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Sandy with a live-in boyfriend? She’d said she’d had a partner but had it been that serious? The knowledge hit him in the gut. Painfully. Unexpectedly. Stupidly.
What he and Sandy had had together was a teen romance. Kid stuff. They’d both moved on. He’d married Jodi. Of course Sandy would have had another man in her life.
But he had to clear his throat to reply. ‘And that’s bad or good?’
She laughed. But the laugh didn’t quite reach her eyes. ‘Well, good for him. Good for her, I guess. I’m still not sure how I feel about coming home one day to find his possessions gone and a note telling me he’d moved in with her.’
‘You’re kidding me, right?’ Ben growled. How could someone treat his Sandy like that. His Sandy. That was a slip. She hadn’t been his for a long, long time.
‘I’m afraid not. It was...humiliating to say the least.’ Her tone sounded forced, light. ‘But, hey, it makes for a great story.’
A great story? Yeah, right.
There went sunny Sandy again, laughing off something that must still cause her pain.
‘Sounds to me like you’re better off without him.’
‘The further I get from him the more I can see that,’ she said. But she didn’t sound convinced.
‘As far away as Melbourne?’ he asked, finding the thought of her so far away unsettling.
‘I’m not running away,’ she said firmly. Too firmly. ‘I need change. A new job, a new—’
‘Your job? What is that?’ he asked, realising how little he knew about her now. ‘Did you study law like your father wanted?’
‘No, I didn’t. Don’t look so surprised—it was because of you.’
‘Me?’ No wonder her father had hated him.
‘You urged me to follow my dreams—like you were following yours. I thought about that a lot when I got back home. And my dream wasn’t to be a solicitor.’ She shuddered. ‘I couldn’t think of anything less me.’
He’d studied law as part of his degree and liked it. But he wasn’t as creative as he remembered Sandy being. ‘But you studied for years so you’d get a place in law.’
‘Law at Sydney University.’ She pronounced the words as though they were spelled in capital letters. ‘That was my father’s ambition for me. He’d given up his plans for me to be a doctor when I didn’t cut it in chemistry.’
‘You didn’t get enough marks in the Higher School Certificate for law?’
‘I got the marks, all right. Not long after we got back to Sydney the results came out. I was in the honour roll in the newspaper. You should have heard my father boasting to anyone who’d listen to him.’
‘I’ll bet he did.’ Ben had no respect for the guy. He was a bully and a snob. But he had reason to be grateful to him. Not for ruining things with him and Sandy. But for putting the bomb under him he’d needed to get off his teenage butt and make himself worthy of a girl like Sandy.
‘At the last minute I switched to a communications degree. At what my father considered a lesser university.’
‘He must have hit the roof.’
Sandy’s mouth tightened to a thin line. ‘As he’d just been outed as an adulterer he didn’t have a leg to stand on about doing the right thing for the family.’
Ben smiled. It sounded as if Sandy had got a whole lot feistier when it came to standing up to her father. ‘So what career did you end up in?’
‘I’m in advertising.’ She quickly corrected herself. ‘I was in advertising. An account executive.’
On occasion he dealt with an advertising agency to help promote his hotel. The account executives were slick, efficient, and tough as old boots. Not at all the way he thought of Sandy. ‘Sounds impressive.’
‘It was.’
‘Was?’
‘Long story,’ she said, and started to walk towards the rocks again.
‘I’m listening,’ he said, falling into step beside her.
The wind had dropped and now the air around them seemed unnaturally still. Seagulls screeched raucously. He looked through narrowed eyes to the horizon, where grey clouds were banking up ominously.
Sandy followed his gaze. She wrinkled her cute up-tilted nose. ‘Storm brewing,’ she said. ‘I wonder—’
‘Don’t change the subject by talking about the weather,’ he said, stopping himself from adding, I remember how you always did that.
He shouldn’t have let himself get reeled in to such a nostalgic conversation. There was no point in dredging up those old memories. Not when their lives were now set on such different paths. And his path was one he needed—wanted—to tread unencumbered. He could not survive more loss. And the best way to avoid loss was to avoid the kind of attachment that could tear a man apart.
He wanted to spend his life alone. Though the word ‘alone’ seemed today to have a desolate echo to it.
She shrugged. ‘Okay. Back to my story. Jason and I were both working at the same agency when we met. The boss didn’t think it was a good idea when we started dating...’
‘So you had to go? Not him?’
