Knight and Day

Chapter Twelve

To: mollymk@toscanomail

From: mmk@toscanomail

Hey Mom,

Just checking in to make sure you’re okay. How’s Justin doing? Don’t cover for him - if there’s any trouble, you let me know, okay?

Remember I can be home within a day if you ever need me.

M x

To: mmk@toscanomail

From: mollymk@toscanomail

Stay where you are, son, Ibiza sounds like it’s going to suit you.

You’ve done enough for your brother. More than anyone had any right to ask of you. Justin is… he’s Justin, he’ll never change.

I heard on the grapevine at Lorn’s that Suzie is pregnant. Did you know?

Mom xx

Dylan stared at the screen for long minutes, the untouched cup of coffee in his hand going cold.

He could clearly picture his mother sitting under the dryer at Lorn’s salon, her hair in rollers, reading some out of date magazine while the town’s latest tittle-tattle flowed around her. Her sons had provided a rich seam to mine for the local gossipmongers over the years, and she’d become accustomed to wearing her silence and serenity like an invisible cloak. It was that or fight back, and with sons like her boys, that was too much fighting for any one woman.

Suzie was pregnant. Dylan closed his laptop and looked out over the Mediterranean from the open fronted cafe, remembering his coffee and finding it unpalatably cold. Was he bothered? On some level, perhaps. He didn’t want to analyse his own feelings where Suzie was concerned; she hadn’t been his girl for a while now. They’d both moved on, through choice on her part and necessity on his. He’d filed her away, along with all of the other associated bad memories, in a seldom-visited box at the back of his brain. The box was dirty. Battered, as if it had been kicked around in a temper. Padlocked with a big rusty lock that he’d deliberately lost the key to because he never wanted to have to open it again.

This was home now. Ibiza. Sunshine. Sand. Sea. Sexy girls in cowboy boots.

He hadn’t expected to find sanctuary on board a boat kitted out with its own private glitter-ball, or in the arms of a girl with wild curls and questionable taste in footwear. But then he'd learned the hard way that life throws you curveballs, and sometimes the best thing to do is just try and catch them, hoping like hell that no one guesses you don’t even know the rules of the game.