He drove back to his mother's house on autopilot. He couldn't remember if he stopped at the traffic lights—he couldn't even remember if there'd been any. All he knew was that Maddie was a woman he wanted to see more of, but she wasn't interested.
Usually he was the one doing the brush-off, not the other way round. Now he knew why his ex-girlfriends used to throw things at him. He wondered if it was too late to ring any of them and apologize for his behavior. He hadn't meant to be callous, it's just that the relationships never felt right. And when something didn't feel right, he walked away, found something else, found something that did feel right. Like moving back to Melbourne and starting his own renovation business.
Like being with Maddie.
He thumped the steering wheel as he pulled into the driveway of his mother's Sixties cream brick house. He'd offered to buy her something more modern in a better part of town but she'd refused. She said she liked her place. She knew which creaking floorboards to avoid, she knew precisely where to thump the hot water system so that it didn't groan, and she'd spent years getting the garden just the way she liked it. Besides, his father's ashes were scattered amongst the roses and she didn't want to leave some of him behind.
Sam hadn't pushed the issue. Instead, he'd bought her a red Honda sports car. She liked to zip out to the shops and the tennis club in it, always ensuring she passed her friends' houses on the way. These friends just happened to be the ones who said Sam was a trouble-maker when he was a teen and wouldn't amount to anything.
He and his mother thought alike on some things. But not many.
"Sammy, honey, did you enjoy your jog with Pete?" she asked when he entered. She wore a powder blue suit with matching shoes, her snow white hair tied back with a bow of the same fabric. Not a hair was out of place. None dared.
"Yeah, the jog was fine. Lunch afterwards sucked."
She placed her arm around his waist. "Sit down and tell your old mother all about it."
He pulled away. "I don't want to talk about it. It's private."
"I'm your mother. Nothing is private from me."
Ain't that the truth. Back in school, she always seemed to know what he'd done the second he'd done it. Her network put the CIA to shame.
"If that boy, Pete Murphy, is giving you a hard time, you let me know. I'll straighten him out."
He sighed. "It's not Pete."
"I never did like him. He's a bad influence on you. I don't know how that Linda Clarke put up with him for so long. Not that she was much better," she said with a sniff. "Always getting into trouble. She used to give her poor mother a nasty rash every time she was caught escaping out the window. Definitely a bad influence. Not like that lovely sister of hers."
"Maddie. Yeah, she's just lovely." The break-your-heart-and-jump-on-it kind of lovely. "Mum, we're not sixteen anymore and Pete's an okay guy. Linda's a little loopy still, but I like her. And their kids are great."
She clicked her tongue. "Imagine two irresponsible people like Pete and Linda bringing up children. I shudder to think."
"Mum! They're great parents."
She didn't look like she believed him but he wasn't going to labor the point. She'd never change her mind about some things, nor would she believe that a wayward teenager could grow up to be a responsible adult and parent. Unless that wayward teenager was her son.
"Besides, I think I was a worse influence on Pete than he was on me."
"Nonsense. You were just going through a phase."
A phase that lasted nearly twenty years.
She patted his hand. "Anyway, you were going to tell me what's bothering you."
"No, I wasn't."
"Don't be silly. If it's not Pete, then what happened over lunch?"
He shook his head and started to stand but she said "Sit down" so forcefully and he wasn't in the mood to argue with her. He'd done enough of that as a teenager and it hadn't gotten him anywhere except away from Melbourne. He was ready to give her another chance. If he didn't pull out his hair and grind his teeth down to the gums first.
She tapped a manicured nail on the table. "I know what the problem is."
"You do?"
"It's the children. They were being obnoxious. All that shouting and running around—it's enough to give one a headache. Children should be—"
"No, Mum. The kids are fun. I told you that. I love kids, despite the shouting and running around."
She grimaced and he made a mental note that his mother wasn't ready for grandchildren yet. Just as well because if Maddie didn't back down, it was going to take a hell of a long time to find someone else he wanted to have kids with.
Whoa. The thought side-swiped him with all the force of a truck. Where the hell had that come from? He’d only begun to date her, now he was thinking about having children with her? Jeez, he did have it bad.