She pulled a face. ‘We...ell. I convinced myself I’d been there long enough.’
‘So you went elsewhere? Another agency?’
She nodded. ‘And then the economy hit a blip, advertising revenues suffered, and last one in was first one out.’
‘That must have been tough.’
‘Yeah. It was. But, hey, one door closes and another one opens, right? I got freelance work at different agencies and learned a whole lot of stuff I might never have known otherwise.’
Yep, that was the old Sandy all right—never one to allow adversity to cloud her spirit.
She took a deep breath. He noticed how her breasts rose under her tight-fitting top. She’d filled out—womanly curves softened the angles of her teenage body. Her face was subtly different too, her cheekbones more defined, her mouth fuller.
He wouldn’t have thought it possible but she was even more beautiful than she’d been when she was eighteen.
He wrenched his gaze away, cleared his throat. ‘So you’re looking at a franchise?’
Her eyes sparkled and her voice rose with excitement. ‘My chance to be my own boss, run my own show. It’s this awesome candle store. A former client of mine started it.’
‘You were in advertising and now you want to sell candles? Aren’t there enough candle stores in this world?’
‘These aren’t ordinary candles, Ben. The store is a raging success in Sydney. Now they’re looking to open up in other towns. They’re interviewing for a Melbourne franchise and I put my hand up.’
She paused.
‘I want to do something different. Something of my own. Something challenging.’
She looked so earnest, so determined, that he couldn’t help a teasing note from entering his voice. ‘So it’s candles? I don’t see the challenge there.’
‘Don’t you?’ she asked. ‘There’s a scented candle for every mood, you know—to relax, to stimulate, to seduce—’
She stopped on the last word, and the colour deepened in her cheeks, flushed the creamy skin of her neck. Her eyelashes fluttered nervously and she couldn’t meet his gaze.
‘Well, you get the story. I wrote the copy for the client. There’s not much I don’t know about the merits of those candles.’ She was almost gabbling now to cover her embarrassment.
To seduce.
When he’d been nineteen, seducing Sandy had been all he’d thought about. Until he’d fallen in love with her. Then respecting her innocence had become more important than his own desires. The number of cold showers he’d been forced to take...
Thunder rumbled ominously over the water. ‘C’mon,’ he said gruffly, ‘we’d better turn back.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Though I suppose it’s too late now for my birthday lunch...’ She hesitated. ‘Please—forget I just said that, will you?’
‘It’s your birthday today?’
She shrugged dismissively. ‘Yes. It’s nothing special.’
He thought back. ‘It’s your thirtieth birthday.’
And she was celebrating alone?
‘Eek,’ she said in an exaggerated tone. ‘Please don’t remind me of my advancing years.’
‘February—of course. How could I forget?’ he said slowly.
‘You remember my birthday?’
‘I’d be lying if I said I recalled the exact date. But I remember it was in February because you were always pointing out how compatible our star signs were. Remember you used to check our horoscopes in your father’s newspaper every day and—?’
He checked himself. Mentally he slammed his hand against his forehead. He’d been so determined not to indulge in reminiscence about that summer and now he’d gone and started it himself.
She didn’t seem to notice his sudden reticence. ‘Yes, I remember. You’re Leo and I’m Pisces,’ she chattered on. ‘And you always gave me a hard time about it. Said astrology was complete hokum and the people at the newspaper just made the horoscopes up.’
‘I still think that and—’ He stopped as a loud clap of thunder drowned out his voice. Big, cold drops of water started pelting his head.
Sandy laughed. ‘The heavens are angry at you for mocking them.’
‘Sure,’ he said, but found himself unable to resist a smile at her whimsy. ‘And if you don’t want to get drenched we’ve got to make a run for it.’
‘Race you!’ she challenged, still laughing, and took off, her slim, tanned legs flashing ahead of him.
He caught up with her in just a few strides.
‘Not fair,’ she said, panting a little. ‘Your legs are longer than mine.’
He slowed his pace just enough so she wouldn’t think he was purposely letting her win.
She glanced up at him as they ran side by side, her eyes lively with laughter, fat drops of water dampening her hair and rolling down her flushed cheeks. The sight of her vivacity ignited something deep inside him—something long dormant, like a piece of machinery, seized and unwanted, suddenly grinding slowly to life.
‘I gave you a head start,’ he managed to choke out in reply to her complaint.
