On the night of the formal, Freya slipped into the soft misty-blue chiffon dress that everyone said matched her eyes perfectly. And she felt—amazing!
Gus arrived at her door with a corsage and he looked all kinds of perfect—so tall and dark and handsome in his black tuxedo that Freya thought she might die and go straight to heaven.
And that was before they danced, touching each other for the very first time.
CHAPTER SIX
WALKING home with Gus that night was even more sensational than dancing with him. They had to go all the way along the beachfront because Poppy’s house was at the far end of the Bay, and it was Freya who suggested they should take off their shoes and walk on the sand.
Gus agreed with gratifying enthusiasm, and they left their shoes beside a pile of rocks. Gus shoved Freya’s evening bag into his trouser pocket and rolled up the bottoms of his trousers, while Freya scooped up the hem of her dress in one hand, leaving her other hand free to hold his. Bliss City!
If there were other couples on the beach that night, they stayed well in the shadows and Freya and Gus felt quite alone as they strolled hand in hand on the edge of the sand beneath a high, clear sky blazing with stars.
Freya could have stayed out all night. She’d never felt so happy, so unbelievably alive. She kept wanting to turn to look at Gus. To stare at his gorgeousness. There were so many things she loved about the way he looked—his dark hair with the bit that flopped forward, his deep-set dark eyes, his strong, intelligent profile, his broad shoulders, his long legs, his sturdy hands.
Then there came that moment, the moment when Gus let go of her hand and touched the back of her neck.
Freya usually wore her hair down, but that night it was swept up by the hairdresser into a romantic knot.
‘Did you know you have the most gorgeous skin right here?’
The feel of Gus’s fingers on her nape made her want to curl into his arms.
‘I sit behind you in History,’ he said. ‘And your hair falls forward, and I spend hours admiring the back of your neck.’
‘So that’s why I get better marks than you in History.’
‘Could be.’ His fingers stroked just below her hairline. ‘I love this bit just here.’
And while she was melting from the touch of his fingers, he touched his lips to her neck.
Freya was shaking. His gentleness was excruciating. She bowed her head, exposing her skin in a silent appeal, begging for more. The touch of his lips on the curve of her neck made her ache deep inside, made her want to cry and to laugh, to dance, to lie down in the shallows.
Then Gus kissed her lips.
Of course it was late when they finally reached her house, especially as they forgot their shoes and had to go back to search for them, and it took ages to remember which pile of rocks they’d left them beside. They were laughing, giggling like children, drunk with happiness.
Gus kissed her again on the front steps. He was still kissing her when Poppy flung the front door open, letting bright light spill over them, and making them blink.
Arms akimbo, her mother glared at Gus.
‘Freya should have been home hours ago. Who do you think you are, coming down here and making all sorts of assumptions about my daughter?’
To his credit, Gus was very restrained and polite, but he left in a hurry. It was Freya who lost her cool, later, after he’d gone.
‘How could you be so mean, Mum? We were only kissing. Why did you have to be so awful to Gus?’
‘I don’t trust him, or any of that snobby lot up on the hill.’ Poppy picked up the damp hem of Freya’s dress and frowned elaborately at the clinging grains of sand. ‘Well, I trust him, and surely that’s what counts?’
It was an argument that came back to bite Freya four months later, at the end of the summer, after Gus had already left for university in Brisbane and she missed her period.
Now, Freya was so lost in the mists of the past that when the bell at the front door rang, letting her know that yet another visitor had come into the gallery, she didn’t look up. Most people liked to be left to wander about looking at paintings without being observed, and she wasn’t in the mood for an exchange of happy banter with a tourist.
When a shadow fell over her desk, she realised she was out of luck. She looked up and heat rushed into her face. ‘Gus!’
Gus’s heart was pounding, actually pounding. As he’d walked into The Driftwood Gallery, he’d seen Freya sitting at the pale timber desk in the corner. She had her back to him and she was wearing jeans and a grey knitted top that shouldn’t have looked sexy, but it was soft and it clung lovingly to her shoulders before falling loosely to her hips, and somehow it managed to look incredibly feminine.
