“I’ll get it!” Georgia sang out, and jumped up. For some reason, Georgia loved answering the door. “It’s like a good surprise,” she’d explained. “Like opening a present. Because you never know who’ll be there!”
Zane said, “No. I’ll go.” He’d soon send the salesperson or religious nutter or whoever it was on their way.Hewasn’t opening any presents.
It was Skylar. Skylar, with a coat wrapped around herself against the rain, her curls already plastered to her head just from the dash from the car.
“For Christ’s sake,” he said. “Get inside out of the wet.” He pulled her in, then helped her off with her coat. It was soaked, too. “I’ll get you a towel.”
Feet in the passage. Georgia. She ran to Skylar and got acuddle in return. “Hi!” Georgia said. “I’m very glad you came. We were just about to have our tea. D’you want to have it with us?”
Zane expected Skylar to apologize. She didn’t. Her nose was red, but the rest of her face was white. She said, her tone extremely controlled, “You’d better go eat, then. I’ll only keep your dad a few minutes.”
“You could come have tea with us,” Georgia said. “Like before.”
“I can’t tonight,” Skylar said. “Is there a private place we can talk?” she asked Zane. Pointedly. Not like Skylar at all.
“Uh … of course,” he said. “Down here. Wait, though.” A detour for that towel. “For your hair. D’you need a dressing gown? Cardigan?”
“No,”she said, blotting her curls with the towel and making them look wilder than ever. “I need totalkto you.”
“OK, then. Come on.” Was this about the sex? She seemed narky as hell. Why? He’d told her it wasn’t good enough, but she’d seemed to think it was, so … what?
He took her into the family room, same place they’d had their other conversation—when she’d also been narky, hadn’t she? At her granddad that time. For a woman who apparently didn’t get annoyed often, recent events had certainly brought it out in her.
She turned on him without even sitting down and said, “You went to my principal. Without telling me!”
What the hell? “I did,” he said. “Of course I did. You said we couldn’t get involved because Georgia was in your class, and there are rules. Stupid rules, if you ask me, but there’s no arguing with the ref, so I asked for her to be moved. Following the rules, eh. Principal said yes. Job done.”
“And you didn’t think totellme?” She was laughing now, but in an angry way. Laughing, shaking her head, clutchingher hair. A trifecta of disbelief.“Zane.I got called into her office today!AfterGeorge and Georgia told all of Year One that you and I were getting married!”
“What?” He could only blink.
“Yes. They did. I should have foreseen that. What with the earthquake and all, I’m sure it was an exciting story. I could’ve laughed it off—Ididlaugh it off—well, not quite, because Stacey Thompkins told the principal, and Stacey Thompkins hates me. George’s teacher,” she added, as if that explained anything.
“Somebody hates you? How is that even possible?” He couldn’t stand watching her look so cold, so—bugger it. He’d be an arrogant bastard. He pulled her down with him onto the couch, reached for a throw, and put it around her shoulders.
“Would you stop beingnice?”she said. “It’s confusing me. I’m so angry with you, I— I—” She was waving an arm now. And she’d seen that as nice rather than arrogant? That was good. If unusual.
“You could tell me,” he suggested. “That might help.”
She glared at him. “I’mtrying.”
“Well, maybe try harder.”
“Stacey Thompkins,” she said with some precision, “has a thing for David Sacklett, who teaches Year Five. And apparently, at least according to my friend Jess, David has a thing forme.It’s hard to know, because he’s the quiet sort.”
“Not your type,” Zane decided to put in.
“He should be exactly my type. Easygoing. Kind. Low-key. Unglamorous. All exactly like me.”
“Sounds a dead bore,” he said.
“Well, there’s that. Born to be mild. I just can’t—” Her hand was in her hair again.
“You can’t help wishing for more excitement in a man,” he said. “More of a thrill.”
Some more glare. “Would youstop?This isn’t foreplay! I’m telling you why I’m so annoyed with you!”
“Oh.” He raised both hands. “Go ahead, then. Stacey somebody has a thing for David somebody, and is probably jealous of you, is that it? Not sure how I come into it, though.”
