Water Like a Stone by Deborah Crombie Read Free Book Online Page A

He knelt, touching his daughter’s curls with his large, calloused hand, and a fierce resolve rose in him.
    He knew one thing, and it was enough. He would do whatever it took to keep what remained of his family from harm.

CHAPTER FOUR
    From the moment he had looked up and found her watching him from the stairs, Kit thought that Lally Newcombe was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He was afraid to look at her, afraid his face would betray him, yet he hadn’t been able to tear his eyes away. Around him, the commotion of dogs and greetings faded to an incomprehensible babble, and when Tess leapt from his arms, he’d felt as if he’d been stripped naked, defenseless before the dark-haired girl’s remote and considering gaze.
    The entrance of Jack the sheepdog and the group exodus from the hall gave him a respite, but even then he’d been aware of Lally’s movements, as if he’d developed remote sensors on every inch of his skin. He trailed after the others, feeling as if his hands and feet had suddenly become enormous, awkward appendages more suited to a giant.
    Once in the kitchen, he tried to ignore Lally, tried to look at anything other than her face and the slice of bare skin showing in the gap between her shirt and her jeans. When Rosemary spoke to him, he forced himself to focus, and to answer, pushing his voice past the lump in his throat and keeping it level.
    Rosemary—his grandmother, he reminded himself. He still couldn’t quite get his head round it, even though he’d met her once before, at his mum’s funeral. Although he hadn’t known then that she bore any relation to him, she had been kind to him, and had stood up to Eugenia. It had been the one bright spot in that horrible day.
    Eugenia, his other grandmother, his mother’s mother. Would he ever be able to hear “grandmother” without thinking of her? She was the only grandmother he had known until now, and his mother’s dad, Bob, the only grandfather.
    As he helped Rosemary carry the tea things to the table, he glanced up at Hugh, his new grandfather, with curiosity. Hugh Kincaid was a tall man, with a lean, beaky sort of face, and a comfortable aura of the outdoors about him. But there was a bookishness, too, a hint of the faraway about his eyes, and Kit thought he might be the sort of person who held long conversations with himself.
    Just now, however, he was laughing and joking with the younger boys, and Kit’s face flamed with envy. In that moment he hated Toby, hated the easy way he made friends so easily. Then he flushed again with shame, hating himself for the thought, hating himself for being so cruel to the smaller boy earlier that day.
    He didn’t know what had got into him lately. Sometimes it seemed as if something alien lived between his brain and his mouth, out of control, just waiting to take over whenever he spoke. And then there were the dreams. He’d had them the first few months after his mother died, and now they had come back, worse than ever. He woke from them sick and sweating, afraid to go back to sleep, and afterwards he carried a lingering queasiness with him all through the day. Maybe he would be all right here, away from home, away from school.
    The thought of school brought back that morning’s confrontation with Duncan and Gemma, and he cringed inwardly. Kit had known he would get caught out, had thought that before it happened he’d find an opportunity to confess, to explain. But the time had somehow never come, and when he’d been taken by surprise, allthe words he’d prepared vanished like wraiths and left him stupidly, painfully silent.
    The clatter of dishes jerked Kit back to the present. The meal was finished and Hugh was clearing away the tea things. When Sam suggested they go outside, he was glad of any excuse to get away from his thoughts.
    It was both a relief and a disappointment when Lally hung back with Gemma. He wanted to be near the girl, wanted to speak to her, yet he didn’t know