by Ally Blake
His hands literally ached with the desire to haul her back into his arms and soak up every bit of vitality she could spare. But he needed to get home. To be there when Ruby returned. He had things to do. Things to say.
He pushed away from the door and slid his hand down her back, tugging at her dress until he could feel and see the trail of wild daisies tattooed across her lower back.
At his touch her head fell back in pleasure, her hair spilling over her bare skin.
‘So what’s the story here?’ he asked, his fingers tracing the daisy vine, his breath tickling her ear.
She shivered. ‘I got it when I was fifteen. Daisies were my favourite flower. Luckily they still are.’
‘What? Fifteen? You need parental permission, right? Until you’re eighteen?’ Please, God, he thought, let that be true.
She smiled over her shoulder at him. ‘Of course you do. Unless your father said no way in hell was his daughter getting a tattoo and you were me. Then you find a way to get whatever you want.’
Her skin was warm and soft until the tattoo made it feel ever so slightly rough. ‘Did it hurt?’
‘Like hot needles into the bone for two straight hours. Yuh-huh.’
‘You really were a tearaway.’
‘I could tell you stories.’
He placed a kiss where her neck met her shoulder. ‘So tell me.’
She moved so that her hair fell over the spot he’d just been kissing. ‘Another time perhaps.’
He pulled back. A sudden chill had come from her direction. He shook it off. Mornings after were always at least some level of awkward. She’d be all right with some space to process it all.
He searched for his shirt from the night before to find it crumpled on the floor. ‘Give me a minute to find a T-shirt and I’ll walk you back.’
She plonked onto the corner of his bed as she tied the straps of her shoes around and around her calves. ‘Best not. The forest has eyes and ears.’
It struck him she’d once again gone there, to Ruby, so fast, and before he had. But then again there was so much about this whole night that had surprised him. Including the fact that eyes and ears no longer seemed such a threat as they had twenty-four hours earlier.
She had been right in accusing him of locking Ruby away to save himself from having to face the demons of his past. And while he didn’t want to see Ruby hurt, ever, surely he didn’t want her living the kind of emotionally and physically isolated existence he’d lived all the years before she brought him back into the light.
Meg stood, smoothed down her dress, slicked her hair back into a fresh ponytail and looked around to make sure she hadn’t left anything behind.
‘Come over for morning tea,’ he said before he could stop himself.
Meg glanced up at him in obvious shock. She licked her lips before saying, ‘And what, skip DIY Colonic Irrigation class?’
He laughed, but he was not to be deterred. ‘Let’s say around eleven.’
She watched him a few long moments. Her back was to the sun, so he couldn’t make out the expression in her eyes. For the first time in hours a familiar hollowness began to expand inside him. He didn’t know what to make of it, he only knew he didn’t like it.
‘Why?’
Good question. ‘I promised you coffee last night and we never quite got there.’
‘You didn’t promise me anything, Zach,’ she said, her voice gentle.
‘Come over. Drink coffee. The rest we can make up as we go along.’
Another few protracted moments passed in which she just looked at him. Though it felt more as if she was looking through him, her mind a million miles away. ‘Should I bring anything?’
The hollowness went away. ‘Just yourself.’
She ran her hands down her dress again. ‘Okay.’
‘We’ll see you then.’
She caught the ‘we’ loud and clear. He could see it in her sudden stillness. In the duration of her indecipherable stare.
‘Just you,’ he said. ‘Not your family. Not your father. In the privacy of my home. I’m asking you to break bread with my daughter and me under comparatively conventional circumstances.’
She nodded. Then said, ‘Fine. Till then.’
She leaned into him, her hand pressing against his bare chest as she placed a goodbye kiss on his cheek. He could smell the scent of the lei he’d worn the night before on her skin.
She moved back just far enough to look into his eyes for one dark, hot moment before she walked away.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
LATER that same morning Meg stood in the opening in the stone wall at the edge of Zach’s backyard, her fingers gripped tight around a bunch of wildflowers she’d picked along the way.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asked herself out loud.
