Fiona Harper - Kiss Me Under the Mistletoe

‘Have you done your homework?’

‘Mostly.’

This was quality conversation, this was. But he was better off sticking to neutral subjects while he was feeling like this. In the last couple of years as a single dad, he’d learned that transitions—picking-up and dropping-off times—were difficult, and it was his job to smooth the ripples, create stability. Being steady, normal, was what was required.

‘Define mostly,’ he said, smoothing the paper closed and standing up.

Jas dropped the envelope assorted junk she was clutching to her chest onto the table and threw her coat over the back of a chair. ‘Two more maths questions, and before you say anything …’

Ben closed his mouth.

‘… it doesn’t have to be in until Thursday. Can I just do it tomorrow? Please, Dad?’

She stared at him with those big brown eyes and blinked, just once. She looked so cute with her wavy blonde hair not quite sitting right in its shoulder-length style. His memory rewound a handful of years and he could hear her begging for just one more push on the swing.

‘Okay. Tomorrow it is.’

‘Thanks, Dad.’ Jas skirted the table and gave him a hug by just throwing her arms around him and squeezing, then she lifted a brightly coloured magazine out of the pile of junk on the table. ‘Recreational reading,’ she said, brandishing it and attempting to escape before he could inspect it more closely.

He wasn’t so old that his reflexes had gone into retirement. The magazine was out of her fingers and in front of his face before she’d fully disentangled herself from the hug.

‘What’s this trash?’

Jas made a feeble attempt at snatching it back. ‘It was Mum’s. She’d finished it and she said I could have it.’

Ben frowned. Buzz magazine . He’d never read it himself, but he knew enough from the bright slogans on the cover that it was the lowest form of celebrity gossip rag. The lead story seemed to be ‘Celebrity Cellulite’. Nice. What was Megan thinking of giving Jasmine a publication like this? Didn’t his ex know how impressionable young girls were at Jas’s age?

‘I don’t think this is appropriate.’

Jas rolled her eyes. ‘It’s interesting. All my friends read it.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘All of them?’

The nod that followed couldn’t have convinced even Jas herself.

‘That’s what I thought,’ he said. ‘I mean, there’s no substance in here. It’s just rubbish …’ He flicked through the pages, hoping his daughter would see what he saw. ‘It’s the worst kind of gossip. I—’

But then he stopped leafing idly through the pages, his whole frame frozen. His mouth worked while his brain searched for an appropriate sound. He placed the magazine on the table and stood, arms braced either side of it, as he stared again at one particular grainy photograph.

‘Told you it was interesting,’ Jas said with a smirk.

‘But that’s …’

Jas turned so she was side-by-side with him and leaned against his bunched-up arm muscles, looking down at the magazine too. ‘Lulu Thornton,’ she informed him, in an astoundingly matter-of-fact voice. ‘Or Louise as she now likes to be called. Mum thinks she’s a waste of space. Most people do.’

‘Lulu who ?’ he whispered hoarsely.

Jas punched him on the arm. ‘Da-ad! You’re stuck in the Stone Age! You know … She married Tobias Thornton, the actor.’

Again … who?

‘We watched him in that action movie last weekend. The one with the bomb on the private jet?’

Oh. Him .

The picture was dull and not very clear—the product of a telephoto lens the size of a space shuttle, no doubt. But there was no doubting the fierce glare in those eyes as she squared up to the paparazzo, her son clutched protectively to her, his face hidden. He’d been on the receiving end of that very same look just a few hours ago and it still gave him the shivers thinking about it.

‘And she’s famous?’ he asked Jas, trying to sound as uninvolved as he actually was, but less involved than he felt.

Jas nodded. ‘Well, famous for being married to somebody famous. That’s all.’

Married. He should shut the magazine right now and condemn it to the recycling bin. Only … she’d said she was divorced. Almost divorced. And, in the few moments that she’d let her icy guard down, he’d known she was telling the truth. The gaudy headline splashed across the top of the feature seemed to confirm his gut instinct: ‘Louise’s Private Hell Since Split!’

He took one last look at her image and felt a twinge of sympathy. Going through a divorce was bad enough, but having every spat reported for the world to see? More like public execution than private hell. No wonder she’d freaked out when she’d found some strange man in her greenhouse.

He closed the magazine and looked at Jas. ‘Sorry, Jas. I think these sorts of magazines are a gross invasion of privacy. I’d rather you didn’t read it.’

She chewed her lip and her fingers twitched. He could tell she was torn between doing the right thing and insatiable curiosity. Thankfully, when she gave him a rueful smile and a one-shouldered shrug he knew he’d been doing an okay job of counteracting all the psycho-babble her mother had been subjecting her to since their separation.

He grinned. ‘Good girl.’

Jas’s smile grew and changed. ‘Since I’ve earned a gold star, can I have fifteen pounds for a trip to the theatre with school?’

Ben looked heavenward. What was it with women and money? Any good deed seemed to need a reward—preferably in the form of shoes. Perhaps he should be glad that at least this was something educational. But the shoes would come later. Oh, he had no doubt the shoes would come later. ‘Give me a second while I find my wallet. What are you going to see, again?’

‘ The Taming of the Shrew .’

Ben nodded approvingly while he searched the kitchen worktops for his battered leather wallet. He hunted through the junk drawer. Where had he put the darn thing when he’d come in this evening? ‘Jas, I’ll come and give you the cash when I’ve found my wallet, okay?’ he said slamming the drawer in an effort to get it to close in spite of the disturbed odds and ends inside.

‘Cool.’

‘And Jas …?’

She turned at the doorway to the lounge.

‘This Louise Thornton woman. Do you think she’s a waste of space?’

She looked up at the corner of the ceiling and then back at him. ‘Mum says any woman who finds her identity in a man, or puts up with the … rubbish … she did, is TSTL.’

From the way Jas paused before she’d said ‘rubbish’, Ben guessed his ex-wife’s version had been a little more earthy.

But TSTL?

‘Too stupid to live,’ Jas elaborated and scooted off to watch the TV.

The sounds of her programme floated in from the adjoining room as Ben searched for his wallet for a full ten minutes. He checked his coat, the car, the kitchen again … Just as he was racking his brains and replaying the day in his head, it struck him. He knew exactly where he’d left it. He could see it so clearly in his mind’s eye, he could almost reach out and touch it.

A rough wooden bench, long rays of the afternoon sun slanting through uneven Victorian glass. A black, soft leather square with cards and ancient till receipts poking out of it sitting next to a pot containing a rather spectacular pitcher plant.

He sat back down on a chair and frowned. His wallet had been too bulky in the back pocket of his jeans and he’d taken it out and put it on one of the shelves in the greenhouse this afternoon. And then, with all the scowling and marching back down to the boat, he’d forgotten it.