“Yeah.Look at this.”Dan sat down, and to Libby’s utter surprise, he stretched his bad leg out so the children could study his scars.
“I don’t like horses,” Rellina said.
“Neither do I.”Dan moved his leg away and rested his arms on his thighs.“I’ve always been nervous of them.”
“Then why did you get on one?”Christopher Mac asked.
Another child peered at Dan.“And how did you fall off?”
Jeez.Juliana would love these tactless kids!But wanting to know why he’d gotten on that horse in the first place had been on Libby’s mind too.She couldn’t recall what had been reported at the time, and none of the articles she’d read since she’d met him explained why he’d been horse riding.Most probably because it was irrelevant.His near death, injuries, and canceled wedding plans to the glamorous Isabella were far more newsworthy.
“I was trying to impress a girl,” Dan said.
The kids laughed.
Libby’s head shot up.Two jokes in one day?
But Dan was nodding gravely.“True story,” he told them.“For her job, my girlfriend needed to pose on a horse, and she asked me to get involved too.But I didn’t want to tell anyone that I’d never been on a horse before and that I was nervous.”
The kids’ heads turned to Libby.
“Hey,” she said, “don’t look at me like that.I didn’t know him then.”
“Was this before you were married?”Rellina’s wide eyes darted from Dan to Libby.
“We’re not—”
“I’m not—”
“So what happened?”Christopher Mac asked.
“I got on the horse,” Dan said, “but I was scared, and the stupid horse knew it.”
“It wasn’t the horse who was stupid,” the boy laughed.“You should’ve been honest.”
Boom!These kids were something else.Libby snuck a glance at Cranky, but instead of looking like he’d huff and growl, he said, “You’re right, kid.If only I were as wise as you.”
Christopher Mac puffed out his little chest.“Next time you want advice, come and see me.”
The choking noise had Libby’s head shooting back to Dan.He’d nearly sprayed a mouthful of coffee all over the kids.
“Thanks.”Dan coughed, then sucked in his cheek, the usual crease on his brow returning.“I’ll bear that in mind.”
Chapter 12
Dan’sbrothers-in-law,JarrellandMarco, were always eye-rolling over how walking with small children anywhere took forever.They weren’t wrong.But as Dan dawdled, stopped-started, and dawdled again next to Libby and Karim on the road that would eventually take them to the harbor, he decided that having his speed governed by a two-year-old, and whatever caught that two-year-old’s attention, was far better than being governed by the ache in his hips.
He really needed to ramp up his physio again, which was one of the reasons they were heading to the harbor.A swim would make him feel weightless as he loosened his body, and his exercises wouldn’t be so painful.
“I swear I heard you laugh back there with those kids,” Libby said as Karim picked up another stone off the road.“They were funny.”
“They were annoying,” Dan corrected.If he’d been by himself, he’d have shooed them away a lot sooner, but there was Libby, always with the questions—what’s it like living on this tiny island?Where did they go to school?What subjects did they study?—and they’d ended up staying for almost an hour, until someone called for them from across the bushes to come back home.
“But talking about your accident made you feel a little better, didn’t it?”Libby said.
“Yeah.”Dan frowned.He’d surprised himself with those kids earlier, answering their questions so honestly.Talking about the accidenthadactually been okay, probably because—much like Libby—those kids didn’t care who he was or what he did.They weren’t out to make a load of money off the back of his injuries.“I suppose so.”
Since he’d spoken to his mum last night and had taken off on this side trip to Atiu with Libby, his heart was feeling a lot lighter.Especially now that he could relax here, without the risk of a journalist sneaking around him for a story.
