Only We Know

by Victoria Purman

  Calla felt her face flush. Judging by the way he was built, he was probably a wholegrain bread kind of guy (if he hadn’t sworn off carbs entirely), ate activated almonds (whatever the hell they were) and was right into the latest super foods. No one who looked like he did could possibly eat like a regular person. And what had she bought from the supermarket to sustain her? Comfort food, mostly. If ever an occasion had called for such solace, this trip was top of the charts. With a bullet. Which all made her feel slightly defensive about her food choices.

  ‘Listen. It wasn’t a well-thought-out plan, I admit. I was still feeling quite queasy at the time, as you well know, after that boat ride. I didn’t have much of an appetite yesterday and I didn’t have my glasses and I could barely see the labels.’ Each excuse sounded more pathetic than the last.

  ‘You didn’t seem to have much trouble finding the chocolate.’ Sam smirked.

  Calla held up a hand. ‘I will never, ever apologise for chocolate.’

  He smiled. ‘I wouldn’t dare ask you to. Pull up a chair. I grabbed some things from my car. On the menu tonight we have tomato soup from the tin and baked potatoes.’ Sam flipped the tin of tomato soup in the air and caught it without even looking. Calla realised he was looking right at her instead.

  She suddenly felt a little wobbly in the knees and hopped up on the stool. ‘That … that sounds perfect.’

  ‘And did I mention the chocolate chaser?’

  ‘Whoa, buddy. Stop right there. If you think I’m sharing my chocolate with you, you’re crazy.’

  Sam rolled his eyes. ‘What makes you think I don’t have my own stash?’

  Maybe not such a health freak after all. ‘I was thinking I might start with a glass of wine,’ Calla said. ‘I did bring a bottle from home. Where’d you put it?

  Sam planted his hands on the kitchen bench and shook his head. ‘No, not a great idea.’

  Calla’s back straightened. ‘Why not? After the day I’ve had?’

  ‘No alcohol tonight. Basic first aid. Just in case you’re —’

  Calla huffed. ‘I’m not concussed.’

  ‘Humour me,’ Sam said.

  Once their gourmet dinner was finished, Calla insisted on washing the dishes. She’d had to physically push Sam out of the small kitchen to get him to agree. Once she’d poured him another glass of red wine — she’d followed his advice and hadn’t indulged herself — it was his turn to sit on the other side of the modest kitchen bench and watch her.

  ‘So, Calla. You didn’t tell me exactly why you’re on KI.’

  ‘No.’ Calla was happy to direct her reply to the suds in the sink.

  ‘Not a tourist. Okay, you here for work?’

  ‘I wish.’ She took a deep breath, and looked back at him over her shoulder. ‘I’m here to find somebody. And … I heard he’s living here, so …’ That was the very short version of her very long and complicated story and the less she told him the better.

  Something changed in his eyes. She could see it in the half second he looked at her before dipping his eyes to the wine glass and upending it into his mouth. And now she was curious.

  ‘What about you, Sam Hunter? What are you doing on the island?’

  ‘My old man lives here. Oh, fuck!’ He patted his jeans pocket. ‘Excuse me: I’ve got to call him. I’ll be back in a minute.’

  Calla watched Sam’s purposeful strides across the small cabin. He opened the sliding door just enough to squeeze through, keeping out the wind, and it squeaked when he closed it behind him. She finished the dishes then turned to watch Sam while she waited for water to boil for a cup of coffee. The light from inside the cabin spilled out onto the deck and created shadows on his face when he turned his back on the view. He’d pressed his phone to his ear with one hand; the other arm was lifted high and he was rubbing his hair in frustrated strokes. Then he paced, walked from one end of the small deck to the other, three steps in each direction. He repeated the move maybe twenty times. He seemed to be talking, his lips were moving but she couldn’t hear what he was saying. When he finally pressed the keypad to end the call, she hurriedly turned her attention to wiping the bench.

  The door squeaked closed. Calla turned to see a look of thunder on Sam’s face. ‘Is everything all right with your dad?’

  He shoved the phone in his front pocket, shook his head. ‘Yeah. Don’t worry about it.’

