate.”

  “Do you remember the rules for hard and soft g’s? Usually, when g meets a, o, or u it’s a hard g. The guh sound. Like gap. But usually when it meets e, y, or an i, it’s a soft g. The juh sound.”

  Lorraine stared at the word. “It’s an i. Fuh-ri-gid. Fuhrigid.” Her eyes scanned the sentence that preceded it and the tension melted out of her as she said, “Frigid.” She shrugged. “I always thought that word wis spelt wi a j.”

  I took a step back from her. “That was well done.”

  She ducked her head. “Aye, whitever.” Abruptly she grabbed her bag and brushed past me. “See ye next week.”

  I stared after her in thought for a while after she left the room. Lorraine was definitely rough around the edges, lacking in good manners and social graces, but I couldn’t help but respect someone who pushed through despite her fears.

  With my heart pounding and my stomach roiling with waves of nausea, I settled onto my window seat in the living room, staring out at the dark, glistening street. Pools of light glimmered here and there where streetlights glanced off puddles made from the recent rainfall. I clutched my phone in my hand and sucked in a deep breath.

  Scrolling through my recent call list I found the number, and with Lorraine’s perseverance and Dad’s question at the forefront of my mind, I pressed the CALL button.

  It rang three times before… “Hannah?” Marco answered, pleasant surprise in his deep voice.

  “Hi,” I replied quietly, willing my heart to slow. “I…”

  His voice was filled with a concern I remembered all too well as he asked, “Are you okay?”

  I exhaled slowly. “I’ve decided I do want to know why you left me that night.”

  He was quiet for a moment and I was just about to break the silence when he said, “I want to ask why the sudden change of heart, but I’m not going to in case I scare you off. I’m glad you called, but I’d rather discuss it in person. Would that be okay with you?”

  “If I say no you’re only going to turn up at my next dental appointment, right?”

  He laughed quietly, a seriously delicious sound that made my scalp tingle. “Whatever it takes.”

  “I still can’t believe you came to my book group,” I muttered.

  “It got you to call me, didn’t it?”

  “Tread carefully, Mr. D’Alessandro,” I warned.

  He chuckled. “Fine. I’ll be good… if you invite me over to your place tomorrow night to talk.”

  Trepidation shot through me at the thought of us being alone in my flat. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Hannah, what we have to discuss is personal. What I have to tell you is personal and I don’t particularly feel comfortable with the stranger behind us in a café listening in.”

  I processed that, and unfortunately had to admit that he was right. I didn’t want a stranger listening in on us either. “Fine,” I grumbled, giving him my address. “Six o’clock.”

  “Does it include dinner?” he asked hopefully, a boyish cheekiness in the question that surprised me.

  “We’ll see.” I hung up without saying good-bye.

  I felt much too hot all over and suddenly restless as adrenaline pumped through my body. I hadn’t felt this awake in a long, long time.

  School was a blur. I was so preoccupied with the thought of Marco being at my place that night that I don’t even know how I got through the lessons. Somehow I made it, and with my stomach a jumpy, jittery mess, I hurried home after work and began preparing dinner. I didn’t know what to cook because I didn’t want Marco to think I was trying to impress him, but I also didn’t want to poison him with something he was allergic to.

  I’d settled on pasta and salad. Surely you couldn’t go wrong with pasta and salad.

  It went against the manners of being a good hostess (which my mother had ingrained in me from the age of three) not to dress the table when I was having someone over for dinner, but I also didn’t want Marco to think this was something it wasn’t.

  Who was I kidding? I didn’t even know what this was.

  I changed from my work clothes into a pair of well-worn jeans and a long-sleeved thermal top. Twisting my hair up into a messy bun, I looked in the mirror and nodded, pleased with my reflection. The jeans made my arse look great, the top was form-fitting and made my boobs look good, but overall the outfit said “I’m just hanging at home and I could give a shit what you think about me.”

  “Perfect.”

  I spun around, marching out of my bedroom toward the kitchen, and my door buzzer sounded, drawing me to a halt.

  I was going to throw up. I was going to upchuck all over my nice hardwood floors.

  “Deep breaths,” I coached myself, turning back toward the door.

  “Hello?” I asked upon lifting the receiver.

  “It’s Marco.”

  Yup, definitely going to upchuck. I pressed the entrance door key, letting him into the building.

  With blood rushing in my ears, I attempted to prepare myself to see him again, and drew on my powers of indifference. Opening my door, I listened to his footsteps as he climbed the stairs to my flat.

  I saw his head appear as he ascended the staircase and my stomach dropped. His eyes lifted from his feet to my face as he climbed higher, and he gave me a small smile in greeting. Damn it. Why did I have to be so attracted to him? Why did I have to have so many good memories of him?

  His gaze drifted down my body and back up again, and I got the distinct feeling he wasn’t disappointed by my outfit. Not at all. Pretending I didn’t give a crap, I stepped back. “Co
me in.”

  He moved inside, making me feel tiny, and despite his defection, safe. “Did you get taller?” I grumbled, moving away from him and the attractive cologne he was wearing.

  He shut the front door behind him and shook his head. “Not that I’m aware of.”

  As my eyes took him in, it occurred to me that it had nothing to do with his height. It was his muscle. I gulped at the sight of his biceps, nicely displayed in the form-fitting hooded Henley he was wearing. “This way,” I almost wheezed, abruptly turning my back at the sight of his amusement.