Someone Like You

by Victoria Purman

  ‘Who says we can’t be both, huh?’ Julia chuckled, checked her rear-vision mirror.

  ‘Me. I’m living proof, obviously.’ Lizzie buried her face in her hands. ‘I can’t believe I did that.’

  ‘What exactly was so funny about it? And don’t you dare try and tell me he’s a dud in the smooching department.’

  ‘Hell, no. He was good. Better than good. He was…’ Lizzie’s voice trailed off as she remembered what if felt like to be in his orbit, with his mouth on hers, smelling him, feeling his strength and his tenderness.

  ‘That good, huh?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Look at you. Even thinking about it makes you speechless.’

  Lizzie sighed. ‘The problem with a kiss like that is that I didn’t realise what I’d been missing until that moment, you know? When he looked at me and wrapped me up in his arms, with his entire body…’

  Julia let out a contented moan. ‘Oh, I know exactly what you mean.’

  ‘Is that what you have with Ry?’

  Julia snorted. ‘Why the hell do you think I’m marrying him? You’ve gotta hold on to that, Lizzie. Wait however long it takes until you have that feeling with someone. That’s the real thing.’

  ‘It’s not like I didn’t want to have sex with him. I really did want to have sex with him. I don’t know what happened.’

  Julia glanced over her shoulder before changing lanes to overtake a four-wheel drive towing a caravan. ‘So what happened then? After you shattered his manly ego with the whole laughing thing?’

  ‘He said it wasn’t me, it was him. Haven’t I heard that one before? I got shitty, accused him of looking for a way out and then he told me…basically…he told me,’ Lizzie swallowed at the memory of what his voice sounded like when he’d said it. ‘He said he wanted to get me naked.’

  Julia whistled. ‘Oh, that’s hot.’

  ‘Soon.’ Lizzie added.

  ‘He said “soon”?’

  ‘Just not last night.’

  ‘He’ll be so worth the wait.’

  Lizzie gazed out the window as they headed north past McLaren Vale, the plains on each side of the highway sliced into neat lines by thousands of rows of grapevines in full, apple-green leaf. She wondered if those maturing grapes would make up any of the wine on the Middle Point pub’s wine list. She should get on to that. And thinking about the pub made her think of the car park renovation and that made her think about Dan and she was right back to where she started. Anxious. Aching with sexual tension. Frustrated as hell.

  ‘I don’t know, Jools.’

  ‘What’s so problematical about two single, gorgeous people with a thing for each other?’

  Lizzie didn’t elaborate about exactly how complicated she thought it actually was, what she suspected was going on beneath Dan’s handsome surliness. That would only make Julia and Ry worry more about him.

  ‘When did I say I had a thing for him? I’d quite like to have sex with him, but that’s not a thing. He’s so not a thing kind of guy.’

  Julia’s eyebrows shot up. ‘You sure about that?’

  ‘I’m sure. And who says I want a thing, either?’

  ‘Lizzie, all I know is that it’s fantastic he’s helping with the pub and that he’s kissing you. Two things he most definitely wasn’t doing a month ago. They’re all good signs, don’t you think? That he’s on the road to getting back to who he used to be?’ Julia glanced at Lizzie for confirmation before returning her eyes to the road.

  ‘Yes. Maybe. I don’t know.’

  ‘So, enough about you and your love life. Here’s how the day is going to work. We’ll head straight to King William Road, have a real coffee, and then hit the bridal shops. After three or four hours of me trying on dresses and you telling me how stunning I look, I’ll buy you lunch.’

  Lizzie winced. ‘Three or four hours?’

  ‘That was a joke. I just threw it in there to see if you were listening or if your head was back in Middle Point with Dan.’

  ‘I’m totally scrubbing Dan from my mind. Not thinking about him at all. Today we are going to have that girly shopping day. Thank you for asking me to be your bridesmaid.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have anyone else, you know that. I don’t know if you need the full bridesmaid duties rundown but your most important responsibility is to not look hotter than me on my wedding day.’

  ‘That would be impossible. And if you’re in any doubt, I’d be happy to draw a mono-brow on my forehead so people will recoil in horror during the ceremony.’ They laughed, back in comfortable familiarity, and watched the scenery of the southern vales whizz past.