But he didn’t get a chance to say anything else for, waiting at the top of the stairs to the hotel, wringing her hands anxiously together, stood Kate Parker.
‘Oh, Ben, thank heaven. I didn’t know where you were. Your aunt Ida has had a fall and hurt her pelvis, but she won’t let the ambulance take her to hospital until she’s spoken to you.’
CHAPTER THREE
SANDY WAS HALFWAY up the stairs, determined to beat Ben to the top. Slightly out of breath, she couldn’t help smiling to herself over the fact that Ben had remembered her birthday. Hmm... Should she be reading something into that?
And then Kate was there, with her worried expression and urgent words, and the smile froze on Sandy’s face.
She immediately looked to Ben. Her heart seemed to miss a beat as his face went rigid, every trace of laughter extinguished.
‘What happened?’ he demanded of the red-haired waitress.
‘She fell—’
‘Tap-dancing? Or playing tennis?’
Kate’s face was pale under her freckles. ‘Neither. Ida fell moving a pile of books. You know what she’s like. Pretends she’s thirty-five, not seventy-five—’
Ida? A seventy-five-year-old tap-dancing aunt? Sandy vaguely remembered Ben all those years ago talking about an aunt—a great-aunt?—he’d adored.
‘Where is she?’ Ben growled, oblivious to the rain falling down on him in slow, heavy drops, slicking his hair, dampening his shirt so it clung to his back and shoulders, defining his powerful muscles.
‘In the ambulance in front of her bookshop,’ said Kate. ‘Better hurry. I’ll tell the staff where you are, then join you—’
Before Kate had finished speaking, Ben had turned on his heel and headed around to the side of the hotel with the long, athletic strides Sandy had always had trouble keeping up with.
‘Ben!’ Sandy called after him, then forced herself to stop. Wasn’t this her cue to cut out? As in, Goodbye, Ben, it was cool to catch up with you. Best of luck with everything. See ya.
That would be the sensible option. And Sandy, the practical list-maker, might be advised to take it. Sandy, who was on her way to Melbourne and a new career. A new life.
But this was about Ben.
Ben, with his scarred hands and scarred heart.
Ben, who might need some support.
Whether he wanted it or not.
‘I’m coming with you,’ she called after him, all thoughts of her thirtieth birthday lunch put on hold.
Quickly she fastened the buckles on her sandals. Wished for a moment that she had an umbrella. But she didn’t really care about getting wet. She just wanted to be with Ben.
She’d never met a more masculine man, but the tragedy he had suffered gave him a vulnerability she could not ignore. Was he in danger of losing someone else he loved? It was an unbearable thought.
‘Ben! Wait for me!’ she called.
He turned and glanced back at her, but made no comment as she caught up with him. Good, so he didn’t mind her tagging along.
His hand brushed hers as they strode along together. She longed to take it and squeeze it reassuringly but didn’t dare. Touching wasn’t on the agenda. Not any more.
Within minutes they’d reached the row of new shops that ran down from the side of the hotel.
There was an ambulance parked on the footpath out of the rain, under the awning in front of a shop named Bay Books. When she’d driven past she’d admired it because of its charming doorframe, carved with frolicking dolphins. Who’d have thought she’d next be looking at it under circumstances like this?
A slight, elderly lady with cropped silver hair lay propped up on a gurney in front of the open ambulance doors.
This was Great-Aunt Ida?
Sandy scoured her memories. Twelve years ago she’d been so in love with Ben she’d lapped up any detail about his family, anything that concerned him. Wasn’t there a story connected to Ida? Something the family had had to live down?
Ben was instantly by his aunt’s side. ‘Idy, what have you done to yourself this time?’ he scolded, in a stern but loving voice.
He gripped Ida’s fragile gnarled hand with his much bigger, scarred one. Sandy caught her breath at the look of exasperated tenderness on his face. Remembered how caring he’d been to the people he loved. How protective he’d been of her when she was eighteen.
Back then she’d been so scared of the big waves. Every day Ben had coaxed her a little further from the shore, building her confidence with his reassuring presence. On the day she’d finally caught a wave and ridden her body-board all the way in to shore, squealing and laughing at the exhilaration of it, she’d looked back to see he had arranged an escort of his brother and his best mates—all riding the same break. What kind of guy would do that? She’d never met one since, that was for sure.
‘Cracked my darn pelvis, they think. I tripped, that’s all.’ Ida’s face was contorted with annoyance as much as with pain.
