Hearts Of Gold

CHAPTER SIX

‘WHAT do you mean?’

Her voice seemed to come from a long way off, and it wavered slightly, but she got the question asked.

Alex looked down at her and a smile shifted the lines in his tired face.

‘Just that,’ he said. ‘I find myself looking at you—or looking for you if you’re not around. Part of it’s to do with a ghost who’s haunted me for the past five years, but more to do with the flesh-and-blood woman who came into my life less than a week ago. Crazy, isn’t it?’

The lift arrived and they squeezed in, Alex still holding her close. The lift was full of staff heading for breakfast, and various acquaintances greeted Annie. Hospital gossip being what it was, she was glad she was working in the unit now and not out on a ward where she’d have been teased unmercifully about such blatant behaviour as standing arm in arm with her boss.

But the press of bodies also saved her answering Alex—had she had an answer—and they travelled in silence, then discussed food options as they stood in the queue, everything so back to normal that Annie thought they were safely past the conversation until, once seated at a table in a quiet corner of the room, Alex reintroduced it.

‘You must think I’m crazy, and maybe I am. If this conversation embarrasses you, please write it off as lack of sleep, but yesterday in the park I spent so much time assuring you that dinner would just be a colleague-with-colleague thing—emphasising the casualness of it—and then I had to leave you with Phil last night. Phil with his charm and his good looks and his success with women! I was caught up with Amy and there you were with Phil—that’s when I realised.’

He stopped, perhaps realising now that he wasn’t making a lot of sense, and looked across the table at Annie. Then he shook his head, and this time his smile was tiredly rueful.

‘What I’m trying to say in my inadequate way is that I like you, Annie Talbot. I’m attracted to you, and if it’s OK with you, I’d like to get to know you better.’

Excitement vied with apprehension, but beneath both these emotions was a longing so deep Annie was shaken by it.

It was a longing for love in the biggest, widest, most wonderful sense of the word. A longing to be part of a couple—to share a little of another person’s life, to give and take support, to have someone to laugh and cry and rejoice with, to have someone to hug, or to give a hug to when a hug was needed.

‘What really rocks me is that I thought I’d got over wanting someone in my life,’ she said, looking at Alex as she spoke, knowing he probably wouldn’t understand, as she was no better with words than he had been. ‘I’ve built my life as a single person and, truly, Alex, I’ve enjoyed it. I do enjoy it. I have company when I need it, a job I love, I’m career-focussed and happy that way.’

Alex watched her carefully choosing words and putting them together. He listened to them and though they didn’t spell it out, he was reasonably certain she was telling him she was no longer quite as happy with her chosen path, which, as far as he was concerned, was tantamount to admitting she was as attracted to him as he was to her.

‘Eat your breakfast before it gets totally cold,’ he told her, though he smiled so she would know it wasn’t an order.

She smiled back and a little of his tiredness lifted. Somehow they’d muddled through a very awkward conversation and reached a place where he was pretty sure they could go forward.

Together.

On a kind of trial basis.

He felt an insane urge to shout or clap or otherwise celebrate this breakthrough in the Annie-Alex relationship, but then he remembered other relationships he’d had and the dismal hash he’d made of them. He watched Annie cut a piece of bacon then spear it on her fork, and more doubts assailed him.

Not doubts about Annie and wanting to get to know her better, but doubts about his ability to make her happy—to chase away the shadows he sometimes saw in her eyes.

Was he, with his antipathy to and avoidance of emotional dependency, the right kind of a man for Annie? Could he give her the kind of unconditional love she would need to heal whatever wounds she carried from the past? And wouldn’t wrapping Annie in the kind of love she needed mean unwrapping the protective barriers he’d erected around himself? How else could he bring her close?

And had she actually said she was happy to get to know him better? No, she hadn’t. She’d waffled on as badly as he had, and hadn’t really said anything at all when you got right down to it.

Because she wasn’t sure?

Wasn’t sure about exposing herself to love and perhaps to whatever hurt it had brought to her before?

So he’d have to be mighty careful! Mighty sure that nothing he did would put her in more emotional jeopardy.

‘Aren’t you going to eat yours?’ she asked, drawing his wandering thoughts back to the here and now.

‘I’d better, hadn’t I?’ he said. ‘Or I won’t have the strength to walk you home.’

He watched her as he spoke and saw the shadows he’d been thinking of chase across her face, and he felt a steely resolve to do whatever he could to chase those shadows away.

‘It’s not commitment, Annie,’ he said quickly, not wanting to lose her before the relationship had begun. ‘Just a “getting to know you” kind of relationship. A “let’s see where it goes” experiment.’

