Chapter 3
Jake opened his eyes. He could hear whispering coming from the kitchen. He sat up and stretched. Thankfully, the stiffness in his neck was gone. He noted the two coffee cups on the coffee table: one empty, the other full. Jake guessed he must have fallen asleep while Faye was making the second cup. Jake picked up the blanket from the floor and glanced at Faye’s empty mug. She must have sat there and drank it while he slept. The thought of Faye watching him sleep gave him a twinge of embarrassment. He hoped he hadn’t snored. He wondered why it should bother him.
He glanced at his watch and raised his eyebrows. It was nine in the morning. He couldn’t believe that he’d gone back to sleep for four hours. He had not slept well in nearly six months; not since the accident in the Cairngorms. His sleeping pattern – the new normal for him – was waking up at four in the morning after a nightmare in which he was trying to chase after Eleanor on the ski slopes, yelling at her: Stop! Slow down! You’re going too fast! And then he’d wake up and remember what had happened to her.
The past few months, throwing himself into teacher training and meeting Faye and Natty, had literally saved him from a downward spiral involving a big bottle of Jack Daniels. He was glad that Faye didn’t have any alcohol in the house. Not that he really needed that now. Jake realised another thing; for the first time, he had gone back to sleep and not had that godawful nightmare.
Jake stood up, picked up his shirt from the back of the chair and put it on over his white vest. He’d changed into casual clothes – he was wearing jeans – for babysitting duty the previous night. He found his trainers under the sofa. He was just sitting on the sofa, slipping them on, when Natty ran into the room. ‘Jake! You’re awake!’ She ran into his arms.
‘Hey there. You should have woken me up.’
‘I wanted to, but Mummy said I had to let you sleep.’
‘Really?’ That explained the whispers he’d heard from the kitchen on waking.
‘It’s lucky it’s Saturday,’ Jake commented, ‘otherwise I would have been late for work.’
‘I asked Mummy if you could spend the day with us, but she said you were probably busy. Can you stay today, Jakey?’
Jake smiled at her. She was the only person he’d ever known who called him by a pet name.
‘Can you? Please say yes.’
Jake wanted to. Of course he’d say yes. But it wasn’t up to him. Jake cast his gaze over to the door, wondering where Faye was. Then he heard someone padding around upstairs and the sound of a shower.
‘Mummy will be cross if she thinks I woke you up when she went to shower.’
Jake smiled. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll tell her I was awake already.’ He looked at her. ‘Have you had breakfast?’
Natty shook her head.
‘Come on. Let’s give your mum a surprise.’ Jake grinned.
So did Natty. She stopped at the stairs on the way to the kitchen. ‘I need a wee!’
Jake watched her run up the stairs. ‘Mum! I need a wee!’
Jake heard Faye’s muffled voice from behind the bathroom door upstairs. ‘I’ve just got in the shower!’
‘Please, I’m desperate!’
‘Why do you do this every time?!’
‘I don’t know!’
‘Will you please keep your voice down! Jake is sleeping.’
‘No, he’s awake now.’
‘I’m not surprised. How many times have I told you, indoor voices!’
Jake glanced up the stairs as Faye stepped out of the bathroom in nothing but a white towel that only covered her torso and left her shoulders and her legs up to the thigh bare. Her skin was glistening with water.
Jake drew a sharp breath, catching her there at the top of the landing. She hadn’t spotted him staring up at her, but at any minute, she might. Jake retreated to the kitchen, feeling rather hot under the collar, and busied himself making breakfast, trying his utmost not to think of Faye in nothing but a towel.
Jake opened a kitchen cupboard and found a bottle of Worcestershire sauce. ‘This will come in handy,’ he muttered with a grin on his face. He found a frying pan. As he cracked some eggs into a glass bowl, he heard Faye and Natty padding around upstairs. He could hear their monotone voices through the ceiling and occasionally heard them very clearly indeed.
‘Will you please get out of the bathroom!’
Jake paused, listening to Faye’s raised voice.
‘Will you please have some patience!’ Natty shot back.
Jake smiled up at the ceiling. ‘Women!’ He shook his head and turned his attention to the cooker, moving the omelette gently around the pan.
Faye and Natty emerged, looking suitably cross with each other. He wondered if they went through the same routine every morning. He tried to hide the smile on his face as Natty ran over.
Faye dragged a seat from under the table and sat down. ‘What’s cooking?’
Natty said, ‘See? I told you there would be a surprise when you came downstairs, Mummy.’
Jake looked sheepishly at Faye. He avoided eye contact, feeling embarrassed that he’d been eyeing her up while she was standing there, half-naked, in a towel. But by god, she had looked gorgeous.
Jake undid his top shirt button. ‘Is it me, or is it hot in here?’
Faye said, ‘I don’t think it’s hot in here, but then again, my hair is still wet.’
Jake gave her a sideways glance. She was combing it through. All he could picture was her in that infernal towel.
‘Why don’t you go upstairs and blow-dry your hair?’ Jake suggested, hoping she would.
‘Nah, I’m going to let it dry au naturelle.’
Jake would rather she hadn’t used the words au naturelle . It only served to make him picture the towel falling to her feet, leaving her standing there naked.
He winced. For god’s sake, get a grip! he told himself silently.
‘Everything all right, Jake?’ Faye asked.
‘Oh, er … yes … fine.’ He avoided looking at her until the omelettes and hash browns were cooked.
‘What’s that smell?’ Natty asked.
Jake glanced over his shoulder at Natty, who was sitting with her mum at their small Formica table in the kitchen. ‘This omelette is my own speciality. It has a little something added – hope you like it.’
‘What is it?’ Natty said enthusiastically.
‘Omelette a la Lea oodles of it, in fact. Just a few days earlier, he had been reading about some actor becoming a father again at the age of eighty. The thought hadn’t made Jake feel any better, though.
He sighed, stealing a glance over his shoulder at Faye as she walked to her car. He slowed his pace, hoping she might change her mind and decide not to leave things on this note. But she did not look back.
Any thought of spending the day with Faye evaporated.