Hold On to Me

by Victoria Purman

  ‘Oh, god. Please don’t be sorry. I just wanted to let you both know how awful I was feeling for you and how happy I am that you are both all right.’

  ‘We’re all right but we feel dreadful,’ Lee said, with tears welling in his eyes. ‘It’s all our fault.’

  Stella pulled back. ‘What are you talking about, Lee?’

  ‘It was our air-conditioner that started the fire,’ Ian said tearily.

  ‘It was an accident. Please don’t feel guilty for me. I’m insured. It’ll be okay. I’ll be okay.’

  ‘But look at Style by Stella,’ Lee murmured. ‘It’s all ruined. You know how much I loved those stools.’

  Stella shook it off. ‘It’s all fixable; I’m sure of it. Please don’t worry about me. I’m devastated for you both. Your café. Your coffee machine … oh, everything. Have you decided what you’re going to do?’

  The men exchanged glances. ‘Yes, we know exactly what we’re going to do,’ Lee said. ‘This has been such a shock that we don’t think we have the heart for business any more. So we’ve decided to retire early. Only a little earlier than we’d planned.’

  Ian said, ‘We’ve talked about it and we’re going to hit the road anyway.’

  ‘This has made us think,’ Lee added, looking at his husband. ‘Life’s short. We’re going to enjoy it while we can. We’re not getting any younger and it was going to be our last summer anyway.’

  ‘I know but … it just seems so sudden. So final.’ As she said the words, it hit home to Stella that she was going to lose her neighbours, her precious friends. Their words, out loud and in the air between them, made the whole situation feel more real than ever. She hugged them again. ‘I’m so sorry for the way this has happened, but I’m so glad for you both.’

  ‘We’ve loved Port Elliot,’ Ian said with a shrug. ‘But maybe it’s time we saw a little more of this country.’

  Stella felt an ache in her chest that she knew would live there for a long, long time. ‘It won’t be the same around here without you two.’

  ‘This is the beach,’ Lee added. ‘I’m sure the wind will blow in new people for you to get to know. You never know who might buy this place and what they’ll do with it. If they have the stomach for a renovation, that is.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure you’ll find someone who’s up for a challenge,’ Stella said. The three of them took in the sight of the former café. All they could see was plywood sheeting fixed to the front wall and police tape still strung around it like bunting. ‘Isn’t … wasn’t … this place heritage listed?’

  Lee shook his head ruefully. ‘Don’t know that there’s a whole lot of heritage left. Four stone walls maybe.’

  Stella had started her own business with a shell of a shop. Four walls. A sink. A shared toilet out the back. Anything was possible, she knew.

  ‘I’ll miss your coffee. Best on the south coast. And your friendship, that goes without saying.’

  ‘Don’t worry, we’ll be bombarding Facebook with photos of all our adventures. But we’ll miss you, Stella. We can’t wait to see what you do with your place. You can rebuild. If anyone can, you can.’

  ‘Thanks, guys,’ Stella said. ‘I plan to. I have a few irons in the fire already. I can’t waste a minute.’

  A couple of hours later, Stella had made a start on filling the skip, which had been delivered earlier that morning and plonked on the street right outside her shop. She and her shovel had worked hard, scooping up sodden stock, pulling apart her ruined counter, carrying all the wooden shelving and dumping it, and she was beginning to shovel up some of the mud when she heard heavy steps through her doorway and the splash of a shoe in a puddle.

  She exhaled in frustration and hoped he’d heard it. Did the man not take the hint? She didn’t even bother to look up before speaking. ‘Duncan, really, I told you I can do this all by myself.’ She straightened her knees and lifted the shovel full of mud and debris carefully so it didn’t slide off onto her shoes.

  ‘Who’s Duncan?’

  Stella nearly dropped the damn shovel on her toes. It almost overbalanced in her hands and she had to take a deep breath to find the strength to keep holding it level. There was a man in her shop. A strange man. Black hair. Tall. Dark eyes. Olive skin like he’d just walked up from the beach after a day of topping up his tan. But he wasn’t wearing boardshorts. He had on a short-sleeved black polo-style shirt with a logo on the pocket that she couldn’t quite make out at a distance. Khaki shorts revealed that the tan went further than his face and forearms, and he was wearing industrial strength steel-capped boots.