She couldn’t answer that any more than she could figure out what Zach saw as the end play to all this. She’d made it clear kids weren’t part of her life plan and that she wouldn’t be the right kind of influence over his. Last night she’d let him off the hook in showing she understood why he would choose Ruby’s privacy over any manner of relationship with her.
Last night…
She sighed. It ought to have been their swansong, and a beautiful swansong at that. If only he hadn’t had some crazy idea she couldn’t fathom. And if only she hadn’t gone and fallen in love with the guy.
Her mobile phone buzzed in her pocket, scaring the bejeezers out of her, and fraying her very last nerves.
She ignored it as she had the last ten times it had buzzed that morning. The moment she’d got back to her room her family—who had mostly left her alone for less than half her allotted vacation time—had decided to rear their relentless heads en masse.
Dylan’s voice message had appeared first, taking the edge off her long, luxurious, hot shower: ‘Hey, kiddo. Tabby told me where she’s taken you. Classic! By now you must be itching for something to take your mind off the boredom. Find a computer, RSVP yourself to the Shyler Benefit in KInG’s name for the day you get back.’
No goodbye. No if you happen to be free. Just do it. She justly ignored him.
During breakfast Cameron’s first text message came through: ‘U have Dad’s The Iliad? Urgent…ish. Rosie’d love to read it. What Rosie wants Rosie gets!’
From her newly mobiled-up mother: ‘Love you. Miss you.’ From her father? Not a whisper. All that water under the bridge and it still wounded.
Angry with herself for letting her father get to her by omission, when Brendan’s number blinked on the screen five minutes later she ignored it. Voicemail gave her: ‘Mum has a thing next Saturday night. The nanny’s night off. You need to look after the girls. Confirm with my secretary ASAP.’
Dylan must have called again as his next message came through straight after: ‘How do you feel about co-hosting the Queensland Fashion Awards? You love the idea. I knew you would. Call me ten minutes ago and I’ll set you up with press to confirm.’
She’d somehow almost forgotten that this was what her life was like back home—non-stop motion, never saying no, doing everything to be appear cheerful and be inordinately useful. Everybody’s favourite girl. She felt exhausted and underwhelmed just thinking about it.
Of course the fact she’d had less than two hours of uninterrupted sleep amidst one of the most stunning, tender, unsparing, magical, revealing nights of her life would likely have made aliens landing on her doorstep an underwhelming experience.
She looked through the brush to the hint of a house beyond. To Zach. She breathed in deep through her mouth and out through her nose, her heart racing as if she’d run five kilometres that morning rather than tucking herself up under the bed covers and hiding the moment she’d snuck back to her room.
As she walked through the backyard a flock of pink and grey galahs settled in a nearby tree. Discarded by Ruby’s swing were her skipping rope and a pink bike with a white cane basket and streamers on the handle bars. Had it really only been days sin
ce she’d been there before? It felt as if weeks had passed.
The thing that ought to have her walking away kept her moving forward: the chance to see them together. To see if he was as natural a father as she’d trusted. To see if Ruby was as doting a kid as she’d suspected. It would be akin to selfflagellation, but she had to know. To see if that kind of relationship really could exist.
Her phone buzzed again. She whipped it out of her pocket, switched it off and shoved it out of sight.
She headed up the rope bridge that led to the largest structure amongst the string of thatched-roof rooms.
A grey-haired woman came out onto the verandah, and she jumped in fright at seeing Meg bundling her way. ‘Aren’t you just as quiet as a church mouse?’
I’m as nervous as one, Meg thought. But she conjured up her second-nature Meg Kelly smile, designed to put others at ease, and said, ‘I’m Meg. I’m expected.’
The woman’s cheeks pinked. She even gave a small curtsy. ‘Of course you are, dear. I’m Felicia, Ruby’s nanny. You may as well make yourself comfy out here. Zach won’t be long.’
Meg handed the motley bunch of flowers over to Felicia, whose eyes widened a tad before a smile snuck into her already copiously creased cheeks.
