She imagined that, being the fiancé of Sasha Delsanto, he wasn’t used to budget motel accommodation. ‘It’s fine. Thank you.’
‘Okay. Well, I’ll leave you to settle in. Maybe we can head over to the park in a bit?’
‘Yay!’ Poppy’s eyes brightened at the mention of a park.
Kenzie let out a long sigh after he walked away and lay down on the bed, enjoying the stretch. Poppy climbed up and kneeled beside her, bouncing. ‘It’s like a trampoline, Mummy.’ She giggled at the squeaky noise it made.
It’s just one night.
Sixteen
The afternoon had cooled off by the time they walked out of the motel and headed towards the park a little while later. The large square of open grass was neatly maintained, with a water fountain in the centre and an old-fashioned bandstand. Kenzie could imagine what this little town must have looked like in its heyday. The main street had remnants of a bygone era in the few shopfronts that looked as though time had stood still around them. She’d visited enough museums in little places like this to know that at one time it would have been a bustling town with multitudes of pubs and businesses, before the railway line detoured the town, effectively isolating it and causing the majority of the population to pack up and move where the transport was.
The evidence of a once-flourishing economy was clear in the beautifully decorated buildings, like the ornate old rotunda.
They walked along a path towards a slightly more modern playground, and Poppy thrust her beloved Mr Percival into Kenzie’s arms. ‘Can you push me on the swing, Mummy?’ Poppy called out, already running across the thick carpet of pine bark mulch.
‘I’ll go,’ Ewan said. ‘You sit and rest.’
Her automatic reaction was to protest, but he was already heading over to the swings and helping her climb onto the seat.Rest? With a four-year-old? Well, there’s a new concept.
Poppy let out excited shrieks as Ewan pushed her. ‘Higher!’ Poppy demanded.
‘Not too high,’ Kenzie called, knowing full well she’dneverpushed her daughterthathigh before.
‘Higher,’ Poppy insisted.
She watched as Ewan sent the swing soaring, her heart lodged in her throat.Jesus Christ! Was he trying to kill her?‘How about you have a go on the slide, Poppy?’ she called, trying not to sound as frantic as she felt.
‘Okay,’ she called back, beaming. That smile gave Kenzie a burst of joy, putting her jumbled emotions at odds with each other.
After a while of ‘Watch me, Ewan!’, he wandered over and took a seat next to her on the bench.
‘You know she was safe, right?’ he asked casually. ‘On the swing.’
‘She doesn’t usually go that high,’ Kenzie said, trying to keep her voice level.
‘Don’t you remember how much fun it was to go high on the swing when you were a kid?’
‘Not when I wasfour,’ she said somewhat stiffly.
They sat in silence, listening to Poppy as she continued calling out to them to watch, before Ewan said, ‘I wouldn’t let her get hurt.’
Kenzie tried to push away that narky little feeling. Even she knew she’d overreacted, despite trying to stay calm. She couldn’t seem to help it. He was still basically a stranger.He is also her biological father, a voice pointed out. And wasn’t that the whole point of doing this? So that hewouldn’tbe a stranger? ‘It’s just been the two of us for so long,’ she said without taking her eyes off Poppy as she slid down the bumpy yellow slippery slide.
‘I know. I’m figuring out how to fit into her life too.’
The uncertain tone caught her heart unexpectedly, and she formed a small smile. ‘You’re doing fine.’
They watched on quietly for a while longer until Poppy got tired of the slide and ran off to try the other pieces of playground equipment scattered about the park.
‘How about we find some dinner?’ Ewan suggested as they finished riding on the spring-loaded rocking horse and playing shopkeepers with the cute little shopfront under the climbing frame. ‘What do you feel like?’
‘Fish fingers,’ she said without hesitation. ‘It’s mine and Mr Percival’s favouritest.’
Kenzie glanced at his face expecting to see doubt, which was the usual reaction that statement was met with, but she saw a strange kind of shocked expression.
‘She’s always loved fish fingers,’ Kenzie explained, watching as he seemed to shake off the unexpected reaction.
