Surely not. Kincaid had to be a fairly common last name. Or maybe Alex had nieces and nephews at the school. Juliet had told her, on that beach walk, that everyone here was related oneway or another, and if you weren’t, then you were an offcomer, no matter how long you’d lived here.
“Are you an offcomer?” Lucy had asked, and Juliet had smiled grimly.
“I’ll always be an offcomer,” she’d said.
Maggie hung up the phone with an exasperated sigh and turned back to the photocopier. “Maggie,” Lucy said, and she looked over her shoulder.
“Yes, love?”
That was something that would take some getting used to: near strangers calling you love. Although, actually, Lucy kind of liked it. “Does Mr. Kincaid have relatives at the school?”
“Relatives?” Maggie let out one of her booming laughs. “You could say that. His daughter Poppy is in Year Three. Sweet little thing, poor soul.”
Lucy swiveled in her chair. “Poor soul?”
Maggie’s expression tightened briefly and she flashed Alex’s closed door a wary glance. “No mum. Alex’s wife died nearly two years ago now, only a few months after they’d come up from Manchester.”
He was awidower? Lucy stared at Maggie, unable to form a response. She’d assumed Alex Kincaid was one of those aggressively single men who was your common commitment-phobic workaholic. He hadn’t seemed married, and as for being a father . . .
She supposed it shouldn’t change how she viewed him, but it did. She couldn’t keep sympathy from swelling inside her at the thought of him coping alone with a daughter. Although maybe he had a girlfriend, one of those glossy, coolly competent women who also managed to be kind and lovable with a little girl.
She turned back to the register, her fingers hovering above the keyboard as she squinted at the screen and tried to figure out how to get to the next box on the table. The return button? Tab?She pushed both and watched as a box disappeared and another enlarged, just as Alex Kincaid came into the office.
He frowned at her computer screen and she gave him her sunniest smile. “So, as you might have guessed, my word processing skills are a little underdeveloped.”
“That’s a spreadsheet application, not a word processing program,” he answered, and she wondered if his wife had minded his anal-retentive behavior.Widower,a little voice whispered inside her.Widower and single dad.
“I think I just proved my point. Now if you wanted me to design a brochure for the school, I could do that, no problem.”
Alex’s frown deepened. “We’re a state school. We don’t need brochures.” He pronounced itbro-shurs, putting equal emphasis on both syllables.
“Just a thought,” Lucy murmured, and he brandished a piece of paper at her.
“I have a draft of an e-mail here. It’s to the board of governors. There’s a meeting next week, and I need them all to receive the agenda. Could you forward this to the board? The addresses should be in the contacts folder on the e-mail server.”
“I probably can manage that,” Lucy answered. E-mail she could do.
“Thank you,” he said, his voice terse, and he turned to head back to his office.
“A bunch of us are going to the pub tonight,” Lucy called after him. The words popped out of her mouth before she could think better of them, or consider her motive. “Just for a drink after work. Why don’t you join us?”
Slowly he turned around. He looked, Lucy thought, rather dumbfounded by her invitation. “Thank you, but I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why not?”
“People like to relax at those kinds of social occasions,” he answered stiffly. “If I was there, they wouldn’t be able to.”
“Because you’re the boss or because—” She stopped suddenly, biting her lip. Behind her Maggie had stopped shuffling papers and was clearly listening to this exchange with avid interest.
“Because?” Alex prompted, his frown fast becoming a scowl.
“You’re a bit . . . stern,” Lucy allowed, and Maggie suppressed something that sounded like a cross between a cough and a laugh. Alex stared at her for a long moment and Lucy wondered if she was about to get fired.
“Only a bit?” he finally said, and to her amazement his mouth quirked upwards in the tiniest of smiles. Lucy stared at him in shock, and then grinned back. Alex Kincaid had actually made a joke.
“Enjoy your night out,” he said quietly, his expression back to its usual stony stare, and he returned to his office, closing the door behind him.
Shaking her head again, Lucy turned back to the computer and from behind her she heard Maggie rustle papers.
