‘Cactus Beach is well known in surfing circles.’
Aidan was a surfer? Really?
‘If we drive to Penong today, we could spend all of tomorrow at the beach.’
‘So...we’d spend two nights at Penong before heading for Port Augusta?’
‘That’s right.’
The lure of not having to pack up everything for a whole day spoke to her. Loudly.
The boys started shouting out their excited endorsements of Aidan’s plan, interspersed with lots of pleading and assurances that Chase was better and that they’d be extra good.
A whole day at the beach? It sounded wonderful. This was exactly the kind of adventure she’d hoped for on their journey. Her boys’ excited faces almost sealed the deal, but she forced herself to pull back. It was harder than it should’ve been. ‘What about your burning need to get to Adelaide asap?’
Robbie scowled at Aidan. ‘Why you wanna do that? Aren’t you having fun with us?’
‘I’m having the best time,’ Aidan assured him. ‘And I have another song to teach you later.’
Robbie’s scowl vanished.
Aidan ran his hand down the crease in his T-shirt again. She tried not to follow his hand’s progress. ‘I think my absence in the office for another couple of days could be a...’ The happy light in his eyes faded a little. ‘A good thing.’
Why should that leach the happiness from him?
She glanced down at her toast. She’d had a thought or two on that head, but... It’s none of your business. Then she recalled the way he’d vaulted the pool fence and the way he’d lifted Chase into his arms.
She could make it her business.
At the beach.
‘It sounds like the best idea ever.’ She crossed her fingers. Aidan grinned. The boys cheered.
She turned to Robbie and Chase. ‘It does mean a long time in the car today.’
‘We promise to be good.’ Robbie nudged Chase, who nodded enthusiastically. ‘If we get grumpy we’ll just think of the beach and we’ll be happy again. It’ll make it all worth it.’
Oh, how she wished she could’ve given them more fun, more outings and holidays in their short lives. She swallowed a lump. ‘Okay, then. Let’s get this mess cleaned up and start packing.’
* * *
They reached Cactus Beach at the end of a long dirt road. The landscape surrounding them amazed Quinn. Nullarbor translated from the Latin to mean no trees and today it definitely lived up to its reputation. Rocks, low scrub and amazing sand dunes stretched out on all sides. When the beach came into view, nobody uttered a word.
A crescent of white sand with rocky outcrops at either end and a sea of jewelled blues and greens spread out before them like an ancient Mecca. It was utterly deserted. And it was utterly beautiful.
The boys just stared at it with their mouths agape. Aidan folded his arms and grinned. She let out a long, low, pent-up breath.
Aidan swung to them, his grin widening. ‘Cactus Beach has three perfect surfing breaks—Castles and Cactus which are both left-handers and Caves which is a powerful right hand break.’
‘And that’s good?’
‘It’s epic!’
Right. ‘I hate to rain on your parade, but you, uh, don’t have a surfboard with you.’
He shook his head. ‘Doesn’t matter. I can now say I’ve been here.’
Robbie and Chase broke free from their enthralment long enough to tug at her, their excitement palpable. ‘Can we, Mum? Huh, can we?’
She’d already slathered them both in sunblock back at their on-site van in Penong. It might be late March, but the sun shone with all of its usual enthusiasm and the faint breeze was warm with the memory of summer. ‘Okay, give me your shirts and off you go.’
Both boys raced straight for the water.
She could tell Aidan itched to hit the waves as much as her children did. Still, he waited for her to choose the perfect patch of sand before setting down the cooler bag that practically burst with their supplies for the day. She’d packed sodas, water, sandwiches and fruit. She’d even splurged on cheese and crackers.
‘Go on.’ She gave him a playful push. ‘I can tell you’re as eager to be out there as Robbie and Chase.’
She glanced at the boys. For all of his talk of big breaks, the surf was remarkably gentle today.
