Mills & Boon Showcase

‘Uh...not really,’ Sandy managed to splutter as hot colour flooded her cheeks. She’d come to talk about the Bay Books business, not her private life with Ben.

Ida shifted her shoulders and resettled herself on the pillows, a flash of pain tightening her face. Sandy ached to help her, but Ben’s great-aunt was fiercely independent.

‘You don’t actually have to answer me,’ said Ida. ‘But great sex is so important to a healthy relationship. If you don’t have those fireworks now, forget having a happy future together.’

Sandy realised she had blushed more times since she’d been back in Dolphin Bay than she had in her entire life.

‘I... Uh... We...’ How the heck did Ida know what had happened with Ben last night? How did she know there’d been fireworks aplenty?

Ida chuckled. ‘I’ll take that as a yes, then. Any fool can see the chemistry between you two. Good. No matter what the world dishes up to you, you’ll always have that wonderful intimacy to keep your love strong. It was like that for me and Mike.’

‘Oh?’ Sandy literally did not know where to look. To talk about sex with someone of her grandmother’s age was a new and unnerving experience.

‘I suppose you know about my scandalous past?’

‘I heard that you—’

‘But I guess you don’t want to hear about that.’

The expression in Ida’s eyes made it clear that Ida wanted very much to tell her story. And Sandy was curious to hear it. There hadn’t been much talking about relationships in her family’s strait-laced household. No wonder she’d been so naïve at the age of eighteen, when she’d met Ben.

Sandy settled herself back in her chair. ‘Did you really run away with a sailor, like Ben says?’

‘Indeed I did. Mike was sailing up the coast. We clicked instantly. I went back to his boat with him and—’

Sandy found herself gripping the fabric of her skirt where it bunched over her knees. She wanted to hear the story but she didn’t—she really didn’t—want to hear the intimate details.

‘I never left. I quit my job. Threw my hat in with Mike. We got married on an island in Fiji.’

One part of Sandy thought it romantic, another thought it foolhardy.

‘Even though you hardly knew him?’ But how well did she actually know Ben? Enough to risk her heart the way she’d done last night?

‘I knew enough that I wanted to spend every waking and sleeping moment with him. I was thirty-five; he was five years older. We didn’t have time to waste.’

Was that message aimed at her and Ben? The way she felt right now Sandy hated being parted from him even for a minute. But there were issues still unresolved.

‘What about...what about children? Did you regret not having kids?’

‘Not for a moment. We couldn’t have had the life we had with kids. Mike was enough for me.’

Could Ben be enough for her? Right now her heart sang with the message that he was all she wanted. But what about in years to come? If things worked out with Ben, could she give up her dreams of a family?

Ida continued. ‘And I don’t have time to waste now. Once I’m over this injury I want to go back to the places I visited with Mike. It might be my last chance.’

Sandy put up a hand in protest. ‘Surely not. You—’

‘Still have years ahead of me? Who knows? But what I do know is I need to sell Bay Books—and I want you to buy it from me.’

Again, Sandy was too flabbergasted to reply to the old lady. Just made an incoherent gasp.

‘You told me you want to run your own business,’ said Ida. ‘And I’m talking a good price for stock, fittings and goodwill.’

‘Yes... But...’

But why not?

Candles came a poor second to books. And she already had so many ideas for improving Bay Books. Hadn’t she thought, in the back of her mind, that if there were a chance she might stay in Dolphin Bay she would need to earn her living?

‘Why the “but”?’ Ida asked.

‘The “but” is Ben,’ said Sandy. ‘We’re not looking beyond these next few days right now. I have to take it slowly with him. I’m interested in your proposition. But I can’t commit to anything until I know if there might be anything more with Ben.’

Ida’s eyes were warm with understanding. ‘I know what Ben’s been through. I also know he needs to look to the future. I’m hoping it’s with you.’

‘Thank you,’ said Sandy, touched by the older lady’s faith in her.

‘I’ll keep my offer on the table. But I’ll be selling—if not to you, to someone else.’

‘Can we keep this between us?’ Sandy asked. ‘I’d rather not mention it to Ben just yet. I don’t want him to think I’m putting any pressure on him.’

‘Of course,’ said Ida.

* * *

Sandy felt guilty, putting a ‘Back in One Hour’ sign on the door of Bay Books—but meeting Ben for lunch was more important.