The shadows cleared and she smiled at him.

‘In the interests of science, of course,’ she teased, and Alex felt the tension drain out of his body. Yes!

He didn’t punch the air, not physically, but in his head he saw his fingers clench and his hand go up in triumph.

Because she’d tentatively agreed to get to know him better?

Come on, man!

But he couldn’t curb his inner excitement, though he hoped it wasn’t showing on the outside.

He attacked his breakfast, barely noticing it was less appetising than it would have been if eaten hot, but before he’d finished his pessimism had surfaced again, reminding him he was a stranger in a foreign land, in a city he didn’t know. Where was he going to take Annie for a first date? First dates should be special.

‘What are you worrying about now?’ she asked, reminding him he had company at the table.

‘How do you know I’m worrying?’

‘Your eyebrows knit together.’ She softened the blow with another smile. ‘And your lips go tight.’

He tried loosening his tight lips with an only slightly tight smile, and admitted his dilemma.

‘I don’t know where to take you. For our first date.’

He’d expected understanding, but not laughter. She laughed and laughed, the sound so joyous he couldn’t help but enjoy it, though he was a little disgruntled that he could cause such mirth.

‘It’s not a cardiac operation,’ she said when she’d controlled herself enough to speak. ‘It doesn’t have to be planned to the nth degree. We can go to the beach—or for a walk around the harbour foreshore. We can eat at the Thai restaurant down the road from where we live, or at the little Italian place on the other side of the park.’

And why are you suggesting places to go with this man when you know full well you shouldn’t be seeing him at all? Annie’s head asked her, but the longing had won out over caution, and already she was excited about going to the beach or walking the foreshore with Alex.

If he ever had any time off, she amended as a buzzing sound had them both reaching for their pagers.

‘It’s mine,’ he said, pushing back his chair and standing up. ‘It’s the ward. I’ll phone from over there…’ He nodded towards the house phone on the wall. ‘But if it’s the unit, I’ll have to go.’

He hesitated for a fraction of a second, then reached out and touched his hand to her hair.

‘May I call and see you later? When I’ve slept and showered and shaved?’

Big moment this, but Annie barely hesitated.

‘I’d like that,’ she said, then she looked up into his face. ‘But if you don’t make it, I’ll understand. You need to catch up on your sleep. That’s far more important than visiting me.’

Alex smiled at her.

‘I wouldn’t be too sure about that,’ he said, then he lifted a strand of hair and gave a gentle tug. ‘See you later, Annie Talbot!’

Annie Talbot! If only she was Annie Talbot! Annie Talbot could certainly have a ‘getting to know you’ relationship with Alex. Or run with a ‘see where it goes’ experiment.

After all, the man was returning to the US in a year. It wouldn’t be a for ever and ever kind of relationship.

She worried about it all the way home.

‘So, what do you think, Dad?’

Her father was breakfasting with Henry in the kitchen, and as he had so willingly gone into exile with her—had, in fact, arranged a lot of it—she’d had to share this new development with him.

‘You like him?’

‘I do,’ she admitted, then she took a deep breath. ‘But there’s more to it than liking and more complications than a quick romance with a nice man. Remember I told you about dancing with the man on the terrace at the hotel? The night I left Dennis? The night I phoned home?’

‘I remember too much about that night,’ her father growled. ‘Too bloody much!’

Annie reached out and squeezed his shoulder.

‘It’s all behind us, Dad,’ she said. ‘We’ve moved on. Anyway, he’s the man. Alex is. He’s the man I danced with that night.’

‘Then I should like to shake his hand,’ her father said, not seeing the point Annie was trying to make.

‘You will, and maybe soon, but you won’t say anything. That’s the problem, Dad. Don’t you see? He moves in the same circles as Dennis. You’ve done so much to hide me from him and his private investigators, and by getting close to Alex I could wreck all that.’

‘If he’s a decent man, there’s no way he’d betray you to that—that animal!’

‘He is a decent man, and that’s what worries me. I’ll be going into a relationship with him, however casual, under false pretences—knowing it can never go anywhere, that I could never marry him. Oh, I know I’m looking too far ahead, and we might never get that far in our relationship, but if we do…’

She broke off, unable to put into words the uncertainty she felt.

‘What if you enjoy the present and let the future take care of itself, love?’ her father suggested, covering her hand with his and giving her fingers a squeeze. ‘You had precious little happiness in your life with Dennis, for all your insistence he wasn’t always the way he turned out. You deserve all the love that comes your way. Go for it, and we’ll sort out what needs to be sorted out when and if it happens.’