He flashed a grin that made her heart stutter before dragging his shirt over his head and revealing a perfectly toned torso. Wind instantly rushed in her ears, filling her head with noise. She stared, pressing hands to cheeks that had grown red-hot. With a start she pulled them away and pushed them into the small of her back instead and pretended to stretch, praying he hadn’t noticed her heat and confusion...her desire.
She sent up a prayer of thanks when she finally managed to make her eyes focus. He just stood there as if relishing the feel of the sun against his bare skin. She glanced away, having to fight the urge to reach out and touch him. For all his talk of castles and caves and whatnot, he wasn’t what she’d call tanned for this time of year. Exactly how many hours was he putting in at that office of his?
Her lips twisted. At the moment she’d bet eighty-hour weeks were a conservative guess. The thought made her shudder. It eased the burn threatening to consume her too. He might have a hot body—the hottest she’d seen in a very long time—and he might be a nice man—the nicest she’d come across in a very long time—but his lifestyle was repugnant to her. Why would someone embark on a relationship with a man like him? You’d never see him long enough to enjoy the hot body or to indulge in long, intimate conversations.
Why? Her lips twisted. Status, standing and prestige, not to mention wealth. That was why. And none of that could tempt her.
He took a step towards the water. ‘I hope you’re wearing sunscreen.’ As soon as the words left her mouth, she realised how ludicrous they were. The man had been trying to get a flight out of Perth. One thing he hadn’t been doing was planning a beach holiday.
He turned back and his grin when it came was low and wicked. She wanted to respond. She wanted to take the bottle of lotion from her bag, amble over to him with a sinuous swing of her hips and slowly rub lotion into his shoulders, his back and his chest. She’d like to—
She snapped herself out of her fantasy—reminded herself about eighty-hour working weeks—seized the bottle of sunscreen and tossed it to him.
‘Are you coming in?’ he asked when he was done, handing the bottle back to her.
He hadn’t been able to reach all of his back. Not your problem.
With a sigh she took the bottle from him and poured lotion into her hand. She didn’t need a travelling companion with a serious case of sunburn. Or sunstroke. She slathered it on his back with as much cool efficiency as she could muster. Reciting the periodic table in her mind helped.
‘Would you like me to return the favour?’
She recapped the bottle a little too vigorously. ‘Uh, no thank you. Robbie and Chase took care of it earlier.’
‘So, are you coming in?’
That was when she realised she’d been biting her lip the entire time. She released it. ‘Sure I am. In a bit.’ She couldn’t explain why, but she didn’t want to pull her sundress over her head to stand in front of him in nothing but her birthday suit.
Bathing suit! Lord, talk about a Freudian slip.
She was a mother. She had responsibilities. Ignoring Aidan, she walked down to the shore to paddle and keep an eye on the boys. She was no longer that impulsive girl who’d let passion rule her head. Even if a remnant of that girl remained in the woman she’d become.
Eventually, though, the lure of the water became too much and she tossed her dress to the sand. She splashed with the boys. She laughed and relaxed and forgot to worry about anything for a while.
Chase didn’t have Robbie’s confidence in the surf, but he begged her to take him out to the deeper water. Robbie wanted to go out too. He was a good swimmer, but if either one of them got into troubl
e she’d be hard pressed to deal with the both of them. She was about to suggest she take them out one at a time, but suddenly Aidan was there with a summer grin and holiday eyes.
‘Hey, Robbie, you wanna learn how to body surf?’
‘Yes!’
So they all moved into the deeper water beyond the break of the waves. The gentle rolling of the swell rocked them and it eased the frenetic craziness of the last few weeks. She gave Chase a swimming lesson, and then they both floated for a while. She turned her head to watch Aidan and Robbie.
A laugh spurted out of her oldest son and then he looked up at Aidan as if...
She straightened. Her heart caught and then vibrated with sudden pain. Aidan was all kindness and attention and her eldest son was blossoming under that influence. In fact, Robbie lapped up every scrap of Aidan’s attention like a starving dog.
Her eyes stung. She knew he hungered for this kind of male bonding. If only Phillip would spend more time with his sons!
‘Ow, Mum, you’re hurting my hand!’
