Take a Chance (26 page)

Jem winced as the smoke detector started shrieking. Beside her Jeremy and Daisy clapped their hands over their ears.

“Stop noise!” Aidan wailed as he ran to Jem.

Jem looked at the burning, rolled up paper in her hand with annoyance. She tried puffing out the small flames but all that did was produce more smoke. With little choice left to her she held the glowing end under the running tap. The potential blaze immediately hissed out.

The alarm in the family room abruptly stopped. Turning around she saw Eben stalking towards them. He’d obviously just turned it off.

“What’s going on?” he asked then spied the ashes all over the bench. He looked at Jem. “They’re not trying to set things on fire now are they?”

“No, nothing like that,” Jem assured him and forced the rolled paper into Jeremy’s hand. She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear with overt casualness. “It’s just a school project not going as expected.”

“What did you expect a piece of paper set on fire to do?”

“I’ve got to make a treasure map for homework, Uncle Eben,” interrupted Jeremy. “I wanted it to have burned edges to make it more athen.. authin.. real so Aunty Jem said she’d do it for me.”

“What happened?” Eben asked Jem.

“I couldn’t find matches or a lighter so tried to burn it on the stove element. It took a while to catch alight but made plenty of smoke in the meanwhile. Then it was hard to put out,” Jem admitted.

She gestured vaguely towards the smoke detector which chirped to let them know there was still smoke around.

Eben pushed open the window above the kitchen sink and the chilled evening air rushed in to dilute the smoke.

“My map’s wet,” Jeremy complained as a dribble of water rolled off the paper and onto his hand.

“It’ll be okay,” Jem soothed. “After you had finished your map I was going to soak it in coffee to stain it to make it look old. How about we leave it on the bench to dry then have another go after dinner?”

“Okay,” said Jeremy, immediately pacified. “May I play on the computer now?”

“Sure,” said Jem.

With the excitement over, Daisy and Aidan had already gone back to the hut they had built out of sofa cushions and blankets in the family room. She reluctantly turned to face Eben, not wanting to be teased about producing enough smoke to set off the alarm.

Instead Eben gave her a big hug.

“That alarm had me worried for a few moments,” he said against the top of her head.

“It wasn’t intentional,” said Jem.

“I know that,” he said.

They stood like that for several seconds then the oven timer went off.

Letting go of each other Jem turned off the timer while Eben closed the window
since the smoke from the map had dissipated and wood smoke from neighbourhood chimneys had started drifting in.

“I see that the giant marshmallow in the back yard has gone,” he commented as he turned back towards her.

“Yes. The hire place people turned up just as I was about to leave to see Jess,” Jem said as she peeked in the oven door then turned the timer back on for another couple of minutes.

“Was there any sign
left of the marquee when they had finished?”

“Only flattened grass and a broken daphne bush,” Jem sighed as she leaned against the bench.

“It’ll grow back,” Eben reassured her.

He peered through the oven window.

“What are we having?” he asked.

“Macaroni cheese,” Jem replied. “I’ve learned my lesson.”

“No use trying to educate the palate of the little philistines until they’re a bit older,” Eben agreed as he straightened up.

“It’s
a special recipe with pineapple and bacon in it,” Jem said. “I figured those ingredients would be acceptable.”

The oven timer went off
again and Eben watched her remove a baking dish from the oven coated with pineapple, grilled cheese and bacon.

“I hope there’s enough for seconds,” Eben said as the scent of bacon wafted past.

“Maybe,” Jem hedged as she started serving the meal onto plates.

“What have you been up to today?” she asked as she carefully tipped the serving spoon so that the grilled bits stayed on top of the macaroni cheese as it slid onto the plate.

“Just catching up with a few people but it took longer than I expected. Sorry I wasn’t here earlier to cover you so you could get some work done.”

“Don’t worry about that.
Just after the hire place people turned up to collect the marquee, Mel arrived. She showed me the most adorable photos of her daughters as flower girls at her brother’s wedding and after we finished catching up she took Aidan with her and collected Daisy from kindy. I had a few hours to get things done before collecting Jeremy from school and picking up the other two on the way home.”

“I didn’t know she was back,” Eben commented as he pinched a piece of cheesy macaroni and dropped it into his mouth.
“Aah,” he huffed around the piece of macaroni. “It’s hot!”

Jem shoved the half full glass of milk that Aidan had
earlier left on the breakfast bar towards him and he gratefully grabbed it and finished it in one mouthful.

“She got back yesterday afternoon and was keen to learn how Jess was doing.
I promised to let her know the moment she is transferred to a ward so that she can visit.”

“It was
good of her to take the kids off your hands for a while,” Eben commented.

“Yes,
especially when I needed to catch up with responses to client enquiries generated by the presentation. I think she felt guilty for not being able to help me out just after the accident. She offered to take them tomorrow too but I said we’d be okay.”

Jem raised an eyebrow to question whether Eben was happy with what she had told Mel.

“We’ll be fine,” he agreed. “I should be around to give you more time to work and at any rate we don’t want the kids to wear out their welcome and have her mainlining gin to compensate.”

Jem just shook her head and smiled.

A couple of hours later o
nce the children were settled in bed for the night she made two cups of hot chocolate and carried them to the office. She enjoyed this new ritual of theirs and realised that she would miss Eben and the never ending busy-ness of the children when she moved back to her apartment after Jason returned from Fiji. Then she felt something squish underfoot and a loud squeak startled her almost enough for her to spill the drinks.