  She got the message. When the kettle boiled, Calla filled her cup. The only sound in the room was the trickle of the water and the low hum of the reverse-cycle air-conditioner heating the room.

  ‘Cup of coffee?’

  Sam hesitated. ‘No, thanks.’

  And then she had to ask, despite the clear message he’d just given her. She knew too much about how complicated families could be. ‘Is your father angry at you for being late to see him?’

  Sam rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. ‘He’s angry at me for being here.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘So now he’s even more pissed off at me than usual, which is just brilliant.’ Sam met her eyes. His furrowed brow created a little crease on the bridge of his nose. ‘I don’t know why I’m telling you this.’

  Calla couldn’t judge the expression on his face. He looked as if he’d let her in on some secret and then instantly regretted it. ‘Sometimes it helps to talk.’

  That pulled him up. ‘It’s just family bullshit.’

  She scoffed. ‘Who doesn’t have family bullshit?’

  Their eyes met and Calla felt uncomfortable at the scrutiny of his intense gaze and the questions in it. She pulled her eyes from his. Her legs felt suddenly like jelly. She took her cup of coffee over to one of the small sofas. Sam followed, lowering himself into the other two-seater, placed at a right angle to hers.

  She sipped her coffee in silence. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Sam shift, cross one leg over the other and then uncross it.

  When he spoke, his voice was low and quiet. ‘Who are you looking for, Calla?’

  Calla blinked. She had to rewind their conversation in her head so she could remember what they’d been talking about. Hadn’t they been talking about his father? Families? And the bullshit that went with them?

  Damn it, she thought. Maybe he was right about the concussion.

  ‘You said you were here on the island looking for someone. You stalking an old boyfriend or something?’

  What the? She wouldn’t go near any of her old boyfriends with a barge pole. ‘No, nothing like that. I’m looking for my brother.’

  ‘Your brother.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Calla could have sworn she heard a sigh from his lips.

  ‘Where’s he living?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘I don’t get it.’

  ‘All I know is that he’s somewhere on the island. As I said, Sam. Family bullshit.’

  Sam watched Calla drink her coffee. He threw an arm on the backrest, turned towards her. ‘It’s a big place, you know. Bigger than people think.’

  ‘I’ve got a map. Can’t read it but it looks pretty.’ She smiled at her own lack of spatial awareness.

  ‘Where are you going to start looking, then?’

  Calla shrugged. ‘I started today but look how that turned out. I’ll think about it tomorrow, I guess.’

  ‘Tomorrow … yeah. Good idea. Speaking of tomorrow …’ Sam’s expression had become serious. ‘I was supposed to go to my old man’s but I don’t think that’s going to work out. After today and the wine … I don’t think I should drive to Roo’s Rest tonight.’

  Calla giggled. ‘Roo’s what?’

  ‘The old man’s place. The property where I grew up. It’s called Roo’s Rest.’

  ‘It has a name?’

  ‘Of course. You are a city girl, aren’t you?’

  ‘Born and bred,’ she said.

  ‘Every place here has a name.’

  ‘I thought it would just be called the farm, or something.’

 
‘Hell no. Not here. So, what do you say? Can I crash here? I know you don’t know me but, to be honest, I can’t face sleeping in my car for two nights running.’

  Calla sat bolt upright. ‘Hang on. You slept in your car last night?’

  Sam mouth’s creased in a rueful smile. ‘I had one too many beers at the pub.’

  ‘Well, that sounds sensible of you. Freezing-your-arse-off cold but sensible.’ It was entirely what she expected of him, given the responsible way he’d handled everything else since she’d met him. He was cautious for others and considerate — not just of others, but of himself.

  ‘Yeah, well, I don’t think I can turn up to the old man’s this late.’

  ‘You want to crash here?’ A shiver skittered up Calla’s spine and made her head pound just that little bit more.

  Sam rubbed a hand through his hair. ‘I wouldn’t normally ask but … today’s been pretty fucked up.’

  ‘I guess I owe you. I did crash into your car.’

  ‘And my shopping trolley, don’t forget.’

  Calla rolled her eyes. ‘I have an excuse for that one. I wasn’t wearing my glasses.’ She hesitated. ‘Yeah, sure. You can stay.’

