Adam’s Boys (3 page)

“Please don't do that, Adam,” she said when she'd found her voice, frosty and unwavering, despite her battle to suppress the violent tremble in her bottom lip. “Don't apologise, and don't ever speak about me as though I was some … some hapless blip in your life. What happened between us meant something to me, if not to you. But you're right, what I do want from you is your time. So as you suggested, I'll ring Justin's secretary for an appointment and we'll keep all our communications at arm's-length from now on. I was a fool to think it could have been otherwise. It'll never happen again.”

With that, Abbie turned and walked away from Adam through the crowd, the teetering ruins of belief that he might once have cared for her now a formless pile of rubble behind her on that dance floor. And within that rubble lay her last tentative hope that old feelings might have offered him a softer landing for the truth that would soon make him despise her forever.

For although Adam didn't know it, a child had been conceived during their three weeks together and then kept from him for nearly four years; a baby boy conceived amidst a tidal wave of his father's grief over the tragic death of his young wife just weeks before—a wife who was then, and clearly always would be, the love of Adam Cooper's life.

“Excuse me, sir! Your name please!” The woman seated behind the school registration table repeated her request with unconcealed impatience.

She had a nametag on—Janet Wilson. She also had a long queue of parents banking up behind Adam as they waited to gain entry into the school hall.

Yet despite the queue Adam remained frozen in place, helplessly transfixed by that one nametag lying on the table amongst the many still waiting to be claimed. For on that nametag the black lettering was as stark and accusatory as if it were a warrant for his arrest: Abbie McCarthy.

“Name please!” Janet Wilson barked in a shrill voice.

“Abbie McCarthy!” Adam heard himself breathe as he lifted his hand and knotted his fingers into his hair in stunned disbelief.

Was he seeing things? Were his memories of last night so insidious that he was now reading words on nametags that weren't actually there?

Anything was possible. For Abbie was nowhere if not on his mind. In fact, he hadn't been able to get her out of his head from the moment she'd ticked him off last night and then abandoned him on the dance floor like some modern-day Cinderella on steroids.

“Oh ... no. I'm sorry. My name's Adam Cooper,” Adam explained to the school registrar, finally waking up out of his head-trip.

“That's better,” Janet Wilson snapped in exasperation, her eyes dull with humourless efficiency. “Here's your nametag, Mr. Cooper. And please take a folder from the end of the table, otherwise you'll have no idea what's happening on your son's first day of school next Monday.”

“Could you tell me where I can find my son please?” Adam jumped in before Janet Wilson had time to turn to the parents behind him. “Pete was very upset when I left him here this morning. I'd like to see him as soon as …”

“Sir!” Janet Wilson interrupted sternly, irritated at his disruption to her registration process. “If you could move to one side, there are parents behind you who are just as anxious as you to gain entry to the hall.”

And with that she turned her face away in a deliberate gesture of dismissal.

Frustration surged but Adam bit his tongue. He knew it would be useless to argue.

Slipping the folder under his arm, he moved away from the registration table and sighing roughly, rubbed the nine-hour stubble on his jaw with his fingertips.

Man oh man! A possible run in with Abbie
and
a collision course with his four-year-old in the one afternoon—could his day get any more intense? For Pete would never understand how his father could have abandoned him to a bunch of terrifying strangers in an unfamiliar school that morning. And Abbie clearly had issues about his brutal reversal out of her life all those years ago; she hadn't booked that meeting with him tomorrow to discuss recent amendments to the Corporations Act, of that he was sure!

Adam wandered through the crowded space towards open windows. He hoped they might offer up some fresh air to ease his edginess over finding a feisty Abbie McCarthy back in his life, steadily fuelling the stubborn migraine that had been pounding away behind his right eye since breakfast time. But Lord knew his problems had begun well before breakfast. They were up and running the moment he'd walked across that dance floor and placed his hand on Justin's shoulder to let him know he wanted to dance with his partner.

