On His Grave Page 4

  Thankfully, the traffic wasn’t bad, and the drive back home only took fifteen minutes. She pulled up on the road outside of her house, happy to get a spot close to the front door.

  “Here we are,” she announced. “Home sweet home.”

  He craned his head to look out of the window. “It looks very nice.”

  “Thanks.”

  The house wasn’t anything flash, but it was a reasonable size three bedroom in a good area. The back garden was big enough for Ollie to play in, and they didn’t have any busy roads nearby, the location quiet. She wondered what sort of background Haiden came from. The only thing she knew about Sweden was Ikea, and she didn’t think he’d appreciate her mentioning the big, multinational store. She bet it was what everyone talked about when they found out where he was from—flatpack furniture and meatballs.

  “This way.”

  Haiden claimed his case from the boot, and she led him towards the house and opened the front door. She’d made an effort to clean the place before she’d left to pick him up, so the waft of polish and bleach met her nose. They both stepped into the house, and Haiden put down his luggage, the big case taking up too much space in the small entrance hall.

  “I’ll show you your room,” she said, already heading for the stairs.

  He followed her up, and she led him into the spare room that would be his for the next twelve weeks. “Here you go.”

  Haiden stepped in and looked around.

  The shoddiness of the bedroom embarrassed her. “I’m sorry it’s not more... upmarket.”

  He threw his bag on the bed and turned to her. “It’s great, thanks. It’s got everything I need.”

  “So, have you got any student... activities... arranged for the weekend?”

  “No, they tend to just let us settle in, and then we get started first thing Monday morning.”

  He seemed too big for the room, as though he would need to bend his neck in order to fit in. She wished for a moment that she’d given him Ollie’s room, and had Ollie in here, but she could never have done that to her son. She didn’t want Ollie to feel like he was being turfed out of his own bedroom for some blond stranger. Very blond. Very blue-eyed. Yet with tanned skin. It was a typical look of people from his country, but here he seemed exotic and out of place.

  “Oh, right.”

  She wished he’d had something already in the diary. Now it meant he’d be here in the house.

  God, she was going to have to spend Saturday night eating a meal with a strange man, just the two of them. She hadn’t done that since before Stephen had left.

  “I’ll let you get settled,” she said, turning from the room and hoping he’d give her a little space to get settled herself. “Hope you like pasta. It’s what I’m making for dinner tonight.”

  “As long as it’s not served with Ikea meatballs, I love it.”

  The teasing was clear in his tone, and to her surprise, she found herself smiling as she headed downstairs.

  Chapter Five

  Kristen stared down at the two plates of pesto pasta and the sides of garlic bread, and wished she’d thought to buy something with meat in it. It had been a long time since she’d cooked for a male over the age of five, and right now the meal she was providing looked far too vegetarian. She hoped Haiden wasn’t going to be disappointed.

  She went to the fridge to take out the parmesan cheese and paused to stare wistfully at a bottle of dry white wine that was in there. It had been a present from Anna for her birthday the previous month, and she still hadn’t opened it. She never bought alcohol herself—not when the money could go on Ollie—and she’d practically forgotten it was in there. But now it was Saturday night, and she was having dinner with an actual adult, and she suddenly wondered if it would be inappropriate to offer a glass of wine with dinner. It wasn’t as though he was underage.

  No, she shook the thought from her head. That wouldn’t be right at all. Maybe he was old enough to drink, but she shouldn’t be the one providing the alcohol.

  Footsteps landed heavy on the stairs, and she grabbed the block of parmesan and slammed the fridge door shut. She straightened and brushed her hair away from her face, hoping she didn’t look too hot and sweaty after standing over the oven.

  “Something smells good,” Haiden said as he walked into the kitchen.

  She threw him a smile. “I hope it’s okay. It’s only something simple.”

  “Anything I can do to help?”

  “Nope, just take a seat, and I’ll bring it over.”

  He slid into a chair and placed his forearms on the table as he waited. They were tanned, attractive forearms, ridged with defined muscle. He wore a casual shirt that seemed too mature for a student, but was rolled up at the sleeves, as though he was deliberately trying to show off his best feature. Not that the rest of him wasn’t attractive, too. She didn’t think she’d ever been hit with such a visceral attraction to someone in her whole life, and all the alarm bells inside her were jangling. It wasn’t as though she could go back to university housing and ask for someone different on the grounds that her current houseguest was too damned good looking.

  She finished serving up the spaghetti and slid the two plates onto the table, then added a bowl of salad and some garlic bread.

  “This all looks great,” he said, picking up his fork.

  “It’s nothing, really.” She was unusually flustered. “Oh, I forgot the parmesan.” She hopped back up again and ran back to grab the block of cheese and the grater. Again, the chilled bottle of white wine called to her, but she ignored it.

  “So, tell me about your family back home?” she asked as she added a sprinkle of cheese to the top of her pasta and then offered Haiden some.

  He shrugged. “There isn’t much to tell. My mother and father are still together, and I have a younger sister called Linda.”

  “Are you all close?”

  “Yes, very.” He looked down at his plate and twiddled spaghetti around on his fork. “I’m still living with them while I’m studying.”

