Falling Again for the Animal Whisperer

by Becky Wicks

* * *

  ‘Hello! I’m here. Anyone home?’

  Lily jumped as she heard the front door slam and her sister’s voice calling for her.

  Poppy had arrived and the energy in the house kicked up a notch, swirling around Lily as the serenity of the day evaporated. From the time she could walk Poppy’s life had moved at a million miles an hour. She was loud and fast and hectic. By comparison, Lily and Daisy, the eldest and youngest Carlson sisters, were quiet. Only their brother, Jet, could give Poppy a run for her money in the volume stakes and that was only at certain times. Jet had two settings—quietly monosyllabic or loud and boisterous. Poppy constantly operated at full volume and top speed, as if there were too many things to get done, no time to stop.

  Poppy was standing just inside the front hall. She had two bags slung over her shoulders but she dumped them on the floor to hug her sister.

  Lily hugged her tightly before stepping back to look at her younger sibling.

  Poppy was a mixture of her older and younger sisters physically but there wasn’t much of either of them in Poppy’s personality. Lily wondered momentarily how disruptive Poppy’s arrival was going to be. But when Poppy had called and said she needed a place to stay, Lily hadn’t hesitated. They might be like chalk and cheese in many ways but they were family and, as the eldest of the Carlson tribe, Lily had always made her siblings her priority. Poppy could be exhausting but Lily would deal with the logistics of her arrival just like she dealt with everything else—almost everything else, she amended silently, knowing there was one issue she was continuing to ignore. Having Poppy stay might turn out to be a bonus—someone else’s drama might be a good distraction from the mess of her own personal life.

  ‘Why don’t you put your things in here?’ Lily pointed to the bedroom off the hall on their right. ‘And I’ll put the kettle on.’

  * * *

  Poppy threw her bags onto the bed. This room was at the front of the house that Lily used to share with her husband. Poppy wondered if Lily had spoken to Otto recently or if she was still struggling with what had happened between them. She’d had a difficult time and she had Poppy’s sympathy.

  Thinking about Lily’s love life reminded her to try calling Craig. Again. She took her phone out of her bag and brought up his number but, for the second time in as many hours, her call went to voice mail. This time she left a message, letting him know she’d arrived safely and asking him to call her back. She ended the call, annoyed that he hadn’t phoned her after the last message. He would have checked his phone. Surely, he’d want to know she’d reached Sydney safely?

  She sighed, knowing there was nothing she could do about it. She kicked off her shoes and headed for the kitchen.

  Lily’s house was tall and narrow, it spanned four levels but was only one room wide, and it was in a magnificent position, perched on the hill at the southern end of Bondi with an incredible view looking east over the ocean and north over the famous beach. The kitchen opened onto a deck and Poppy stepped out and tipped her face to the sky, letting the sun warm her skin. She inhaled and let the scent of the sea wash over her. She’d missed the beach.

  She had spent most of the past nine years living in Brisbane, which, despite it being the capital of Queensland, was severely lacking in beaches. Having grown up in Byron Bay on the New South Wales north coast, the ocean was in her blood and it was good to be able to step outside and see the waves and smell the salt air.

  ‘Where’s Daisy?’ Poppy asked as Lily handed her a mug of tea and sat beside her on a high stool that afforded them a view over the sea. The kitchen was on the entrance level but the ground sloped away below the deck and Poppy could look down into the garden or out over the ocean.

  ‘She’s at work, she’s on an early and I have to go in shortly as there are a couple of patients I need to check.’ Both Lily and Daisy worked at Bondi General Hospital. Lily was a first-year resident and Daisy was a paediatric nurse. ‘I thought we could have a family dinner tonight, though, I’ve asked Jet, too. He’s on duty today but finishes at seven.’

  Their brother, Jet, who was sandwiched between Lily and Poppy in the family order, worked as a lifeguard, employed by the local council to patrol Bondi Beach and neighbouring Tamarama and Bronte beaches. It was a full-time job and one that Poppy knew he loved. Jet’s personality was perfectly suited to the role—every day was different, the job kept him fit, he was surrounded by blokes but had plenty of female attention. Some of the aspects appealed to Poppy—namely the excitement and variety—but it wasn’t a career she wanted. The financial reward wasn’t generous enough for her and job security was another factor. Jet had to prove his physical fitness every year—that wasn’t a problem for him, he was a professional athlete as well and trained hard, but while Poppy maintained her fitness for her career as a paramedic she felt that having to pass a test every year to keep her job would be stressful.

  ‘So, how was the drive?’