Ida’s words echoed through her head. She didn’t have time to waste.

She made her way to the boathouse to find the door open and Ben unpacking gourmet sandwiches from the hotel café and loading cold drinks into the refrigerator.

Again, he was whistling, and she smiled at the carefree sound. He hadn’t realised she was there and she was struck by the domesticity of the moment. Did she want this with Ben? Everyday routine as well as heart-stopping passion? Much, much more than a few days together?

The answer was in his eyes when he looked up and saw she was there. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes to sharing everything.

Everything but the rearing of kids.

He put down the bottle he was holding, she dropped her handbag, and they met in the middle of the room. Ben held her close. She stood in his arms, exulting in the warm strength of him, the thudding of his heart, the way he smelled of the sea.

‘I’m glad you’re here,’ he said.

‘Me too,’ was the only reply she could manage.

Her heart started a series of pirouettes—demanding its message be heard.

She loved him.

Emotion, overwhelming and powerful, surged through her. So did gratitude for whatever power had steered her back to him.

But could wounded, wary Ben love her back in the way she needed?

He kissed her—a brief, tender kiss of welcome—then pulled away.

‘How did it go with Ida at the hospital?’

When she told him about Ida’s questioning about their love-life he laughed, loud and uproariously.

‘The old girl is outrageous,’ he said, with more than a hint of pride. ‘So what did you say to her?’

‘I was so embarrassed I didn’t know where to look.’

He pulled her close again. His voice was deep and husky and suggestive. ‘What would you have told her?’

She twined her arms around his neck. ‘I think you know last night was the most amazing experience of my life.’ She had trouble keeping her voice steady. ‘Why didn’t I say yes all those years ago? Why, why, why didn’t I fight harder for you?’

‘Water under the bridge, remember?’

‘Yes, but—’

‘It mightn’t have been such an amazing experience when I was nineteen.’

‘Not true. You were the best kisser. Still are.’

‘Always happy to oblige,’ he said.

She smiled. ‘Last night...the dinner dance...it was fun, wasn’t it?’

‘You were a big hit.’

‘Was I? I’m still not quite sure how to handle the townfolk. In particular the way they compare me to Jodi.’ And I’m not sure how, if we have a future, I’ll handle being second in your life.

‘You’re still worrying about that?’ He took her hand and led her to the bedroom. ‘There’s something I want to show you.’

‘And I’m quite happy to see it,’ she quipped. ‘We can eat lunch afterwards.’

He laughed. ‘That’s not what I meant. But we can do that too.’

He went to the dresser. He opened the top drawer and pulled out the framed photo he had put there yesterday—the yesterday that seemed a hundred years ago. She braced herself, not at all sure she could cope with seeing Jodi and Ben together in happy times. She prayed the baby wouldn’t be in the photo. One day she would have to go there. But not now. Not when this was all too raw and new.

Ben held the photo so she couldn’t see what it was. ‘It concerned me when you said you were worried about coming second with me. About being in the shadow of the memory of another woman. It’s ironic that Jodi felt the same way about you.’

Sandy frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

He handed her the photo. Astounded, she looked from it to him and back again. ‘But it’s of me. Of you. Of us.’

The simple wooden frame held a faded snap of her very young self and Ben with their arms around each other. She—super-slim—was wearing a tiny pink floral-patterned bikini; her hair was wet and tangled with salt and fell almost to her waist. She was looking straight at the camera with a confident, happy smile. Ben’s surfer hair was long and sun-streaked and he was wearing blue Hawaiian print board shorts. He wasn’t looking at the camera but rather down at her, with an expression of pride and possession heartrendingly poignant on a teenager.

She had to clear her throat before she spoke. ‘Where did you get this from?’

‘From you. Don’t you remember?’

Slowly the memory returned to her. ‘Lizzie took this photo. We had to get the film developed at the chemist in those days. I bought the frame from the old general store. And I gave it to you to...to remember me by.’ She’d had a copy, too. Had shoved it in the back of an old photo album that was heaven knew where now.

‘Jodi found it at the bottom of a drawer in my room just before we got married. She brought it to me and said we needed to talk.’

‘I...I thought you would have thrown it out.’

‘She thought so too. She asked me was I still carrying a torch for you.’

‘Wh...what did you say?’

