Dreaming Of... Australia

By then he’d built her up to goddess status. The sun had risen and set with her. She was perfection.

How could she ever have lived up to that?

The contrast between the intense attraction he’d felt then, for the girl he couldn’t have and the beige, comfortable nothing he felt now, just a few years later for the girl he’d eventually married … Had he learned nothing since he was nineteen?

He should know all about heady infatuations.

Was that what he was doing with Aimee? Turning her into some kind of new ideal of the perfect woman for him? Since Melissa had failed to achieve it? Since they’d so miserably failed to achieve perfect couple status together?

Back then, his list of non-negotiables had been a heck of a lot shorter. These days it had become more sophisticated: intelligence, compassion, warmth, someone looking to be stronger in a pair than they were on their own.

His needs had grown beyond the shallow.

They’d certainly outgrown his marriage.

Sam’s eyes drifted shut. He should call Mel. Not that she’d asked him to, or would even expect it; she wasn’t exactly what you’d call needy. She’d probably be at the lab, working on her ice, not even conscious of the time, enjoying a concentrated opportunity to work without having to worry about getting home to him. She wouldn’t appreciate the interruption.

He’d gone to do it earlier—picked up the phone and dialled. But Aimee had answered instead, like some kind of cosmic mistake. He glanced at the last call on the phone still in his hand. Yep. He’d dialled her number without realising.

He’d had to come up with something fast to justify his stuff-up. Mel’s birthday was the perfect excuse. Totally real—he’d failed abysmally in getting something for her—but he hadn’t started the day planning on asking Aimee for her help finding a gift.

He wasn’t that much of a masochist.

He let his head roll to one side on the sofa-back and stared at the wall dividing Aimee’s room and his. He pictured her sitting there, all languid and relaxed and sleepy, and his body responded immediately with a torturous tingle. It would take just moments to throw on some clothes, heartbeats to be out in the hall knocking on her door, and fantasy seconds more to get those clothes off again.

As if that was ever going to happen.

He was married.

She was Aimee.

Ne’er the twain shall meet.

He pushed to his feet and dialled Mel’s number. It started to ring immediately. Aimee reminded him of the best part of his relationship with his wife. The early golden years when the two of them had still been caught up in a spiral of mutual appreciation and new romance. Back before life had got busy, before they’d both found their feet as adults. Did that place even exist any more? And if it did could he possibly find his way back there? Could they?

He shuddered in a sigh.

He’d made Mel some promises that day they’d stood before a priest and committed to each other for ever, and she’d taken him in good faith.

He owed her as much, too.

The call went to voicemail. His wife’s impatient, confident tone suggested even a voice message was an interruption.

His eyes dropped shut and he concentrated on the woman he’d pledged his life and allegiance to, pushing out the one who flirted enticingly at the edges of his mind even when she didn’t mean to.

The phone beeped.

‘Hey, Mel …’ he started.

Hey, Mel … what? Hey Mel, I’m miserable and so are you. Hey, Mel, is it possible we got married for the wrong reasons? Hey, Mel, I’m sorry that I’m not better at loving you.

‘I … uh … just wanted to let you know we arrived okay—’ your husband and the woman he can’t stop thinking about ‘—and that …’

He opened his eyes and stared at the blank wall again. Imagined Aimee there. Wanted to be with her so badly he burned with it. But his loyalty—his life—belonged to someone else.

He had to try harder.

‘… just that I’m thinking about you.’

He rang off and dropped the phone onto his bed, then followed it in a defeated kind of body-flop.

He was honouring his wife.

Why did that feel like such a betrayal of himself?

CHAPTER NINE

‘NO! Definitely no.’

Aimee stood with Sam, deep at the heart of the beachside markets, the historic architecture in pronounced contrast to the modern, brightly coloured pop-up canopies littering the busy square.

Around them, buried beneath a surging crowd of tourists and locals, rows of stalls sold fine oils, organic produce, delicately hewn crafts, original artworks, timber knick-knacks and bright hand-woven beanies. They offered just about every gift imaginable.

But still Sam had found this.

He held up a twisted oddity made from forlorn-looking recycled cutlery. ‘It’s a spoondelabra. You put candles in it.’ He blinked at her lack of enthusiasm. ‘It’s clever.’