She was leaning forward so that her hair, light brown and streaked with gold, parted like a curtain to show a V of smooth, pale skin on her neck. And suddenly he was remembering every detail of falling in love with Freya Jones and the heady, blinding happiness of that magical summer.
Their summer.
To his dismay, he felt the sting of tears and he found himself recalling all the silly nicknames Freya had given him—Huggy Bear, Hot Stuff, Angel Eyes.
Her favourite had been Sugar Lips, while he’d simply called her Floss.
Memories pulled at him as he approached her desk but, when she looked up, he saw shock in her eyes and then unmistakable fear, and their happy past disintegrated like a jigsaw puzzle breaking up into a thousand separate scattered pieces.
Gus was wrenched back into the present in all its unhappy complexity.
‘Hi,’ he said, forcing the breezy greeting past the constriction in his throat. Freya’s smoky blue eyes were so clouded with worry that he tried to cheer her with a joke. ‘I’ve finally escaped from the evil clutches of the vampire.’
‘The vampire?’ She looked more worried than ever.
‘Hasn’t Nick mentioned her?’
‘No.’
Damn. Gus grimaced.
‘I thought you were at the hospital. What are you talking about?’
‘I have been at the hospital,’ he assured her. ‘Every one of my vital organs has been X-rayed and scanned from every conceivable angle, and I’ve given vast quantities of blood.’
‘Oh. Is that the vampire connection?’
‘Yeah. Bad joke. But you can blame Nick. He told me about the vampire nurse when he called in this morning on his way to school.’
‘Really?’ Freya was on her feet, twisting a locket at her throat with anxious fingers.
‘I’m so glad Nick called in to see me, Freya. He came to thank me, and it meant a lot. He’s a great kid. You must be proud of him.’
She showed no sign that his words reassured her. She looked distressed and rubbed at her temple, as if her head ached. ‘Nick didn’t tell me he was going to see you.’
‘Well, I think he felt bad about yesterday’s reception. And he’s entitled to see me. I’m his father, after all.’
‘Yes, of course.’ She was still frowning and not looking at him.
Gus’s jaw tightened. If Freya was going to be a dog in the manger about their son, she’d have a fight on her hands.
‘So what will you do now the tests are out of the way?’ she asked. ‘Will you fly straight back to the Northern Territory?’
‘Why?’ he asked coldly. ‘Are you keen to be rid of me?’
‘No. But you said you had commitments.’
‘I don’t want to rush away till I’ve had a chance to get to know Nick.’
Freya regarded him thoughtfully. ‘But you do know it will be a week or more before we get the results?’
‘A week, Freya? What’s a week when you’ve had Nick for more than eleven years? Don’t you understand that I need a chance to get to know my son?’
‘Yes, of course I understand that. I’m sorry.’ She looked as if she might weep.
‘They’re giving Nick’s case priority,’ he said in a more conciliatory tone. ‘So we might hear quite so
on.’
‘That’s good news, at least.’
Gus glanced at his wristwatch. ‘It won’t be too long before school’s out and I thought Nick might like to come swimming with me this afternoon.’
‘Oh?’
‘I won’t keep him too long. I know he has homework.’ He frowned at Freya. ‘Nick does swim, doesn’t he?’
‘Of course. He’s like me. He loves the water.’
Out of nowhere, something about the soft, vulnerable droop of her lower lip triggered a memory for Gus. Damn it. He was recalling a folk song he’d heard years ago, a song about a forsaken mermaid.
He’d only heard it a couple of times—once at an outdoor folk festival and once on the radio—but each time the lament about a lost and heartsick mermaid had drenched him with memories of Freya.
For days afterwards, the memories had haunted him. He’d only shaken them off, eventually, by convincing himself that Freya Jones had moved on with her life just as he had. But how could he have guessed that she hadn’t settled down with some lucky man? How could he have dreamed there was a child, a living connection that would link him to her for ever?
