The Lawson Boys: Alex by Angela Verdenius

didn’t tell me, and what happened?” Crowding close, he
placed one hand above her head and lowered his head so that their
faces were mere inches apart while he glared down at her. “Tell me
what happened, and I mean everything. Everything .”
    She matched
him glare for glare, her cheeks flushed and eyes glittering with
fury.
    The house was
silent around them, he could hear every breath she drew, his entire
attention focussed solely upon her.
    “Tell me
everything,” he demanded harshly. “Tell me what happened to my
baby, Harly. I deserve that, and a hell of a lot more.”
    The ticking of
the grandfather clock in the hall was suddenly loud, marking away
every silent second that passed between them. He refused to look
away, refused to soften, feeling once again the mingled anger,
shock and then sadness that had first hit him when he’d heard.
    But it wasn’t
enough, he needed to hear it from her, from Harly, from her very
mouth.
    The silence
stretched between them, longer and longer, and the anger in her
eyes burned bright, then she blinked and he saw the anger dim, felt
her relax back against the wall, her shoulders slumping.
    “Okay,” she
said softly. “You’re right, you deserve to be told.”
    He didn’t
move, waiting for her to speak, but instead she placed one hand on
his shoulder and pushed slightly. “Let me put the kettle on.”
    “The kettle? I
don’t want a cup of tea, Harly-”
    “Maybe you
don’t, but I do.” This time her gaze was steady as she met his.
“I’m not going to talk about it shoved up against my own wall.”
    Taking a deep
breath, he studied her, recognising the quiet acceptance in her
expression and tone, as well as the determination.
    Harly had
always had a quiet determination, he remembered, and it was the
memory of a softer, younger Harly that made him step back to give
her room to move.
    Once they’d
been friends of sorts. Then one time of being lovers, brief, silly…
And now they were what? Adversaries? He didn’t know. All he knew
was that their actions that one night had changed their lives, and
he hadn’t even known about it.
    Sliding past
him, she walked down the hallway and into the kitchen, crossing the
room to fill the kettle and plug it into the socket. “Sit at the
table.” She nodded to the round, wooden table.
    Slowly Alex
moved into the kitchen, watching as she took a caddy of tea bags
from the cupboard and set it on the bench. A glance around the
kitchen showed that it hadn’t changed much from his memory of years
before, it still had the same old-fashioned warmth. The table was
the same, the chairs, the dainty doily in the middle upon which
stood a heavy, crystal vase of roses.
    Modern touches
were here and there, but it retained the feel of an era long
passed.
    Returning his
gaze to Harly, he watched as she got out two mugs and placed a tea
bag in each. Taking a small plate from the cupboard, she placed a
dainty paper doily upon it and topped it with some biscuits from a
tin. Picking up the plate, she crossed to the table and placed it
in the middle, leaning over to shift the roses to the side. As she
did so, her scent drifted to his nose, a mixture of BBQ smoke and
floral.
    Returning to
stand at the kitchen bench, she poured the hot water into the mugs,
dunked the tea bags several times, and looked up at him. “Milk?”
she asked calmly.
    “Black.
Thanks.”
    She poured
some milk into her mug, then placed a teaspoon in each mug before
bringing them over to the table, placing one mug down before Alex
and the other directly opposite. Back to the sink and she returned
with a little ceramic pot and placed it in the centre of the
table.
    Harly glanced
around before nodding slightly and sitting down in the chair
opposite him. With deliberate movements, she dunked her tea bag
several more times before wringing it out with the teaspoon and
dropping it into the ceramic pot. A stir with her teaspoon, and she
placed it, too, in the little pot.
    Alex