Someone Like You

by Victoria Purman

  Someone Like You

  Victoria Purman

  CONTENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  When Victoria Purman woke up one day and realised she’d spent most of her working life writing for other people, she decided it was finally time to tell stories of her own. She’s now thrilled to spend her days creating dialogue and happy-ever-afters for her imaginary characters. Her Boys of Summer trilogy is set on the south coast of her home state of South Australia, somewhere she feels compelled to do a lot of research. When she’s not writing, Victoria spends time with her husband, three sons, a disobedient dog, her loving, extended family and dear friends. She keeps promising to buy herself surfing lessons.

  To Stephen. For making sure our house is always fully-stocked with author must-haves such as wine and chocolate. And for absolutely everything else.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Thank you, thank you, thank you to all my lovely readers who said they loved Nobody But Him and asked for more.

  To my many male friends who read it - big hugs. This one is set over summer, so I’ve thrown in some cricket action for you all. You’re welcome.

  To Jessie Byrne for reading the first draft and providing excellent advice and guidance.

  To Stephen. And to our boys - Ethan, Ned and Clancy – for being the best sons in the world.

  Once again, to Emma and Vilma for being my biggest fans.

  To my editor Jody Lee. Thank you for your middle of the night revelation about that extra scene – you were SO right. Once again, you’ve made this a much better book and I thank you sincerely.

  To Sue Brockhoff, Cristina Lee and Lilia Kanna from Harlequin Australia. My heartfelt thanks for your continuing support, encouragement and reassuring words of wisdom.

  And finally, to everyone else at team Harlequin. Thanks for everything you’ve done to help make my wildest dreams come true.

  Dear Reader:

  I’m thrilled to be welcoming you back to Middle Point for book two of my Boys of Summer trilogy.

  Someone Like You is the story of Dan and Lizzie, the two best friends from my first book Nobody But Him. When we first met them, they were doing everything they could to make sure Ry and Julia found love. This time around, they’re not so sure they want it for themselves. Both of them have some difficult history to overcome before they can find their own happiness and they think that hiding away from the world in the sleepy coastal town of Middle Point is the best way to deal with their problems. But I couldn’t let them wallow. They had to find love – with each other, of course!

  As a debut author, I’ve been overwhelmed at the responses I’ve had from readers to Nobody But Him. Thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone who’s taken the time to let me know how much you loved it. I hope you enjoy Someone Like You just as much.

  I love to hear from readers, so please find me at the following:

  Website: www.victoriapurman.com

  Facebook: Victoria Purman Author

  Twitter: @VictoriaPurman

  Happy reading!

  Victoria

  CHAPTER

  1

  Lizzie Blake gripped her fingers into a tight fist and raised her knuckles to the salt-scarred front door. She stole a quick glance over her shoulder, looking across the esplanade to the sparkling water of Middle Point behind her. She tried to imagine the hot sand sizzling her feet, the cool of the waves washing over her limbs and the roar of the Southern Ocean in her ears.

  She straightened her back, lifted her chin and muttered to herself. ‘For God’s sake. Just get it over with. This is not brain surgery. Man up. Or…should that be woman up?’

  She halted, hearing a scraping noise from inside the house. He was definitely in there. The man who’d moved in months before, when the wind off the water had blown cold and the skies started out grey in the mornings, hanging low until sunset. Time had passed. The weather had turned; summer was only a few weeks away.

  But the mystery man of Middle Point remained a recluse.

  Lizzie felt a trickle of sweat slip down between her shoulder blades. The sooner she got this over with, the sooner she could be back at work in the air-conditioned cool of the Middle Point pub. She wasn’t even sure what she was doing here. Here being the not-so-welcome mat of a modest, mint-green painted beach shack. It was weathered and worn, its windows opaque with gritty streaks of sand, the yellowed grass in the front yard resembling strewn hay instead of lush green.

  It was a good question and she wasn’t entirely sure she had an answer that made any sense. In a moment of sentimental weakness that morning, she’d promised Ry Blackburn she would make a delivery to his best friend, Dan McSwaine. Ry was Lizzie’s boss at the pub. And her best friend Julia’s fiancé. And Dan’s next-door neighbour. Yes. Middle Point was a small town.

  She felt the weight of the calico bag in her hand, heavy with food: kangaroo rendang, a crisp Asian salad and still-warm naan bread from the specials menu. The spicy aromas teased her and she had half a mind to tiptoe away and take it home for herself instead.

  But no, she was on a promise to a friend and she wouldn’t go back on it. After three firm knocks, she planted her hand on her head to stop her straw hat from blowing away in the north wind and waited. There was another scrape of noise from inside, then footsteps and the door jerked open in a whoosh.

  Lizzie blinked.

  What the hell’s happened to Dan McSwaine?

  Dan stared back at her. His lips were pinched into a tight line and his jet-black hair hung over his forehead, pushed aside just enough so she could see one washed-out green eye fixed directly on her.

