Free Just Not Mine by Rosalind James

“You don’t want to cook dinner after all this,” he objected. “We could go out.” Not quite the double date of his dreams, the two of them and the kids, not to mention the absent partner, but he’d take it.
    “ The idea is dinner on the new patio, remember?”
    “Well, then, we could get pizza. Amelia and I could even get it on the way back from ballet. Easy as.”
    “I don’t eat pizza,” she said. “Alas.”
    “Not even after laying brick all day?”
    “Not even then. The sacrifices we make, eh,” she said with another laugh. “But just come on over when Amelia’s done with her dancing, and we can have a feed. The least I can do to pay you back, isn’t it. If Charlie and I aren’t here, we’ll have gone to the supermarket. Maybe even for a swim first, hey?” she asked Charlie. “Sounds good about now.”
    Did she have unlimited energy? He guessed so. And he wanted to come for the swim. Seeing her in her togs would be a fair reward for his work, better than any dinner, especially if it were a bikini.
    But his job right now was to drive three twelve- year-old girls to ballet, so that was what he did.

Not Romantic
    “Hugh’s nice, isn’t he,” Charlie offered when Hugh and Amelia had left.
    “Yeh, he is.” Josie smiled at him, looked at the bags of mortar and allowed herself a moment of fatigue at the thought of this final stage of her project. For a cowardly minute, she thought about accepting Hugh’s offer, taking Charlie off for a swim and a shop and finishing the job with Hugh’s help when he returned. How easy it was, after all, to look to a man for help, even when that help wasn’t one bit his job, or his concern.
    Finish it now, she told herself. Sooner you start, sooner it’s done. Besides, even though she’d been honest with him, this was cutting the grass, and she knew it. And she’d never been one of those women who put off breaking up with a man until after he’d helped her shift house. She’d told Clive the truth. She didn’t like manipulative women, and she wasn’t going to be one, so she grabbed her scissors and cut open the first bag of mortar, hefted it and began sprinkling its contents over the bricks.
    “Cut open the next one for me, will you , love?” she asked Charlie. “And then we just sweep the mortar with this metal broom so it falls between the bricks, see?”
    “Hugh’s strong, too,” Charlie said, reaching for the broom and sweeping with a willing if inexpert hand. “If he was here, he could lift up those bags by himself. He could do it with one hand.”
    “Mmm. Does he always live with you?” she asked, onto the second bag by now. She was just making conversation, keeping Charlie from noticing how tired he was. Or she was shamelessly pumping an eight-year-old child for information. She’d go with Option A. Sounded much better.
    “Just since my mum and dad died,” Charlie said. “And only when he’s at home. Not when he’s away.” He laughed a little. “I mean, he couldn’t live with us when he’s away, could he? But he can’t go away now, because he broke his thumb.”
    “Does he go away for work?” she asked.
    “Yeh. But he got an injury, this last time, so he can’t go.” He opened his mouth, shut it again.
    A ship, she thought suddenly. That would explain it. He wasn’t a dole bludger after all, she could see that after today. He was a worker, just like her.
    “What does he do for work?” she asked, and all right, it was true, she was shamelessly pumping a child. She might as well get her money’s worth.
    Charlie looked a bit scared. “I’m not meant to talk about his work. If people ask me about him.”
    “Oh. OK.” What? She finished emptying her bags, took over on the sweeping from Charlie.
    So, all right. Something secret. Either he was an undercover cop, or a drug dealer. Or an assassin, her overactive imagination suggested, and she had to laugh a little inside at the thought. He didn’t seem much like a drug dealer,