Ben whipped around to face the ambulance officer standing by his aunt. ‘Then why isn’t she in the hospital?’
‘Point-blank refused to let me take her. Insisted on seeing you first,’ the paramedic said with raised eyebrows and admirable restraint, considering the way Ben was glaring at him. ‘Tried to get her to call you from hospital but she wasn’t budging.’
‘That’s right,’ said Ben’s aunt in a surprisingly strong voice. ‘I’m not going anywhere until my favourite great-nephew promises to look after my shop.’
‘Absolutely,’ said Ben, without a second’s hesitation. ‘I’ll lock it up safely. Now, c’mon, let’s get you in the ambulance and—’
His aunt Ida tried to rise from the gurney. ‘That’s not what I meant. That’s not good enough—’ she said, before her words were cut short by a little whimper of pain.
Sandy shifted from sodden sandal to sodden sandal. Looked away to the intricately carved awning. She felt like an interloper, an uninvited witness to Ben’s intimate family drama. Why hadn’t she stayed at the beach?
‘Don’t worry about the shop,’ said Ben, his voice burred with worry. ‘I’ll sort something out for you. Let’s just get you to the hospital.’
‘It’s not life or death,’ said the paramedic, ‘but, yes, she should be on her way.’
Ida closed her eyes briefly and Sandy’s heart lurched at the weariness that crossed her face. Please let her be all right—for Ben’s sake.
But then the older lady’s eyes snapped into life again. They were the same blue as Ben’s and remarkably unfaded. ‘I can’t leave my shop closed for all that time.’
The paramedic interrupted. ‘She might have to lie still in bed for weeks.’
‘That’s not acceptable,’ continued the formidable Ida. ‘You’ll have to find me a manager. Keep my business going.’
‘Just get to the ER and I’ll do something about that later,’ said Ben.
‘Not later. Now,’ said Aunt Ida, sounding nothing like a little old lady lying seriously injured on a gurney. Maybe she was pumped full of painkillers.
Sandy struggled to suppress a grin. For all his tough, grown-up ways she could still see the nineteen-year-old Ben. He was obviously aching to bundle his feisty aunt into the ambulance but was too respectful to try it.
Aunt Ida’s eyes sought out Kate, who was now standing next to Sandy. ‘Kate? Can you—?’
Kate shook her head regretfully. ‘No can do, I’m afraid.’
‘She’s needed at the hotel. We’re short-staffed,’ said Ben, with an edge of impatience to his voice.
Ida’s piercing blue gaze turned to Sandy. ‘What about you?’
‘Me?’ Was the old lady serious? Or delirious?
Before Sandy could stutter out anything more, Kate had turned to face her.
Her eyes narrowed. ‘Yes. What about you, Sandy? Are you on holiday? Could you help out?’
‘What? No. Sorry. I’m on my way to Melbourne.’ She was so aghast she was gabbling. ‘I’m afraid I won’t be able to—’
‘Friend of Kate’s, are you?’ persisted the old lady, in a voice that in spite of her obvious efforts was beginning to tire.
Compelled by good manners, Sandy took a step forward. ‘No. Yes. Kind of... I—’
She looked imploringly at Ben, uncertain of what to say, not wanting to make an already difficult situation worse.
‘Sandy’s an...an old friend of mine,’ he said, stumbling on the word friend. ‘Just passing through.’
‘Oh,’ said the older lady, ‘so she can’t help out. And I can’t afford to lose even a day’s business.’
Her face seemed to collapse and she looked every minute of her seventy-five years.
Suddenly she reminded Sandy of her grandmother—her mother’s mother. How would she feel if Grandma were stuck in a situation like this?
‘I’m sorry,’ she said reluctantly.
‘Pity.’ Ida sighed. ‘You look nice. Intelligent. The kind of person I could trust with my shop.’ Wearily she closed her eyes again. ‘Find me someone like her, Ben.’
Her voice was beginning to waver. Sandy could barely hear it over the sound of the rain drumming on the awning overhead.
Ben looked from Sandy to his aunt and then back to Sandy again, his eyes unreadable. ‘Maybe...maybe Sandy can be convinced to stay for a few days,’ he said.
Huh? Sandy stared at him. ‘But, Ben, I—’
Ben held her with his glance, his blue eyes intense. He leaned closer to her. ‘Just play along with me and say yes so I can get her to go to the hospital,’ he muttered from the side of his mouth.
