Free The Taming of the Bastard by Lindy Dale Page B

I’d wanted to. His eyes glazed over with desire and
his lips drew close to mine.
    “Are you having
a baby, Millie?”
    Oh shit, shit,
shit. Paige had poked her head through the glass doors, her face
directed towards the balloons.
    “No, sweetie,”
I replied, leaping away from Sam and trying to stay calm.
    Why the hell
did they teach children to read so young these days? Bloody,
expensive, private schools.
    “Then why is
the funny man giving them to you? Mummy says only people who are
married have babies and you’re not married. Are you?” She frowned
questioningly at my stomach and then my finger, searching for
either a ring or a baby bump, I’m sure.
    Sam shrugged,
uneasily. “It was either that or ‘Happy 60th Birthday’.”
    I ignored him.
“Go back inside Paige, and take Tori and Michael with you. Angry
Beavers is on in a couple of minutes.”
    Now Paige was
eyeing me suspiciously. “But Mummy doesn’t like it if we watch TV
when it’s homework time. She said Angry Beavers is
detrimental to my intellectual growth because beavers can’t
talk.”
    I pressed my
lips together. For Pete’s sake. “Well, we won’t tell her. Today
it’s our secret.”
    Mollified,
Paige shuffled the children inside and I breathed a sigh of
relief.
    “ Do you
like them?’ Sam asked again, looking at me solemnly through his
clown makeup. I’d never seen him like it. He was positively humble.
And his lovely vanilla smell, mixed with coffee, was wafting in my
direction. It was making me dizzy. I wanted to kiss him and tell
him I loved them but the children were watching through the
window.
    “They’re...
l...lovely,” I stammered. “And who knows, er, um, one day I might
have a boy.”
    His shoulders
relaxed. I took the bundle from him and wrapped the string around
the rail of the verandah, happy to accept his small gesture, his
attempt to be romantic.
    “Thank you,
Sam. But I still can’t understand why you’ve done all this.” I
looked into his green eyes, searching for a clue, which was
difficult to find under his makeup.
    He took my
hands in his. His fingers caressed my knuckles. “I wanted to mark
the specialness of the day.”
    Had I missed
something again? Adele was always saying I should watch the news or
at least read the paper but I had little enough time to get out of
bed in the mornings without fussing about current affairs. “What
day?”
    “Come here,
you,” he said, and pulled me into his rainbow clad arms. “You
aren’t going to make it easy are you? I’ve never done this before
and you’re just gonna make me squirm. I knew you would, it’s one of
the reasons I like you so much.”
    What in God’s
name was he on about? I frowned up at him.
    Sam’s shoulders
heaved in a deep breath. He tightened his grip around my waist. I
felt his fingers lock in the small of my back. “I wanted to mark
the day I officially asked you to be my girlfriend,” he said
softly.
    “Oh.”
    “Is that all
you can say?”
    “Oh shit?”
    “Is that a yes?
Because I like you a lot, Millie. I don’t think I’ve ever liked any
girl as much as I like you.” He dropped a kiss on the crown of my
head. “And there’s been quite a few of them.” He added with a
cheeky grin.
    Oh Sam. How
could I tell him that, as much as I was crazy about him, a
boyfriend didn’t figure in my life plan? It wasn’t that I didn’t
trust him because he didn’t seem like the kind of guy who’d fool
around or tell you things he didn’t mean. He openly admitted he
only ever spoke the truth. But I wasn’t shopping for a boyfriend.
Well, I didn’t think I was, anyway.
    Luckily for me,
I didn’t need to say a word. Paige had her head out the door again
and was surveying the scene before her. “Is that man a real clown,
Millie? Mummy says clowns are dangerous.” She came to stand beside
me, her sky blue eyes showing more wisdom than their years. I gave
her shoulder a squeeze and scooped her up to our eye level.
    “No darling,
he’s