Adam’s Boys by Anna Clifton Read Free Book Online Page B

looking for to find Pete’s smile again.
    Yet how could he think Abbie would ever agree to it? Hadn’t she made it clear that afternoon she wanted as little to do with him as possible? And who would blame her, after the way he’d treated her? She owed him nothing—nothing at all.
    Despite Abbie’s looming resistance, Adam just couldn’t let go of the idea. Because nothing could be more important than Pete’s happiness. Not when he’d promised his wife he’d make sure their baby boy grew up strong and happy. After robbing Ellen of her last chance at life, Adam would never let anything stand in the way of that.

Chapter Four
    Over a hundred and two degrees of unforgiving heat hummed in radiating, choking waves off every surface. It sucked the colour, the energy and every last drop of moisture out of everything.
    And yet one hundred and two degrees or not, it was business as usual in Sydney: kids played, teachers taught, builders laboured and office workers pulled on three-piece business suits.
    But Adam knew he was not as stalwart as the average Sydney-sider when it came to Australia’s unrelenting summer heat. In fact, he had an almost overwhelming hankering at that moment to be back in England, walking along one of the quiet country lanes where he’d grown up—everything around him cool, lush and green, the freezing drizzle running down his neck in icy rivulets—it was not to be, of course. His obligations in Sydney would hold him captive for at least another couple of months before he and Pete could finally head for home.
    Sighing heavily, Adam stripped off his tie. Rolling it into a ball he tossed it into his car, tore open his top button and wandered across to the school fence.
    In the distance he could see Abbie.
    She was chatting to two other mothers as she waited for Henry to emerge through the front doors of St James’ Prep at the end of his first official day of school. She was wearing a simple white shift dress, a pair of rubber thongs and a large straw hat. But what struck Adam was that in the stifling heat she somehow managed to look fresh and cool, when everyone around her looked hot and bothered.
    At that moment the school doors opened. Teachers marched out into the front playground. Gambolling children followed behind like puppies.
    Pete and Henry appeared together. They were wearing cardboard headbands around their foreheads with a bright red apple cut-out pasted on the front. Adam guessed they’d learnt about the letter ‘A’ that day.
    The two boys chatted to each other as their eyes roamed the crowd of parents like spotlights. Adam could see Pete mouth the words ‘there’s your mum’ and wave eagerly at Abbie, losing himself in a rare moment of unselfconscious happiness at spotting a familiar face.
    The two boys started running towards her, but moments later, as Pete careered along the path, he tripped and fell forward onto the pavement with a bone jarring crash, the contents of his open school bag spilling out around him.
    Adam’s heart soared into his mouth as he started forward, bracing himself for the rest of his boy’s day that had just been mapped out. For as always, the shock of a tumble would overwhelm Pete so completely that he would be teary and fragile until bedtime.
    But as suddenly as Adam had started forward, he stopped dead again. Abbie was already heading for Pete lying prone on the ground, his face buried in his hands as he sobbed inconsolably. And for some reason Adam couldn’t move another inch in his son’s direction, struck motionless by a burning need to know how the mother of Henry—the most together little kid he’d ever met—would deal with the emotional disintegration of his own child as it unfolded before her eyes.
    Crouching beside Pete, Abbie took his hand gently in hers and spoke to him for a few minutes in words that Adam had no hope of hearing; they were the longest