‘Not until the twenty-fourth of the month.’
She let out a breath. She was hoping to be at Mara’s no later than the twenty-second. He’d get home in time.
‘I should be there helping with all the preparations. There’s a huge party planned. I encouraged them to have it. I thought it might help.’
That was when she started to wonder how much of his life he was putting on hold in an effort to allay his parents’ grief. And what of his own grief?
She surveyed him for a long moment. When he turned to meet her gaze the rich brown of his eyes almost stole her breath. She swallowed, but she didn’t look away. ‘Aidan, I am truly sorry for your loss.’
He looked ragged for a moment. ‘Thank you.’
The silence gathered about them and started to burn. ‘May I say something about your mother?’ she whispered.
He stilled. He turned back. ‘Only if you say it gently.’
Gently? Her heart started to thump. She moistened her lips and stared across to the playground with its riot of happy laughter. ‘I can’t imagine how bad it would be to lose one of my boys.’ Her voice wobbled. ‘I can’t actually imagine anything worse.’
He reached out and squeezed her hand.
‘In fact, I can’t actually comprehend it, and I’m utterly and probably somewhat selfishly grateful for that.’
‘It’s not selfish, Quinn,’ he said quietly.
‘Your poor, poor mother, Aidan.’ She clasped his hand tightly. ‘God forbid if I should ever lose Robbie, but...I can’t help feeling that wrapping Chase up in cotton wool would not be a good thing to do. For him or for me.’
He met her gaze, his face sober. ‘She can’t help her grief.’
‘No.’ But tying Aidan down like this was hardly fair. ‘You will get home safe and sound and in one piece.’ It was probably a foolish thing to say because neither one of them could guarantee that. But she couldn’t think of anything else to say.
‘Of course I will.’
‘And there’s nothing you can do for your mother at the moment except to give her a daily phone call to let her know you’re okay.’
‘No,’ he agreed.
‘Can you live with that?’
‘I guess I’ll have to.’
‘You know,’ she started slowly, ‘this might be a good thing.’
‘How?’
‘Maybe it’ll force her to focus beyond her fear, especially if she has the party to turn her attention to. And once she does that she might realise how irrational her fear is.’
His face lit up. ‘You think so?’
Oh, heavens, she’d raised his hopes. Um... ‘Maybe.’
He stared at her for a long moment and then he smiled. ‘That person you remind me of?’
Her heart started to thump. ‘Uh-huh?’
‘It’s Daniel. Quinn, you remind me of my brother.’
CHAPTER THREE
AIDAN TOOK THE first driving shift the next day. He’d thought he might have an argument on his hands about that but, after subjecting him to a thorough scrutiny, Quinn merely handed him the keys and slid into the passenger seat.
He surveyed her the best he could without alerting her to that fact. She looked a little pale, a little wan.
‘Okay, boys.’ She turned to Robbie and Chase in the back. ‘You have one hour of Gameboy time.’
Both boys whooped and dived into their backpacks. She shrugged when she caught Aidan’s eye. ‘I know it’d make things a whole lot easier and simpler, not to mention quieter, if I just let them play with their Gameboys all day, but I don’t think that’s good for them.’
‘I don’t either.’
Her brows shot up. ‘It’s something you’ve thought about?’
He might not have kids, he might not really know any kids, but it didn’t make him totally ignorant. ‘Only in the abstract.’ Besides, he hoped to have kids one day. ‘The rise in childhood obesity is worrying. I’ve been part of a government task force that’s been looking at strategies to combat it.’
‘That’s good to know.’ Yesterday she’d have asked him all sorts of questions about it. Today she stifled a yawn and stared out of the window with a mumbled, ‘Glad our taxes are being put to good use.’
Aidan had set their course on the Great Eastern Highway and the scenery grew browner and drier by the kilometre. All that was visible from the windows was low scrub, brown grass and brown dirt. For mile upon endless mile.
He glanced across at her again. ‘Rough night?’
She straightened and he wished he’d kept quiet and just let her drift off for a little while.
‘The bed was hard as a rock.’
She smiled but it left him vaguely dissatisfied. Quinn might spout assurances that this move across the country was the greatest idea ever, but he sensed a certain ambivalence in her.
That she doesn’t want to talk about.
Yesterday’s disclosures didn’t give him the right to pry.
‘I’ll sleep very well tonight, though.’ She sent him one of her buck-up smiles. ‘Whether the bed is made of rock or marshmallow.’
He determined in that moment to let her rest as much as he could. ‘Mind if I turn on the radio? I’ll keep the volume low.’
‘Sounds nice.’
Although he willed her to, she didn’t fall asleep. She merely stared out of the window and watched the unending scrub pass by. At the one hour mark she snapped to and turned to the boys. ‘Time’s up.’
There were groans and grumbles and ‘let me just finish this bit’ but within five minutes they’d tucked their Gameboys back into their bags. Quinn then asked them what games they’d been playing and received blow-by-blow accounts. She spoke her children’s lingo. She connected with them on every level and he suddenly and deeply admired her.
She was a single working mother, but she’d evidently spent time building a solid relationship with her children. It couldn’t have been easy, she’d have had to make sacrifices, but he suspected she hadn’t minded that in the least.
Robbie stretched out his arms to touch the back of Aidan’s seat. ‘How long is Aunt Mara going to be in hospital for?’
‘If all goes well, just a few days. But she’ll have to take it easy for weeks and weeks. Don’t forget, though, that her surgery isn’t scheduled until later in the year.’
‘I’ll read to her.’
‘She’ll like that.’
‘And I’ll play cars with her,’ Chase piped up, evidently not wanting to be left out.
‘Heavens! She’ll be back on her feet in no time with all of that attention.’
Robbie stretched to touch the roof. ‘What are we going to do for a car if we have to give this one back?’
‘We’re going to share Aunt Mara’s car for a while and there’s a farm ute we can use too. But we’ll buy a new one eventually. What do you guys think we should get?’
A lively discussion followed, mostly based on television ads that the boys liked. It made