Misty and the Single Dad

CHAPTER TEN

MISTY stirred, stretched, opened her eyes. Sunbeams were streaming through the windows, falling across the rainbow quilt on the bed. Morning?

She’d slept spooned in the curve of Nick’s body. Now she could no longer feel him. Oh, but she was so warm. Sated. She rolled over to find him. The grief she’d felt for Gran had eased, backed off, taken its rightful place. She was no longer bereft and grey. Nick…

Nick’s side of the bed was empty.

The bedside clock said ten. What was she thinking? Her mother had to be faced. Life had to be faced.

Was Nick out there, facing it for her?

She showered fast, in Nick’s bathroom because she didn’t want to be caught by her mother, tousled by sleep, fresh from lovemaking. Besides, she liked the smell of Nick’s soap. It smelled like Nick. Of course it did. So much for distinctive aroma, she thought wryly. Lemon grass? She’d thought it was testosterone.

She chuckled. Feeling absurdly happy even though Grace was out there-and that was a scary thought-she twisted a towel round her hair, donned Nick’s dressing gown-a gorgeous crimson robe that looked as if it had come from somewhere exotic-of course it had come from somewhere exotic-and scuttled along the passage, through to the other side of the house to find fresh clothes.

And then she paused. There were voices coming from the kitchen. Her mother. Nick.

She should dress before she faced her mother, but…

She hesitated. The kitchen door was almost closed, but not quite. If she stood silent, she could hear every word.

Why would she want to?

She did.

‘How much?’ It was Nick’s voice, but it was a tone she hadn’t heard before. He sounded harsh and angry, trying, she thought, for control.

And her mother named a sum that made her gasp.

What the…? They were discussing…

She knew suddenly, definitely, what they were discussing. Selling her house.

‘It’s Misty’s home,’ Nick said. ‘Her grandmother left it to her.’

‘Misty’s grandmother was my mother. This house is my right. I’ll take her to court if I must but I won’t need to. Misty will do the right thing. She always has.’

‘You mean you expect her to walk away and leave you to do what you want?’

‘I mean she’ll do what’s expected of her.’ Her mother sounded scornful. ‘You don’t know her father. I did. He was a doormat. Misty’s the same. Useful, though. She’s kept this place looking great.’ She could almost sense Grace assessing the place, looking around at the warm wood, at the lovely old furnishings. ‘It’ll get a good price. Much more than you’re offering. So tell me again why I should accept?’

‘Because Misty and I wish to live here. It’s our home.’

‘You’re marrying her?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, good for you. So buy it outright. Give me market value. Save your wife the nasty business of the courts. That’d upset her, fighting me in the courts.’

‘It would or I wouldn’t suggest it,’ Nick snapped. ‘You know she’s a soft option. She’s had no experience of the real world.’

‘Then pay,’ her mother said harshly. ‘Of course you can’t expose her to the courts. My mother always said she had to be protected. Don’t tell her about what you’re doing,’ she said. ‘It’ll upset her. And here you are, ready to keep on keeping her safe. Excellent. Nasty thing, reality.’

‘I’ll get an independent valuation…’

‘You’ll take my price or I’ll see Misty in court.’

She almost burst in on them then. Almost. Right at the last, she pulled back.

And here you are, ready to keep on keeping her safe.

Last night hadn’t been about keeping her safe. Last night had been about loving her, pure and simple.

Did loving involve keeping her safe?

Last night she’d been so sure, but now…

She’s a soft option. She’s had no experience of the real world.

Standing in the passage, listening to her mother produce valuations of like properties, listening to Nick become reasonable, as if what her mother was suggesting was reasonable, suddenly certainty gave way to doubt.

Nick was doing this to protect her. She knew it. So why did it seem so wrong?

Her mother’s words…

You don’t know her father. I did. He was a doormat. Misty’s the same.

Anger came to her aid then. She was no doormat. How could Nick simply accept that as fact?

She’s had no experience of the real world.

Nick wasn’t going to pay for her house. Hard cold fact. She could go in there right now and tell him so. But something inside her was saying, think. Get this right before you fly in with temper.

She backed out of the passage, out of the back door to the veranda. Ketchup and Took were out there in the morning sun, supervising the sea. She sank down beside them and they nosed her hands and wagged their tails.

‘Why aren’t you in there biting my mother?’ she whispered. ‘Dogs are supposed to protect their masters.’

But the dogs weren’t in the kitchen because they’d found each other. Their security was each other.

