by Ally Blake
Cameron rubbed a hand across his jaw as he looked harder at the extraordinary woman at his side. He wondered what on earth he’d done right in a former life to have had her offered up before him this morning of all mornings.
She opened her squinting eye and dropped her hand. Those eyes. Those wide, open eyes. Attraction mixed with concern, and unguarded interest. No wonder he hadn’t been able to resist.
She looked down into her melting gelato. ‘Are your family worried?’
‘I’m fairly sure they don’t suspect.’ If they had, there was no way they wouldn’t have all been on the phone to him, telling him to get his butt over there.
Her brow furrowed as she tried to fit that piece into the puzzle. But all she said was, ‘And your dad? Have you asked him straight out?’
Cameron breathed deep through his nose. In for a penny in for a pound… ‘That’s a tad difficult, considering we haven’t spoken in about fifteen years.’
One edge of her bottom lip began getting an extreme workout by way of her top teeth. His physical reaction made him feel all too human.
Eventually she asked, ‘On purpose?’
How the hell did she know that was exactly the right question to ask? That no living soul knew how hard he worked to keep clear of the man in question without letting his family know why?
Slowly, he nodded.
‘Then why did I think you worked for him?’
‘Brendan does. Dylan does. I never have.’ Never will.
‘But you were planning to, right? Economics degree here, then Harvard Business School?’ Her mouth snapped shut and her cheeks pinked. Then her mouth drew up into a half-smile. ‘My turn again. I confess I overheard you talking to Callum Tucker about it once in the canteen. Of course, it only stuck with me because he said he was going to become a roadie for a rock band.’
Her smile was infectious. A bubble of laughter lodged in his throat. ‘Callum is an orthodontist. And I didn’t go to business school. I became a structural engineer. After several years in the field, I moved into property development.’
‘Impressive.’ She blinked prettily. ‘Callum Tucker’s an orthodontist.’
The bubble burst, and Cameron’s laughter spilled out into the night. Her half-smile bloomed, full and pink and blushing. And, while her hair still whipped lightly about her face in the wind, it had been some time since he felt the cold.
She asked, ‘What is a structural engineer, exactly?’
‘I warn you, most people tend to go cross-eyed when I start talking structural systems, lateral forces and the supporting and resistance of various loads.’
‘Like I don’t get blank faces when I get excited about the chemical composition of celestial objects?’
‘Sorry,’ he said after a pause. ‘Did you say something?’
She lifted a hand and slapped him hard across the arm. ‘Not funny.’
‘Come on, it was a little bit funny.’
She snuck her foot out from under her and placed it next to the other one on the ground, facing him. ‘Why not just stick with the engineering?’
‘Ego.’
She shot him a blank stare.
‘The more things we Kellys see with our name upon them, the happier we are. It comes from having been born out of abject poverty. Generations ago, mind you.’
‘How’s that? No freshly churned butter on your crust-free organic toast-fingers every second Sunday?’
Cameron grinned. ‘Something like that. Ironically, business school would have saved me half the time it took to become profitable when I went out on my own.’
‘Nah,’ she said, flapping a hand across her face. ‘School can only get you so far. In the end you have to throw yourself at the mercy of the universe and take pride in your own ride.’
Cameron let that idea sink in. He was a meticulous planner, demanding control, assurance and perfection from himself and every employee he had. Then again, as a seventeen-year-old kid, he had broken free of the only world he’d ever known. If he hadn’t done so he would not be the self-made man he was today.
He nodded. ‘I’m damn proud of my ride.’
‘Well, then, good for you.’
Her eyes softened, and her smile made him feel like he’d been covered with a warm blanket.
The need to touch her again was overwhelming. Pushing aside her hair would not be enough. He wanted so badly to sink his hand into the mass, pull her in and kiss her until he could taste cinnamon. So, what the hell was stopping him?
The fact that she knew the worst about him certainly didn’t help.
Rosalind broke eye contact to eat another mouthful of melting gelato and the moment was gone. And, without her striking grey eyes holding him in place, he remembered: there was something wrong with his father. And worse: after a decade and a half spent keeping his whole family at arm’s length because the bastard had given him no choice, he still gave a damn.
He blinked, clearing the red mist from his vision and letting Rosalind fill it instead. At first glance, she seemed a ‘just what it says on the tin’ kind of person—playful, slightly awkward, with an impertinent streak a mile wide. But those eyes, those changeable, mercurial eyes, kept him wondering. He could have sworn she’d changed the subject back there, knowing it was what he needed.
Then, in the quiet, her hand reached out to his. It took him about half a second to give in and turn her hand until their fingers intertwined.
For the first time since that morning Cameron felt that everything was going to be all right.
He frowned. He’d managed to figure that out on his lonesome time and time again over the years. And at the end of the day, when they parted ways, he’d once again only have himself to count on. To trust.
He gave her hand a brief squeeze before pulling his away and leaning back to rest on the toadstool, cool, nonchalant, like nothing mattered as much as it had seemed to matter moments earlier.
‘Cameron—’
‘You done?’ he asked, gesturing to her melting gelato.