  When Lizzie’s phone rang, she dipped her fingers into her handbag that was nestled on the floor between her feet. ‘Damn it, it’s supposed to be my day off,’ she muttered. When she checked the screen, she turned to Julia.

  ‘It’s him.’

  ‘What? No text message this time?’ Julia teased. When Lizzie hesitated, she said, ‘Go on, answer it, girlfriend.’

  Lizzie pressed the keypad to connect the call and squeezed her eyes shut.

  ‘Hi Dan.’ There was no point answering with a more efficient ‘Lizzie Blake speaking’ since she knew that he knew his number was in her phone.

  ‘Elizabeth. You at work?’ His voice, direct and deep, shot sparks right through her and started a rumble in her stomach that she had to tamp down with her palm. This was his idea of soon? The next freaking night?

  ‘No, I’m not.’ She turned to look at Julia with wide eyes. ‘It’s my day off and I’m heading up to Adelaide with Jools for some quality girl time.’

  ‘Will you be back tonight? I’d like to cook you dinner.’

  Lizzie swallowed hard, squeezed her eyes closed. ‘Sure. Yes, I’d like that.’ And by dinner, she wondered, did he mean that thing about getting naked as well?

  ‘Eight o’clock? My place.’

  ‘That works for me. See you at eight.’

  ‘See you tonight,’ Dan ended the call.

  Lizzie clutched her phone, stared straight ahead at the white line and the shimmering bitumen.

  ‘Well?’ Julia asked, grinning.

  ‘Dan’s cooking me dinner.’

  Julia smiled. ‘Oh my.’

  Lizzie slapped her hands to her cheeks. ‘Shit a brick. Can we get home by six? I need to shave my legs and wash my hair and think about what to wear. What am I going to wear?’

  Julia laughed. ‘I will make the ultimate sacrifice and make a detour to a boutique or two. Just for you. Because I am the best friend ever. Let’s make it a totally girly day for you as well.’

  ‘Do you think you can help me choose something that subtly straddles the fine line between gagging for it and demure?’

  ‘It’s my specialty,’ Julia replied with a grin.

  Julia delivered on her promise. They drove out of the city in time to navigate the traffic and have Lizzie at her doorstep at six p.m. After a quick shower and some personal grooming, she decided to pour herself a glass of wine and head out to her deck.

  This is just dinner, she told herself, looking out to the distant white caps and the deep grey ocean. It was cooler today and clouds were keeping out the heat of the sun. Lizzie sipped and gathered a crocheted rug tighter around her shoulders.

  The shopping day in the city hadn’t been as stressful as she’d thought. The slightly sick feeling in the pit of her stomach might have been caused by Dan’s phone call, rather than the city itself. It was hard to tell. She’d let Julia’s excitement bubble over and infect her, too, and had quickly chosen her bridesmaid’s dress. It was a pretty, floaty, pale blue cocktail number, with cap sleeves, a fitted bodice and a fifties-style full skirt. When Lizzie had tried it on, she felt like someone right out of Mad Men. Pale blue and floaty wasn’t usually her thing but Julia had convinced her that it was just right.

  Julia hadn’t found it quite so easy to choose her own gown. Lizzie smiled at the memory of Julia parading in and out of the dressing room in a va
riety of wedding dresses. Some resembled smashed pavlovas; others were sleek and elegant satin. It was still a surprise to Lizzie that a woman who had been so meticulously organised in her working life, who would study and prepare reports for clients on the risks and potential problems in any possible crisis, couldn’t make a choice.

  ‘It’s nice,’ Lizzie had exclaimed. She’d run out of suitable adjectives about six dresses ago. Her back had started to ache from sitting so long and her willingness to witness the fashion parade had begun to wear thin. Julia had stood with her back to the full-length mirror, twisting and contorting herself to judge if her butt looked big under the voluminous bustle.

  ‘Nice? That hurts.’ Julia grimaced and propped her hands on her hips, or as close as she could get to them underneath all the fabric. ‘For fuck’s sake. I can’t believe I’m standing here wearing this. This is so not me.’ She regarded herself one more time in the full-length mirror.