  “Oh, you live with your parents?”

  Somehow, that had surprised her. She couldn’t imagine this big, grown man still living at home.

  He must have picked up on her thoughts. “It’s only because I’m moving around while I’m studying. There’s no point in me paying rent on an apartment while I’m in a different country.”

  Her cheeks heated. “No, of course not. That wouldn’t make sense at all.”

  They both fell silent as they tucked into their food.

  “Feel free to use the house phone if you need to call them,” she offered, needing to break the silence. She instantly regretted the suggestion. What if he took her up on the offer and spent hours on the phone? She could never afford to pay for expensive, long distance phone calls.

  “That’s kind of you, but I have my mobile phone, so I’ll just call them from that.”

  Of course, he had a phone. It was stupid of her to not think of it.

  “Perhaps we should swap numbers,” he said with a lopsided smile. “You know, just in case we need to get in touch for any reason.”

  He was asking for her phone number.

  “Sure, that makes sense. I need to get you a key cut, too. I should have done it earlier, but I wasn’t expecting to take in a student so soon. I’ll be around most of the time though, and I only work up the road, at the local school, should you find yourself unable to get in when you need to.”

  “Is it the same school where your son goes?”

  She smiled at the mention of Ollie. “Yes, that’s right. He loves it there.”

  Haiden nodded. “That’s good. I’ll know where to find you if I need you, then.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Come and find me, whatever you need.”

  “SINCE YOU HUNG UP ON me last time,” Violet announced, her hands on her hips, “and didn’t even bother to phone me back, I had to assume that you obviously don’t give a damn about whether I’m alive or dead.”

/>   It was Sunday morning, and Kristen had opened the door, thinking Stephen had brought Ollie home early, only to find her sister standing on the doorstep.

  Kristen rolled her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous, Violet. I’ve been busy, that’s all, and I figured a bad haircut was hardly a life or death matter.” She stared at her sister, eyeing up the infamous haircut. “What did you even have done? It looks exactly the same.”

  “Ugh! How can you say that?” She flicked out her brunette locks, a shade darker than Kristen’s hair. “I only asked for a trim and she took loads off.”

  “It doesn’t look any different to me.”

  “That’s because I hardly see you anymore. It had grown, and then the hairdresser chopped it all off. I won’t be going back there again.” She glanced over Kristen’s shoulder. “Anyway, aren’t you going to let me in for a cup of tea? Where’s that handsome nephew of mine?”

  Kristen sighed and stepped to one side to allow Violet inside. “Ollie’s with his dad this weekend.”

  “The asshole actually showed up, then?”

  “Yeah, but not until the Saturday. He bailed on him on Friday night.”

  “God, Stephen is such a—”

  Violet had been heading into the kitchen, but she cut off abruptly and turned back to Kristen. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “There’s a man sitting at your kitchen table.”

  “Oh, yeah. He’s staying for a while.”

  Her eyes widened. “You got yourself a man? A hot man!”

  Kristen’s face flared with heat. Violet hadn’t bothered keeping her voice down for that last sentence.

  “No!” she hissed back. “It’s nothing like that. He’s from Sweden, and he’s studying at the university. I’m renting the spare room out to him, that’s all.”

  Her expression faded a little, but then brightened again. “Does that mean he’s single?”

  Kristen’s stomach lurched. “Uh-uh. No way. Don’t even think about it, Violet. He is seriously off the table. I mean it. I need the income this is bringing in, and if you pull one of your usual relationship disasters, you’re going to make things really difficult for me.”

  Her mouth dropped open. “What do you mean, my usual relationship disasters? Not all my relationships end badly. You never know, he might be the one.” She waggled her eyebrows.

  “No. I mean it. Besides, he’s far too young for you.”

  “Rubbish. I’m still in my twenties.”

  Kristen scoffed a laugh. “Barely.”

  Looking at Violet was like getting a real-life idea of how she’d have looked herself had she never got married and had Ollie. She didn’t want to feel jealous, since she had Ollie, and would never change that for all the world, but she did envy Violet’s high, perky boobs, and her impossibly flat stomach. Her sister probably had never even worried about cellulite, or grey hairs, or stretch marks. Violet was effortlessly comfortable in her own skin, confident in knowing she was young and beautiful, and men found her attractive. Kristen had felt that way about herself many years ago, but pregnancy and motherhood had changed all of that, and she could barely imagine how horrified she’d be to take her clothes off in front of a man she liked. She couldn’t see how any guy would possibly find what she saw in the mirror to be attractive. Deep down, she understood how Stephen’s betrayal and his clear dislike of her pregnant and post-baby body had wrecked her self-esteem, and she probably wasn’t as bad as she felt she was, but even so, she couldn’t imagine letting another man see her naked.

  “Well, if he’s going to be living here, you still need to introduce me,” Violet insisted.

  Kristen sighed. Her sister was probably right. Haiden must already think they were acting strangely by standing out in the hallway whispering to one another like a couple of schoolgirls.

  “Okay, fine. But behave yourself.”

