Doris O'Connor (5 page)

“
Oh spoil-sport.” Eva pouted at
him, and he almost groaned out loud
. What was it with women and
the uniform?

“
She does a wonderful job with him,
of course, never seen a more devoted mother, but then with the
father out of the picture and all that.”

Alex’s ears pricked up. He had a hard time
trying to control the completely unreasonable stab of jealousy
poking his gut at the thought of his Kitty with another man.
His? Where had that thought come from?

“
Mind you, he might not have hung
around anyway. No offence.”

“
Why ever not?”

“
Ah you see, little Noah has
Down’s.”

Chapter Five

It was Saturday afternoon, and Alex sat
outside Kitty’s block of flats, holding a covered plastic dish,
which contained his mother’s legendary Pasta
Amatriciana. What the hell was he doing here? This
had seemed such a good idea when he had woken up this morning. His
thoughts full of Kitty, his body painfully aroused after the dreams
he’d had all night and every night since he had found her again. He
didn’t think it was possible to take that many cold showers and
still
have a
semi-permanent hard-on.
Now that he was here, he wasn’t at all sure of the
reception he might get. He’d charmed Kitty’s address out of the
school secretary the day before, and he grimaced remembering how
she had looked at him curiously. You could have almost seen the
wheels in her head turning. Kitty would not thank him for being the
butt of the school gossip; he was sure, but what else was a man to
do? Especially after the phone call with his mother, which had set
his teeth on edge. It had ended with him telling his astonished
Mamma that he would be bringing a date. Right, here went nothing.
He took one last look at the piece of paper. Hers was one of the
two ground floor flats. He had felt less nervous entering burning
buildings than he was walking up to Kitty’s front door. He rang the
bell for the intercom and waited. Nothing.
Great. What now?

He tried
again, smiling at the elderly lady who was weeding the flowerbeds
along the path. She watched him intently
. She straightened up and put one hand against her
back, grimacing slightly, as though in pain.

“
Are
you after Kitty?” Her brown eyes studied him. “’Cause she isn’t in
right now.”

“
You wouldn’t happen to know when she might
be back, would you?” Alex
produced his most charming smile.

She still
regarded
him steadily.
“I couldn’t possibly say. What do you want with her anyway? Don’t
think I have seen you around here before, young man, and I may be
getting old, but I would remember you!”

What to say to that? If I tell you exactly what I want to
do with Kitty, you may just have a heart attack
.
Out loud he said, “Kitty and I are old friends. I
have recently moved back into the area. Alex Giovanni.” He extended
his hand to the silver-haired woman, who reminded him of his
paternal grandmother. And just like his nonna she was not impressed
at all by his attempts to charm her.

Her
eyebrows drew together
,
and she shook her head. “Save your charm for the young ones. An old
friend you say? How come she has never mentioned
you?”

“
Well, we only met again l
ast week. Look, this is my card. I’m just going to
go, if you could give her this.” He handed her the tub of pasta.
“And let her know I was here, I would be ever so grateful. I am
assuming Noah likes pasta. I know my nephews do.”

She read
the card with a frown, took the pasta
from him, and put a hand on his arm to stop him
from leaving.

“
Wait
. You know
about Noah?” Her wise eyes turned thoughtful as she looked him up
and down. “This card here says you’re a fire fighter at the local
station?”

Alex
nodded. “Yes ma
’am, I
sure am. In fact, if you ever need a fire safety assessment, do
give me a ring, and I will give it my personal attention. All in
the service to the community, of course.”

“
Hmm, I might take you up on that. The landlord leaves a lot
to be desired. Kitty helps me out as much as she can, but she has
her hands full with Noah and work. Sure could do with an
able-bodied man around
here.”

Alex
chuckled under his breath.
Yep, just like his nonna.

“
You’ll find Kitty and Noah at the park, just down the
street
. Can’t miss it.
Just keep walking in a straight line. I’ll put this in my fridge.
Make sure you knock when you get back.”

Alex’s smile
deepened when she extended her hand.

“
Noah does like pasta.
”

***
*

Alex was
still chuckling to himself when he found the park just where
Kitty’s neighbour
had
said it would be.
Gwen
had proven
to be a fount of knowledge on Kitty. In the five minutes they had
stood on her door step chatting, he learnt that Kitty was on her
own, with no other family to speak of. According to
Gwen
the only visitor she had was her long term friend
Emilia with her three year old twins. No gentleman callers, which
suited him just fine. That could have complicated
matters.

He spotted
her sitting in the sand pit, making sandcastles with a little dark
haired boy, with the unmistakable facial features of
Down
’s Syndrome. He wore
a huge grin on his face as he threw some sand at his mum. Kitty
shrieked and grabbed him. She pulled him on her lap and proceeded
to tickle him until the little fellow screamed with laughter. Kitty
laughed along with him when he escaped and ran as fast as his
little, slightly too short legs would carry him, straight towards
the exit.

Kitty’s
shout of “Noah,
stop
!” just made
him giggle more, and if anything he ran faster. Alex started
running himself, mindful of the busy road behind the exit. Noah
hurtled toward that exit at astonishing speed, for someone who
couldn’t be much older than his two year old
nephew.