Annie felt her heart lift at her father’s assurance, though some doubts remained. Plenty of doubts!

Alex was as good as his word, arriving early evening, freshly showered and shaven and slightly less tired-looking, wearing black jeans and a charcoal polo shirt and looking so—so manly that Annie felt her heart skip with excitement, the way it had when she’d been a teenager on one of her very first dates.

‘You’d better come in and meet the author,’ Annie suggested, when they’d both stood awkwardly on the doorstep for far too long.

‘I’d like that,’ Alex replied, and Annie relaxed. For a moment there she’d thought it was all going to fall apart—her with her skipping heart, dry mouth and brain that refused to function, and Alex thinking who knew what about the dummy who’d opened the door.

Primed to say nothing about the past, Rod Talbot greeted Alex easily, but Annie knew his sharp eyes were taking in the man, and his writer’s mind would store all the conversation for perusal later.

‘Annie tells me you’ve read some of my books. I hope they haven’t had you cursing over the author’s ineptitude.’

‘On the contrary,’ Alex said. ‘I’ve found them good fast reads. Totally engrossing. And though I don’t as yet know Sydney, you paint a picture of a fascinating city.’

‘It is that!’ Rod said, and Annie smiled to herself, remembering the hours she and her father had spent exploring the city when he’d first decided to set his mysteries here.

She watched Alex as he chatted to her father, bringing up scenes from the books he’d read, asking questions about writing.

‘Can you type or do you use a voice-activated programme on a computer?’

Her father held up his hands.

‘Tactful way to ask the question,’ he answered. ‘Rheumatoid arthritis—terrible disease. Started out thinking I’d save my hands—had knuckle replacements and all, but no good came of them. No, the voice programme works for me. You have to train them, you know, to your own voice and words, but Katy—I call mine Katy—makes me feel as if I’ve got a secretary. Katy knows me nearly as well as Annie does.’

‘Dad also runs a tape recorder, so if something happens to the computer version of the story, he’s got it on tape.’

‘But what about changing things—going back over to take something out or put something in? I have to do that all the time just writing a paper, so that must be hard.’

‘I have a real secretary for that,’ Rod explained. ‘She comes for three hours every afternoon and we tidy things up. I can type a bit so I do some of that part as well.’

‘And you’re fairly mobile? Able to transfer yourself? Do you drive?’

Annie smiled to herself. She’d heard Alex ask the parents of his patients personal questions that seemed unrelated to their child’s condition, but knew he liked a whole picture of the family, saying it helped him see what stresses might arise later when they were responsible for caring for their convalescing child.

Her father seemed untroubled by Alex’s interest, explaining he could take care of himself, just used the chair for mobility because his hip joints made walking both painful and risky. But, yes, he drove—had a lift on the car to put his wheelchair on the top of it, and used hand controls fixed to the steering wheel.

‘It’s the very latest system. Would you like to see it?’

‘I would,’ Alex said, and Annie started planning dinner. Her father was enjoying Alex’s company and Annie knew Alex was genuinely interested, not just trying to make a good first impression. In fact, she doubted it would occur to Alex that he was making a good impression.

‘We may as well eat here,’ she said, when they returned an hour later—her father having taken Alex for a drive to show him how the car worked.

Alex began to protest, but Annie shook her head.

‘We can go for a walk after dinner,’ she told him. ‘After all, you cooked for me last night—why shouldn’t I cook for you?’

Henry, who’d greeted Alex earlier, sniffed around him, looking for Minnie, and not finding her had gone to bed, now heard the magic word ‘walk’ and appeared from the laundry where he slept.

‘Not you,’ Annie told him.

‘Best you take the dog,’ her father said, but Annie ignored the comment, instead instructing the men to sit down and asking Alex what he’d like to drink.

‘Dad and I will both have red wine. Would you like a glass or would you prefer something else?’

‘A glass of red would be great,’ he said, and went on to mention some of the Australian red wines that had become his favourites.

‘Lucky you,’ Annie told him, showing him the bottle before she poured. It was on the top of his list!

‘So we’ve similar tastes in red wine at least,’ he said, smiling at her, though with a rueful look in his eyes as if to apologise about this ‘first date’.

But the evening, for Annie, was just perfect. Alex seemed right at home, discussing books and wine and making them laugh at the things he’d found hard to understand when he’d first arrived in Australia.

‘Just because we speak the same language, we assume we understand each other,’ Annie said, about to recount an anecdote about her early days in the US then remembering she shouldn’t. She changed the conversation to pronunciation differences, talking about New Zealanders and South Africans rather than Americans, but she guessed Alex had caught the conversational shift.

