Page 36 of Singing For His Kiss

They ambled after Madeline as she jumped between rock pools. There was true poetry about her. Every time he spoke to her, he became more and more hooked on her. Like water sinking into the desert sand, he soaked her up.

“So, you’d never seen the beach before. Where did you grow up?”

“Central Victoria. I spent my first ten years in Ballarat, then I was moved to Castlemaine.”

“It’s very pretty in that part of the country.”

A lost look crept into her eyes. “It is pretty. That’s where I learned to ride horses. When I was fourteen, I got a job as a farmhand. Mr Thompson let me ride his horse. It was a grumpy old stallion. I guess he figured I’d be safe getting on a horse that was really quite lazy. I fed him sugar lumps, and he mellowed out pretty quick. Let me ride him all around when he knew what was in my pockets.”

“You know the way to a stallion’s heart.” He chuckled.

A bow jerked. “Well, you lot are fairly simple.”

He put his hand over her heart, amazed her could be so happy joking with her. “I don’t know if that’s an insult or a compliment.”

“Oh, a compliment. Definitely a compliment.” Her chuckle stirred something deep inside. A chuckle meant she was having a good time. With him. He almost couldn’t believe it.

“Daddy!” Madeline stood at the edge of a rock pool, pointing into the water. “Look. A fish!”

They both manoeuvred between rock pools to get to where Madeline peered into a full pool.

“Can I keep him?” Madeline asked.

James squinted at the tiny, beige coloured fish trying hard to blend with the sandy bottom of the pool. “That fish won’t be a good pet, Madeline.”

“Why not? He’s cute. I want to keep him.”

“No, Madeline. We need to look after him properly, and we don’t have anywhere at home to put him.”

Tears welled up in her large blue eyes, illuminating them. He was caught between wanting to give everything to his daughter and trying to convince her taking the fish home – except as dinner - wasn’t a good idea.

Elizabeth hunched in front of Madeline and took her hand. “Did you know there are two sorts of fish? Some live in fresh water, like the water we drink, and other fish, like this little one, breathe in sea water. It’s very salty. Have you ever tasted sea water?”

Madeline nodded. “It doesn’t taste very nice.”

“Not to us, but this fish needs it to live. If we took him home with us, he couldn’t breathe. Wouldn’t it be much better to watch him swimming here and enjoy his company where he can live?”

“I guess.”

“That’s a very good decision, Madeline. I’m proud of you.”

His daughter bristled with pride, a huge smile appearing on her face that dried her tears.

“Besides, you told me there were octopus here. What’s say you help me find one?”

Madeline nodded enthusiastically, took Elizabeth’s hand and didn’t let it go as they tiptoed between rock pools and studied each one.

His emotions warred. He was proud of his daughter. In awe of how Elizabeth handled it. Melancholy that it wasn’t Hanna. But if he needed any more proof that asking Elizabeth to stay on for Madeline was the right thing to do, now he had it.

They had a connection that was natural, loving and happy. Madeline had never let anyone close to her in the way she did Elizabeth.

In fact, she acted the opposite way around Anastasia Highland. He’d had to fight to keep their relationship strictly business, but regular after hours meals, meetings that ran through the night and over the weekends, had bred a familiarity between the two of them.

It was a complication he hadn’t banked on, sought or wanted. Anastasia appeared to have a different idea.

It wasn’t as though she was unattractive. Quite the opposite. Tall. Blonde hair that wasn’t out of a bottle. Svelte. Sophisticated. She could have her pick.

But there was that part of him that had held back. Whether or not she took that as “not-interested” or “hard-to-get”, he didn’t know. What he did know was that her attentions had become less subtle and more frequent. It wasn’t ideal, but now that he was on the last leg of the prototype, he had to spend more time with her.

That was another reason to like the recent wild weather and road closure. It had given him a modicum of peace. She’d still phoned, emailed and texted, all of which he’d dutifully answered. He didn’t want to give her any reason to pull out of the project.

Their contract had been signed to cover several stages. The most profitable, and the stage that would pay back the loan on his capital and more, was the building stage. Unless he kept up this regime of attention, she could quite easily pull out, leaving him in a very hard financial spot.

Not that he wasn’t in the middle of a very hard emotional spot as well. Somehow, he had to rein in his desire for Elizabeth while keeping a safe and personable distance to Anastasia.

The only thing was, spending time with Elizabeth, the line was blurring.

And that was the one flaw to his perfect plan.

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