  ‘Fine.’ Poppy had split the long drive south from Queensland to New South Wales over two days to make it manageable. ‘I didn’t have any dramas but it was a little lonely. It would have been nice to share it with Craig.’ Craig’s employer was transferring him to Sydney and Poppy had applied to join the New South Wales Ambulance service in order to move with him. But Craig was currently busy on a large project that had delayed his move and Poppy had found herself relocating to Sydney ahead of him.

  ‘Has he booked a flight to come down for a weekend?’ Lily asked.

  Poppy shook her head. ‘Not yet. He said he’ll come down in a fortnight’s time. I’m hoping that will give me time to line up a few rentals to look at when he’s here.’

  ‘What does his time frame look like now? Is he still thinking his move will be a few months away?’

  Poppy nodded. ‘He doesn’t think he’ll get here for another three months. He reckons he’ll need to work through Christmas and won’t be able to move until the end of January. One or the other of us will travel up or down every two or three weeks.’ Poppy shrugged and added, ‘Lots of couples have long-distance relationships, it’ll be fine.’ It wasn’t until she saw Lily’s stricken expression that she realised what she’d said. ‘Sorry, Lil, I wasn’t thinking.’

  Poppy waited for Lily’s response to her apology but Lily was silent, her face blank. Lily and her husband had been living separately for almost two years. Otto was in London, doing his medical speciality training, and Lily should have been there with him, but their plans had gone awry and Lily had come home.

  ‘How is Otto?’ Poppy asked, filling the silence.

  ‘Can we not talk about this now?’ Lily said as she stood and picked up their empty mugs. Poppy knew she was using the activity as a means of avoiding eye contact. ‘I need to get to work.’

  ‘Of course.’ Poppy didn’t want to upset her further. She’d hoped Lily and Otto would have made some progress in healing their relationship or, if that wasn’t possible, at least made some progress in deciding how they were going to move forward. She knew their separation was about more than just physical distance but she also suspected the distance was making things more difficult. She hoped they would eventually be able to resolve their differences and while she wasn’t about to insist that Lily talk to her right now she did make a mental note to broach the topic again. She needed to check on Lily’s well-being.

  * * *

  Poppy changed into her bikini, shorts and a T-shirt as Lily left for work. She’d go to the beach for a quick swim, she decided, say hi to her brother and then come back and make a start on dinner.

  She checked her phone for what felt like the hundredth time as she slid her feet into her flip-flops. Still nothing. She tossed it back on the bed. She wouldn’t take it to the beach as she wasn’t planning to be gone for long. If Craig called while she was out, she’d call him back later.

  She left her car parked on the road in front of the house and walked dow
n Edward Street towards the beach. After consecutive six-hour days in the car, driving from Brisbane to Sydney, she needed to stretch her legs and the fifteen-minute walk to Campbell Parade would help to clear the cobwebs.

  She turned onto the pedestrian path and walked along the promenade past the skate park and the mural wall towards the lifeguard tower.

  She stopped before she reached the tower and leaned on the railing and looked out over the beach. The sun was behind her and the sea shone in the afternoon light. The sand was crisp and white and, despite the fact that it was not yet the summer holidays, the beach was busy. She took a deep breath, filling her lungs with the sea air, and stood for a moment, enjoying the feeling of warm sun on her skin as she watched the water.

  The waves were small but she could spot the rips, the deceptively smooth water between breaking waves. She had years of experience as a surfer—growing up in Byron Bay, she and her siblings had learned to surf almost before they could walk—but she could see why the tourists and the locals who weren’t familiar with the ocean could be fooled into thinking the rips were safe spots to swim.

  She turned to the south to see if she could pick out Lily’s house perched on the cliff before she spun on her heel and headed for the circular lifeguard tower. She knocked on the blue door and waited, if Jet wasn’t in there someone would be able to tell her where he was.

  ‘Poppy! You’re here.’ Jet grinned as he swung the door open. His welcoming smile was wide, his perfect teeth white and even in his tanned face. His blond hair was pulled back into a messy man bun but that was all Poppy had time to absorb before he stepped out of the tower and wrapped her in a tight hug. He stood well over six feet tall, and even with his slim but muscular athlete’s build he managed to make her feel small. She was five feet seven inches, not short for a girl, but Jet made her feel petite.

  He released her and dragged her into the tower where he introduced her to the other lifeguards.

  ‘Guys, this is my little sister, Poppy. Poppy, meet the guys—Gibbo, Bluey and Dutchy.’

  Poppy smiled at Jet’s use of the guys’ nicknames.

  ‘Are you going to hang around here for a while?’ he asked as Poppy finished saying hello.

  ‘No, I just wanted to say hi. I’m going to have a swim and then head home. I hear you’re coming for dinner.’

  Jet nodded and looked as if he was about to say something else when the radio on the desk crackled into life.

  ‘Central, this is Easy. We’ve got a problem down here, south of the flags.’

