Nine
Nick rubbed his hands over his face and chuckled. He’d been working on the books for hours when Jenny’s face had popped into his mind and he’d wondered what she was doing. He hadn’t seen her since the weekend and had found himself glancing up hopefully each time the door opened—which was stupid, since he’d only seen her for the first time last week; chances were slim she’d be popping in unexpectedly for a mid-week drink.Slim, but not completely nil, a small voice reminded him optimistically.
He wasn’t sure what it was about this woman that was having such a strange effect on him. Maybe he’d been working too hard. Maybe it had been a long time between drinks when it came to women. Not that this town didn’t have its share of good-looking women. He’d been given a few opportunities since arriving, but he’d had too much at stake to take any of them up on their offers.
Then Jenny Hayward came barrelling into his life with her ridiculous dates and big brown eyes and tonight, while he’d been sitting at his desk thinking about her, he’d had a sudden urge to check out her profile for himself. He hadn’t even been sure he’d be able to find her—he was only on one dating app and he hadn’t used it in a long time—so long, in fact, it had taken him three attempts to try to remember his password, but once he was in, it hadn’t taken him long to locate her. There was no doubting the profile was hers when he came across it. He’d given a small snort at her account name: Florence_71. He’d skimmed through the pictures, his eyes almost popping out of his head when he came across the one of her in a very short nurse’s uniform, which he was fairly sure was not her usual working attire. Then he felt his eyes widen further as he saw the little green light that signalled that she was currently online. What if it wasn’t her but her kids trying to set her up on another date? Maybe he’d just feel it out and see. Last time they spoke, she’d been fairly adamant they wouldn’t be messing with her love life online anymore.
This is a bad idea.The thought had echoed through his head even as he opened the chat window, but he’d pushed it away and forged on.
Any remaining apprehensions dissipated when the little bubbles began bouncing at the base of the screen and he read her sassy comeback. He was lost—completely and utterly lost as her droll sense of humour gave way to playful banter and he became even more intrigued than he was before. There was no way this could be anyonebutJenny.
He hadn’t started out wanting to keep his identity a secret—he’d fully intended to tell her who he was—only he was enjoying their chat so much and the moment passed by and then it felt like he’d gone too far to reveal the truth without it seeming weird. Her reaction to the whole age thing the other day and the fact that she thought he was some lowly bartender suggested she probably wouldn’t react well if he revealed his identity. It wasn’t like he was intending to lead her on or anything—it was just a bit of harmless fun.
But then a twinge of guilt elbowed Nick sharply in the gut and he realised he’d probably taken the whole fake identity thing way beyond what he’d intended. He knew he should put a stop to it. He’d meant to tell her who he was—he really had—but then she’d been so cute trying to figure out his occupation and the chat was unfolding so naturally that he didn’t want to ruin it. When he did end the conversation, it had been reluctantly. He could easily have sat and talked to her all night, learned all her secrets and listened to her playful comebacks until the sun came up.
He closed the app, putting his phone in the desk drawer so he wouldn’t give in to temptation again. If the army had given him anything, it was the ability to dig deep and find that self-discipline he needed to stop himself doing anything more stupid and to focus on finishing the payroll.
Jenny was cooking dinner when Savannah came inside, calling out a hello.
‘I’m in the kitchen,’ she called back, stirring the mince in the frypan.
‘Is that what I think it is?’ Savannah asked, coming over to kiss her mother’s cheek and glancing at the ingredients on the bench.
‘Yep. I figured since it was such a rainy, miserable day, we needed comfort food.’
‘Yes,’ Savannah groaned. ‘Mum’s hug mince. I was thinking about this all day today. If you hadn’t already started dinner, I was going to make it.’
The hearty gravy, turmeric, pasta and mince stew was the winter meal of choice around the Hayward table. Jenny had been making it since the kids were small and it always made her smile to know how much they still loved it. The girls had named it ‘Mum’s hug mince’ because apparently it was the next best thing to a hug from Mum when they’d had a crappy day.
‘There’s a parcel for you on the hall table. When I left for work today there was a pick-up card in with the bills.’
‘Oh, thanks,’ Jenny said, racking her brain for what it could be. She hadn’t made any purchases lately except for—Oh shit. Her heart rate spiked momentarily as she remembered exactly what was inside the parcel. That one time she clicked on a post out of curiosity … She’d cringed at the sight of every conceivable pleasure device known to mankind. Most of them had seemed anything but pleasurable and some were downright terrifying. She’d worked in emergency long enough to have seen all kinds of things that had ‘accidentally’ gone into places they weren’t designed to go, so she was rather jaded about the whole thing, and yet her hand had hovered over the‘buy now’ button. It was just all the sudden interest in her love life the girls had been stirring up that had her thinking about how long it had been since she’d had sex. With a living, breathing human man, not a laughably exaggerated silicone mould. Another thing her years as a nurse had given her was an insight into how unrealistic these plastic phalluses really were compared to the average man. And yet, she’d thought it would be one way to avoid all the endless drama that went along with finding a real man.
‘Mum?’
Jenny snapped her head up to look over at her daughter. ‘Sorry? What?’
‘You’re burning the mince,’ Savannah said, pointedly looking down at the frypan.
‘Oh. Bugger.’ Jenny scrambled to turn down the heat and deftly moved the meat around the pan. Managing to avoid too much damage, she finished adding the rest of the ingredients and left the pan to simmer.
‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine,’ Jenny said quickly, her thoughts back on the parcel sitting out in the hallway.
The sound of the front door opening and closing was followed by Chloe calling out a hello, moments before she appeared and joined them in the kitchen.
‘Mum, you got a parcel,’ she announced, holding up the rectangular package, inside a prepaid postage bag. ‘What’d you order?’
‘Ah … I’m not sure.’
‘Want me to open it?’
‘No!’
All eyes turned towards her and Jenny felt the colour drain from her face before it quickly began to rush back in again. ‘It might be that early birthday present I ordered, a while back,’ she said, hastily.
‘For who?’ Chloe asked hopefully.