She immediately relaxed her grip on Chase’s hand. ‘Sorry, honey.’
‘Can we go in so I can jump over the waves again?’
‘Sure we can.’
She and Chase jumped waves, but the entire time she could see her eldest son’s hero worship growing—it was reflected in the way he laughed too loudly, the way he gazed up at Aidan, and in his absolute lack of self-consciousness as he came out of his usual reserved shell.
Damn it! Why couldn’t she be everything her sons needed? Why couldn’t she be both mother and father to them? She didn’t want them to lack for anything and it wasn’t right that they should.
She re-tied her ponytail. She only had one set of arms and one set of legs, though, and there were two of them and some days she was spread too thin as it was.
‘Are you okay?’
She jumped to find Aidan beside her, staring down at her with narrowed eyes. She spun and located both Robbie and Chase. ‘Yes, I’m perfect.’
‘I’ll second that.’ He grinned down at her and it snapped her out of her funk in an instant. The remnant of the reckless girl she’d once been gave a long, low stretch. Her common sense raised an eyebrow. She had to bite back a groan. If she weren’t careful she’d end up with a serious case of hero worship too.
* * *
Robbie insisted on sitting next to Aidan when they had lunch. He argued about putting his shirt and hat back on, until Aidan put his shirt on too.
She liked Aidan. She liked him a lot, but it would do Robbie no good to become too attached to him. They’d see neither hide nor hair of Aidan once this adventure was over.
Aidan would return to his relentless workload and his social position and his prominence on the political landscape and he’d have no time for surfing with young boys.
She rested back on one hand and bit into an apple. ‘I guess we’d best make the most of your company while we have it, Aidan. I mean in another two days we’ll be in Adelaide.’
Robbie stared from Aidan to her. ‘What happens in Adelaide?’
‘The plane strike ended today so I guess Aidan will catch a plane back to Sydney.’
‘But we could drop him off in Sydney in the car.’
‘We could,’ she agreed. It took an effort to keep the smile on her face and her voice breezy. ‘But it’ll take a few days longer and Aidan can’t afford any more time off work.’
Aidan looked as if she’d slapped him. Oh, Aidan... She ached to reach out and hug him.
‘Aidan could come visit us at Aunt Mara’s.’
‘’Course he can,’ she agreed. ‘Just as soon as he has some free time.’
Robbie’s face fell and she knew he was thinking of his father’s endless litany of excuses for why he couldn’t visit. Oh, Robbie... She wanted to hug him and never let him go. But that wouldn’t help him either, not in the long term.
‘Hey, who wants to go and explore the rock pools over there?’
That distracted both of the boys. She packed up the remnants of their lunch before grabbing the can of soda she hadn’t finished yet. The boys raced ahead.
‘Are you looking forward to getting rid of me?’
The bluntness of Aidan’s question shattered her carefully constructed veneer. ‘Oh, Aidan, no.’ She reached out to grip his arm. ‘I don’t know if you realise this or not, but Robbie is developing a serious case of hero worship where you’re concerned.’
‘I...’ He blinked.
‘You’re being great with him. I don’t want you to change the way you are...’
‘But?’
She realised she still held him. She let him go. ‘These aren’t waters I’ve had to navigate before.’ Adelaide loomed ahead like a dark cloud. ‘I just want him to be prepared for when we do part company, that’s all. I wasn’t trying to make you feel unwanted.’
He grimaced and scratched a hand through his hair. ‘Sorry, I’m not usually so touchy.’
But they’d been having the most perfect day and her words had obviously taken him off guard.
‘I’m clueless—’ he waved towards Robbie ‘—about the whole kid thing.’
‘So am I some days.’
‘What about their father? Where’s he?’
‘In London at the moment. When he’s in Australia he’s mostly in Sydney. His contact with the boys is erratic.’ It was the politest way she could put it.
Aidan called Phillip such a rude name she snorted soda out of her nose. Not that she disagreed with him. ‘That’s one way of putting it.’
‘Sorry.’
