Marion Lennox - Misty and the Single Dad

A book in the Banksia Bay series, 2011

Dear Reader,

Many years ago, my mum took my little sister to the doctor. They waited for a long time. Finally my sister, small and cute, went to fetch something she’d left in the car-and she found Buster.

Buster had been thrown from a moving car. He was small and nondescript. He was skeletal. His back leg was broken, and he hung from my little sister’s arms, his huge brown eyes expecting death.

Back in the doctor’s waiting room, ten sets of eyes looked at my mum as my little sister sobbed and quavered, “Can we keep him?”

Buster gave joy to our family for fourteen years, and I’ve now reincarnated him as Ketchup. I’ve smiled as I’ve rewritten his story. Occasionally, I’ve cried. Follow Ketchup as he brings Misty Lawrence and Nicholas Holt together-and watch as their romance blossoms.

I wish you all a Buster or a Ketchup, and I wish you all the happiness he gave us.

Welcome to Banksia Bay.

Marion Lennox

HOW many drop-dead gorgeous guys visited Banksia Bay’s First Grade classroom? None. Ever. Now, when the heavens finally decreed it was time to right this long-term injustice-it would have to be a Friday .

Misty took her class of six-year-olds for swimming lessons before lunch every Friday. Even though swimming had finished an hour ago, her braid of damp chestnut curls still hung limply down her back. She smelled of chlorine. Her nose was shining.

Regardless, a Greek God was standing at her classroom door.

She looked and looked again.

Adonis. God of Desire and Manly Good Looks. Definitely.

Her visitor looked close to his mid-thirties. Nicely mature, she thought. Gorgeously mature. His long, rangy body matched a strongly boned face and almost sculpted good looks. He wore faded jeans and an open-necked shirt with rolled up sleeves. Looking closer-and she was looking closer-Misty could see muscles, beautifully delineated.

But…did Adonis have a six-year-old son?

For the man in her doorway was linked by hand to a child, and they matched. They both wore jeans and white shirts. Their black hair waved identically. Their coppery skin was the colour that no amount of fake tan could ever produce, and their identical green eyes looked capable of producing a smile to die for.

But only Adonis was smiling. He was squatting and saying to the child, ‘This looks the right place. They’re painting. Doesn’t this look fun?’

Son-of-Adonis didn’t look as if he agreed. He looked terrified.

And, with that, Misty gave herself a mental slap, hauled herself back from thinking about drop-dead gorgeous males and back to where she should be thinking-which was in schoolmarm mode.

‘Can I help you?’

Frank, Banksia Bay School Principal, should have intercepted this pair, she thought. If this was a new student she’d have liked some warning. There should be an empty place with the child’s name on it, paints with paper waiting to be drawn on, the rest of the class primed to be kind.

‘Are you Miss Lawrence?’ Adonis asked. ‘There’s no one in the Principal’s office and the woman down the hall said this is Grade One.’

She smiled her agreement, but directed her smile to Son-of-Adonis. ‘Yes, it is, and yes, I am. I’m Misty Lawrence, the Grade One teacher.’

The child’s hand tightened convulsively in his father’s. This definitely wasn’t a social visit, then; this was deathly important.

‘I’m sorry we’re messy, but we’re in the middle of painting cows,’ she told the little boy, keeping her smile on high beam. She was standing next to Natalie Scotter’s table. Natalie was the most motherly six-year-old in Banksia Bay. ‘Natalie, can you shift across so our visitors can see the cow you’re painting?’

Natalie beamed and slid sideways. Misty could see what she was thinking. Hooray, excitement. And the way this guy was smiling…Misty felt exactly the same.

Um…focus. Get rid of this little boy’s fear.

‘Yesterday we went to see Strawberry the cow,’ she told him. ‘Strawberry belongs to Natalie’s dad. She’s really fat because she’s about to have calves. See what Natalie’s done.’

The little boy’s terror lessened, just a little. He gazed nervously at Natalie’s picture-at Natalie’s awesomely pregnant cow.

‘Is she really that fat?’ he whispered.

‘Fatter,’ Natalie said, rising to the occasion with aplomb. ‘My dad says it’s twins and that means he’ll have to stay up all night ’cos it’s always a b…’ She caught herself and gave Misty a guilty grin. ‘I mean, sometimes he needs to call the vet and then he swears.’ She beamed, proud of how she’d handled herself.

‘Here’s her picture,’ Misty said, delving into the pocket of her overalls for a photograph. She glanced at Adonis, asking a silent question, and got a nod in response. This, then, was the way to go. ‘Would you like to sit by Natalie and see if you can paint as well?’ she asked. ‘If it’s okay with your dad.’

‘Of course it is,’ Adonis said.

‘You can share my paints,’ Natalie declared expansively, and Misty gave a tiny prayer of thankfulness that Natalie’s current best friend was at home with a head cold.

‘Thank you,’ Son-of-Adonis whispered and Misty warmed to him. He was polite as well as cute. If he was a new student…

‘We’re here to enrol Bailey for school,’ Adonis said, and she smiled her pleasure, but she was also thinking, Where is Frank? And why did this pair have to arrive now when she felt like a chlorinated wet sheep?

‘I know I should have made an appointment,’ Adonis said, answering her unspoken question. ‘But we only arrived in town an hour ago. The closer we got, the more nervous Bailey was, so we thought the sensible thing would be to show him that school’s not a scary place. Otherwise, Bailey might get more nervous over the weekend.’

‘What a good idea. It’s not scary at all,’ she said, warming to the man as well as to the son. ‘We like new friends, don’t we, girls and boys?’

‘Yes.’ It was a shout, and it made Misty smile. In this sequestered town, any newcomer was welcomed with open arms.

‘Are you here for long?’ she asked. ‘You and your…family?’ Was Mrs Adonis introducing another child to another class?

‘There’s only Bailey and me, and we’re intending to live here,’ he said, stooping to load Bailey’s paintbrush with brown paint. Being helpful. But Bailey checked Strawberry’s photograph again, then looked at his father as if he’d missed the point. He dipped his brush in the water jar and went for red.

His father grinned and straightened, and held out his hand. ‘I’m Nicholas Holt,’ he said, and Misty found her hand enveloped in one much larger, much stronger. It was a truly excellent handshake. And his smile…

Manly Good Looks didn’t begin to cut it, she thought. Wow! Forget Greek Gods. Adonis was promptly replaced with Nicholas.

She was absurdly aware of her braid, still dripping down her back. She wanted, quite suddenly, to kill Frank. It was his job to give warning of new parents. Why wasn’t he in his office when he should be?