Perhaps it was because of the memory that he said, ‘Freya, you’re welcome to come swimming with us, if you like.’
‘I…I can’t go. I’ve got a gallery to look after.’
Gus looked about him at the empty rooms and the walls filled with artwork. He lifted an eyebrow in a silent question.
‘I know it doesn’t look very busy at the moment,’ she said, reading his thoughts. ‘But you never know who might drop in. I can’t close on a whim.’
‘Pity.’ He let his gaze travel over the colourful walls. ‘You have some great paintings here.’
‘Yes, I’ve been lucky.’ Freya moved into the centre of the room, looking about her with evident satisfaction. ‘I’ve managed to capture quite a bit of interest in this little gallery. It’s developed a reputation and people are starting to come here from all over Australia. Now I have top artists asking me if they can hang their work here. It used to be the other way round.’
‘That’s quite an achievement,’ Gus said, genuinely impressed.
She nodded, smiling, unable to hide her satisfaction.
‘So are any of these paintings yours?’
‘Yes.’ Freya lifted a hand, about to point out her work.
‘Hang on,’ Gus said. ‘Let’s see if I can find yours.’ After finding Nick in a tribe of similarly dressed footballers, he was feeling a tad smug.
Now, with vague memories of the sketches that Freya had drawn twelve years ago, Gus began to wander the rooms checking out the landscapes, seascapes, vibrant arrangements of tropical flowers and fruit, portraits, abstracts…
Freya stood watching him with her lips curled in a small smile and her eyes sparkling with an I dare you gleam.
It wasn’t long before Gus was forced to admit defeat. He sent her an apologetic grin. ‘I give up. These all look really good to me, but none of them screams you.’ He made a circling gesture to the paintings all around him. ‘I have to say, if you’ve painted any of these, you’ve improved a hell of a lot since high school.’
‘I should jolly well hope so.’ Smiling archly, she came and stood beside him, arms folded over her front. ‘Just out of interest, which paintings do you like? Which ones appeal to you most?’
He must have looked anxious because Freya laughed. ‘This isn’t a trick question, Gus. I’m not going to slash my wrists if you don’t pick mine. I’m just curious.’
‘I’m no expert.’
‘I know that.’
His gaze flickered over the fruit and flowers, paused briefly on a bright, daring landscape with sand and palm trees, then on to a realistic seascape with waves crashing onto rocks. He stopped at a piece that seemed to be a collage of watercolours and paper of varying textures. It was beautiful and incredibly clever—the sort of thing he would buy for a woman, the sort of thing he should have bought for Monique, perhaps.
He moved onto an abstract with stripes in browns and ochres overlaid with splashes of charcoal and crimson. ‘If I was buying something for myself, I would probably choose this one,’ he said, pointing.
Freya nodded. ‘That’s a Carl Barrow.’ She smiled. ‘You have good taste. It’s probably the most expensive painting here.’
‘Really?’ He pointed to the collage. ‘What about that one? It’s beautiful.’
‘That’s one of mine,’ she said, turning pink.
‘Wow.’ Genuinely excited, he moved closer. ‘I really like the way you’ve grouped everything and the combination of colours. It’s incredibly pleasing to the eye. Intricate without being cluttered.’ He turned to her, beaming. ‘Floss, you’re brilliant.’
‘Well, thank you, sir.’
She was blushing prettily and her eyes were glowing with pleasure and he wanted to kiss her so badly he couldn’t breathe.
Instead, he found himself saying, ‘Why don’t you come with us to the beach? Couldn’t you put one of those signs on the door? Closing early today. Sorry for the inconvenience.’
Pink-cheeked, she pursed her lips as she considered this. Gus watched the slow blaze of concentration in her eyes as she weighed up the pros and cons. He had a fair idea that her curiosity about his fledgling bond with Nick would win out.
‘I guess I could close up for an hour,’ she said.
Gus grinned.
Freya smiled back at him. Their gazes held and, without warning, the flame of their old attraction burned brightly. ‘Hey, Mum.’
