Chapter 37
Kitty was setting up her classroom, ready for the day, when a knock came on the door. ‘Come in,’ she called, expecting to see a member of staff. Instead, it was Nick who popped his head around. Her cheeks flushed hot.
‘Oh, um, Mr Andrews, hello. Uh, um, what are you doing here? Is everything all right?’
Nick walked into the room, Emily tugging on his hand.
‘Come and see my pictures, Nick,’ Emily cried, while he threw an apologetic glance at Kitty. ‘Come and see what I’ve done.’
She dragged him to the far wall of the classroom, where Kitty had set up an art gallery of the children’s work.
Kitty joined them. ‘Emily’s very good at drawing, isn’t she?’ she said, trying to get control of her heartbeat, and the situation. What was he doing here? The children weren’t meant to arrive for ages yet.
Sam wandered into the room, two mugs of coffee in her hands. ‘Oh, hi, Nick. What are you doing here so early? School doesn’t start for another forty-five minutes.’
‘I, um…’ Nick appeared very flustered. ‘I wondered if I could have a quick word with Miss Brown.’
Sam peered from Kitty to Nick and raised her eyebrows. Kitty wanted the ground to swallow her whole.
‘Emily,’ said Sam, ‘could you come and help me outside? I need to set up the sandpit.’
‘OK.’ Emily let go of Nick’s hand and ran to Sam.
Kitty mouthed a ‘thank you’, although she wasn’t feeling all that grateful. After what had happened the night before, the last thing she wanted was to speak to Nick. She’d hoped to avoid him and had even been planning to ask Sam to greet the children as they came in.
‘Sorry,’ Nick said as soon as Emily and Sam had left the room. ‘I wanted to check you’re OK.’
‘I’m fine,’ said Kitty. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ Who was she kidding?
Nick stared hard. ‘You know why.’ He ran a hand through his hair. ‘Listen, about what happened …’
Kitty grew hot. ‘What happened was a mistake,’ she managed. ‘It’d been an emotional evening, and emotion got the better of me.’
‘And if my parents hadn’t turned up?’ he asked.
Kitty didn’t know how to respond. She turned to a table and began setting out a series of dinosaurs on a large plastic tray.
‘Kitty.’ Nick placed a hand on her shoulder.
Kitty shrugged him off and stopped putting out the dinosaurs. She braved him face to face, keeping her voice steady. ‘Nick, last night was a mistake. Neither of us is in the right place to start something new.’
‘All right,’ said Nick.
‘All right?’ That was it? All right?
‘Yes. If that’s what you want, I’ll back off.’
‘Thanks,’ said Kitty, hating her disappointment.
‘We’re still OK to do the play, right?’ said Nick.
‘Yeah, of course.’ Kitty returned to the dinosaurs. She didn’t want Nick to see her face, and what it might give away. ‘How were your parents after I’d left?’ she said over her shoulder.
Nick snorted. ‘Confused, angry, pissed off. Take your pick.’
‘You told them about Emily?’
‘I couldn’t not, could I? It’s their house. They were bound to find out there’s a five-year-old living in their spare room.’
She twisted about, looking at him. This was safer territory. ‘And how do they feel about having a granddaughter?’
‘No clue,’ said Nick. ‘I didn’t hang around to find out. I slept in Emily’s room last night, and we left before they’d got up this morning.’
‘You’re going to have to face them sooner or later.’
‘I’d rather it was later than sooner.’
‘If there’s anything…’ Kitty was about to say if there was anything she could do to help.
She stopped herself. She needed to keep her distance from Nick, not get closer to him.
And the last thing she needed was to be drawn into any animosity between him and his parents.
‘So, are your parents home for good now?’
‘For a couple of weeks.’ Nick ran a hand through his hair. ‘My dad got ill on the cruise, so they’ve come back to give him long enough to get better, and then they’re going out to join their tour group for the final week.’
‘It might do you good to have a couple of weeks together,’ said Kitty. ‘They can get acquainted with Emily, see all the changes, positive changes, you’ve been making.’
Nick scoffed. ‘Positive changes? You should’ve seen my dad’s reaction when he found out I’m labouring for Luke. Let’s say he wasn’t impressed.’
‘Oh, Nick,’ said Kitty. She lifted her hand to his arm but let it hover above his skin. ‘Anyway.’ She let her hand drop and moved away to another table where haphazard piles of books waited to be neatened.
‘Yeah,’ said Nick. ‘You’ve got stuff to do, and I’m taking up too much of your time. I’ll get Emily.’
‘You can leave her here if you want,’ said Kitty.
‘Are you sure? This is your time to get prepared. You don’t want kids hanging around.’
‘True,’ said Kitty. ‘Except Emily’s not just any kid, is she? And it’s not like she’s going to be any trouble.’
‘Are you sure?’ said Nick. ‘I… that wasn’t my intention when I came here.’
‘Honestly, it’s fine.’ She smiled. Her first of the day. ‘Go on, get to work, or get yourself a coffee. You probably need time to yourself to think about all that’s happened in the last twenty-four hours.’
‘Yeah,’ said Nick, giving her a smile that caused a fizzing sensation in her stomach.
‘Right. Well, I need to be getting on.’ Kitty shuffled some of the books together. ‘I guess I’ll see you at our first rehearsal tomorrow?’
‘Yeah, fine. I’ll be there.’
‘Great.’
Kitty closed the door behind Nick, leaned against it and banged the back of her head against the wood several times.
What a mess. What a messy mess of a mess.
But she was doing the right thing. It wasn’t only that her heart was too fragile for a relationship.
Her past had complicated her present, and to drag someone new into her mess of a life would be unfair.
She would do the play, remain professional, and keep Nick Andrews as far from her heart as she could manage. She’d done the right thing.
But then, why did it feel like she’d slammed the door on the first chance of happiness she’d had in years?