Nobody But Him

by Victoria Purman

Ry had the strangest feeling that Lizzie was looking at him differently.

  ‘No, thanks. I’m totally caffeinated. Over-caffeinated to be honest.’ He picked up his iPad. ‘I’ve got to get going.’

  ‘Still got your guests with you?’

  He nodded. Just thinking about Amanda made him want to get in his car and drive up to Adelaide where he would be safe. ‘That’s why I’ve got to go.’

  ‘Okay,’ she grinned again and he did a double take.

  ‘You all right, Lizzie?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ she replied and then, to his great surprise, reached up and patted him on the shoulder consolingly. ‘Go on home, Ry.’

  CHAPTER

  5

  Why the hell had he asked the Winters to stay for the whole long weekend? On the walk home, Ry cursed himself and his decision, which was made hastily in the days after he’d bought the pub. He’d been in a meeting with David and they’d got talking. Ry was buzzing about his acquisition and, before he knew it, the invitation had been issued and accepted. And now the Winters were in his house, his only refuge away from work and the city. He knew Amanda would be there when he opened his front door.

  She was number two on the list of women he didn’t want to have to deal with. He should have known what was going down. David had mentioned his daughter a few times, in the way that the fathers of single women do, that she was single and beautiful, that she loved the beach. It’s what people in the A-list crowd did, he got it. A single, successful and no-doubt-about it heterosexual man was mentioned in despatches all over Adelaide in that set. Parents were probably handing out his CV and photo at cocktail parties and charity fundraisers.

  When David had mentioned bringing Amanda for the weekend, Ry had agreed far too hastily.

  ‘Why not? The more the merrier,’ he’d said with a casual wave of his hand, way too accommodating for his own good.

  But the minute they’d met, the second she’d opened her mouth and flicked her blonde hair in his direction, he knew she was not his type. Her behaviour had given her away. He understood instinctively what Amanda wanted. He wasn’t an idiot. It was the fake smile and the way she laughed a little too loud at anything he said. It wasn’t regard or even real interest. She saw a successful businessman, a city apartment and a million-dollar beach house. Damn it, lust would have been easier to deal with. But what he saw was more like desperation, which was sad for her and a total turn-off for him.

  As Ry turned into his driveway from the road, he wondered how he’d break it to David. He pushed the front door open and closed it quickly behind him, trying to keep the wind and salt spray out where it belonged. Inside, the house was quiet and peaceful, mercifully free of the sound of the Winter women. Across the large open-plan living area, David sat at the white dining table, concentrating on a broadsheet newspaper. At the sound of Ry’s footsteps on the wooden floor, he lifted his head and his caterpillar eyebrows danced upwards.

  ‘Ah Ryan, you’ve just missed the girls. They’ve driven in to Port Elliot to do some shopping.’ He smiled and put the paper down with a rustle. ‘Amanda can’t be too far from a shop or she gets twitchy. In fact, they asked me to send you over when you got back. I think they wanted to catch up for a coffee.’

  There was no choice, really. They were his guests after all.

  ‘Sure. A coffee sounds great.’ A woman would have sensed the lack of enthusiasm in his voice. He was relieved they weren’t there to see through him.

  Julia stood on The Strand, pulling her coat about her, staring in shock and awe up and down the main street of Port Elliot. She had to blink twice to take it all in. Despite the cool weather, the footpaths were crowded with parents with strollers and trailing toddlers, people with dogs of all shapes and sizes on leads, retirees in sensible shoes, young guys with dreadlocks and girls in shorts and hoodies, giggling at the boys. Young lovers ambled, hand-in-hand and arm-in-arm, stopping to admire the shop windows, clearly filling in time before they could head back to their bed-and-breakfast accommodation and get naked.

  At one end, The Strand hit the main road between Victor Harbor and Goolwa, and at the other, it reached the coast, providing a stunning view over Horseshoe Bay.