As her security was Nick?

The dogs had had their adventures. They’d come home.

They weren’t doormats.

Nick had had his adventures. Even Bailey…

She’s had no experience of the real world.

Even her grandmother, never telling her she’d been to Paris because Misty had to be protected. Protected from herself?

There was a huge muddle of emotion in her mind but it was getting clearer. She stared out over the bay she’d loved all her life. The dogs nestled against her and the knot of confusion in her heart settled to certainty.

A doormat. Safe.

‘You guys don’t need me,’ she whispered. ‘When Gran was alive, when Ketchup needed me, and when I met Nick, my list seemed wrong. Stupid. But maybe it’s not stupid. Maybe it’s important if Nick and I are to build something. I won’t have him spending his life thinking I need to be safe.’

Ketchup whimpered a little and put a paw on her knee. She managed to smile, but she didn’t feel like smiling. What she was thinking…? It would hurt, and maybe it would hurt for ever.

‘You don’t really need me, do you?’ she told Ketchup. ‘You have Took. What’s more, you have Nick and Bailey. You have guys who are in the business of keeping everyone safe. That’s what they want to do, so they can stay here and do it.’

Okay. She took a deep breath. She girded her loins-as much as a girl could in such a bathrobe. She thought of what she had to do first.

‘Nick’s keeping this place safe. He can keep doing that, only there’s no way he’s paying my mother for the privilege,’ she told the dogs.

She closed her eyes, searching for courage. What she was going to do seemed appalling. Loving Nick last night had made it so much harder.

She thought back to Frank, to her bitter colleague, regretting for all of his life that he’d never left this town.

‘I can’t do that to Nick,’ she whispered. ‘I’d try not to mind, and mostly I wouldn’t, but every now and then…’

Every now and then she would mind, and it could hurt them all.

She’s had no experience of the real world.

So do it now or do it never.

Deep breath. She stood and wrapped Nick’s gown more tightly round her.

‘Wish me luck, guys,’ she whispered. ‘Here goes everything.’

Nick had trouble with his own parents. Grace, though, was unbelievable.

She’d dumped her infant daughter on her parents and walked away. Half an hour with her this morning and he understood why. There was nothing she wouldn’t do to get her own way.

If he hadn’t been here…Misty would be trampled, he thought. Misty was no match for this… He couldn’t find words to describe her. Not even Tajikistan had a good one.

‘I have good lawyers,’ Grace snarled and he faced her with disgust.

Maybe a fight through the courts would give the house to Misty, but the thought of it not succeeding, and the thought of what Misty would go through to claim it…

She might not even try. Misty was a giver, and he loved her for it.

‘We need to get this in writing…’ he started but he didn’t finish. The back door slammed open. Misty.

She was standing in the doorway, his crimson bathrobe all but enveloping her. The towel around her hair was striped orange and yellow. Her eyes matched her outfit. They were flashing fire.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she demanded and she was talking to them both.

Grace stubbed her cigarette out in her saucer and smiled at her daughter, a cat-that-got-the-cream smile that made Nick feel ill.

‘We’re discussing business,’ she said sweetly. ‘Your man’s being very reasonable. There’s no need for you to get involved.’

‘Nick’s not my man.’

Uh oh. Nick sensed trouble. Where was the woman who’d melted into his arms last night, who’d surrendered completely, utterly, magically? The look she gave him now was one of disbelief. ‘You’re offering to buy my house. From my mother.’

‘We want to live here.’

‘So?’

‘It’s easier, Misty. I’ll just pay her and she’ll leave.’

‘She’s leaving anyway,’ Misty snapped. ‘Grace, get out of my house. Now.’ She picked up the ash-filled saucer and dumped it in the bin. ‘You light up one more cigarette in this kitchen and I’ll have you arrested for trespass.’

‘This is my house.’ Grace looked as stunned as Nick felt. This wasn’t Misty. This was some flaming virago they’d never seen before.

‘You left this house when you were eighteen,’ Misty told her, cold as ice. ‘You came back only when you needed money-or to dump a baby. What gives you the right to walk in now?’

‘They’re my parents,’ Grace hissed. ‘This house has always been waiting…’

‘For you to sell it the moment they’re dead? I don’t think so. Gran left me this house, and its contents.’