‘Oh.’ She paused. Thought for a moment. Thought again. ‘Okay. I’ll look after the shop. Just for a few days. Until you get someone else.’
‘You promise?’ asked Ida.
Promise? Like a cross-your-heart-and-hope-to-die-type promise? The kind of promise she never went back on?
Disconcerted, Sandy nodded. ‘I promise.’
What crazy impulse had made her come out with that? Wanting to please Ben?
Or maybe it was the thought of what she would have liked to happen if it was her grandmother, injured, in pain, and having to beg a stranger to help her.
Ida’s eyes connected with hers. ‘Thank you. Come and see me in the hospital,’ she said, before relaxing with a sigh back onto the gurney.
‘Right. That’s settled.’ Ben slapped the side of the ambulance, turned to the ambulance officer. ‘I’ll ride in the back with my aunt.’
A frail but imperious hand rose. ‘You show your friend around Bay Books. Settle her in.’
Sandy had to fight a smile as she watched Ben do battle with his great-aunt to let him accompany her to the hospital.
Minutes later she stood by Ben’s side, watching the tail-lights of the ambulance disappear into the rain. Kate was in the back with Ida.
‘Your aunt Ida is quite a lady,’ Sandy said, biting her lip to suppress her grin.
‘You bet,’ said Ben, with a wry smile of his own.
‘Isn’t she the aunt who...?’ She held up her hand. ‘Wait. Let me remember. I know!’ she said triumphantly. ‘The aunt who ran off with an around-the-world sailor?’
Ben’s eyes widened. ‘You remember that? From all that time ago?’
I remember because you—and the family I fantasised about marrying into—were so important to me. The words were on the tip of her tongue, but she didn’t—couldn’t—put her voice to them. ‘Of course,’ she said instead. ‘Juicy scandals tend to stick in my mind.’
‘It was a scandal. For these parts anyway. She was the town spinster, thirty-five and unmarried.’
‘Spinster? Ouch! What an awful word.’ She giggled. ‘Hey, I’m thirty and unmarried. Does that make me—’ she made quotation marks in the air with her fingers ‘—a spinster?’
‘As if,’ Ben said with a grin. ‘Try career woman about town—isn’t that more up to date?’
‘Sounds better. But the message is the same.’ She pulled a mock glum face.
Ben stilled, and suddenly he wasn’t joking. He looked into her face for a long, intense minute. An emotion she didn’t recognise flashed through his eyes and then was gone.
‘That boyfriend of yours was an idiot,’ he said gruffly.
He lifted a hand as if he was about to touch her, maybe run his finger down her cheek to her mouth like he’d used to.
She tensed, waiting, not sure if she wanted him to or not. Awareness hung between them like the shimmer off the sea on a thirty-eight-degree day.
He moved a step closer. So close she could clearly see that sexy scar on his mouth. She wondered how it would feel if he kissed her...if he took her in his arms...
Her heart began to hammer in her chest so violently surely he must hear it. Her mouth went suddenly dry.
But then, abruptly, he dropped his hand back by his side, stepped away. ‘He didn’t deserve you,’ he said, in a huskier-than-ever voice.
She breathed out, not realising she had been holding her breath. Not knowing whether to feel disappointed or relieved that there was now a safe, non-kissing zone between her and the man she’d once loved.
She cleared her throat, disconcerted by the certain knowledge that if Ben had kissed her she wouldn’t have pushed him away. No. She would have swayed closer and...
She took a steadying breath. ‘Yeah. Well... I...I’m better off without him. And soon I’ll be living so far away it won’t matter one little bit that he chose his mega-wealthy boss’s daughter over me.’
She wouldn’t take cheating Jason back in a million years. But sometimes it was difficult to keep up the bravado, mask the pain of the way he’d treated her. It was a particular kind of heartbreak to be presented with a fait accompli and no opportunity to make things right. It made it very difficult for her to risk her heart again.
‘Still hurts, huh?’ Ben said, obviously not fooled by her words.
She remembered how he’d used to tease her about her feelings always showing on her face.
She shook her head. After a lacklustre love life she’d thought she’d got things right with Jason. But she wasn’t going to admit to Ben that Jason had proved to be another disappointment.
‘You talk the talk, Sandy,’ Jason had said. ‘But you always held back, were never really there for me.’
She couldn’t see the truth in that—would never have committed to living with Jason if she hadn’t believed she loved him. If she hadn’t believed he would change his mind about marriage.