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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