  Violet fluttered her eyelashes. “Don’t I always?”

  Kristen wasn’t even going to answer that. Violet had already turned and flounced into the kitchen, and Kristen followed.

  “Hi!” Violet chirped. “I’m Violet, Kristen’s sister. You must be the new lodger.”

  Kristen watched Haiden’s gaze flick over Violet’s shoulder towards her, and she gave him a tight apologetic smile in return.

  “Yes, I’m Haiden. It’s nice to meet you.” He half stood and shook Violet’s hand.

  Kristen inwardly cringed as Violet held his hand a moment too long, and Haiden practically had to tug his fingers out of her grip.

  “I’ll leave you to your catch up,” he told them, rising to stand fully. “I’ll be up in my room, preparing for my first classes tomorrow.”

  “What are you studying?” Violet asked, twiddling a tendril of hair around her finger.

  “A master’s degree in business.”

  “Looks and brains,” she said approvingly.

  Kristen didn’t miss how he blushed beneath his tan. He gathered up the paper he was reading and moved past them to leave the room. The two women waited until his footsteps had reached the top of the stairs before they spoke again.

  Violet pulled a face at Kristen. “Too much?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Just a bit.”

  “And he’s going to be here for the next twelve weeks?”

  “Yeah, so please be good. I know it’s asking a lot from you, but I really can’t afford to mess this up.”

  Violet lifted three fingers in a Girl Guide salute. “You have my word.”

  Chapter Six

  Shortly after she managed to ferry Violet out of the house, Stephen turned up with Ollie.

  “Hey, sweetie,” she said, pulling her son against her body and giving him a squeeze. She placed a kiss to the top of his head, inhaling the sweet scent of his soft hair. “You have fun at your dad’s?”

  “Yeah, it was okay,” Ollie said in a monotone voice and without a smile.

  She exchanged an awkward glance with Stephen.

  Her ex-husband shrugged. “He wouldn’t go to sleep last night. Kept getting up and was asking for you.”

  Her heart tugged at the idea of her boy not being able to sleep without her. “You could have FaceTimed me or something. I’d have been able to say goodnight to him, then. He might have slept better.”

  “I can’t get into that kind of routine, calling you whenever he needs something. It’s not a good habit to get into.”

  She knew he was right. Stephen was still Ollie’s dad, and he needed to be able to deal with things on his own, but that didn’t make her feel any better. She hated not being able to be there when Ollie needed her.

  “Hey, there’s someone inside who I want you to meet,” she said to Ollie, wanting to tell him about Haiden before he went inside and found a strange man sitting in their living room. “You remember how I said about us taking in foreign students, and we got the room ready and everything?”

  Ollie stared up at her with wide eyes and nodded.

  “Well,” she continued, “they needed someone to fill in this weekend, and so we have someone staying with us for a while. His name is Haiden and I think you’ll really like him. He’s from Sweden.”

  Stephen was staring at her the entire time, and when she finished, he cleared his throat. “Umm, don’t you think I should have been consulted about this?”

  She turned to him with a frown. “Sorry?”

  “You’re going to have a stranger living in the house with my son. Don’t you think you should have asked me first?”

  Indignation rose up inside her. “Like you asked me first when you moved in with Lisa? She was a stranger to Ollie, too, then. Remember?”

  “That’s hardly the same thing.”

  “No, it isn’t, because I’m having to do this, where you just did it because you wanted to. I need the money. Ollie and I are struggling to get by, and you never help with any extras financially, so this is what it’s come to.”

  Haiden chose that moment to come down the stairs. “Oh, hello.” His expression faltered. “I’m n
ot interrupting anything, am I?”

  “No, not at all,” she said with a forced smile. “Ollie, this is Haiden.”

  Ollie lifted his hand in a wave.

  “Hello, Ollie.” Haiden gave the boy a relaxed grin. “I see you like to play with Legos. You want to show me what you built?”

  Ollie looked towards her with an unsure expression.

  “It’s okay,” she encouraged him. “You can show him. I’ll be right here.”

  Ollie nodded and bounded off, Haiden following. Already she could hear his chatter about the latest dragon Lego he’d just built, though she’d been the one to do most of the work.

  Stephen grabbed Kristen’s arm and pulled her out of the house and onto the front step.

  “Hey!” she hissed. “Get your hands off of me!”

  “What the hell do you think you’re playing at?”

  “What?”

  “When you said you were taking in a foreign student, I thought you meant a teenager. That is a grown man!”

  “I didn’t want to have the responsibility of another child in the house. It is hard enough, it just being me and Ollie.”

  “But you don’t know this man. How can you trust him around our son?”

  “Oh, for goodness sake. The university checks the students out before housing them with people and not everyone is some kind of kiddy fiddler, you know. He seems like a genuine guy, and he’s here to study, that’s all. It’ll be twelve weeks and then he’ll go home again.”

  “And then you’ll have someone else coming into our son’s home?”

  “Yes, that’s how it works. Some will stay for more time, some will stay for less. It’s no different than if I were to bring in a lodger, except I get paid a lot more money, and I don’t have to feel like someone else has equal rights to my home.”