  But that was about the only thing she recognised. Could this really be the same street she’d walked thousands of times in her childhood? Its historic stone buildings and cottages had been transformed into stylish cafes, art galleries and there were at least three boutiques that Julia could see as she looked south. She was relieved to find that the local charity shop, from which her mother had lovingly but chaotically selected her daughter’s wardrobe, was still there. She made a mental note to donate her mother’s clothes back to it. Half of them were probably pre-loved and bought from there anyway. Karma, she figured. It really was about what goes around, coming back around.

  Julia stepped onto the road, checking the traffic before heading over to a particular shop window that had caught her eye. It was filled with a display of stunning blue ceramic glazed pots, hand-carved three-legged stools and a giant red fabric poster with intricate green swirls stencilled on it. It was as fashionable as anything she’d ever seen in Melbourne. She just had to have a little look.

  Julia stepped into the shop, her arrival announced with a tinkling bell over the door.

  ‘Hello. How are you?’ A woman of about Julia’s age, with jet-black hair cut in a stylish French bob, sat behind a curved wooden counter. She was dressed from head to toe in black and looked like the editor of a fashion magazine, rather than someone reading one. She narrowed her eyes at Julia, hesitating before speaking.

  ‘Julia?’

  ‘Yes?’ Julia stepped closer, trying to see behind the woman’s bright red cat’s eye glasses.

  ‘Julia Jones?’

  Julia shrugged. ‘Last time I looked.’

  ‘Oh my God. I thought it was you!’

  Julia took another long look and bit her lip in frustration at the social faux pas she feared she was about to commit. Who was this woman? A fashionista from Melbourne? Someone she’d met at a party once? A friend of a friend? A client?

  ‘It’s me! Stella Ryan. Don’t tell me you don’t recognise me. We worked together in the Middle Point general store for two whole godforsaken years.’

  And then it hit her. Julia’s face broke into a huge grin.

  ‘Stella! Wow! Look at you!’

  Stella did a little twirl and then checked Julia out from head to toe. Julia was relieved she’d chosen her tan leather boots, with her skinny jeans tucked into them, to pick up the highlights in her vintage coat. She hadn’t brought many clothes with her to Middle Point but was very glad of this particular outfit. Especially given this unexpected competition for best dressed.

  Stella gave a couple of quick claps and laughed. ‘It’s so good to see you!’

  ‘You too! This shop is truly stunning.’ Julia glanced around the white-painted interior, which formed the perfect backdrop for the riot of colourful items for sale. Stella nodded with obvious pride, her bright red lips parting in a happy smile.

  ‘Thanks Julia, I’m so proud of it. It’s been four years and I’ve never been busier.’ Then her smile vanished, her hand covering her mouth in a quick movement. ‘I got so excited about seeing you again that I forgot to say … I was so truly sorry to hear about your mother.’

  ‘Thanks Stella.’

  ‘It was so sudden …’

  Julia managed a sad smile. ‘Yeah, it was.’

  ‘I wondered when you’d be back. You staying for long?’

  ‘No, not long.’

  ‘Are you going to keep the house? What will you do with it?’

  Julia sighed. ‘I don’t know. I was hoping that coming home … coming back would help me decide.’

  ‘Has it?’

  Julia gave her a sad smile. ‘Not yet.’

  ‘I’d love to catch up before you leave.’ Stella handed Julia her business card. ‘Why don’t you find a time that suits and I’ll book dinner at th
e Middle Point pub. I can’t wait to hear what you’ve been up to. It’s been too long.’

  Julia swallowed. ‘The pub?’

  Stella looked at her expectantly. Julia wavered. Now there was a dilemma.

  And then in walked another one.

  ‘Mum, look at that bowl. Isn’t it simply divine?’

  Julia froze. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up, like soldiers about to go into battle. She’d know that voice anywhere. Fingernails down a blackboard. Lady Muck and The Princess had walked in right behind her.

  ‘Ooh, Amanda, look at this lovely white linen shirt.’

  With a surreptitious glance over her shoulder, Julia could see the royal family were far more interested in the shopping than her and she let out a barely disguised sigh of relief.

  She leaned over the counter, gave Stella a quick kiss on the cheek and whispered. ‘I’d love to catch up for dinner. I’ll call you.’

  ‘Make sure you do.’