‘I said I’d cared for you once but was now totally committed to her.’

Sandy swallowed hard against a kick of that unwarranted jealousy. ‘You...you were getting married. Wouldn’t she know that?’

‘We were getting married because she was pregnant with Liam.’

Sandy let out a gasp of surprise. ‘I...I didn’t know that.’

‘Of course you didn’t. But she was sensitive about it. Wanted me to reassure her that I wasn’t marrying her just because I “had to”.’

‘Poor Jodi.’ Her heart went out to the lovely girl who had cared so much for Ben, and she wished she had more than vague memories of her.

‘So, you see, as far as Jodi was concerned you were the “third person”, as you put it, in our marriage.’

‘I...I don’t really know what to say. If...if you were married I wouldn’t come anywhere near you.’

‘I know that. You know that. And I’m sure Jodi knew that. But no matter how much I reassured her that we would have got married anyway, just maybe not so soon, she had that little nagging doubt that she was my second choice.’

‘And yet you...you didn’t throw out the photo.’ She was still holding the frame in her hands, her fingers tightly curled around the edge.

‘No. I went to put it in the bin, to prove my point, but Jodi stopped me. Said it was unrealistic to expect we wouldn’t each come into the marriage with a past. She just wanted to make sure you stayed in the past.’

‘And here I am...in...in the future.’

‘I hadn’t thought about this photo in years. Then, after that morning on the beach with you and Hobo, I dug it out from a box in the storeroom at the hotel.’

‘And put it on display?’

Ben took the photo frame from her hands and placed it back on top of the dresser. ‘Where it will stay,’ he said.

‘So...so why did you hide it from me yesterday?’

‘I thought you’d think it was strange that I’d kept it. It was too soon.’

‘But it’s not too soon now?’

‘We’ve come a long way since yesterday.’

‘Yes,’ she said. She made a self-conscious effort to laugh. But it came out as something more strangled. ‘Who knows where we’ll get to in the next three days?’

It was a rhetorical question she wished she hadn’t uttered as soon as she’d said it. But Ben just nodded.

He picked up the photo frame and then put it back down again. ‘If you’re okay with it, I’ll keep it here.’

‘Of course,’ she said, speaking through a lump of emotion in her throat. ‘And I don’t expect you to keep photos of Jodi buried in a drawer while I’m around.’

But, please, no photos of Liam on display. No way could she deal with that while she was dealing with the thought that if it worked out with Ben she would see the demise of her dream of having her own kids.

‘She was a big part of my life. I’m glad you don’t want to deny that.’

‘Of course I recognise that. Like...like she did about me.’

She looked again at the long-ago photo and wondered how Jodi had felt when she’d seen it. How sensible Jodi had been not to deny Ben his past. She had to do the same. But there was still that nagging doubt.

‘I still can’t help but wonder if I can compete with the memory of someone so important to you.’

He cupped her chin with his big scarred hands. ‘As I said before, it’s not a competition. You’re so different. She was the safe harbour, calm waters. You’re the breaking waves, the white-water excitement.’

‘Both calm waters and breaking waves can be good,’ she said, understanding what he meant and feeling a release from her fears. She hoped she, too, could at times become a safe harbour for him.

If she were to carry the wave analogy to its conclusion, Jason had been the dumper wave that had started off fast and exciting and then crashed her, choking and half drowning, onto the hard, gritty sand.

But what she felt for Ben defied all categorisation. He was both safe harbour and wild wave, and everything else she wanted, in one extraordinary man. And she longed to be everything to him.

But she couldn’t tell him that. Not yet. Not until the three days were over.

‘How long until you have to be back at the shop?’ Ben asked.

‘How long do we need?’ she murmured as she slid her arms around his waist and kissed him.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

SANDY TURNED THE ‘Back in One Hour’ sign—it had stretched to one and a half hours—so it read ‘Open’ and dashed into the shop. She spent a few minutes fixing her hair and make-up so the next contingent of too-interested ladies who came in wouldn’t immediately guess how she’d spent her lunch hour. Wouldn’t that make the Dolphin Bay grapevine hum...?

But customers were few—maybe she wasn’t such a novelty any more. Or maybe, because it was such a hot day, people would rather be on the beach. She lifted her hair from her neck to cool it. It was warm in here today, despite her fiddling with the air-conditioning controls.

