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must be blind.”
    “Brock, stop.” She covered her cheeks with her hands. “You’re making me blush.”
    He laughed and looked at his watch. “Look, the kids are having their tea at the moment. I wondered whether you’d like to take a break and join me for a coffee in the restaurant?”
    “Oh. Um…” Her mind whirled. Her mother would be happy to stay with Ryan for half an hour and he wouldn’t even notice she was gone while he had his new box of Lego. “Okay, that would be nice. Thank you.”
    “Come on then.” He gestured to the door with his head. “Georgia tells me they make a great mince pie here, and I’m starving.”
     

Chapter Five
    “So come on then.” Brock sipped his piping hot coffee, trying not to burn his lip. “Tell me about yourself.” He smiled at the woman sitting opposite him, who looked as if she was also trying not to burn her lip, both of them as self-conscious as if they were on a date. Which they sort of were, he supposed, even if it wasn’t a very romantic one.
    Erin gave a sexy shrug of her shoulders. “I think you already know everything about me.”
    “Aw, come on. I know all about Ryan and how you’ve looked after him. I don’t know anything about you .” It was true—they’d talked often about the difficulties of looking after a sick kid, but they’d never made the step across that unspoken boundary into personal details until now.
    “What would you like to know?” she asked, looking genuinely puzzled.
    He leaned forward on the table, wanting to know more about this mysterious woman who pressed all his buttons, though he had no idea why. “Tell me about yourself, Erin. Do you work? What music do you like? What books do you read? I want to discover the woman behind the mother.”
    Her smile faded, and she poked at the cream-covered mince pie on her plate with a fork. “I’m not sure there is one anymore.” Her tone was wry, but he sensed a touch of despair behind it. “I’ve been a mum for so long I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be me.”
    He nodded, took a bite of his mince pie, and ate it with enthusiasm. Georgia was right—it was terrific. “Yeah, that happens with both parenthood and demanding careers. I know sometimes I’m not home until ten, and I walk into my apartment and think right, time to myself, and I’m, like, okay… What do I do now?”
    Erin laughed, her face lighting up, and Brock melted inside. He wanted to make her laugh like that all the time.
    “That happens to me too,” she said. “I finally persuade Ryan to have a nap or get him to bed at night, and I think great, me time, and sometimes it’s all I can do to sit and watch the TV.”
    “That’s natural,” he said. “Parenting is incredibly hard. Nowadays we’re all told we’re supposed to be super-parents, holding down a demanding career while being a terrific mother or father and partner, and it’s not that easy.”
    “Well I don’t have a partner, I only work part-time at the local bookshop, and I’m a terrible mother, so I’m not sure what that says about me.” She laughed before eating her mince pie.
    “You’re hardly a terrible mother, Erin. Look at all the research you’ve done into how to cope with an asthmatic child—not every mother can say the same. You’d be surprised.”
    Her eyebrows rose. “I suppose.” Then an impish smile crossed her face. “But I can’t cook. I mean it—somehow even when I follow a recipe it always goes wrong, probably because I’m impatient and can’t be bothered to measure anything.” She gave a girlish giggle that made him grin. “I can’t sew,” she continued, “or knit. Too impatient to learn.”
    “I’m sensing a theme here,” he said. “Patience not your strong point?”
    “Um, no. Not really. Life’s too short to stuff a mushroom, you know?”
    “Yeah.” He smiled. “So you work in a bookshop?”
    “Three mornings a week while Ryan’s at playgroup. Keeps me sane. Kind of.” She rolled her