‘You are not.’ But she didn’t mind in the least. ‘He claims that our living in Perth makes it difficult for him to visit. But now surely a two-hour drive north isn’t too much of an effort when he is in the country. I’m hoping this move means Phillip will start spending more time with Robbie and Chase. God knows they crave it.’
He stopped and fixed her with those fiery amber eyes. ‘That’s the real reason you’re moving, isn’t it?’
He said it as if it were the most amazing thing. She wrinkled her nose and rolled her shoulders.
‘It is, isn’t it?’
It was part of it. So what? ‘There are a whole host of reasons.’
He caught her hand, pulled her to a halt, turning her to face him. ‘It is, isn’t it?’
The warmth and sympathy in his eyes had a lump wedging in her throat. She wanted to fling herself into his arms and soak up some of his strength and goodness. But that way lay ruin, as her mother would so quaintly put it.
Instead she very gently disengaged her hand from his. She swallowed. When she was sure her voice would emerge normally she said, ‘You know what I hate? That a vast section of our society still looks down on single mothers, thinking they’re only out for what they can get. Phillip pays child support, yes. When he first left a part of me wanted no contact and no links, but that’s not my decision to make. I have no right putting my pride before my children’s welfare.’
Shading her eyes, she turned to survey the boys, who were both clambering over the rocks, safe and occupied. She swung back. ‘Another woman once told me she thought it a form of child abuse for a woman to refuse child support from her child’s father. She said it’d be depriving the child of a better financial future. And she’s right.’
‘And now you feel you owe Phillip?’
‘No! I owe Robbie and Chase. I owe them a good future. It’s my responsibility to ensure they have all the things they need.’ And at the moment they ached for their father. At least, Robbie did, and in a couple of years so would Chase.
‘But it seems to me that society doesn’t commend women for making those kinds of sacrifices. And it seems to me that in the vast majority of cases it’s women who do actually make the real sacrifices.’
He stared down at her, his eyes soft. Aidan would never abandon a child. She didn’t know what made her so sure, only that she was.
‘I think you’re amazing. I think you’re won
derful.’
She had no hope of hiding how much his words touched her. ‘Thank you.’
‘I—’
‘No,’ she warned, keeping her voice crisp. ‘Don’t lay the compliments on too thick or you’ll spoil the effect.’
He laughed. It was a good sound.
‘C’mon, let’s see what the boys are up to.’
They’d walked five steps when he asked, ‘What happened between you and Phillip?’
A sidelong glance told her he wasn’t looking at her. In fact he was looking suspiciously nonchalant. Her pulse leapt. She tried to stamp on it. ‘That’s a story for another day when the boys are in bed.’ And while she didn’t mean them to, the words emerged as a pledge.
The rest of the day lived up to its perfect promise. They explored the beach. There was more swimming and eating. The boys built sandcastles and as the tide came in the surf built up into the perfect breaks that Aidan had spoken about earlier.
His eyes lit up. ‘I’m going to come back here one day with a surfboard.’
The afternoon waned and the sun had started to sink into the sea to the west when she and Aidan drove two very tired boys back to Penong.
After showers and a makeshift dinner of beans on toast, Aidan built a campfire in the pit in front of their on-site vans—he’d chosen to hire the one beside hers rather than stay at the motel—and then produced a bag of marshmallows.
They sat around the fire and toasted marshmallows as if they were a real family. Her heart wanted to spring free to dance and twirl but she wouldn’t let it.
‘It’s been the best day in the world,’ Chase said, leaning against her.
‘The very best,’ Robbie said, leaning into her other side.
They both grew heavy with sleep. ‘Bedtime, I think,’ she murmured to Aidan.
Without asking, without even apparently thinking about it, he rose and lifted Robbie into his arms, waited until she’d lifted Chase into hers, before following her into the van and helping her put them to bed. Both boys were asleep before she and Aidan left the caravan.
It made the task so much easier with someone to help. If only... She shook her head. She shook her whole body. ‘Soda?’
Road Trip with the Eligible Bachelor Page 8