Looking down she saw one of the children’s baby toys under her ugg boot. She let out a sigh of relief until she looked towards the lounge and saw more toys scattered about.

So much for a mess free zone
.

They were going to take a while to pick up. At moments like this her minimalist
plant filled apartment seemed positively inviting.

Going into the office she saw Eben parked in front of a game of spider solitaire, as usual. She set one mug beside his mouse pad and settled into the chair beside him. After a few sips of hot chocolate she decided it was time to get to work.

Jem logged onto the lap top Eben had set up for her then after a few minutes dropped her hands in frustration.

“What’s the matter?” Eben asked, although he already had a fair idea of the problem.

“I forgot we’ve gone live this evening on the new system at work and I don’t have a password to get in. My old one doesn’t work.”

“Try JemlovesEben without spaces,” Eben suggested as he picked up his mug.

Jem humoured him seeing as she didn’t have any better ideas.

“Well what do you know?” she murmured to herself moments later as her password was accepted.

“How did you know my password?” Jem asked.

“I’ve met Cherie,” Eben replied vaguely then took a sip of his drink.

Not long afterwards Jem pushed her chair back from the desk.

“This isn’t going to work,” she said in frustration.

“What is the problem?” Eben asked absently, as he dragged the ace of spades onto the two of spades and completed a suit.

“Jason showed me bits here and there but I can’t remember it all and I missed that guy who went in today to give the tutorial. I will be able to figure out how to do things but it will take me ages,” Jem said with annoyance.

“Maybe I can help,” Eben offered.

Jem looked at him for a few moments, considering.

“Okay,” she finally said. “I bet you’ve seen Jason do things enough to know how it works.”

Eben didn’t correct her. Instead he slid his chair against hers so that their legs touched.

“Now what are you wanting to do?” he asked.

“Usually after I’ve written a sales strategy I email it to the sales rep involved for their feedback but I remember Jason had a clever way to share it with other people centrally with a bit on the side for comments.”

“You want to give permission to let people read and or edit your document and post comments,” Eben said. “Here’s how it is done.”

Eben showed her the sequence involved to do what she had asked for.

“How do I let them know that it is there for them to see?” Jem asked.

“You already have. When you gave people permission to look at your document it automatically sent an email to those people with a link to read it.”

“That’s pretty clever, thank you,” Jem said, appreciation flashing in her blue eyes.

“You’re welcome,” said Eben then he leaned forward to kiss her neck.

Jem shuddered under the touch of his lips against her skin. As his mouth inched up towards hers, alternately kissing and nipping her skin she turned her head to reciprocate then paused.

“Hold it a moment,” she said.

Eben stopped mid nip on her jawline. His eyes caught hers.

“I’m really behind in my work,” Jem whispered apologetically. “As much as I want to keep going, would it be okay if we waited until I got a bit more done here?”

Eben let go and sat back up in his seat.

“It’s okay, I understand. I can wait,” he said with a put-upon sigh.

Jem gave him a smile and patted his knee. Well aware of the joy of deadlines Eben reluctantly slid his chair back to his own desk so as to cause fewer distractions.

After about what felt like years Eben didn’t think he could play another game of spider solitaire. He looked at the clock. Six minutes had passed since he had last looked at it.

“Can I do anything to help you?” he asked, partly to break the silence.

“Hmm?
Oh, not really,” Jem answered absently.

Close to an hour
after that Jem finally closed the lid of the lap top and stretched her arms above her head.

Noticing she had finished, Eben quickly tilted up the screen of the lap top he had laid flat to the left of his desktop computer. The screen now displayed a game of free cell which had just been started.

Once he had realised she was engrossed in her work he had decided to work too. Although it wasn’t quite as convenient to view the screen while it was flat on the desk at least he was able to work alongside her without her knowing.

“What time is it?” Jem asked as she got out of her seat and picked up the empty mugs.

“Bedtime,” Eben answered as he ushered her towards their bedroom, only stopping briefly in the kitchen to dump the mugs in the sink.

“Bedtime’s now my favourite time,” Jem said playfully as she entered the bedroom.

“Mine too,” said Eben huskily as he closed the bedroom door behind them.

The next few days flew past as Jem fitted work around the children’s routines and making visits to see Jess in hospital. During her last visit she had been shocked to find Jess’s bed empty and her cards removed until one of the familiar nurses came over and told her that Jess had been doing so well that they had transferred her to a ward.

After following the nurse’s directions
Jem found Jess sharing a room with three older women. As she approached she was initially pleased to see that the bandages on Jess’s head had been reduced but as she got closer she soon realised there was no sign of Jess’s long brunette locks underneath.

The absence of her sister’s biggest vanity made Jem’s eyes involuntarily water. She bit down on the inside of her cheek as she feigned getting something out of her eyes to account for the tear that had dared to fall. Luckily Jess seemed oblivious to Jem’s distress and was pleased to see her so Jem decided not to bring the subject up. If her sister didn’t already know about her hair being removed, she soon would.

After she had carefully hugged Jess in greeting, sat down and updated her on the children’s antics, her sister started griping indignantly about how one of her roommates snored during an afternoon nap. Jem couldn’t help but smile about the fact that her sister must be getting better if she was starting to complain about things.