‘I’ll contest…’

‘Contest away,’ Misty snapped and Nick could hear unutterable sadness behind the anger. ‘Gran had macular degeneration for the last fifteen years. That’s meant she’s been almost blind. Since I was sixteen I’ve been signing cheques, taking care of all the business. Grandpa left Gran well off but almost all her income has been siphoned to you. You’ve been sending pleading letters. I’ve read them to her and every time she’d sigh and say, “What shall we do, Misty?” To deny you would have killed her. So I’ve sent you cheques, over and over, and every single one was documented. You’ve had far more than the value of this house, yet you couldn’t even find it in you to come to her funeral. I don’t know what gene you were handed when you were born, but I thank God I didn’t inherit it. Gran loved me. She wanted me to have this house and I will.’

‘Misty…’ Nick started and she turned on him then.

‘And don’t you even think of being reasonable. You’re doing this to protect me? Thank you but I don’t need protecting. I’ve had no experience of the real world? Maybe not, but I’m not going to get it with you protecting me. So I’m telling you both what’s going to happen. First, Grace is going to get out. The cheques have stopped. You’re on your own, like it or lump it. And Nick, you want a quiet life? That’s what you can have because I’m leaving, too. Oh, not for ever, just for twelve months. I have a list to work through and for the first time in my life I’m free. I had Gran but she’s dead. I thought I had Ketchup but he has Took and he has you. You and Bailey will love this house. It’s safe…as houses.’

She took a deep breath, holding her arms across her breasts as if she needed warmth. He rose to go to her but she backed away. ‘No. Please, Nick…’ Her anger was fading a little but she seemed determined to hold onto it. ‘This is hard but I have to do it. I know it sounds ungrateful, but…it’s what I’m going to do. Now, I need to go and get dressed. Grace, when I get back here I don’t want to see you. You’ll be gone. Nick will be looking after my house-my house-but it’s my house in absentia.’

They were left looking at each other. Grace looked…old, Nick thought and, despite the shock of Misty’s words, he felt a twinge of pity.

Misty hadn’t called her Mom or Mama or Mother. She’d called her Grace. If Bailey ever looked at him as Misty looked at Grace…

She deserved it. She’d been no mother to Misty, but still…

‘You’d best go,’ he said and Grace looked at him like a wounded dog.

‘I don’t…I can’t. I don’t have any money.’ It was a defeated whine.

He hesitated. There’d been a resounding crash from Misty’s bedroom door. They were safe from her hearing.

Had Misty meant what she said?

Don’t think about that now. Just get rid of Grace. Without Misty knowing?

Definitely without Misty knowing.

He tugged out his chequebook and wrote, and handed over a cheque. Grace stared down at it, stunned.

‘I want the value of the house.’

‘And instead I’m giving you your plane fare back to Perth and enough for approximately six months’ rent. If Misty finds out I’ve done it I’ll cancel the cheque. It’s the last you’ll get off us, Grace, so I suggest you take it and leave.’

‘Us?’ She dragged herself to her feet and regarded him with loathing. ‘It didn’t sound to me like there’s any us. She sounds like she’s leaving.’

‘That’s up to us,’ he said evenly. ‘But you’re leaving first.’

Misty found him on the veranda, in his normal place, in his rocker, dogs at his feet. She was feeling ill.

She’d yelled at him. He didn’t deserve to be yelled at.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said quickly before he could rise. ‘That was dreadful. I sounded like I was a witch. You were only trying to help.’

‘I’d like to help,’ he said. ‘You know I want to marry you.’ He rose and came towards her. ‘I’ll protect you in any way I can.

‘But I don’t want to be protected. Nick, I’m sorry, but I don’t want to marry you. Or…not yet.’

His face stilled. He’d taken her hands but she wouldn’t let her fingers curl around his. She mustn’t.

‘I’ve never taken a risk in my life,’ she said.

‘That’s why I love you.’

‘You see, that’s what I’m afraid of. I won’t be loved because I’m safe.’

That he didn’t understand was obvious. ‘I don’t love you just because you’re safe,’ he told her. ‘I love you because you’re beautiful and warm and big-hearted and fun and…’

‘And safe. I’m someone to share a rocker with.’

‘Misty…’

‘It’s okay,’ she said, feeling unutterably weary. She didn’t want to say this. It would be so easy to sink into the rocker beside him, to wait until Bailey came home, to live happily ever after.

Was there something of Grace inside her? Some heartlessness?

No. She felt cold and fearful and sad, but she knew she was doing the right thing. If she didn’t go now…She’d seen what bitterness could do.

‘If you still want me in a year…’ she said.