Nick’s voice startled them. He was standing at the door, hair awry, school bag dangling from one shoulder.
‘Oh, Nick, that’s good timing.’ Freya’s voice was strangely high-pitched and the colour in her cheeks deepened. ‘Gus was just asking if you’d like to go for a swim.’
‘Would I ever?’ Nick’s face was instantly alight. ‘Thanks, Gus. Hey, what about you, Mum? Are you coming too?’
‘Yes. I thought I might as well.’
‘Awesome.’
This is so not wise, Freya told herself as she thrust her feet through appropriate holes and wriggled into her swimming costume. Closing the gallery for a swim with Gus on a Monday afternoon was quite possibly the dumbest thing she’d ever done.
She knew jolly well that she should have left Gus and Nick to go swimming alone, but she’d let two things sway her and neither of them were admirable. First—she was jealous of the newly developing relationship between her son and his father. She didn’t want to feel left out.
Second—those few minutes alone with Gus in the gallery had been over-the-moon wonderful and, even though she knew such moments were as fragile as soap bubbles and could only lead to heartbreak, she wanted more.
She was a fool.
She sank onto the edge of her bed. She had to think this through before she made a serious mistake.
Surely she wasn’t really so selfish that she was jealous of any time Gus spent with Nick? Not after she’d had the boy to herself for eleven and a half years? No, she might feel a tad worried that Gus could somehow steal Nick from her, but if that had been her only concern, she wouldn’t have closed the gallery to play hooky at the beach.
The true cause of her foolishness was the other reason—the intoxicating glow she’d felt when Gus praised her painting. It was the zing in her veins when he looked into her eyes and the scary knowledge that she’d never stopped loving him, that she would steal any time to be with him, no matter how brief or unwise.
But, the trouble was, trying to recapture those moments was very unwise. A few moments could never add up to a lifetime, and it was a lifetime with Gus that Freya wanted. Why couldn’t she remember that her lifestyle and Gus’s were worlds apart?
When he’d chosen a wife, he’d chosen a woman who was as different from her as it was possible to be.
Why couldn’t she remember that Gus was here to help Nick and for no other reason?
‘Mum!’ Nick stuck his head aro
und Freya’s bedroom door. His face was smeared with white sunscreen and he was dressed in bathers. A beach towel was draped around his neck. ‘Are you ready? Gus is back and he’s waiting.’
‘Almost ready. Give me a minute.’
Freya jumped up and butterflies danced in her stomach as she checked her swimsuit in the mirror. The last time Gus had seen her in bathers she’d been a girl in a bikini. What would he think of her now?
She’d chosen her favourite bathers in a pale yellow Hawaiian print because they gave her skin a rather nice glow. But were they too revealing? Did her backside look too big?
‘Mum?’ Nick called again from the hallway.
She would have to do. She grabbed a long beach shirt and slipped it on, pushed her feet into flip-flops. Out into the hall, she collected her hat and beach bag.
Nick was skipping ahead of her with excited glee.
Through the front window, Freya could see Gus waiting on the footpath and her heart skipped too, although she was more nervous than gleeful.
‘This is so cool,’ Nick sang. ‘I’m going to the beach with my mother and my father.’
Oh, help.
‘Nick,’ Freya called.
The boy turned, read the caution in her face and looked instantly worried. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘You mustn’t get your hopes up. You…you can’t expect…’
‘What?’ the boy demanded, frowning.
Freya looked at Nick’s shining eyes. She saw her beautiful, clever, courageous half-man, and her heart shuddered as she thought of the terrible shadow that hung over him. Given everything he faced, it was cruel to let him hope for the impossible.
‘I’m talking about Gus and…and me. We’re not…um…we won’t…’ She groaned, angry at her clumsiness. ‘Your father is here to help you, darling, to make sure you get well. But you mustn’t hope that he and I will get back together.’
Right now, Nick was too excited to let anything bother him. He simply grinned and said, ‘Whatever. Hurry up.’
A Miracle for His Secret Son Page 8