  A loud ring tone echoed throughout the shop and Amanda exclaimed loudly for the benefit of everyone within earshot. ‘Oh it’s Ry.

  Julia closed her eyes. At times like this, she decided, one simply had to keep a calm head. And refrain from wanting to punch someone in theirs.

  ‘I will definitely call you,’ she mouthed to Stella.

  ‘Hello handsome. Where are you?’ Amanda’s giggles filled the shop. Giggling? The Princess was at least ten years and too many Botox shots too old for giggling, for God’s sake.

  Julia and Stella exchanged glances. ‘Promise?’

  Julia pocketed the business card. ‘I will. You’d better see to your customers.’

  The bell tinkled her departure and Julia was glad to shut out the grating conversation going on inside the shop. She stopped on the footpath, tried to calm her anger and frustration with a deep breath. In and out, slowly. And then she repeated the whole routine ten more times. She needed to let all the noises of the street into her head, to crowd out Amanda’s voice. And to crowd out Amanda. The Princess. Whiny Girl. And the hardest epithet of all: Mrs Blackburn.

  She needed to get home. Not Middle Point home. Melbourne home. Julia leaned back against the glass window of Stella’s shop, closed her eyes, and let herself imagine what she would be doing in Melbourne that very second, if a space/time continuum could open up and magically snap her back to the streets of Brunswick. If it was early afternoon on a public holiday Monday in Melbourne, she’d probably have just finished lunch at a café with some friends. They might be doing a little window-shopping before winding up the day at her place with a superb glass of wine and a DVD. A chilled-out day, gossiping over who was doing what with whom, a dissection of the movies and TV shows people were watching, perhaps sharing thoughts on a new restaurant opening or dishing on celebrity sightings. That kind of day sounded like heaven.

  Breathe, she told herself, as she sucked in another lungful, trying to calm the pounding in her chest. You will survive this detour through hell. It will all be over soon. And then you can go home.

  She straightened her shoulders and opened her eyes with a renewed sense of resolve.

  To find Ry staring right at her.

  CHAPTER

  6

  He’d seen her from across the street. It was as if he had some kind of warped radar when it came to Julia. It was only a glance and he knew it was her. No double-take necessary because, damn it to hell, he’d know her anywhere. And as he stood there, feet planted on the footpath out front of some gallery, Amanda’s voice like an angry seagull screeching in his ear, all he could see was Julia.

  He decided his best option was to stay exactly where he was. Was he a weak-arse coward for not wanting to run into her? They did have an agreement, after all, to stay as far away from each other as possible. To pretend they didn’t even know each other. If he stayed on his side of the street, keeping his distance from her, he could meet his part of that agreement. Could they really be in the same neck of the woods and not run into each other? For fuck’s sake, who was he kidding? She lived next door. Middle Point seemed to be at the centre of some huge geographic conspiracy to throw them together.

  Even from across the street he couldn’t take his eyes off her. Which is why he realised something wasn’t right. She looked overcome, with her eyes squeezed tightly closed and her hands jammed into the pockets of her big coat. She wasn’t moving, seemed glued to the spot outside of the fancy shop with big blue pots in the window. Even at that distance he could see the rise and fall of her chest, as if she was trying to catch her breath.

  Instinct overcame reason and history and good sense and, without thinking, he stepped off the footpath and onto The Strand, and was almost collected by a fast-approaching Volvo to his right. With a curse under his breath and an adrenalin rush, he pulled up, stepped backwards out of harm’s way and returned the grim look the driver shot at him.

  There was a pause down the line. ‘Ry? Are you still there?’

  ‘Must be a bad line. Where did you say you were?’

  The second time he crossed, he was more careful, making sure to look both ways, before ducking between cars to reach Julia. He found himself standing right in front of her and when he looked at her up close, a wave of resignation and regret swamped him. The woman he hadn’t seen in fifteen years still got him right where it hurt. That mysterious place somewhere between the neck and the gut that he didn’t have a name for, but when it ached, it felt like hell.

  And there she was, completely oblivious to the fact that he was standing there. God, she was still as beautiful as he remembered, her cascading brown curls framing her face, her skin — so soft and pale — was anchored by high cheekbones, her lashes lay full and long on her cheeks.