  Four months before, when she’d met Dan for the first time, he’d worn a shit-eating grin, a cocky-as-hell attitude and a black leather jacket. She did a quick stocktake of the man who was standing there, half-hidden behind the door, glowering at her. He looked like he’d been dragged eight ways through a blender. A faded blue T-shirt hung from his shoulders and he appeared to be wearing – Lizzie glanced down to confirm her suspicions – track pants.

  Could this be the same man?

  ‘What do you want, Elizabeth?’

  At least she recognised the voice. It was deep with a rasp that she’d thought sexy, once upon a time. Now he just sounded annoyed.

  ‘Ry wants you to have this.’ Lizzie lifted the calico bag between them. ‘It’s a dinner delivery direct from the Middle Point pub. On the house.’

  Dan didn’t move. There was no sweep of his arm to invite her inside, out of the still blazing early evening heat and the whipping wind. No smile of welcome or acknowledgment. And he wasn’t so much looking at her, as through her, barely any recognition in his face that they were acquaintances. Distant acquaintances, she corrected herself.

&nb
sp; Not a bad match, she realised. He didn’t want her there and she didn’t want to be there. Perfect.

  ‘Here. Take it,’ she said. ‘It’s food. Really good food.’

  He wasn’t to be tempted.

  Lizzie pulled off her sunglasses and tipped her head back to take a good look at him. Dark bags under his eyes were smudged like fading bruises and his cheekbones anchored hollows where flesh should have been. And, while beards were currently au courant in European fashion magazines and on the skinny faces of alternative musicians, Lizzie decided his grey-flecked version looked like he’d been stranded on a desert island for three months.

  Which was exactly how long it had been since his car accident. Bloody hell. A wave of remorse at her rush to judge him rose up in her throat and she swallowed it away.

  And then she wasn’t quite sure what to do. Dan had been through so much in the past few months that it felt selfish to be annoyed with him. How should she handle this stranger? For that’s what he seemed to her now. Her tongue tripped into jumpy overtime.

  ‘Just take the food, Dan. It’s really delicious. Or so the chef tells me. It’s been our most popular dinner order, which is crazy considering it must still be thirty-five degrees out here. You’d better eat it while it’s hot, so here you go.’ Lizzie looked down at the bag and held it further towards him to indicate he should take it from her, but still he didn’t react. His tall body slumped against the doorway and his big hand gripped the doorknob as if it was the only thing keeping him upright.

  Lizzie noticed a passing glance at the food before his eyes travelled slowly up her body in a lazy trawl. Well, there was something about him she did recognise. He’d looked at her like that before. And damn it if it didn’t have the same affect on her pulse.

  ‘Take it away. I don’t want it.’ Dan reached up to his chin and rubbed his beard.

  Lizzie clenched her teeth. Keeping her promise to Ry wasn’t going to be quite as straightforward as she’d imagined. How many kinds of stubborn was Dan McSwaine anyway, she wondered. God forbid. What man in his right mind would knock back a free meal?

  She bit back her frustration and tried another approach. ‘Well, now I’ve got a problem. My boss – and your very stubborn best friend – wants me to leave this with you since all you can cook is toast, apparently.’

  Dan’s eyes flashed and, for the first time, met hers.

  ‘Ry thinks I’ve been living off toast?’

  She didn’t blink. ‘Ry seems to think you’re fading away.’ Lizzie checked for evidence. She hadn’t quite noticed before that the faded blue T-shirt was stretched tight over his broad shoulders and strong arms, clinging to the muscles of his chest – and lower – as if the shirt was wet. Fading away may have been a slight exaggeration.

  ‘Tell Ry to back off.’ Dan’s voice was tight in his throat, as if it hurt to share it with anyone else. ‘No, fuck it, I’ll tell him myself.’

  And then he took a step in retreat and slammed the wooden door in Lizzie’s face. The force of it rattled the windows all along the front of the little house.

  Lizzie stared in disbelief. Asked herself if what had just happened had actually just happened. Her first instinct was to push the door open and unload every curse word she knew in response to his rudeness. She’d worked in pubs a long time and had a ready supply of true-blue Aussie expressions to choose from. Each of them quite satisfying.

  But when that rush of blood to the head faded, and it only took a few seconds, she decided to trust her second instinct, which was to leave him alone.

  She left the food on the front door mat and walked away, back along the esplanade to the pub.

  Dan pushed aside the sheer curtain from the sea-sprayed front windows, just enough to watch Elizabeth Blake’s arse as she walked down his driveway and onto the street. Her swaying curves were covered with a simple white T-shirt and sand-coloured skirt and he knew the hat was hiding hair cut short like a pixie’s. It was blonde, he remembered, but not the kind you got from a bottle. It was a kind of a golden blonde. Maybe it was the southern sun that had given it that shiny glow.

  And then he pulled himself up. Why are you thinking about the colour of her goddamn hair, McSwaine? Hell, he might be a sorry-arse excuse for a man at the moment, but he wasn’t dead.