Aimeee smiled at the tragedy of his expression and prised it carefully from his fingers. ‘No, Sam.’

He frowned and picked it up again as soon as she’d placed it back on the display table. ‘I like it.’

Her laugh graduated to a full chuckle. ‘Then buy it for yourself, by all means. You are not buying your wife a spoondelabra for her thirtieth birthday.’

She’d taken to calling Melissa your wife as a defence mechanism. Not only did it serve as a healthy reminder to her not to get too entangled with Sam, but it helped to depersonalise Melissa, too. As long as she didn’t have a name, Aimee felt slightly less guilty about tiptoeing around with someone else’s husband on secret business.

Slightly.

A purple-haired woman dressed almost completely in hemp squeezed past them with a small goat trotting happily behind her on a leash. Sam’s free hand slipped protectively around behind Aimee as she pressed in closer to him to let the goat pass. She felt his heat and got a whiff of something divine under the wool of his jacket. Definitely not goat. Her eyes drifted shut.

Focus …

‘Fine.’ He handed the artwork back to its creator with a reluctant smile. The man shrugged and gave it a quick polish before replacing it on the table.

They moved off again through the thick crowds. ‘Seriously, Sam. We’re not going to get very far today if you buy every little thing that takes your fancy.’

Sam stayed close to her as they walked, shielding her with his body from the worst of the crowd and lowering his head to be heard. ‘Who says? Could work well … If she doesn’t like one gift I can whip out another.’

She laughed. ‘Right. She’ll never notice that.’

‘Well, what do you like, then? Since my ideas apparently suck the big bazoo.’

‘It’s her thirtieth, Sam. She’s not going to want a novelty anything. She’ll want something lovely. Something unique. Something that says you know her.’

His lips thinned. ‘I do know her and I’m still at a loss.’

Yeah? Why was that? She slid her hand around his forearm and squeezed. ‘Don’t worry, we have a couple of hours yet. We’ll find something this morning.’

But his eyes didn’t lighten. ‘Pretty sure I’m not supposed to need this kind of support team just to buy my wife a gift,’ he muttered.

Aimee was feeling sorry enough for herself without him adding his self-pity to the mix. She braced her fists on her hips. ‘Well, you can pout about it or you can get on with it. And you’ve dragged me out of a warm bed on our morning off, so if you’re going to pout I might just wander off and do my own thing.’

He stopped and stared as she was towed ahead of him by the crowd. She turned back against the tide and tipped her head in enquiry.

‘You reminded me of my mother just then,’ he said as he caught up with her.

‘Flattering.’

‘In a good way. She’s very no-nonsense like that. She wouldn’t tolerate self-pity either. I’m not used to that outside of my family.’

Aimee smiled as they set off again, feeling unaccountably light. ‘She and I would probably get on well, then.’

‘I know you would.’

She detoured physically—and conversationally—stopping in front of a stall with handcrafted silk scarves blowing like medieval banners in the breeze. ‘What about one of these? They’re beautiful.’ The soft fabric blazed rich colour in the mid-morning light.

Sam frowned. ‘What will she do with a scarf?’

Aimee blinked. ‘Wear it?’

‘On her head? Isn’t that a bit … nanna-ish?’

She dismissed the concern with a wave. ‘Think less nanna and more catwalk.’ She loosened one carefully from its tie point and caressed the cool, soft silk as it slipped through her fingers. ‘She can wear it like this …’ She looped it quickly around her throat in a fifties kind of knot.

‘Or like this …’

She twisted it into different styles to show Sam the many ways Melissa—his wife, she corrected herself—could enjoy a beautiful scarf without it being old-fashioned.

‘Or if she’s really keen she can wear it like this.’ She tipped her head forward and twisted the scarf into a hippy headband, pushing it up the line of her shaggy hair. Then she struck an exaggerated catwalk pose and threw Sam a two-fingered peace sign, smiling wide and free.

Blue eyes locked onto hers, entertained and glittering, and Aimee’s breath caught at the fire kindling deep in them. The fire she hadn’t seen since the careless, unmasked moment after she’d kissed him on the mountainside. Time froze as they looked at each other. But as she watched his smile dissolved, the flames flickered and extinguished, and two tiny lines appeared between his brows.

Her confidence faltered and she let her peace sign drop limply to her side.