God, what had he been thinking? He should never have done it. And yet he'd had no idea his whole body would go into overdrive the second she was back in his arms. After all, he'd managed to stop thinking about her a very long time ago. For she was right, he'd dismissed their three weeks together as nothing more than a blip in the middle of his grief over losing Ellen. The other blip he'd managed to stop thinking about was the way he'd turned his back on every responsibility bearing down on his life at that time: Ellen's recent death, her distraught family, a growing charity that badly needed direction, but most of all, his three-month-old baby boy waiting for him back in England.

So many people who needed him.

And where was he? Ten thousand miles away and losing himself in a three-week re-enactment of a John and Yoko bed-in with a girl he'd only just met!

“Hello, Adam Cooper. I'm Emma Martin. You're new to the school, aren't you?”

At that moment Adam was side-tracked out of his world of Abbie-induced headache. A woman—thankfully not his tetchy Cinderella from last night—had emerged out of the crowd. Tossing a stream of glossy dark hair back from one shoulder, she held out a hand for him to shake in greeting and smiled.

“Yes … yes, I am new,” Adam heard himself stammer, cursing yet again those courtroom nerves of steel that mysteriously vanished in a heartbeat the moment an attractive woman was in front of him.

“I thought so, Adam. I didn't think I'd missed seeing
you
around the place.”

Emma smiled with her mouth, her unsmiling eyes skipping across his face before locking with his own. Adam managed to smile back politely, but was lost for words when he guessed he was being hit upon. It had been a regular problem since Ellen's death when he'd been so focused on raising Pete that he hadn't bothered to try and resurrect any pre-marriage, sweet-talking skills he might have once had. In fact, who was he kidding? Mr Bean was probably more adept at smooth repartee with women than he was.

“So, Adam, who have you got starting at St James'?”

“My son, Peter. He's starting in the prep class today.”

“How lovely! My Hughie's starting in prep too!” Emma declared before adding, “My other son, Sebastian, is in year two.”

“Is that right?” Adam replied, but immediately flinched at the disinterest he could hear in his own voice.

Quickly collecting himself, he gathered his thoughts and trained them on the woman in front of him rather than on Pete and Abbie. After all, it wasn't this woman's fault he was completely distracted by Pete's meltdown that morning. And it most definitely wasn't her fault that he was side-tracked by the possibility that Abbie might re-descend into his life again that afternoon.

But if Emma Martin had noticed his high level of distraction she wasn't showing it. At that moment her eyes were drifting languorously across the line of both of his shoulders before glancing suggestively down his tie to his belt buckle. And with a quick, instinctive intake of breath Adam knew that Emma would not be put off by any Mr Bean impersonation he might unwittingly dish out that day.

“So tell me, Adam,” Emma began again, her eyes making a suggestive elevation back up his tie and settling on his face. “What made you choose St James'?”

“Pete and I have just arrived in Sydney and I had to make a quick decision about a school for him—a friend of mine recommended this one.”

“Well, you've made the right decision. St James' is the best primary school in the Eastern Suburbs.”

“Really? That's good to hear,” Adam replied, his mind drifting again as he glanced across the room at a far door. He was wondering whether Pete might be on the other side of it when he added, “Do you think our children might be brought to us soon, Emma? Pete had a bad start this morning and I'd feel a whole lot better if I knew he was okay.”

Yet even as Adam heard his own description of Pete's morning, he knew it was nothing short of a laughable understatement. For at half-past eight that morning one of the well-meaning teachers had prised the arms of his sobbing four-year-old from around his neck and carried Pete away to begin his prep orientation day at St James'.

“Oh no, Adam! We won't see the children for ages yet,” Emma offered in an amused, tinkly voice. “I remember when Seb started here I waited in this hall for almost an hour!”

On hearing that dire prediction, Adam pulled a hanky out of his pocket and began to mop up the beads of sweat that had formed across his forehead, unable to drag his thoughts away from the events of that morning.