  She was walking off into the distance with a spring in her step, her arms swinging by her sides, the late spring sunshine all around her like a spotlight. She looked like she didn’t have a worry in the world and part of him envied her. Dan tried to remember how long it had been since he’d felt like that. Too long. So long that he’d begun to distrust the memories of his other life, figuring they were coming back to him through a distorted lens.

  There would always, from now on, be the time before the accident. And everything after. And the stuff that came after, the reality he was living now was, for the most part, shit. The only bright spots in the past three months, besides getting out of hospital, had been leaving his old life behind and buying the beach house. Just as he’d hoped, it had given him a place to escape. A place to hide.

  When he took a final glance at Elizabeth and realised she was empty-handed, he shook his head. She’d left the damn food. His spine stiffened and he scratched his jaw. Since when did Ry and Julia – or Elizabeth for that matter – think of him as a charity case?

  When he’d moved down to Middle Point, he’d flat-out told his best friend that all he wanted was time and space. He hadn’t wanted Ry or his fiancée hovering around him waiting for some miraculous recovery. He knew he would need time to get his head around what had happened on that dark winter’s night. Or rather, what had almost happened, when his car was slammed by a truck on the winding road back to Adelaide.

  In the days and weeks after the accident, Ry had done the best friend thing and taken care of business. He’d said afterwards that it was no biggie, that it was what best mates did for each other. Ry had been at the hospital every day; he and Julia had taken charge, flown Dan’s parents thousands of kilometres from Queensland and fed and watered them while he recovered. He’d managed to convince his mum and dad that he was okay. They had returned to their caravan and were grey-nomading around the country, which suited Dan just fine. Last time he heard from them they were in Broome, in the far north of Western Australia. Which was about the right distance away, he figured. Having his mother around fussing over him would drive him bat-shit crazy.

  And now everyone else was starting to drive him bat-shit crazy. Ry and Julia were still trying to take care of everything and that included trying to run his life. Ry had refused to let Dan go back to work as the Director of Special Projects at Ry’s company, Blackburn and Son Developments, even though he was still paying him his regular salary. That just didn’t sit right with Dan, considering he’d been sitting around on his arse for the past three months. And the happy couple had tried to pop around every chance they got which, considering they lived in the glass palace next door, was way too often. He hated seeing the worry in their eyes when he turned them back at the front door, pleading whatever the hell lame excuse he could come up with to be left alone. He didn’t want company. Liked it better on his own, with music cranked up so loud that he didn’t have to listen to what was flying around in his head. Ry and Julia had persisted longer than he thought they would, but had given up in the past month.

  Funnily enough, the only person who hadn’t come knocking on his door was Elizabeth. She hadn’t once visited him while he was in hospital either. He hadn’t seen her in all the months he’d been back in Middle Point. Until today. So why now?

  And what did he care anyway?

  Dan was simply going to have to tell Ry to fuck off and leave him alone. Mates could say that to each another, he knew, and it would be taken in the spirit with which it was intended. Which was, ‘fuck off and leave me alone’.

  Dan turned from the window and wondered where the hell his phone was. He wanted to make sure Ry got the message, loud and clear.

  Lizzie sq
uinted against the scorching wind and the burning hot sun. It felt like a bushfire day, the air was tinder dry and ready to snap, the low-lying hills behind the Point already transformed from their winter patchwork of green fields to parched brown fire hazards. It wasn’t unusual to see such a hot day in November, with the northerlies blowing, gathering up every molecule of desert heat from central Australia and dumping it in great gusty draughts on Australia’s southern coast.

  She looked both ways along the road for cars and then crossed it, stepping onto the wooden path that cut through the shrubbed dunes, covered with grey-green bushes, bright white seaside daisies and coastal grasses. The tide was on its way in but there was still enough beach for walkers, roaming dogs, beach cricket champions and joggers. Out in the distance, committed surfers were waiting for the final wave of the day.

  Lizzie gazed out at the expanse of white beach that she loved so much. The early evening sun shone so brightly on the water that the waves looked like mirrors in the distance, too bright to look at without squinting. Miles and miles of deep, sapphire blue water before her and a brilliant shimmering southern Australian sky above her. Home was very sweet, she thought with a satisfaction that she felt all the way to her bones.

  Slipping off her sandals, Lizzie jumped on tiptoes over the hot white sand until she reached the water line, splashing her feet in the deliciously cool waves. In the distance, the majestic stone pub she’d worked in for years sat dramatically atop the rise of Middle Point, its walls proud and determined, its windows casting their gaze over the best view in the world. She was on her way back there to break the news about Dan to Ry and Julia.

  Although she’d actually laid eyes on the man that half of the Middle Point population was beginning to doubt actually existed, her story would be pretty threadbare. When Dan moved to the Point, locals were buzzing. The news that the hot guy helping Ry Blackburn build the Windswept Development was moving into town swept through town like a cool change on a hot day. The fact that he was single and six foot, four inches tall made that news even more interesting to a number of the women of the Fleurieu Peninsula.