  He held up one hand in Poppy’s direction, asking her to wait as he grabbed the radio. ‘Go ahead, Ryder.’

  ‘The tourist I pulled from Backpackers’, he’s not looking great. I’m bringing him back to the tower for an assessment.’

  Poppy’s ears pricked up as she listened to the exchange. Ryder was an unusual name. She’d only ever known one and he had been Jet’s best friend when they were at high school. He’d also been her first crush. But the Ryder she’d known had moved away when he was seventeen, breaking her young, impressionable heart in the process—although she’d kept that to herself—and she hadn’t seen him since.

  It couldn’t be him, though, could it? Surely Jet would have said something.

  ‘Ryder?’ she said as Jet put the radio down.

  ‘Yeah, Ryder Evans, you remember him?’

  Of course she remembered him.

  She could feel herself colouring as she thought about the last time she’d seen him. She hoped Jet didn’t notice the blush she could feel creeping up her neck.

  She nodded. ‘You never told me he was in Sydney.’

  ‘Didn’t I?’ Jet shrugged. ‘Probably figured you wouldn’t care, you haven’t seen him for the best part of twelve years,’ he said over his shoulder as he went to open the door to the tower.

  He had a point. He wouldn’t think it was important. It wasn’t important really, although that didn’t stop a frisson of nervousness from shooting through her at the thought of seeing him again. She hadn’t thought about him for years, had finally let the idea of him go, yet at the mere mention of his name all the old feelings rose to the surface along with all the memories of how much he’d meant to her teenage self. She could instantly recall all her teenage fantasies and the memories made her blush.

  The lifeguard buggy pulled to a stop at the bottom of the metal stairs that led from the sand to the tower entrance and Poppy’s jaw dropped as a lifeguard jumped out. Tall and muscular, tanned and fit.

  Was that Ryder?

  She managed to close her mouth as she watched him help his patient out of the buggy and up the stairs.

  She hung back, out of the way, as Ryder got the man into the tower and onto the treatment plinth. Jet went to assist, instructing Bluey to keep an eye on the beach. Poppy stayed near the desk by the windows. The lifeguards had a job to do and she didn’t want to be a nuisance but staying out of the way also gave her a chance to check Ryder out unobserved. She knew he hadn’t noticed her, he was too focussed on his patient.

  The last time she’d seen him there had been a hint of the man he would become, of the man waiting to emerge, but he’d still been a gangly teenager. He’d been tall but he’d yet to have a fast growth spurt or develop the muscle definition that would come with adulthood. But all traces of adolescence had disappeared now. Now there was no hiding the man. And no ignoring the feeling of warmth that was spreading through her belly and into her groin. Poppy leaned on the desk, taking the weight off her suddenly shaky legs.

  Fortunately Ryder had his back to her and wouldn’t be aware of her reaction but she was very aware of him.

  He’d grown even taller and he’d definitely filled out. He’d developed muscles where he hadn’t had them before. He wore only a pair of black boardshorts with ‘Lifeguard’ emblazoned across his hips and she had plenty of opportunity to admire the view of sculpted muscles and smooth, tanned skin. His shoulders were broad, his biceps bulging, his waist narrow. He looked fit. He looked healthy. He looked magnificent.

  She ran her gaze up the length of his spine and up his neck. She could see where the knobs of his vertebrae disappeared into his hair. He’d always had amazing hair, dark blond and thick, and at almost twenty-nine years of age it seemed he’d lost none of it.

  Her gaze traced the line of his jaw. It was strong and square. He looked good, even better than she remembered, and she felt another rush of blood to her cheeks as her heart skittered in her chest.

  Her hands gripped the edge of the desk as she observed him, keeping her fixed in place, and she wondered at the involuntary response. Was she stopping herself from crossing the room? While her rational mind might tell her that Ryder’s unexpected appearance was of no consequence, it seemed her body had other ideas. Her palms were clammy and her mouth was dry and she suddenly felt like the sixteen-year-old schoolgirl she’d been when she’d last seen him.

  When she had kissed him.

  And he had kissed her back.

  She knew from talking to her girlfriends that first kisses often weren’t anywhere near as fabulous as they’d dreamed about but the kiss she and Ryder had shared had been everything she’d hoped for and more. It had been the biggest moment of her young life. It had changed her life.

  She’d fallen in love.

  First love.

  She had only been a teenager but that hadn’t made it any less real, any less all-encompassing, any less all-consuming.

  And it hadn’t made it any less painful when he’d walked out of her life.

  Copyright © 2021 by Emily Forbes

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  ISBN-13: 9781488074882

  Falling Again for the Animal Whisperer

  Copyright © 2021 by Becky Wicks

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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