  Had he thought about Julia in all those years? Too many times to count. Usually late at night, in the quiet dark, when there was too much time to think about all the what-ifs in his life. Sometimes in the morning when he woke up alone and wondered what his life would have been like if things had turned out differently. When he’d bought the pub. When he walked the Middle Point beach. Every time he looked up at the dazzling night sky, studying once again the stars he’d only ever seen with her.

  He was caught out.

  Julia opened her eyes and gasped. Her full lips parted as if she was about to speak, then she hesitated, caught herself, and simply stared right through him. Like he was a complete stranger.

  Ry reached a hand up to rub his chest. There was that ache again. She was looking at him as if they’d never met or seen each other naked. Fuck. Ry wanted to slap himself across the head. Don’t think about her naked. It was way too late for that now. The images were right there, like a photo. And if he couldn’t stop thinking about her naked, there was no way he could do anything about the long, slow trip his eyes took down her body, from her caramel eyes past her big old woolly coat to the tips of a pair of unbelievably sexy leather boots.

  The voice in his ear reminded him he was still on the phone. To Amanda.

  ‘Yeah, I’m still listening.’ His gaze lifted to Julia’s stormy eyes and flat-line mouth.

  And then he tuned out again, letting the bullshit float right over his head. As she moved to go, turned her shoulder to step past him, he acted without thinking.

  ‘Listen, Amanda. I’ll call you back,’ he said as his hand snapped out to grab Julia’s arm.

  ‘JJ.’ He could feel the deep freeze set in, even through her coat. But she stopped anyway, looked back over her shoulder with a kind of elegant disdain.

  ‘Yes?’ Her voice was colder than the wind that blew up from the bay.

  And then he didn’t know what to do next. All that thinking about sex and her being naked had blown a hole in his anger. Hell, fighting with her hadn’t made him feel any better about the fact that she was back in town. And, despite his behaviour on her front doorstep the day before, anger wasn’t his default position anyway.

  ‘Look, Julia. This is a small part of the world. We’d better figure out a way to de
al with this.’

  ‘This? There is no this.’

  ‘I mean running into each other,’ he said, and even he could hear the frustration in his voice.

  Julia lifted her chin. ‘Well, it’s lucky for both of us that I don’t live in this small part of the world anymore, so you don’t have to worry that this will ever happen again.’

  Ry could feel the tension flare in his jaw and a tightness emerge right on his breastbone. He knew that tone of hers, had heard it once before, aloof and arctic. Fifteen years ago. The day she’d broken his heart and walked out of his life.

  He let go of her arm but took a step closer so he could look down right into her eyes. With his body language, arms crossed in front of his chest, his head angled down to look at her, he demanded her full attention. The closer he was, the higher she had to look up, and he got the killer view that had always driven him crazy. That mouth. Those plump, pink lips had always been full of sass and sweetness and were still so damn sexy he wanted to take her right there. Like he had on her doorstep the day before.

  This shit had to stop. So he pulled back. For a long moment they stood there, playing out a game of emotional checkmate on the footpath of The Strand. Neither wanted to be the first to move, to give in, to surrender. It was stubborn at fifty centimetres.

  Until Amanda’s grating voice drifted from behind the slowly opening door of Stella’s shop and Ry broke his gaze first.

  ‘He just hung up on me, Mum. I don’t know what’s going on.’

  When Ry’s eyes shifted, for a mere half a second, at the sound of Amanda’s voice, Julia spun around. The sound of her boots beat a confident rhythm on the footpath as she walked away from him without another word.

  ‘There you are.’ Amanda’s possessive fingers gripped his shoulder and she rubbed her body close to his, like a cat. ‘Is everything all right?’

  Ry watched Julia’s hair dance on her shoulders as she disappeared into the weekend crowd. No. Not all right. Everything’s fucked up totally, but thanks for asking.

  ‘Everything’s fine.’ He managed a smile at Amanda’s mother, Annie, who was watching them both with way too much interest. ‘But I’ve found you both now. How about that coffee?’