She licked the inside of her lips as though relishing every last drop of the delicious treat. But her eyes pierced his as she asked, ‘Are you?’
He didn’t pretend not to understand her. ‘Well and truly. I didn’t invite you out tonight for a therapy session.’
‘So, why did you invite me again?’ she asked, with just the perfect amount of flirtation in her voice to make his fingers spontaneously flex.
‘It was obvious you were the kind to appreciate the finer things in life.’
‘Quesadillas and gelato?’
‘God, yes.’
He stood.
She did the same, threw her empty container into the bin, pressed her hands into her lower back, then closed her eyes tight and stretched. ‘First, I’m a geek. Now I’m obvious. You sure know how to make a girl feel special.’
‘Stick around,’ he said, his voice gravelly. ‘The night is young.’
She stopped stretching and looked him in the eye. Attraction hovered between them like a soap bubble, beautiful, light and with a limited lifespan. Just the way he liked it.
‘I could do with walking some of that off.’ Cameron patted his flat stomach. ‘You game?’ He held out a hand.
She stared at it. Then she wiped her hands on her jeans and, after a moment’s hesitation, put her hand in his.
Holding hands made him feel like he was seventeen again. But, then again, the fact that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d held a woman’s hand unless it was to help her out of his car made it feel far more grown up than all that.
As Rosie strolled beside Cameron down the length of South Bank, they talked movies, politics, religion and work. She made fun of him loving a sport that managed to keep a straight face while giving a man a job title of “silly mid-on”, while he utterly refused to admit he believed man had ever really set foot on the moon.
But she couldn’t get her mind off the elephant in the room; Cameron and his father must have had some kind of fa
lling out. She’d never heard about it in the press or on the grapevine. Yet he’d confided in her. She was caught between being flattered, and being concerned that what had started out as a fun date had become something more complicated so very quickly.
It would be okay so long as she remembered who she was and perhaps, more importantly, who he was. He might have fled the nest but he was still a Kelly. He walked with purpose even if that purpose was simply to walk. He had that golden glow that came with the expectation of privilege, while she knew what it was like to struggle, to trip over her own feet and her own words, and to feel alone even in a room full of people. They were manifestly wrong for one another.
They dawdled along the curving path. Moonlight flickered through the bougainvillea entwined in the open archway above. A group of late-night cyclists shot past and Cameron put an arm around her to move her out of their way. Once they were free and clear he didn’t let go.
Against her side he was all bunched muscle and restrained strength. His clean scent wrapped itself around her, and it took everything not to just lean into him and forget everything else.
To reforge the natural boundary between them, she asked, ‘So, what is it like being a Kelly?’
‘What makes you think there is only one way?’
‘I’m not sure. Terrible instincts. Stumbling about in the dark only to find the electricity has been cut off. No, wait—that’s how it is to be a Harper.’
His steps slowed until they came to a stop. ‘Right. Let’s stop talking around the real question, shall we?’
Rosie bounced from one foot to another, wondering what can of worms she’d inadvertently fallen into now. ‘And what’s that?’
‘If you were such a poor unfortunate in your youth, while I was given every opportunity, how did you work out twenty percent faster than I did?’
Her head fell back as she laughed into the night. She bobbed her head in the general direction of the Red Fox, wondering briefly if everyone else had made it home to their nice warm beds. ‘Don’t beat yourself up. Spending time with that lot, how could you not revert to your teenage IQ?’
His eyes narrowed. ‘I’m not entirely sure that was in the slightest bit complimentary to any of us.’
She looked him dead in the eye and said, ‘Well, colour me surprised. You’re not as slow as you seem.’
His cheek slid into the kind of smile that would melt the icy crust of the moon Europa. No wonder she couldn’t stop moving. He was always so switched on, he made her feel like there were ants in her shoes.
‘So, how did a smart mouth like you end up in such a dry field as astrophysics?’ he asked, lifting his foot to lean it against a log on the edge of the garden beside them.
Rosie clasped her hands together behind her back. ‘I used to wish upon every star I saw. When I didn’t get a trip to Disneyland for my eighth birthday, I gave up on them.’
‘Stars?’
‘Wishes. Stars I couldn’t let go of quite so easily. So, while you hunkered down in your seat shaking like a little girl at the animated wormholes on your planetarium visit, I paid attention. I learnt about Venus, about how she always appeared alone, separate from all the other planets, and only at the most beautiful times of day, sunset and sunrise. That afternoon, I sat in the kitchen window of our apartment block and there she was—bright, constant and unblinking. A free show, for anyone in the world to see. That was the beginning of a beautiful love affair that has lasted til this day.’
Rosie came back to earth to find Cameron standing very still, his eyes dark, intense, with the kind of absolute focus she was certainly not used to being on the receiving end of. She’d been balancing on her toes. She bounced back to her heels with a thud. It didn’t help. Those deep, blue eyes looked just as hot from a lower angle.
She started walking again; no dawdling any more. Assuming he’d follow, she said, ‘Did you know Venus is the only planet in the solar system named after a woman?’
‘I think I’d heard that.’ His voice told her he was close.