  ‘You from the council?’ Stella huffed as she struggled past him with the shovel. He had probably come to check out her clean-up, to ensure she cleared the footpath as soon as she could so it would be safe for pedestrians. She heaved the mud into the skip and leaned the shovel up against its metal side. She swiped the sweat from her brow, pushed her hair out of her eyes and propped her hands on her hips.

  ‘The council? No.’ He looked her up and down, in slow motion, from her soggy runners to her headscarf. ‘I’m actually looking for Stella Ryan.’

  The way he said her name sent something shimmering at the back of her neck. She knew that voice. It was him. She’d listened to his phone message the day before a few times. Okay, maybe ten. The voice had been enough to start her fantasising about what he looked like. A deep voice, rough at the edges. And now here he was in the flesh.

  ‘I’m Stella Ryan.’ She looked him up and down again. ‘And you must be Anna’s brother.’

  CHAPTER

  5

  ‘Luca Morelli.’ He reached out to shake her hand but she didn’t—couldn’t—oblige him. Stella held her two rubber-gloved hands in the air and shrugged her shoulders. ‘I would shake your hand, I normally do when it comes to business, but I’m filthy, as you can see.’

  She lowered her eyes and he followed her invitation. She was tall, not quite as tall as him. Long legs. Between her runners and the turned-up hem of her old jeans, there were slender ankles splattered with brown spots, and then as his gaze navigated up her legs to the curve of her arse, he noticed a sliver of stomach on display where her singlet top had ridden up. One of her bra straps, thin and black, had dropped over her shoulder. The paleness of her skin was accentuated by more smudges of mud on her forearms, on one shoulder and across her face.

  ‘You own this place.’

  ‘That’s my name on the window. No, wait, it was my name on the window.’

  She wasn’t what he’d been expecting. Not in any way, shape or form. The way his sister Anna had talked about Stella Ryan, he’d imagined someone more sophisticated. He hadn’t expected a classy boutique owner to be doing her own manual labour. He’d expected a Lady Who Lunches And Directs The Tradies rather than someone dressed down and dirty and handling a shovel like a plumber.

  ‘I thought you’d have people in to do this for you. The clean-up.’

  Stella looked at him. ‘People? You don’t know much about small business in a coastal town, do you?’

  ‘Can’t say I do.’

  She looked at him a long moment and he returned the look. A car rumbled by and there was children’s laughter in the street. Then he didn’t quite know what to do with his hands, so he crossed his arms, stood with his feet a distance apart. He was waiting for her to offer him the job, but she said nothing.

  ‘I don’t remember calling you,’ she said abruptly.

  ‘No, you didn’t. But my sister called me this morning and threatened me with all sorts of physical violence if I didn’t come down here to the beach and take a look at your shop.’ He glanced around the ruin. ‘Well, what’s left of it.’

  A reluctant smile curved her mouth and the tough businesswoman façade cracked just a little at the mention of Anna’s name.

  ‘She is one of my most loyal customers. I’m guessing if she recommended you, you must be good.’

  ‘Or a relative.’

  She laughed this time and the sou
nd of it caught his attention in a whole new way. Damn it all. He didn’t have time for this. He had so much work to do on his own place back in Adelaide.

  ‘So there was a fire,’ he said.

  ‘Yes. Next door.’ She cocked her head in the general direction.

  ‘It doesn’t look like it spread here.’ Luca scanned the four bare walls, could see the damaged plaster. There was a gaping hole in the ceiling and he walked over to stand under it. He looked up to the patch of blue sky.

  ‘The CFS did a great job containing it. But as you can see, there’s a lot of water damage.’

  ‘Did you lose all your stock?’

  Stella held her chin high, nodded her head slightly. ‘Every last piece.’

  Luca watched her. For someone who’d just lost everything, Stella Ryan sure seemed to be calm about it.

  He propped his hands on his hips. ‘What do you want to do with it?’