  ‘I appreciate it.’

  Calla swallowed. ‘Make yourself at home. I’ll just …’ And then Calla couldn’t think about just what she was going to say. ‘I’ll just have another cup of coffee.’

  Was she nuts?

  CHAPTER

  13

  It was a small thing, but having her own pillow with her always helped her sleep. Calla tried to relax into it, needing the comfort of the familiar when so much about the day had been completely off the rails. It was a powerful thing, a piece of home. But it wasn’t working tonight.

  Sleep was elusive. There was too much going on in her head to drift off. Maybe she shouldn’t have rested earlier; it was now midnight and she was wide-eyed and fried. After she’d agreed to let Sam stay the night, she’d made up a lame excuse about a headache and hidden inside her bedroom. She’d found a book in her suitcase, pulled the blankets up all around her and tried to settle in to the warmth and the words.

  She desperately wanted to escape into another world to help her forget what a mess she’d made of her own, but reading wasn’t providing that escape tonight. Calla closed the pages, dropped her novel on the floor and flicked the switch on the small bedside lamp. The darkness was the best place to get melancholy and relive all her failures.

  And there were lots.

  First there was Josh and her terrible decision to fall in love with him. By wanting him, letting herself imagine she had a future with him, she’d hurt herself so terribly that it still ached. She’d spent two years pining and suffering the weight of self-reproach that came with loving a married man. Had she felt guilty that he was married? Every single moment of the seven hundred and thirty days she believed herself in love with him. The effort it took to hide that fact away, to not let it show on her face, had been almost soul-destroying. It had haunted her at night the most, in the still dark of her bed, when she was loneliest. When she was so sad about being alone and so jealous of his wife, who had him next to her. All she’d had were regrets and a cold space.

  He’d told her, of course he had, that he and his wife had been having problems, and that’s why he’d had space in his heart for someone else. And, like a fool, Calla had believed him. That enabled her to create her own story for why she and Josh were having their affair. It suited both of them to believe that his marriage was a misery, that he and his wife were both unhappy. Surely, there must have been something missing in his own life if he had come to Calla for it instead? She’d read it somewhere and had clung to the piece of wisdom like a lucky charm: You can’t seduce someone who is happy.

  But they had all been lame excuses. What they’d done was wrong and hurtful. Did she hate Josh? It all got too messy for such a simple emotion. He’d ended things with Calla because he and his wife were having a baby. So much for the marriage problems. He was nothing but a cheater and a liar. In the end, she turned what had happened to her into a vow that she would never let a man get to her that way again. Had her life been so dull, so joyless, that she’d enjoyed the drama, the torment, the emotion of it all? How cruel had she been to herself?

  It simply hadn’t been worth it. Now, she was walking into her future, putting one foot in front of the other on a journey to a simplified life. No more emotional torment at the hands of a man. She didn’t think she could go through it again and survive, no matter how charming or handsome or heroic.

  Calla turned to her side, tucked her left arm under her pillow to try and find a comfortable position. She took a few deep breaths, hoping that would help relax her.

  Josh wasn’t her only regret. There was Jem too.

  She saw the images again behind her eyes, as if it were a recurring dream, of the day her brother had run away from his family. The day Calla’s father died. Jem hadn’t even been there to scatter the ashes. He’d simply disappeared into thin air.

  Despite what he’d done, Calla had never stopped loving her brother. Jem’s anguish and hurt hadn’t been aimed at her; not really. It had been aimed at their dead father, who wasn’t there to feel the sting or the pain of what he’d done to his kids. For two years Calla had felt a big hole in her heart where her little brother had lived. Rose felt differently: she wasn’t the big sister. And, anyway, she’d moved on with her life. She had David and soon would have a baby. She was looking forward, not back.

  But her siblings were all Calla had left and she needed to at least see if they could be a family again. She needed the pain to be soothed and, most of all, she needed it to be over. If she wanted to simplify her life, she had to begin by unravelling the biggest knot of all. Now, with a smashed car and a seriously dented sense of adventure, Calla tried to find the determination and resolve that had brought her to the island in the first place.