‘How charming. I’ll put these in water, shall I?’ Felicia then turned and headed along the balcony and across yet another bridge and out of sight.
Feeling like a flibbertigibbet, Meg tugged at her floral peasant top making sure it remained demure, and smoothed down her tight, cropped jeans.
Footsteps came from behind her. She spun around and had to cling to the railing for support against the rush of heat that swept over her as Zach walked down the hall inside the house towards her.
His feet were bare below faded jeans that fitted snugly to his long legs as though he’d owned them all his life. A just as faded coffee-brown T-shirt made the most of his bronzed skin and his dark hair was still wet, as though he’d had a recent shower.
Her heart felt so full it didn’t know what to do with itself. Beat? Go bust? Leap from her chest and into his arms?
As Zach hit the sunlight angling into the house she saw Ruby was hiding behind his legs. How alike they looked. Long, lean, dark good looks, fierce intelligence swimming behind their guarded eyes. But it was their natural connection that hit hardest. If he took one short step she would have banged into him, but somehow their rhythm stayed in sync. It was mesmerising. And unbearable.
‘You came,’ Zach said when he spotted her.
She shrugged, feigning nonchalance she was nowhere near feeling. ‘I had nowhere better to be.’
He laughed. ‘I won’t be putting that on the brochures, I can assure you.’
‘Smart move.’
They smiled at one another awhile and Meg took solace in the fact that she wasn’t the only one who was nervous.
‘Now, Ruby,’ Zach said, gently uncurling his daughter from behind him, pulling her around in front but keeping two hands on her shoulders. ‘You remember Meg, right?’
Ruby’s dark eyes stared back at her, testing, deciding whether it served her to admit as much. Meg’s heart performed the greatest twitch of its life. Zach had his hands full more than he even realised.
She leaned down to Ruby and murmured out of the corner of her mouth, ‘You didn’t happen to save me any muffins from the other day, did you?’
Ruby shook her head.
‘Mmm.’ Meg held a finger to her mouth. ‘I’m guessing that’s because your dad ate the lot.’
Ruby glanced up at him with wide eyes.
‘Men,’ she said, rolling her eyes. ‘Promise me you’ll never make the mistake of thinking they’re at all complicated.’
‘I won’t,’ were Ruby’s first words. Bright kid.
‘On that note,’ Zach said, his voice a rumble that skittered along Meg’s arms, ‘I’ll be back in a minute with real food. No muffins. Behave. Both of you.’
Meg smiled back.
He gave her one last, white-hot look before heading inside, jerking her poor heart around all the more. How could he expect her to behave after that?
She sauntered over to a large square outdoor table sitting neatly in the shade of a massive cream, linen umbrella and perched her backside on the edge of a wooden bench seat.
‘So, Miss Ruby,’ she said, curling a finger at the girl, ‘what’s the plan for this morning?’
Ruby moseyed near and picked at a knot of wood in another chair. ‘Since Dad got to choose who was invited over, I got to pick what we’d eat.’
‘Fair enough. So what are we eating?’
Ruby eyed Meg down with wisdom beyond her years. ‘I picked peanut butter on white bread. Dad thought you might like something else. I told him you’d like peanut butter on white bread.’
‘Well,’ Meg said, trying to keep her cool while the kid wrapped herself tighter and tighter around her heart. ‘Would you believe that of all the food in all the world, peanut butter on white bread is exactly what I want?’
‘I knew it. I liked your pink dress, so it made sense that if I liked peanut butter you would too. Ooh, wait there!’ Ruby said, before tearing off inside.
‘I’m not going anywhere,’Meg said to the empty doorway, her heart pressing towards the space where Ruby had been.
She shoved her face into her hands. She should never have come. She knew it would only make her love him more. Make her feel for his sweet kid. Make her wonder how she was ever going to go back to a life of smiling and pouting and pretending it was the greatest job on earth.
Unless this didn’t have to end. Unless Zach had brought her here with completely non-altruistic intentions. Unless last night had meant exactly as much to him as it had done to her.