‘Very Woodstock,’ Sam finally said, carefully neutral, but stopped her as she went to slide the scarf off, curling his warm fingers around hers. ‘Leave it. Freedom suits you.’

They stood like that—silently, breathless, his fingers coiled around hers—for dangerous moments.

Freedom did suit her. The year since taking charge of her own life had been the best of her whole life. And the hours she spent with Sam the best of those.

‘I’ll have to buy it,’ she murmured.

‘Let me.’ His wallet was open and the stall holder’s hand was outstretched before she could do more than squeak in protest. He finished the transaction: efficient, no-nonsense. Very Sam.

‘Thank you,’ she said, too unsettled by the gesture to protest. ‘Now we really need to get Melissa something.’ He slid a curious glance her way. She couldn’t help her fingers touching the scarf where it curled under her hair. ‘It’s going to be really dodgy if the only person you buy a gift for today is another woman.’ She laughed weakly.

He took his receipt and turned to face her, eyes serious. ‘You’re not another woman, Aimee. You’re you. This is to show my appreciation. For your help today.’

You’re you. What did that mean? Not worthy of ‘other woman’ status, or somehow outside of the definition? Genderless again. ‘We already had a deal. I help you with your gift and you help me with the interview. Quid pro quo.’

‘Today deserves extra credit.’

A rare, uncomfortable silence fell between them as they stared at each other but then Sam’s eyes drifted over her shoulder, flared, and his face filled with animation.

‘What about a kite?’ he exclaimed, and was off.

‘Men really are just little boys in big bodies, aren’t they?’

They sat at a weathered timber table beneath a canopy of fragrant flowering jasmine which defied gravity on the pergola over their heads, tucking into an early lunch of cheese, bread, pâté and something peculiar made of eggplant. Aimee dragged her eyes back off the two enormous kites sticking out of a recycled plastic bag and met the mock offence in Sam’s with a grin.

‘Kites are timeless,’ he pointed out. ‘Airborne works of art. And good for obesity.’

‘I know. I heard the sales pitch too.’ Though she’d never met a man less likely to have issues with obesity now or in the future than Sam. Or more comfortable with his inner nine-year-old. In truth, his passion for life and his willingness to let himself be open in front of her was dangerously appealing. He wasn’t endlessly talking himself up, like Wayne, or angling to get anything from her, or making himself look good. He was just being Sam.

And she liked Sam. She really, really did. Just exactly as he was.

More fool her.

She forced a smile to her lips. ‘Given you came up trumps for Melissa, I can hardly begrudge you a kite.’ He’d bought his wife the most heartbreakingly beautiful mirror, its artisan-made frame inlaid with luminous crystals and with intricately wrought iron vinework twisting through and around the whole piece. ‘Symbolic of both of us,’ he’d said when he chose it. ‘Melissa’s brilliance and my love of nature.’

Her heart had swollen with pain then—for the poetry in his words, for the sweet uncertain fear he felt about choosing the wrong gift for the woman he was sharing his life with, and for the truth his words revealed about their relationship. Now and again he’d say something that made her think that maybe things weren’t all roses at home, but those simple words spoke volumes about his real feelings for his wife. Her heart weighed heavy in her chest.

‘Sam, can I—?’ Her own judgement stilled her tongue.

‘What? Go ahead.’

She frowned at him and thought hard for the moments that ticked by, wondering if she should back out. ‘I want to ask you something, but I don’t want to offend.’

‘I’m having too good a day to take offence.’ He slid one big hand on his heart. ‘Ask away.’

‘It’s about Melissa.’

The hand faltered as he lowered it.

‘Is everything okay with you two?’

His whole body stiffened up. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘You’re so passionate in your defence of her, so considerate in meeting her needs, so proud and loyal when you speak about her …’

‘But?’

She took a deep breath. ‘But … your body language and what you’re not saying tells a different story.’

His nostrils flared. ‘What I’m not saying about her tells you more than what I am saying?’

‘This is what I do for a living, Sam.’

‘Are we in the interview now?’

She sucked back her instinctive reaction to the harshness of his voice. ‘See—that’s very telling to me. That you get so worked up on this particular subject.’

His cheek pulsed high in his jaw. ‘Mel and I are fine.’

