He took a deep breath, angled the tool and tried again.
He sat back and took a deep breath. Sweat rolled off him as if he’d just run ten kilometres along the shore. He glanced at his watch, astonished to find two hours had passed since he’d sat down and started curling wood shavings from the block, totally focused as he searched for the object that lay within. It had felt good to hold the tools. Good to feel their power and their potential.
He’d even imagined he was getting somewhere.
He looked critically down at the piece in his hands now, turning it one way and then the other before he hurled the lump back into the bin where it landed with a clatter.
It was rubbish!
She was bored. Beyond bored. Angie put down her book, even that failing to hold her interest. One month of having nothing to do but eat, sleep or swim laps of the pool and Angie was fast running out of enthusiasm for her six-month holiday. Even the fact she was feeling better, her morning sickness easing, was no consolation. At least throwing up half the day had given her something to do.
Inspired both by Dominic’s insult about her wardrobe and the sad truth of the state of the clothes that had been delivered with her belongings, she’d asked Rosa to see if Antonia would mind coming shopping with her.
It turned out Antonia had been just the person for the job. Angie had drawn the line at the ball gowns—the way her tummy was finally starting to show, they wouldn’t fit her ten minutes after she’d bought them, and where would she wear them anyway, but she’d still managed to come home with an entire wardrobe of clothes and shoes and with a new appreciation for how far twenty thousand dollars didn’t go when you lived on this side of town.
She loved her new clothes. She loved the way the bright sundresses made her feel—feminine and pretty. She loved the cool linen trousers and soft tops and sandals she’d bought to go with them. She loved the flirty floral skirts that shifted on the breeze as she walked.
She loved her new look, even with the way her waist was thickening, her body changing. She was putting on weight and she liked it and insanely she wanted Dominic to notice, to see that she didn’t always look like something the cat had dragged in. But he never seemed to be around, instead always busy or buried away in his office or the garage downstairs. And as much as she loved Rosa, it would be nice to talk to another adult every now and then.
She sighed. Right now she was all shopped out, swimming pooled out and relaxed out. Even sitting reading in her favourite spot in the ballroom with the ocean just outside was beginning to lose its appeal. She needed to do something.
She headed for the kitchen, with its granite-topped benches and white cupboard doors and hanging pots and pans, and where Rosa took pity on her and sent her out to get milk. She came back from the local supermarket a few minutes later with the milk, an application form and a smile a mile wide.
‘What are you making?’ she asked, slipping up onto a stool to watch as Rosa placed spoonfuls of mixture onto circles of pasta and then deftly folded and twisted them into little packets.
‘Tortellini. Spinach and ricotta this time. Last time I made you chicken and mushroom, remember?’
‘I remember! I loved it. You know, I never actually realised people made pasta from scratch.’
Rosa laughed. ‘Most people don’t bother.’ She shrugged. ‘Me, I love to cook and Dominic, he loves to eat. It works well. And now there is you to cook for too.’
‘I’m putting on weight, you know. All this good food you’re feeding me.’
The older woman nodded her approval. ‘Then you are doing exactly what you’re supposed to be doing.’
Angie watched her quick fingers flying for a while. ‘I wish I could cook.’
Rosa’s fingers stopped mid-parcel. ‘Who says you can’t cook?’
‘I’m hopeless. Really. Never learnt and Shayne, my ex, he hated anything too fancy so there was no point.’
‘I could teach you, if you like.’
‘Really? You’d do that?’
‘Of course! Come, you can start now. I’ll show you what to do. Here, watch me…’
He heard the laughter long before he found the source. Good sense told him to turn away and head for his office or the workshop where he’d been spending plenty of evenings lately, but the sound defeated him. He hadn’t heard laughter in this house for how long?