  ‘What do I want to do with it?’ Stella huffed as if he’d just asked the dumbest question she’d ever heard. ‘I want to get back in business—that’s what I want to do with it. I figure all I’ve got left is a shell and it’ll need relining, a new ceiling, maybe some new trusses for the roof depending on the damage, new shop fittings, the whole lot. I’ve already lodged a claim with my insurance company and I’m just waiting for it to be approved. Do you have references?’

  ‘Hold the phone.’ She was moving way too fast for him and he couldn’t fight the strangest feeling that she didn’t seem to need him at all. She clearly had the whole lot figured out herself.

  He rubbed a hand over his jaw. ‘You want references?’

  ‘Yes.’ She crossed her arms and shot him a narrow-eyed gaze. ‘While I trust Anna implicitly, how do I know that you’re a good … what are you exactly?’

  Luca dug a finger into the embroidered logo on the pocket of his shirt. ‘I’m a carpenter with a builder’s licence and two years ago I set up my own construction company.’

  The dirt-smudged woman crossed the puddles on the floor and stopped in front of him. He looked down at her jet-black hair. She’d pulled it back with a piece of material knotted on her head but it still looked a little wild and unruly, and there were splashes of mud dotted in the strands. She moved in close to his chest. The design on his shirt pocket was almost at her eye level. If he looked down, he’d be nestling his face in her hair. He could smell her scent: shampoo and sludge.

  ‘“Morelli Constructions”,’ she announced with careful deliberation. ‘Nice brand. Red, white and green. Is that a reference to the Italian thing?’ She tipped her head back and looked at him.

  ‘Il Tricolore.’

  ‘So you speak Italian too?’

  ‘Only when I’m trying to impress a customer,’ he said, and he couldn’t stop the smile tugging at his lips.

  ‘Molto bene.’

  ‘You speak Italian?’

  ‘No. But it’s amazing what you can pick up from watching Scorsese movies.’ Stella took a few steps back and waved an arm around as if she was ushering him inside. ‘So, what do you think, Morelli Constructions?’

  Scorsese movies? Who was this woman?

  Luca looked around the trashed space. It really was a mess. Renovating it and then fitting it out would be like starting from scratch. Despite her brave face and her determined words, he wondered if Stella was up for it, really up for the expense and the time and the extra costs as they discovered exactly the extent of the damage. He knew from experience that oftentimes there were things below the surface that had suffered the most harm. They could only be discovered once you peeled back some of the damage and got a good look inside.

  ‘There’s a lot of work to be done here.’ He paced out the distance from the front door to the rear wall with long strides.

  She watched him, waiting until he stopped by the front door. ‘I know.’

  Luca then paced out the width of the space. Did the mental calculation in his head. ‘Are you sure you just don’t want to call it quits and walk away from this? There must be vacant premises down here that you could just walk into and open for business. What’s the name of your shop?’

  ‘Style by Stella,’ she announced with a tilt of her chin. There was pride in her voice and he understood it. It had only been two years for him and he felt the same sense of satisfaction every day when he got up and pulled on a shirt with his name on the pocket. He saw all that in Stella’s face: the hard work, the determination, the dark days and the successes. The fear of failure and the dogged optimism that went alongside it.

  ‘Nice name.’

  ‘Mine or the shop’s?’

  ‘Both.’

  Luca shoved his hands in his pockets. ‘I want to warn you: this could be a major headache and will probably cost you a lot more than you think, even with my best price. These places look old.’

  ‘I think the word you’re looking for is “heritage”.’

  ‘Nope. The word I’m looking for is “expensive”. Factor in salt damage from the beach. Your normal wear and tear.’

  Stella’s smile disappeared and she pulled her shoulders back. It did interesting things to her breasts, which were curved and lush and barely hidden under her tight singlet. She slid a finger under the wandering bra strap and pulled it back into position. ‘You’ve got to understand one thing, Morelli Constructions. There’s absolutely no freaking way I am walking away from this place.’

  Beautiful and stubborn. Brilliant, he thought. ‘I don’t think you know what you’re letting yourself in for.’

  ‘With all due respect—’ she started.

