Page 38 of Prognosis Bad Timing

Carrie shook her head, trying to clear her hazy thought processes. Her cells still rocking around the clock. ‘Oh, yes, it was the wedding waltz.’

‘Waltz with me, Mummy, like you did with Grandpa at the wedding.’

Carrie smiled down at her beguiling little girl, finding her as hard to resist as ever. Even the suture line gave her a certain appeal. She hauled Dana up onto her hip.

‘Charlie, too,’ Dana said, hooking an arm around Charlie’s neck and drawing them into an intimate circle.

Carrie daren’t look at him as Charlie’s arm slid around her back. She could hear his breathing and was excruciatingly conscious of his sheer male presence. From his spicy aftershave to his reassuring bulk.

This was wrong.

It was too intimate. Not in the way it had been on Friday night. But intimate in the way a family was intimate.

And it felt so good. For something that was so wrong. Her and Dana were a family of two. It was pointless thinking otherwise. Or getting Dana too caught up in it.

But oh...it was nice.

Too nice to step away, despite the dictates of her very sensible brain.

The song came to an end and it was Charlie who stepped away and she was again reminded of his quick-as-a-flash departure the other night when the reality of Dana’s existence had hit home.

Why did a man who was so good with kids run a mile from them?

‘We’d better go,’ she said quietly, his message loud and clear. She kissed the top of her daughter’s head. ‘Say good bye to Charlie, sweetheart.’

Dana waggled her fingers at him. ‘Bye, Charlie. Can I come and dance to your dukebox again?’

Charlie laughed and flicked one of her bunches. ‘Any time, Sleeping Beauty.’

Then he stood in the middle of the lounge area, watching them walk away a heavy feeling in the vicinity of his heart. It had felt so good dancing in that threesome.

So good.

Maybe there was something to this commitment thing after all?

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