***
*

Kitty’s
heart leaped in her throat when Noah took off on her and started
running in the direction of the exit.
No, no, no, no!
By the time she scrambled out of the sand
to run after him, hindered by the long skirt of her summer dress
that had wrapped itself around her legs, he was halfway across the
playground. She started running in earnest, a small part of her
wishing that his ankle hadn’t made such an amazing
recovery.

She almost
caught up with him, his burst of speed having fizzled out as
quickly as it started, when a very tall man scooped him up and
started walking towards her.

“
I
take it this is Noah?” Alex smiled down on her.

Oh shoot, damn and flipping wotsits. What
is he doing here?
Isn’t it bad enough I have to put up with him at
work?

She could
only nod in agreement, not trusting her voice at all.
Damn the
man
. He was carrying
Noah with practiced ease, and what was more, Noah, normally so shy
around people he didn’t know, just grinned up at Alex before
putting his little arms out towards Kitty.

When he
transferred Noah over,
Alex moved so close to her that she could smell the subtle
hint of his aftershave and feel the heat of his body. Against her
will, all her senses recognised the man on the most basic
levels.
Stop
it, girl. Step away
.
He
isn’t just any man. This is Noah’s father. Oh hell, what am I going
to do?

“
What
are you doing here?”

“
I thought I would find out how you both
were
, and as I owe you
dinner, I brought some pasta. Your neighbour pointed me in this
direction.”

Alex
smiled at her with Noah’s lopsided grin
, and her heart missed a few beats before
hammering away ten to the dozen. She hadn’t imagined how much Noah
looked like him. Were it not for her son’s features and the fact
that he had inherited her green eyes, the resemblance would have
been uncanny.

“
Was lunning flom the nompsters in the lawter
lummy
.” Noah giggled.
“They blig nompsters. They eat you, lawwr lawwr. Lun, lummy,
lun.”

Kitty had
to laugh at the expression on Alex’s face. “You were running from
the monsters in the water?” she
said as much for Alex’s benefit as to show Noah the correct
pronunciation of the words.

“
Yeah, nompsters are colling, lun, lun.”

“
Where are the monsters
, Noah? Let’s get them.” Alex joined in, winking at Kitty.
She had to put a wiggling Noah down, as he showed Alex where
exactly those monsters were.

Where they
were stan
ding,
apparently, and Alex’s strong arms moved her out of the way.
“Sorry, fair maiden, monster slaying is men’s
work.”

“
Yes
, lummy need
to be lescued. Come, come.”

And she was
relegated to the park bench, whilst Alex and Noah cavorted around,
slaying those monsters.

Kitty’s
heart shrank in on itself,
as she watched the tender scene in front of her. What was
she going to do? How did you tell a man that he had a son? And
could she take the risk? She knew next to nothing about Alex
Giovanni, the man. Sure, she knew how good he was in bed. She
fought the blush rising at the mere thought of how talented he was
in that department. He took his job seriously, and he was clearly
used to children. But was he going to stick around for Noah? Or was
this all just a cleverly constructed ploy to get her into
bed?

He
wouldn’t have been the first man to try that one. And she was not
going to let another man in to their lives, only for him to up and
leave, leaving little Noah
heart-broken. And if he knew Noah was his son, would he
want to take over? He was Italian, after all, probably had a huge
family behind him. Damn it, Noah was hers, and she wasn’t ready to
share him with anyone, not even his father. After
all
,
anyone could father a child. That alone
didn’t make a man a dad.

“
Why
so serious, Kitty?”

Alex walked
across to her, Noah once again installed in the sand pit, having
worn himself out with all that monster chasing.

“
I
’ll have to
take him home. He tires easily, and we have been here for almost
two hours.” She risked a quick glance at Alex’s face. He wasn’t
looking at her but watching Noah, a small smile on his
face.

“
At the risk of getting my head bitten off
again
.” He turned to
smile at her then, a twinkle in those blue eyes of his. “Noah is a
credit to you. “

“
Thank you, and thank you
, too, for stopping him from running out of that gate. He
gets these notions out of nowhere, and he can be incredibly fast
when he wants to be. I don’t know what I would do,
if—”

Gratitude
swamped her at
Alex’s
comforting hand on hers.

“
It was my pleasure
, and no harm done. He reminds me of my nephew, right down
to the colouring. Nico is always in trouble, drives my sister
Francesca insane. She had four girls before Nico arrived, and he
has kept her on her toes constantly for the last two years, but
then I dare say you know all about that and
more.”

“
Urm, yes, you could say that
.” Kitty mumbled to the floor. “I really need to
get him back now though.”

“
Of
course, let me give you a hand.”

***
*

Alex
carried a
delightedly
shrieking Noah back home on his shoulders. They ate the delicious
pasta Alex had brought along, and he made himself at home looking
through Kitty’s CD collection, whilst she went through Noah’s
bed-time routine.

Noah was
now asleep
, and Kitty
was perched on the edge of her flowery settee all too aware of the
man sprawled along its matching counterpart across the width of her
small living room.

Alex had
his
jeans-clad legs
stretched out in front of him, his muscled torso and impressive
biceps clearly outlined through the thin fabric of the
figure-hugging t-shirt he wore.