She owed him that much, she thought. She needed him. She had to tell him.

She sat and hoisted Karli onto the chair beside her. Their chairs were touching and Karli was still in contact with her, but strangely the little girl seemed to be relaxing.

What was it about this man?

Jenna wasn’t relaxing. She sat gingerly on the edge of her chair. The chair gave a distinct wobble, and the wobble made her feel even more precarious. It was as if her world were tilting and she wasn’t at all sure that she wasn’t about to slide right off.

‘We had a disagreement with someone on the train,’ she managed. ‘We…we got angry and we got off.’

‘You had a disagreement.’ His thoughtful eyes glinted again, humour seemingly just below the surface. His eyes searched her face, then dropped to take her all in. His eyes ran over her dust-stained pants and blouse-they’d once been white-over her wind-tumbled curls where the red dust was blending with her burnt-red hair, down to her slim arms resting on the table before her. To her bare fingers.

His eyes went again to Karli. To study her dusty red curls and her big green eyes that were a mirror image of Jenna’s.

‘Who was your disagreement with?’

‘With Karli’s father,’ she told him. ‘Brian.’

His eyes flashed again to her fingers but there was no ring-mark there. That was what he was searching for, she knew. Damn him, she thought with anger. She knew exactly what he was thinking.

‘Oh, dear,’ he said. ‘You’ve left the third part of your happy family on the train.’

‘There’s no third part,’ she snapped. ‘And, believe me, it’s no happy family.’

‘Obviously.’

She flushed. She opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out. How to explain within Karli’s earshot?

And how to justify her stupidity? Her stupid, almost criminal idiocy.