It was impossible, she decided. She couldn’t go out with Alex, not if it meant pretending she’d never lived in the US. Not if it meant never acknowledging she was the woman he’d danced with on the terrace. How could they ever be at ease if that knowledge lay unspoken between them, yet how could she explain—tell him about that night—without telling him more?

She looked at him, his craggy face alive with intelligence and good humour as he explained the intricacies of American football to her father. Everything she knew of Alex indicated he was a good man—firm and demanding of his staff but quick to praise their efforts. Honest in his dealings with his patients’ parents, yet empathetic as well, so they trusted their children’s lives to him and knew he’d do his best.

But he wouldn’t tolerate sloppy work, or anyone doing less than their best. She also knew, instinctively, he wouldn’t tolerate deception, and what else would a relationship between them be?

She cleared away the dishes while Alex drew a diagram of a football field in the notebook her father always carried, and talked about offensive plays and touchdowns. By the time her father had learnt all he needed to know to enjoy the American football games he watched on cable television, Annie had stacked the dishwasher and put a plate of cheese, fruit and biscuits on the table.

‘No more food!’ Alex protested. ‘In fact, I think it’s time I walked off some of that delicious dinner.’

He turned to Annie.

‘You mentioned the beach, and I know it’s not far away. Shall we go there for our walk? I’m happy to drive if you direct me.’

Annie hesitated.

‘You go,’ her father said, no doubt aware of all the machinations of her mind.

Annie nodded, thinking the beach would be as good a place as any to tell Alex what she had to tell him. To tell him she didn’t think even a getting-to-know-each-other relationship would work.

‘I’ll just get a jacket. I can duck up the back lane and meet you at your car,’ she said, but Alex shook his head.

‘I’ll wait for you. We’ll go together. We’ll sneak away without our respective dogs knowing what we’re up to.’

Annie slipped upstairs, heart again skipping with excitement although she kept telling it this was the end, not the beginning.

Alex drove easily, and in one of life’s little miracles they found a parking space not far from the wide concrete steps that led down to the beach. It was after eleven and only a few people wandered along the broad strip of sand, although a scattering of couples and groups, drawn to the soothing sounds of the surf, were walking on the promenade.

Annie breathed deeply, drawing the damp, salt-laden air into her lungs.

‘I love standing by the Pacific and thinking the next big lump of land it hits is America. I love the idea that the water in a wave I’m watching here might one day, depending on the currents, wash across a beach in California.’

Alex put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her body closer to his.

‘Should we talk about the big lump of land that is America? About North America in particular?’

Annie sighed.

‘We should, Alex,’ she said, relishing his warmth and closeness, wishing with all her heart this could be a real ‘first date’ so they were coming together with nothing but expectations of fun and pleasure—with no baggage from the past. ‘But I’m not sure that I can. Or ought to…’

She couldn’t go on, couldn’t come right out and say, I’m living a lie.

‘Then we’ll walk,’ he said, his voice strained. ‘But one day, Annie, I hope you’ll feel you can trust me well enough to talk.’

His disappointment in her was so obvious, it cut into Annie like a scalpel.

‘Maybe we shouldn’t even walk,’ she muttered, but Alex was already guiding her towards the smooth wet sand where the waves finished their journey across the Pacific. He released her for a moment to slip off his shoes and turn up the bottoms of his jeans, and she bent and took off her sandals. Then, with his arm around her shoulders once again, they paddled through the shallows to where the beach ended in a high tumble of rocks that stretched, like the humped back of some fossilised sea creature out into the waves.

And in the shadow of the rocks he turned her towards him and drew her body close to his, then bent his head and kissed her with a mastery his previous kisses had ensured.

Annie was surprised at how familiar his body felt, how at home she felt in his arms. And the kiss. It was a different kind of magic—sweet, gentle and seductively addictive.

Until the first easy exploratory moves were done! Then the attraction she felt for Alex fired a need so deep and filled with longing she couldn’t pretend, even to herself, that this was just a casual, first-date kind of kiss. This was a kiss that sent tendrils of desire spreading through her body, seeking out the deep-hidden places and bringing nerves and flesh to life with a tingling, trembling, pleading anticipation.

Somewhere there was noise. Loud noise. Annie hoped it wasn’t her making it—whooping and crying out as her body delighted in Alex’s embrace. Then Alex gently put her from him.

‘Someone’s in trouble,’ he said, sounding as breathless as she felt. At that moment Annie saw the source of the noise, a young man standing on one of the humps of rock, calling for help.