In the lull, after a lady had been seeking the latest celebrity chef cookbook and a man had wanted a history of the Dolphin Bay fishing fleet, she pulled out her fairy notebook. The glitter shimmered onto the countertop. It was time to revisit her thirtieth birthday resolutions.

She read them through again, with her Hotel Harbourside pen poised to make amendments.

1. Get as far away from Sydney as possible while remaining in realms of civilisation and within reach of a good latte.

Tick.

Dolphin Bay was four hours away from Sydney, and Ben’s hotel café did excellent coffee. But her stay depended on a rekindled relationship of uncertain duration.

2. Find new job where can be own boss.

Tick.

The possibility of owning Bay Books exceeded the ‘new job’ expectations. She scribbled, Add gift section to bookshop—enquire if can be sub-franchisee for candles.

But, again, the possible job depended entirely on her relationship with Ben. She wouldn’t hang around in Dolphin Bay if they kissed goodbye for good on Wednesday.

She hesitated when she came to resolution number three. As opposed to the flippy thing, her heart gave a painful lurch.

3. Find kind, interesting man with no hang-ups who loves me the way I am and who wants to get married and have three kids, two girls and a boy.

She’d found the guy—though he came with hang-ups aplenty—and maybe he was the guy on whom she’d subconsciously modelled the brief. But as for the rest of it....

Could she be happy with just two out of three resolutions fulfilled? How big a compromise was she prepared to make?

Now her heart actually ached, and she had to swallow down hard on a sigh. Children had always been on the agenda for her—in fact she’d never imagined a life that didn’t include having babies. Then her mother’s oft-repeated words came to mind: ‘You can’t have everything you want in life, Alexandra.’

She put down her pen, then picked it up again. Channelled ‘Sunny Sandy’. Two out of three was definitely a cup more than half full. Slowly, with a wavering line of ink, she scored through the words relating to kids, then wrote: If stay in DB, ask Maura about puppy. She crossed out the word ‘puppy’ and wrote puppies.

Unable to bear any further thoughts about shelving her dreams of children, she slammed the fairy notebook shut.

As she did so the doorbell jangled. She looked up to see a very small person manfully pushing the door open.

‘Amy! Sweetpea!’

Sandy flew around the counter and rushed to meet her niece, then looked up to see her sister, Lizzie, behind her. ‘And Lizzie! I can’t believe it.’

Sandy greeted Lizzie with a kiss, then swept Amy up into her arms and hugged her tight. Eyes closed at the bliss of having her precious niece so close, she inhaled her sweet little-girl scent of strawberry shampoo and fresh apple.

‘I miss you, bub,’ she said, kissing Amy’s smooth, perfect cheek.

‘Miss you too, Auntie Ex.’

Her niece was the only person who called her that—when she was tiny Amy hadn’t been able to manage ‘Alexandra’ and it had morphed into ‘Ex’, a nickname that had stayed.

‘But you’re squashing me.’

‘Oh, sorry—of course I am.’ Sandy carefully put her niece down and smoothed the fabric of Amy’s dress.

Amy looked around her with wide eyes. ‘Where are the books for children?’ she asked.

‘They’re right over here, sweetpea. Are your hands clean?’

Amy displayed a pair of perfectly clean little hands. ‘Yes.’

‘Then you can take books and look at them. There’s a comfy purple beanbag in the corner.’

Amy settled herself with a picture book about a crocodile. Sandy had trouble keeping her eyes off her little niece. Had she grown in just the few days since they’d said goodbye in Sydney? Amy had been a special part of her life since she’d been born and she loved being an aunt. She’d looked forward to having a little girl just like her one day.

Her breath caught in her throat. If she stayed with Ben no one would ever call her Mummy.

‘Nice place,’ said Lizzie, looking around her. ‘But what the heck are you doing here? You’re meant to be on your way to Melbourne.’

‘I could ask the same about you. Though it’s such a nice surprise to see you.’

‘Amy had a pupil-free day at school. I decided to shoot down here and see what my big sis was up to!’

‘I texted you.’

‘Just a few words to say you were spending some time in Dolphin Bay. Dolphin Bay! Why this end-of-nowhere dump? Though I have to say the place has smartened itself up. And Amy loves the dolphin rubbish bins.’