Ruby came running out of the house with something behind her back.
Meg sat up and physically wiped the hope from her face. ‘What have you got there?’
‘I asked Dad to give this to you yesterday but I found it on the hall table this morning. He must have forgotten,’ Ruby said, sneaking up onto the bench beside Meg.
As Meg would have done with her nieces, instinct had her putting her arm around Ruby as she opened the gift. Pink cardboard was covered in scraps of cellophane, wrapping paper, leftover art-supply stuff. And inside Ruby had drawn a picture of a woman who could only be her. Brown curly hair. A pink dress. And a pile of chocolate muffins at her feet.
To Meg, it said in rainbow-coloured letters. Love Ruby.
Her breath got stuck in her throat. A gorgeous card that Ruby had made for her. A whole day earlier.
Zach hadn’t forgotten to give it to her. He was so smitten with this kid there was no way. He was on a high from the smallest of advances they were making. He might even have believed he had her advice to thank for many of them. But deep down he had no intention of either he or his little girl getting too attached to her.
She breathed in and out and somehow managed to talk Ruby through all the delightful nuances of the present knowing Zach had never wanted her to have it.
It had been the smart move. The right decision. That still didn’t stop her heart from shrinking until it felt three sizes too small.
‘Are you both still in one piece?’ Zach asked as he rejoined them.
Meg slipped the card beneath her backside, looked to Ruby, held a finger to her lips, and said, ‘Shh.’
Thankfully, Ruby just giggled.
Zach’s smiling eyes were full of questions. Of devotion to his little girl. Of so much promise to be the most complete man she’d ever known. Only Meg knew that the promise would never be hers to see fulfilled.
All this and morning tea had only just begun. If she was ever going to get through this she’d have to give the greatest performance of her life.
Zach placed the tray of drinks and a platter of fat fruit and gleaming cheeses and exotic crackers on the table. Her motley bunch of flowers had pride of place in a skinny glass vase in the centre of the tray.
Ruby snuck up on
to her knees and pulled out a waxy white flower from the bunch, tore off the stem, and tucked it behind her ear. She did the same for Meg. Then a third for Zach, who leaned down and let her do it.
‘They’re Ruby’s favourite,’ he said, running a hand over his daughter’s hair.
Meg could have cried.
‘Wait here,’ Ruby said. ‘I have more to show you.’ She took off back into the house.
Zach grabbed some loose grapes and threw them into his mouth. He looked at her as if he knew some great secret, when she was the one sitting on the greatest of them all.
‘You look ridiculous,’ Meg said, staring at the flower. Anywhere rather than in Zach’s warm eyes.
He grinned. ‘So what were you two up to when I came out here?’
Meg’s eyes connected with his and got stuck in all that deep, dark, beautiful, chocolate-brown. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
He stared into her eyes. ‘You’re a terrible liar.’
She blinked, desperately hoping he wasn’t as clever as he thought he was. She looked away, and took a couple of strawberries from the platter. ‘Ruby seems really happy.’
‘I think she just might be. In fact, I think we both are. At the very least we’re both now on the right path to get there.’
Zach leaned forward in his chair. His hands slid across the table until they were almost touching hers. She tried to keep her breaths steady.
‘When you get home,’ he said, ‘you should talk to your father.’
She curled her fingers into her palms. ‘About?’
‘Meg,’ he said, looking deep into her eyes, his voice ever so slightly ragged. ‘This is me you’re talking to.’
She swallowed. She knew exactly whom she was talking to—the man who’d won her heart. She uncurled her fingers from her palms, slid her hand along the table toward his—
Footsteps sounded on the wooden balcony. They both looked up to find Felicia holding a landline phone. ‘Sorry to interrupt, but it’s Reception for Meg.’
Meg cursed Reception with every fibre of her being for their terrible timing. Then she realised she hadn’t told anyone where she’d be. As if that would stop the Kellys. If this was Dylan trying to pin her down to a dozen PR jobs for the first dozen hours after her return she’d throttle him.