‘A year?’

‘I think I can do most of my list in a year.’

‘What list?’

‘It’s a dream,’ she said. ‘I’ve had it since I was little. To fly away, to see something other than this town. Occasionally, when I was little, Grace used to send postcards, from one exotic place after another.’

‘You were jealous of Grace?’

That was easy. ‘I never was. Sometimes I even felt sorry for her. She’d fly in and make Gran cry and Gran would say the house was empty without her. But I kept thinking…why would you want to make Gran cry? That would have made me ill. I couldn’t. Until now.’

His face was expressionless. ‘So now you’ll leave?’

‘What’s holding me here?’

‘Us. Bailey and me.’

She closed her eyes. There was such a depth of meaning in the words-so much. He didn’t understand. For her to walk away… To hurt him…

‘See, that’s the problem,’ she said, as gently as she could. ‘I’m falling so in love with you that I never want to hurt you. It’s borderline now-that I never want to leave. As I could never leave Gran. For a while there I couldn’t even leave Ketchup. But I must. Just for a year. Nick, can you try and understand?’

‘Understand what? What do you want to do for a year?’

‘Adventures,’ she said promptly. ‘I want to balloon over Paris at dawn. I want to roll down heather-covered hills in Scotland and get bitten by midges. I want to go white-water rafting in the Rockies…’

But she’d already lost him. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said coldly, flatly. ‘You have everything you need here. It’s…’

‘Safe,’ she threw at him. ‘Tell me, if you didn’t think I was safe, would you seriously consider marrying me?’

‘No, but…’

‘There you are, then.’

‘But I have Bailey to consider.’

‘You’re not considering Bailey. You’re choosing a wife for yourself. To choose me because top of your list of requirements is safe…Good old dependable Misty, cute as, we’ll stay in her lovely house and if anything threatens her like a nasty, mean mother then we’ll drive her away; we’ll protect Misty because she’s little and cute and can’t protect herself.’

‘This is overreacting.’

‘Like paying for a house without even asking me?’ she said incredulously. ‘I guess I should be grateful, but I’m sorry, I’m not. You see, I want to be independent. Nick, I can’t cling to you before I see if I can manage without anything to cling to. I need a year.’

‘To go white-water rafting in the Rockies.’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re just like Isabelle.’ It was a harsh, cold accusation that left her winded.

She didn’t answer. She couldn’t. Was she just like Isabelle? Would she put a child’s life at risk when she didn’t need to?

If he thought that, then there was nothing to defend. He wanted her to marry him and he didn’t know the first thing about her.

She looked at him and her heart twisted. How easy would it be to fall into his arms, say sorry, it had all been a mistake and she wanted nothing more than to stay here with him, with Bailey, with Ketchup and Took, for ever and ever?

But he was looking at her with such anger.

Last night meant so much to her. It meant everything. But in a sense it was last night that had given her the courage to do this. For last night she’d accepted that she wanted to spend her life with this man, and she also knew that he deserved all she could give.

All or nothing. She would not marry him feeling like she did right now-knowing she’d dissolve into him and he’d make her safer, safer. She’d fought to get him onto a yacht. Every tiny risk would be a fight, but it’d be a fight to do what she already had now, and not what she dreamed of.

She couldn’t let go of her dreams and marry him. She’d end up bitter and resentful.

She’s had no experience of the real world.

It was a line to remember. It was a line to make her go.

‘I will not end up in this rocker before I’m thirty,’ she said, and suddenly she kicked the rocker with a ferocity that frightened them all. Took yelped and headed down the steps with her tail behind her legs. Ketchup yelped and cowered and cringed behind Nick’s legs.

‘Enough,’ she said wearily. ‘Sorry, guys. Sorry to you all. I know you’re all very happy here. I hope you’ll stay here and be safe and happy while I’m away. And if at the end of twelve months…’

‘You expect us to wait for you?’ Nick’s voice was so cold she cringed. But she’d known this was the risk-the likely outcome. She had to face it.

‘Can I ask whatever you do that you’ll take care of Ketchup and Took?’

‘Misty, after last night…’ he said explosively and she nodded sadly.

‘Yes. Last night was magic. It made me see how close I am to giving in.’

‘Then give in.’

‘I won’t be married because I’m the opposite of Isabelle,’ she said, and she knew it for the truth, the bottom line she couldn’t back away from. ‘You figure it out, Nick. I think I love you but I’m me. I’m me, lists and all.’