  Luca tried not to grin. He liked that expression: it usually meant there wasn’t any.

  Stella pushed her hair away from her face. ‘I know what I’m doing. All I need from you is a quote for the building work—not business advice or career counselling. Got it? Think you can rustle up an inspection report as well as those references?’

  ‘Wait a minute—’

  ‘And I need to know that you can start immediately.’ Stella met his eyes, unblinking.

  Yeah, because he didn’t have his own home to renovate. Of course he spent his life waiting around for fancy boutiques owned by beautiful women to be almost gutted so he could hop in his truck, drive down to the middle of nowhere and summon his cast of magical tradies and supplies, just like one of those reality home makeover shows. Could he do this job? Abso-fricking-lutely. Did he need this job? A prickly and demanding client, an hour and a half from his home in the city, a small fiddly job? Nooooo. Anna would kill him, but he decided he didn’t need the aggravation.

  ‘I think you might do better—’

  ‘Stella?’

  They both turned. A man in a navy suit and silver tie was in the doorway. He cast suspicious eyes at Luca.

  ‘Hi, Duncan,’ Stella said with a sigh and, if Luca wasn’t mistaken, a little eye roll before she stepped sideways and turned to greet The Suit.

  ‘What’s going on here?’

  ‘I’m getting on with business, Duncan, that’s what’s going on.’ She turned and waved a hand in Luca’s direction. ‘This is Luca Morelli from Morelli Constructions.’

  ‘G’day,’ Luca said.

  ‘Luca, this is Duncan McNamee. He has an office up the road.’

  ‘Hello.’ The Suit didn’t step forward to shake Luca’s hand, but stood in the doorway and peered inside like he was worried he’d dirty up his leather shoes. ‘I see you’ve been busy already.’

  ‘Yes. I mentioned yesterday I wanted this place fixed up as soon as humanly possible.’

  ‘Here’s a warning from someone who’s dealt with builders before, Stella. Don’t go with the first quote you get. You should really aim for three so you don’t get ripped off. Some of these construction guys can be real shonks.’ He hadn’t even bothered to lower his voice.

  Stella turned to Luca, and there was another eye roll, out of Duncan’s line of sight.

  ‘No offence,’ Duncan clarified, holding up his hands.

/>   ‘Don’t mind me,’ Luca said, shrugging.

  ‘There’s not that much work to be done, is there? Shouldn’t take more than a week. Keep that in mind when you’re assessing the quotes, Stella.’

  Luca looked down at his work boots, smiled to himself. Everyone was a freaking expert. Thanks once again, reality TV.

  ‘Yes, thank you, Duncan. That’s good advice. Uncalled-for advice, but good nevertheless. We really must get back to it. Thanks so much for stopping by.’

  The Suit was such a dick he clearly didn’t get Stella’s tone. Luca could read it loud and clear and that awareness suddenly had him smiling.

  Duncan straightened his tie. ‘I’ll see you tonight?’

  Stella hesitated, checked for a watch on her wrist, which, Luca noticed, was bare. ‘Look, I don’t know how long I’ll be here and I’ll probably be exhausted by the time I get home. Can we take a raincheck?’

  ‘Of course.’ The Suit took two steps to Stella and leant down to kiss her on the cheek. When he looped an arm around her waist and pulled her in close, Luca averted his eyes, took another look at the stone wall exposed under the damaged plaster. When he looked up, The Suit had gone. Stella was swiping her mouth with the back of her hand and then she grabbed her shovel. She looked like she wanted to hit something—or someone—with it.

  She quickly glanced at Luca as she stomped back into the shop. ‘Sorry about that. The three-quotes bullshit.’

  He shrugged. ‘Hey, don’t worry about it.’

  Stella leant the shovel against the damaged plasterwork on one wall and walked to the spot where he was standing, right in the middle of the shop, exactly where the light from the brilliant southern sky was beaming down through the hole in the roof. The warm sun spotlit her: glowed on her face, shone down into her smile and bounced off her hair. That’s when he noticed the fine lines at the corners of her eyes and the laugh lines at the edges of her plump lips. They stood there, in the light, looking at each other for a long moment.