‘Just fine? Not great? Not wildly, crazy in love?’ Although she knew the answer to that. If he were he wouldn’t have had such a hard time buying her a gift. And he sure as heck wouldn’t be sitting here with her.

His simmering eyes told her he was trying very hard not to be rude. ‘All marriages go through their rough patches.’

She took a breath, trusted her instinct. ‘How long has this patch been?’

He dropped his eyes to the table, and when he lifted them they were predatory. ‘I think we should talk about that kiss now.’

It was her turn to stiffen. ‘Don’t change the subject.’

‘Don’t avoid the subject. Why won’t you talk about the kiss?’

She leaned forward. ‘Why is it so hard for you to talk about your wife?’

He met her in the middle of the table. ‘Same reason it’s so hard for you to acknowledge kissing me. It’s personal.’ He blinked and his voice softened. ‘And terrifying.’

She sat back.

Terrifying. Sam Gregory—the man who seemed to be afraid of nothing—was frightened for his marriage. Everything he’d not quite said these past days, every ‘fine’ instead of ‘great’ came into crashing focus.

This changed everything.

And nothing.

The tightly reined emotion in his eyes said that he was raw and hurting and vulnerable to suggestion;

this was not the time to be careless with the knowledge she’d unexpectedly found herself holding. But she could lead by example and have some courage.

‘I kissed you before I knew you were married,’ she said.

His eyes flared, as if he hadn’t truly expected her ever to return to the taboo subject. Maybe he’d thrown it out there as a distraction, but she grabbed it with both hands.

Fair’s fair.

‘I’m not someone who would ever knowingly …’ Her father’s wandering eye had wrecked her family. But she couldn’t tell Sam that. That wasn’t the sort of thing you revealed over a casual lunch. Even her friend Danielle didn’t know the full story about her past. ‘I wouldn’t have done it if I’d realised.’

Talking about the kiss was somehow self-fulfilling, drawing her eyes to his lips unconsciously and reminding her of how they’d felt so warm and surprised against hers. Her mouth watered with the memory.

She forced her eyes upward only to collide with ones so intense and earnest they stole her breath.

‘You remember it. I was beginning to wonder.’

‘Of course I remember it. How many men in vehicle wrecks do you imagine I’ve kissed?’

‘Not as many as me.’

‘Wh—?’

‘Mouth-to-mouth,’ he said with a straight face, but couldn’t hold it. His smile undid all the tension of the past five minutes.

Her relief bubbled over. He was making this easier for her. How was it possible she was laughing again so soon after the awkwardness of just a moment ago?

Because this was Sam. ‘That’s it,’ she said. ‘That’s what I was doing that night.’

He laughed. ‘Yeah, let’s go with that. Really good mouth-to-mouth.’

And just like that the awkwardness was back. At least for her. Sam didn’t seem the slightest bit affected. His eyes strayed to the large parcel that contained the mirror, and he took shelter in a new subject. ‘I just hope Mel likes it as much as you and I did,’ he said.

Wow—how much had changed that talking about his wife was safer territory between them? ‘She will. She’d have to be blind not to see how hard you’ve worked to get the perfect gift.’ No man had ever made an effort to please her as Sam was making an effort to please his wife. ‘She’s very lucky.’

Her breath sucked in on a tiny gasp at her accidentally spoken words.

Sam lifted his eyes. ‘Lucky?’

‘That you’re going to so much effort,’ she stumbled. ‘That you care enough to do … all of this … for her. You could have just gone with flowers.’

His lips twisted. ‘She has no idea.’

‘Then tell her,’ Aimee said, locking her eyes on his. ‘Every woman deserves to know she’s cherished.’

Sam frowned. ‘I can’t even imagine a conversation between us that would lead to that.’

Her eyebrows lifted. ‘You don’t talk?’

‘Not like that.’ He shook his head and his gaze flickered away. ‘Not like this.’

Again her breath tightened. So it wasn’t only she who found their time together easy and natural. ‘That surprises me.’

His eyes lifted. ‘Why?’

She shrugged. ‘The Sam I met dangling off that highway … That’s not a man I can imagine having difficulty communicating.’

‘Mel’s not really a talker.’

‘Have you tried?’

His eyes shaded over. ‘Repeatedly.’