  The last thing she heard before she fell asleep was the wind dancing with the windows and the familiar sound of her teeth grinding together in barely conscious agony.

  Sam checked his watch. It was nine a.m. He’d knocked on Calla’s door twice already and there was no answer. He scratched his chin. He didn’t want to scare the shit out of her by barging in, but he couldn’t shake the concern she had concussion after all: he needed to check on her. He slowly opened the door.

  A blast of heat hit him. A fan heater was whirring in the corner and it felt like a tropical island in her bedroom instead of wintry Kangaroo Island. Sam’s first instinct was to make his way around the bed and push open a window so he could breathe, but when he saw a long, naked leg poking out from the rumpled sheets, a purely male instinct took over.

  Calla was sprawled across the double bed on her stomach, tangled in the sheets and blankets. And as he followed the view from her calf to her thigh and upwards, past the gathered blanket, he saw bare shoulder and a bare back. Pale and naked. Sam took two steps backwards so he was hidden behind the door, but he didn’t close it.

  He cleared his throat and knocked again. ‘Calla?’

  There was a muffled grunt.

  ‘I’m making coffee. You want some?’

  ‘Hunh?’ She was barely awake but awake nonetheless. He had to keep her talking just to be sure.

  ‘So you are awake.’

  ‘Yeah,’ she muttered.

  ‘How do you have it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘How do you have your coffee?’

  ‘White, weak. No sugar. Give me a minute. Or ten.’ Sam decided her throaty morning voice was kind of sexy. He wanted to hear it again. He poked his head around the door.

  ‘Was that white with two sugars?’ He crossed his arms and waited for her reply. The blankets rustled and she emerged. Her hair looked like a bird’s nest. Her pale face set off two brilliant green eyes and the lips he’d found kind of mesmerising the night before snarled at him.

  ‘For fuck’s sake. Not two sugars, no sugar.’

 
‘Coming right up.’ He closed the door and grinned.

  Calla entered the kitchen ten minutes later wearing black yoga pants, a baggy purple long-sleeved T-shirt that exposed one pale shoulder, and her Ugg boots. Her plodding footsteps were another pretty strong indication that she wasn’t a morning person in any shape or form. Sam nodded to her cup of coffee on the counter. He decided it would be diplomatic to remain silent. She picked it up wordlessly, wrapped her fingers around the cup and sipped it slowly. She didn’t seem to want any conversation, either, which was fine by him.

  It had been a long time since Sam had shared his mornings with a woman. He always made sure his dates ended in the dark with a front door closing behind him as he left. So he couldn’t help but watch, fascinated, as Calla slowly came to life. First there was a warm sigh, then a generous yawn. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, then bent over, leaning her elbows on the kitchen bench. Her baggy T-shirt dropped down in front and he could see she wasn’t wearing a bra and, holy shit, he could see everything. The whole enchilada. There was pale skin dipping down to her rounded, perfect breasts and, sweet mother of god, her dusky pink nipples. Judging by the way they’d stiffened, she was cold. Very cold.

  And he was feeling damn hot. The bed-ruffled, half-awake, sleepy-eyed goddess in front of him looked like a woman who’d just woken up exhausted after a night of torrid sex. She stood, lifted her arms and stretched to the ceiling and then side to side. There was an eye rub, a hair ruffle, and another yawn.

  He tried hard, he really did, to stop looking down her top. To stop thinking about her body.

  To stop thinking about fucking her.

  Sam decided he needed some fresh air. And fast. He crossed the cabin and opened the sliding doors to the deck.

  Calla knew she wasn’t good in the mornings, but the coffee Sam had waiting for her was definitely helping. She’d had a fitful sleep, tossed and turned and tangled herself up in the blankets. At three a.m., she was woken by the sound of the kettle boiling and footsteps in the living room. She wondered why Sam was awake. Now, she watched him out of the corner of her eye, standing still as a sentinel on the deck outside, his hands jammed into his pockets. How did he do it? How did he look so put-together that early? And what the hell time was it anyway? He was already dressed in jeans and his green jumper. His face had seemed freshly scrubbed and he appeared to be wide awake and totally alert. And, mysteriously, he seemed to know she needed her space in the mornings.