Kindergarten Cupids. Vivienne Wallington

so often with baby-sitters? Or did he simply want a more controllable son and a more peaceful, undemanding life at home?

      She sighed as she trudged back along the passage.

      About twenty minutes later, as she was drying Nicky’s hair after his bath, she heard the front doorbell ring again.

      “Oh, no,” she groaned. “Who is it now?”

      “I’ll get it,” Grandpa shouted from the den, and she heard his stick tap-tapping along the passage.

      “Well, be careful,” she yelled out. “Take it slowly.” Grandpa tried so hard to help her, but every movement was painful for him, every step a hazard.

      “I am, I am!”

      A few moments later she heard voices, and footsteps coming along the passage to the kitchen. One was Grandpa’s voice and the other a deeper voice that sounded suspiciously like—

      Her hands froze midair.

      “Mummy, you’ve stopped rubbing!”

      “Sorry.” She resumed her rubbing, but with her ears pricked, trying to pick out what the two men in the kitchen were saying. Why had Cain Templar come back? Had he left something behind? Or had he already changed his mind about tomorrow? Maybe he’d remembered something more important he had to do.

      Mardi tightened her lips, wondering if he was in the habit of letting his son down. She just hoped he hadn’t told Ben in advance that he intended to visit Nicky.

      She frowned, straining to hear. She could only hear Grandpa’s voice now, and she would have sworn he was thanking the other man for something. But for what? Had Cain told him about tomorrow’s planned reunion for the two boys? Grandpa knew how much Nicky wanted to see Ben again. But would he be thanking Cain for bringing that Jezebel’s son back into their lives?

      She heard her grandfather calling out goodbye with a gusto she hadn’t heard from him for some time, then firm footsteps—not Grandpa’s—sounded again in the passage and a moment later the front door slammed shut. Cain Templar had gone.

      She released the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. Well, he obviously hadn’t come back to see her. She wasn’t sure if she felt disappointment or relief.

      She heard the tap-tap of Grandpa’s stick coming from the kitchen, and a moment later his head poked round the bathroom door. “That was your friend again. He brought us dinner.”

      “He brought us what?”

      “He said it was his fault you burned our dinner, and he’s brought us another pie and another cake, from some homemade cake shop, he said.”

      Mardi rose slowly to her feet, touched, despite herself, by Cain’s thoughtful gesture. Or was it more that he felt sorry for her, because he’d guessed that she was hurting financially? She flushed, glad that she hadn’t had the embarrassment of having to accept his offer herself. She didn’t want anyone’s charity! Especially not his.

      “Wow! Let’s go and look!” Nicky made a dash for the kitchen, with Grandpa, broadly smiling, hobbling behind. Mardi didn’t follow immediately, cleaning the tub and tidying up first. But despite her misgivings about accepting charity from a virtual stranger—from a Templar—it was a load off her mind to have another pie and cake to give to her family for dinner.

      She hadn’t had too many loads taken off her mind lately.