Not that Pete's reaction to starting at St James' had come as any real shock. Adam had known the anxiety issues haunting his son for the last two years would spiral him into a maelstrom over his first day at school. And it hadn't been a good sign when he was weeping over his toast and milk that morning. But not for a minute had Adam expected Pete to become completely hysterical when they walked through the school's front gates. It was as though his four-year-old had suddenly discovered an extra set of lungs and four extra limbs, all of which were operating at full throttle.

“So where's Pete's mum today?” Emma asked with a lightness that failed to conceal the curiosity shining in her green eyes.

Adam didn't answer straight away, wondering whether there was any way he could avoid the question that always felt like a body blow—but of course there was not.

“My wife … Ellen—she died when Pete was a baby.”

“Oh, I'm sorry,” Emma threw back in immediate response.

“It was a long time ago,” he explained, hoping to shut the subject down.

“Then you've met the right person!” Emma declared. “I've volunteered to be class mother—I can help you out in any way you need.”

With that announcement, Adam suspected he'd just been appointed the charity case for the St James' prep mothers.

“Thanks for the offer, Emma, but Pete and I are only here for a few months. We won't be needing any help, and we're managing pretty well so far,” he added, surprised at how easily that final lie had tumbled out of his mouth as he pictured his house in disarray and guessed his son would be a complete cot-case for the rest of the evening after his disaster of a first day at school.

“Oh! Such a short time?”

“I'm only here to finalise some business arrangements, then I'm heading back to the UK.”

“I see. Well, there's no need to be shy for the time that you're here. You've no doubt got a lot on your plate,” she added with a shrug, eyeing off his suit. “My husband and I are separated so I know what it's like to be a single parent. And we're a very tight knit community at St James'. We all help each other out.”

Adam opened his mouth to say ‘thanks again but I've managed so far without the parent body of St James', but thinking better of it, he closed it again.

How he felt about Emma Martin offering to take him under her wing was irrelevant. After a year of watching Pete shunned by every single child at his pre-school, the only thing that mattered to Adam was that his son made friends at St James'. If that was not reason alone to welcome an offer of help from the class mother and all of her connections on Pete's first day, nothing was.

He was about to mutter more sincere thanks when his attention was interrupted by a terse exchange unfolding across the hall. He'd let his watchful gaze drift away from the registration table for a few minutes as he'd spoken to Emma Martin, but on hearing raised voices, his eyes swung back in that direction again. Instantly Adam received the body blow of visual confirmation that he'd somehow managed to enrol his four-year-old in the very same school as Abbie McCarthy's son.

Only then did the penny drop: Justin must have recommended St James' to him because of Abbie's connection to the school.

Adam sighed roughly, wishing that Justin had thought to mention the Abbie-factor when he'd made his suggestion about a school for Pete. But by God, whatever the reason for her presence, there was simply no mistaking that petite figure of hers in jeans, T-shirt and trainers—not to mention the dark red hair in its loose ponytail falling in waves down her back. It was a far cry from the way she'd looked—and felt—in that satin backless dress the night before. But she was still nothing if not compelling to look at the following day—even in her casuals.

As Adam watched Abbie from across the hall, it was soon clear she was not simply waiting her turn in the queue of parents as they awaited a brief audience with the sour Janet Wilson and her rows of nametags. There was something about Abbie's posture that suggested she had a whole lot of pent-up energy inside her that might detonate at any moment.

What exactly was the focus of that Abbie McCarthy energy as she stood there with her arms folded and her toe tapping impatiently in front of her?

Suddenly Adam could see what was going on: an elderly Japanese woman ahead of Abbie in the queue was upset and gesticulating pleadingly to the intractable Janet Wilson.

“And you are?” Janet Wilson ignored the Japanese woman directly in front of her to turn and bark her enquiry at Abbie.

“Abbie McCarthy,” Abbie replied in a cool voice. “But please don't worry about helping me yet, Ms Wilson. Mrs Yukimura is ahead of me in the queue and will need a folder and a nametag. You may also need to talk a little more slowly as English isn't her first language.”