‘I’ll take you,’ Cal said automatically.
Heather shook her head. ‘You don’t need to do that. If you could look after the children while I go, though...’
‘Mrs Peterson will take care of them,’ Cal insisted. ‘You shouldn’t be alone for that.’
Whatever else there could or couldn’t be between them, Cal knew that going to the scan with Heather was the right thing to do. And Heather always did the right thing for other people. It was time other people started doing the same for her.
‘Okay, then,’ she said, giving in with a small smile.
‘Okay.’ He returned it, and their gazes met, and suddenly Cal realised that whole minutes might have passed and he wouldn’t have known. He was too lost in her green, green eyes.
That was when he realised he might be in real trouble this time. Some things were just too tempting to resist.
* * *
The next few days, after the kiss that never happened, were somehow both awkward and not.
Heather found herself overthinking every tiny interaction she had with Cal. Like the day she stopped by his study with a new book for his reading list that had been delivered, and found him with his head in his hands at the desk. She’d paused in the doorway, uncertain as to whether she should go in, but then he’d looked up, smiled tiredly at her and held out his hand.
What had made her take it, she still didn’t know. Knowing Cal, he wouldn’t have offered it if he hadn’t been so exhausted. But she knew he’d been working long mornings, from the early hours, spending the afternoons with the children after their lessons had finished, and then working again after dinner before heading down to the small sitting room by the kitchen for kid tuition with her before bed.
No wonder he was worn out.
She’d taken his hand and he’d pulled her close, resting his head against her stomach as she stood beside him. And for a moment—just a blink of a second—she had almost believed that it was his baby growing inside her. That they really were in this together, not just muddling through as partners because they had no other choice.
He’d come to his senses pretty quickly, letting her go so fast that she stumbled backwards.
‘I’m sorry,’ he’d said, but she’d shaken her head.
She wasn’t sorry. But she knew they couldn’t have anything more than those stolen moments, either.
She’d placed the book on his desk and left.
But most of the time when they were together the children were there, too—walking in the woods, down by the river, or popping into the village to visit the sweet shop. Cal had relaxed a lot around them, which had helped the kids to relax in turn. Heather couldn’t help but think that his lessons in children really were paying off.
Even if the lessons themselves were a torment.
Every night they met in that damn sitting room and talked about Daisy and Ryan—how they were getting on with their lessons, how they could both support them, the counsellors Cal had found for them to talk to about their parents’ deaths. They discussed techniques for discipline and support, ways to make important days feel special, what to do when Daisy had another one of her nightmares...
They talked about everything, as long as it had to do with the children.
They never talked again about the secrets they’d shared in that room. Or how sure Heather had been that Cal would have kissed her that night if the circumstances had been different. If she hadn’t been pregnant with Ross’s child.
And still, underneath all their carefully neutral talk, she could hear echoes of it. In the tone of his voice, or in the smallest aside about her appearance or behaviour.
The connection she’d felt that night hadn’t gone away, Heather knew. It just simmered under the surface. And that was where they needed to keep it.
So Heather made sure they both always stayed in their chairs during their lessons, across the room from each other. She tried not to let their fingers touch when she passed him a book or a paper. She tried not to meet his gaze when she smiled. Because then she’d have to watch his eyes turn darker and know it was lust she saw.
Some nights she was more successful than others.
* * *
‘I think it’s time for you to take the kids out on your own,’ Heather said, looking up from her notebook to see Cal balancing an apple on his head. Where had he even got the apple from?