She knew firsthand how frustrating it was to try and talk to someone who didn’t reciprocate. Except in her case it had been more a case of Wayne not being a listener. He just hadn’t stopped talking long enough for her to get a word in, and if she had, his reflex had been to disregard it.

Sam’s gentle voice drew her eyes back to his. ‘Has someone made you feel like that? Cherished?’ The blue of his irises seemed to have grown richer.

Her mouth opened and then closed again without answer. That wasn’t a question she could answer without embarrassing both of them.

Silent moments ticked by.

‘Is our friendship one-way, Aimee?’ he asked out of nowhere, shifting in his seat, not letting up with the eye-contact. Not angry, but rough enough that she winced—just slightly. ‘You can ask me personal things but I can’t ask you?’

‘I …’ That was actual hurt in his eyes. Or was she imagining it? Her pulse quickened. ‘I’ve … I must have …’

He leaned forward. ‘Everything I know about you I know from that one night on the mountain. Since then you haven’t … invited personal conversation.’

Her heart beat in her throat. ‘We just had one. About …’ The Kiss.

‘That wasn’t personal. We were both involved. I’d like to know more about Aimee Leigh, about what makes her tick. You told those kids yesterday more about yourself in one hour than you’ve told me since we met.’

Old scars pinched tightly. In her household personal discussions had been discouraged lest they led to … you know … actual caring. She didn’t do emotional risk. And opening up to this particular man would definitely be risky.

‘Why?’

The question seemed to anger him. ‘Because we’re friends, Aimee. Or at least I think we are. I don’t know.’ He threw his hands into the air. ‘Maybe we’re not?’

Her chest tightened. Friends. ‘We are. Of course we are.’ It’s all we ever can be.

‘Then open up. Let me in.’

She matched the lift in his voice, though hers was tighter. ‘I can’t.’

He pressed his palms onto the table. ‘Why not?’

‘Because you’re not mine to let in,’ she half-shouted, her chest fixed with the pain of where they were about to go, of what she’d just admitted.

Neither of them moved.

For entire moments.

Even the birds around them held their breath. ‘Opening up means something to me, Sam. I’m programmed to …’ She shook her head. ‘It means something.’

Her parents had cloistered her so tightly she didn’t even know how to take a risk. How to dare to.

He leaned in. ‘Aimee, I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be obtuse. I truly do not understand what you’re saying.’

Her face pinched, and she recognised somewhere far away, deep inside, that this was not one of her finest moments. Her breath fluttered. ‘I don’t … open up … easily. But if I did it would be because we meant something to each other. And we don’t have that kind of relationship.’

He squinted his confusion. ‘You do mean something to me, Aimee.’

She groaned her frustration. ‘I’m not talking about friendship, Sam.’ Lord, could he not hear her?

He shook his head, as though it might rattle all the pieces together into an understandable shape. ‘Are you saying that you only open up with someone if you’re in a relationship?’

She just stared at him.

‘What? So I’m either in or I’m out?’ he grated. ‘There’s nothing in between?’

‘You’re not someone I could let in just a little bit, Sam.’ Please understand what I’m saying.

Please.

He blinked at her. ‘I don’t want to be out.’

So innocent in its utterance, so painful in its intent. ‘But you can’t be in.’

And finally it dawned in his eyes. What she was trying so hard not to say. He sat back and took a deep, slow breath. ‘This is about Melissa.’

She flung her hands in the air. ‘Of course it is.’

‘You’re keeping a distance because of her?’

‘I’m keeping the distance you should be keeping, Sam.’

That hit him hard. The colour fled from his face. But he didn’t make excuses. He didn’t defend himself. And his next words surprised her. ‘What have they done to you?’

Two seconds ago he had been under examination. Now he was turning the spotlight on her again. ‘Who?’

‘Your family. The men in your past. They’ve made you this all-or-nothing woman. A person who can’t even have friendships without rules. Is that truly the world you come from?’

‘They’ve done nothing.’ Though that wasn’t strictly true. Wayne had run off most of her male friends and dressed it up as his great devotion and focus on just being with her. And her father had been the same with her mother up until the day Lisbet Leigh threw his belongings out in the street. Both of those men and the lessons they’d taught her had had an impact on her. ‘I still have values, Sam. They haven’t changed just because I’ve struck out on my own.’ If anything they’d crystallised.