‘Michael’s working,’ Rachel said.
‘Dad’s always working,’ said Eva, her mouth tight.
‘He finds it difficult with Sam now,’ Rachel tried to explain. ‘He’s a banker in the city and he works all the hours God sends. He’s a good man but to him the easiest way of looking after his family is by providing.’ She lowered her voice. ‘I don’t think he’s ever forgiven himself for leaving Sam with his mother and for not seeing the damage it was doing until it was too late. He was so relieved when Sam came out of himself as a child. But the last six years have been hard. Michael can’t stand to see Sam back where he started from.’
Katie nodded, her throat closing over as she imagined a young, silent, beautiful, dark-haired, dark-eyed boy, shut off from the very people trying to help him.
‘What happened to him to push him back there?’ she asked.
‘We don’t know exactly what went on out there,’ Eva said. ‘We don’t know what the mission was, or even the country. We just know that he was away for nine months, that he came back with that awful scar, having lost Richard, and he was just … gone.’
Katie’s eyes widened as she looked over Rachel and Eva’s shoulder seeing Sam approaching from the bar. She wanted to ask who Richard was, but thought it best that Sam didn’t know they had been talking about him. ‘Right, well, if you ladies are free this afternoon I’m afraid you’re being drafted into cake-baking craziness,’ she told them as Sam came to stand next to them, eyeing Rachel, Katie and Eva’s hands, which were still clasped together on the table. They all glanced up at him briefly, then smiled.
Chapter 21
Weird, sweet and a little disturbing
‘So, how was Mum?’ Sam asked. ‘She cope with the spawn-of-the-devil invasion?’ Katie punched him lightly in the arm that was draped over her shoulders and grinned up at him.
‘They’re just high-spirited,’ she said, and he raised his eyebrows at this gross understatement. ‘Okay, maybe they are a little bit possessed by devils and demons, but you love them anyway, you know you do.’
‘Yes, they’re adorable,’ he said drily, eyeing the carnage that had swamped Katie’s kitchen. A thick layer of flour covered most of the surfaces; even the ceiling had the odd splodge of cake mix splattered across it.
When Katie had suggested that Rachel and Eva help her with the cakes, she’d forgotten that Sarah had also offered to ‘help’ that afternoon. Whether a heavily pregnant Sarah with four of the Sons of Satan in tow could actually be considered help was debatable. To her credit, Rachel seemed to warm up relatively quickly to these strangers; then again, the boys were not exactly shy about coming forward, and it’s difficult to stay silent when you’re being interrogated by a curious six-year-old whilst a toddler climbs up your leg to settle in for a cuddle. In the interests of edible end results, Katie for once was honest about her rather experimental cake-baking methods, and convinced Rachel that it might be best if she took charge. Who knew that actually measuring the ingredients out rather than just dumping a vague estimate into the mix could be so important?
‘I think she had fun,’ Katie told him, and his heavy arm around her shoulders gave her a squeeze.
‘You could make anyone have fun,’ he said. ‘You’re the funniest woman I’ve ever met.’
‘Funny ha-ha or funny peculiar?’ Katie asked.
‘Both,’ he said, smiling down at her and crushing her even more firmly into his side. They were sitting on her squashy sofa. It was late and Sam had long since driven his mum and sister back to their car so that Eva could take Rachel to the station to catch a late train to London. Sam had gone into the set that afternoon, cake-making obviously not being his forte. To Katie’s surprise, after he’d taken Eva and Rachel away he’d come straight back to her house, his loud, insistent knocking making her nearly jump out of her skin. (Even his knock was bossy.) When she opened the door to him, he simply pushed his way past her, grabbed her hand and dragged her over to the sofa, where he pulled her into his side.
She scowled at him. ‘I’m not sure if that exactly counts as a compliment, you big lug.’
‘Yes, it does,’ he told her, reaching up with his spare hand to tuck a stray curl behind her ear. ‘You make me laugh more than anyone I’ve ever met.’
‘Oh …’ Katie said, a little shocked. ‘Oh … well, that’s nice.’ Her voice was a little choked as she struggled with a sudden stinging in her nose. She cleared her throat. ‘Sam?’
‘Yes,’ he said, his attention focused back on the rugby on the screen – Katie wasn’t exactly a rugby girl but Sam’s bossiness appeared to extend to remote-control hogging. But then Sam did something that surprised her. His eyes flicked down to where she was lying at his side and back to the telly, and he frowned.
‘Katie, do youlikerugby?’ he asked.
‘Um … I don’t mind it,’ she said carefully.
He shifted and grabbed the remote from the side table. ‘What do you like?’
‘Uh …’ Katie blinked; her experience with men who took her telly preferences into account was limited and usually involved lots of huffing and puffing from said man once she was actually watching what she wanted.
‘This is fine,’ she told him. He sighed and pointed the remote forwards to change the screen to her planner. He then selected an unwatched episode ofLaw and Orderand started it playing. Then he settled back with Katie at his side and relaxed into the sofa. No huffing, no puffing; perfectly content to watch what he knew she would enjoy. After the first ten minutes of shocked silence Katie started getting into it, and before she knew it her ‘relentless K.K. telly commentary’, as Russell termed it, was up and running. They had over the years made anything they watched a competition, and she was so conditioned to it that she literally couldn’t hold in her wild prediction of whodunnit and with what in. Pretty soon Sam was shaking with silent laughter.
‘Do you always do this?’ he asked, smiling down at her.
‘Um …’ Katie paused because, yes, yes she always did this, even if she was at the cinema – nothing could stop her. His arm gave her an affectionate squeeze and he kissed the top of her head.
‘What’s going on here?’ she asked in a small voice.
‘Well,’ he said slowly, ‘we’re sitting on your ridiculous sofa watching your ridiculously small telly. I’m wishing I had a beer in my hand instead of this weird-smelling tea, and – ’