‘And, with a few exceptions, all surface features take their names from successful women.’
‘That I did not know.’
‘And that, if you weighed one-hundred kilos on Earth, you would weigh about ninety on Venus?’
‘I feel like you’re trying to sell me an interplanetary timeshare.’
She glanced back and wished she hadn’t. When she looked into his eyes she forgot herself. Forgot that their time together was one of the universe’s crazier anomalies. And she found herself wishing again. Just for the briefest moment, but each and every time.
He asked, ‘So are any other planets allowed a look in, or is this an exclusive relationship?’
She looked up, and the tightness in her chest ebbed away. ‘I’m a one-planet woman. Earth and Venus are the most similar in size of the planets in our solar system. They came into being around the same time with nearly the same radius, mass, density and chemical composition. But she has clouds laced with sulphuric acid, a surface hot enough to melt steel, and her surface pressure is equivalent to being a kilometre under the sea.’
‘She’s one feisty broad.’
‘Isn’t she?’ Having built up a safer distance, she spun to face him, and, walking backwards, said, ‘Sorry you asked?’
‘Not in the least. So, how long have you been working at the planetarium?’
She fell into step beside him, figuring it best to keep her eyes on the path ahead. ‘I don’t. I’ve known the manager there—Adele, who you met yesterday—since uni, and she lets me camp out in the observatory whenever I like. I travelled a lot after school, and now, being back, having the observatory on hand means I can mix things up.’
‘And it’s a living?’
She shot him a sideways glance. ‘As Australia’s pre-eminent Venus specialist, I’ve given talks at international conferences, guest lectured at universities, and even talked on TV about her. And I’ve worked freelance for NASA for yonks. So, yeah, I do just fine.’
‘You’re a humble little thing, aren’t you?’
‘The humblest.’
He moved alongside her, close enough she could feel the whisper of air from his swinging arm brushing her jacket against hers. Their footsteps found a rhythm; her heart on the other hand felt like it was skittering all over the place. It was a feeling she’d never experienced before, comfortable and sexy all at once. She wondered if he felt that way all the time, if being with him she would too.
Rosie slid her arm out of Cameron’s grasp, feigned having to unhook the back of her shoe from her heel, then walked on with a good foot’s distance between them.
They hit the end of a row of cafés at the southern end of South Bank, then veered around in a one-eighty-degree arc and headed back towards the Victoria Street Bridge. Towards their cars.
Towards the end of the night.
And Rosie’s relief and disappointment at the thought of their date coming to an end ran pretty much neck and neck.
On the other hand, Cameron was feeling strangely content. He would have expected by now to be over the elation that came with revelation, and to have moved on to disappointment with himself for giving into a moment’s weakness.
But instead his mind was completely filled with the fact that he was out on a stunning winter’s night with a beautiful woman. And, having given up so much of himself, he found himself wanting more from her. To restore the balance? That was the reason he was most comfortable admitting to.
He said, ‘What’s your relationship with your father like?’
She tilted her face towards him; her hair shifted against his shoulder, long, soft, kinky, fabulous. He breathed in deep to stop himself from ravaging her then and there. She really tried his self-control, this one.
‘You ask that question like it should have an easy answer.’
‘Complicated man?’
She shrugged beneath his arm. ‘I wouldn’t know. He and my mum met, married, he left, then she had me.’
>
Cameron’s neck tensed. Not in surprise, but in disillusion at the levels to which some men would sink in the grips of their own self-interest. ‘That can’t have been easy on your mum.’
‘Not for the whole time I knew her. They knew one another less than a year, but she dropped out of uni when she met him and never went back. It was as though she always thought one day he’d come back, and she wanted everything to be the same as when he left.’
‘So where did a grown-up daughter fit into that?’
Her smile was as rich as always. Could nothing floor her? ‘With difficulty, and tantrums and killer grades. Whatever it took to break through the fog. Mum passed away a few years ago when I was overseas. I wish she was still around so that she could see that I’ve landed on my own two feet. Him too, actually—which is the nuttiest thing of all.’
Her voice was strong, as though she was telling a story she’d told a thousand times. But Cameron was close enough to feel the tremble beneath the gusto.
‘Cousins? Grandparents?’
She shook her head. No blood ties. No fallback. No choice about whether or not to turn her back on the man who’d hurt her…
‘But I’ve known Adele since I was seventeen. She’s as bossy as a sister, as cuddly as a grandparent, as protective as a dad ought to be. So as far as family goes, I’m more than covered.’
He held out an arm, an offer, and she sank into him. It took a whole other kind of strength not to lean against her, not to kiss the top of her head.
‘Argh!’ she said, curling away all too soon. ‘The last thing I meant to do was get slushy. You just happened to hit a soft spot.’
She slid round in front of him, out of his embrace, though her hand stayed resting on his arm as though she couldn’t break all contact. ‘Can I poke at one of yours?’
Okay, so she was touching him because she knew he might try to get away. ‘You’re asking this time?’
She tilted her head, not to be brushed off. ‘You have the kind of family some of us only dream of.’
‘You know those suburban news reports when a neighbour says “they always seemed like such a nice family”?’