‘I took the scenic route down the coast. It was lunchtime when I saw the turn-off, and—’

Lizzie put up her hand to halt her. ‘I suspected it, but now I get it. This is about Ben Morgan, isn’t it? What else would the attraction be here? And don’t even think about lying, because you’re blushing.’

‘I have caught up with Ben. Yes.’

Lizzie took a step closer. ‘You’ve done a lot more than “caught up” with Ben, haven’t you?’

Sandy rolled her eyes skyward and laughed. Then she filled her sister in on what had happened since she’d driven her Beetle down the main street of Dolphin Bay. Including Ida’s offer to sell her Bay Books, but excluding Ben’s decision not to have any more children.

‘So, are you going to stay here with Ben?’ Lizzie asked.

Sandy shrugged. ‘We’re testing the waters of what it might be like. But I feel the same way about him as I did back then.’

Lizzie stayed silent for a long moment before she spoke again. ‘You’re not just getting all sentimental about the past because of what happened with Jason?’

Sandy shook her head. ‘Absolutely not. It’s nothing to do with that. Just about me and Ben.’

Just mentioning their names together made her heart flip.

‘I remember what it was like between you. Man, you were crazy about each other.’

Sandy clutched her sister’s arm. Lizzie had to believe that what she’d rediscovered with Ben was the real deal. ‘It’s still there, Lizzie, that feeling between us. We took up where we left off. I’m so happy to have found him again. Even if these few days are all we have. And I don’t give a toss about Jason.’

‘I’m thrilled for you—truly I am. I always liked Ben. And I love this shop. It would be cool to own it. Way better than candles.’ Lizzie shifted from foot to foot. ‘But now I’ve brought up the J word I have to tell you something. You’re going to hear it sooner or later, and I’d rather you heard it from me.’

Sandy frowned. ‘Is it about the wedding?’ She hadn’t given it another thought.

‘More about the bump under What’s-Her-Name’s wedding gown.’

Sandy had to hold on to the edge of the closest bookshelf. ‘You mean—?’

‘They’re not admitting to it. But the wedding guests are betting there’ll be a J-Junior coming along in about five months’ time.’

Sandy felt the blood drain from her face. Not that she gave a flying fig for That-Jerk-Jason. But envy of his new bride shook her. Not envy of her having Jason’s baby. The thought of anyone other than Ben touching her repulsed her. But envy because she would never be the one with a proudly displayed bump, would never bear Ben’s child.

‘Are you okay, Sandy?’

Sandy took a deep breath, felt the colour rush back into her face. ‘Of course I’m okay. It’s a bit of a shock, that’s all.’

Lizzie hugged her. ‘Maybe you’ll be next, if you end up with Ben. You’re thirty now—you won’t want to leave it too long.’

‘Of course not,’ said Sandy, her voice trailing away.

Lizzie was just the first to say it. If, in some hypothetical future, she and Ben decided to stay together it would start. First it would be, So when are you two tying the knot? followed by, Are you putting on weight or have you got something to tell us?

Would she would be able to endure her friends’ pregnancy excitement, birth stories, christenings, first-day-at-school sob-stories? All the while knowing she could never share them?

She understood Ben’s stance against having another child. Was aware of the terrible place it came from. But she couldn’t help but wonder if to start a relationship with Ben predicated on it being a relationship without children would mean a doomed relationship. It might be okay to start with, but as the years went by might she come to blame him? To resent him?

‘You sure you’re okay?’ asked Lizzie. ‘You look flushed.’

‘Really, I’m fine.’ Sandy fanned her face with both hands. ‘It’s hot. I suspect this rattly old air-conditioner is on its last legs.’

‘You could put in a new one if you bought the business.’

‘I guess...’ she said, filled with sudden new doubt.

Holding Amy in her arms, hearing about Jason’s bride’s bump, had shaken her confidence in a long-term relationship with Ben that didn’t include starting a family.

She changed the subject. ‘What are you guys planning on doing? Can you stay tonight?’

‘That depends on you. I promised Amy I’d take her to see the white lions at Mogo Zoo. Then we could come back here, have dinner with you and Ben, stay the night and go home tomorrow.’

‘That would be amazing. Let’s book you into Ben’s gorgeous hotel.’

When had her thoughts changed from Hotel Hideous to ‘Ben’s gorgeous hotel’?