  ‘I look like “My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding”,’ she huffed.

  Lizzie tried to find a smile at the reference but her nerves were fluttering now, not like butterflies in her stomach. More like ravens.

  ‘To be honest, Jools, I’ve lost track. What is that, dress number twenty?’

  Julia took a step closer to her friend, peered down at her.

  ‘You all right? You look pale.’

  Lizzie’s hands flew instinctively to her cheek, which was clammy to her touch.

  ‘Just a headache.’ She’d forced a smile.

  Julia had rolled her eyes. ‘This stopped being fun about ten dresses ago. I’ve had enough too. Let’s go.’

  A gust of wind picked up, sweeping up the rise behind Middle Point, swirling around Lizzie’s deck, goose-bumping her arms and gently playing with her hair. Lizzie was glad to be home. And now, as if the day hadn’t been stressful enough, it was time to go in and get ready for her date with Dan.

  At precisely ten minutes past eight, Lizzie arrived at the green beach shack. She hadn’t meant to be late and didn’t believe it was fashionable to keep people waiting. But she’d had a last minute nervous hitch about what to wear. Dinner was just dinner, right? At Middle Point that usually meant someone was going to throw something on the barbie and you’d be lucky if people slipped on their good thongs for the occasion.

  Lizzie decided to dress up a little more than that. She looked down at her new jeans, dark denim with a boot leg. They felt good and she liked the top she’d found to go with them, crimson silk, which draped and hugged her in all the right places. It bared her shoulders and dipped down low in front. She’d be lying if she said she hadn’t thought of Dan while she was in the changing room, trying it on. She’d seen him checking out her breasts once or twice.

  New clothes, a bottle of wine clutched in her hand, a hint of make-up, a spray of perfume and she was ready.

  She lifted her hand, knocked three times.

  There were footsteps across the room. Lizzie nibbled on her lip.

  When Dan opened the door, she lost her breath.

  What the hell’s happened to Dan McSwaine?

  CHAPTER

  10

  This wasn’t Dan, the wild man of Borneo. This was Dan ripped straight from the pages of GQ magazine.

  Lizzie saw no point in hiding her enthusiastic study of every bit of him. She drank up the view. The old jeans he wore looked worn and soft, lived in, and sat low on his hips. At the end of them she could see he was barefoot. The three top buttons of his long-sleeved black shirt were undone, giving her a hint of chest, and the cuffs were rolled up loosely, almost to his elbows.

  But it wasn’t the clothes that sent the bolt of lightning right through her. It was Dan’s face. His gorgeous face. That she could now properly see for the first time in months. He’d had a haircut, shorter at the back and sides but left longer at the top. He’d pushed it back off his forehead into a wave of thickness and she could really see his eyes now, emerald green, staring right back at her with a tease of something delicious in them.

  And the beard was gone.

  ‘Who are you and what have you done with Dan?’ Lizzie whispered in appreciation. She took a step closer to him and reached up with her right hand to touch his clean-shaven cheeks, eager to feel the cool smoothness of his skin beneath her fingertips. Her fingers moved slowly across the soft, soft skin under his eyes and she found the small bump on his nose where it had been broken in the accident. That jaw, now clean-shaven, was strong and irresistible. She cupped his cheek and smoothed her fingers over the strong planes of his face.

  Dan turned his head ever so slightly so he was nestling his face into her palm. With a heat in his eyes, he covered her hand with his.

  ‘Hey,’ he said.

  ‘You look…’ She so much wanted to say: you look like the old Dan. ‘You look great.’

  Dan lifted her fingers from his face and kissed the top of her hand with a gentle caress, his lips soft on her knuckles, lingering there as his eyes lifted to meet hers. The simple move made her chest ache, her toes tingle and everything else in between go crazy.

  ‘You look pretty great yourself. Come in.’ He led her to the kitchen, where two wine glasses were waiting on the bench. Alongside them, a small white bowl was filled with stuffed green olives and a white platter held gourmet crackers, artfully arranged around a wedge of oozing cheese.

  ‘What do you feel like? Red or white?’

  ‘A white sounds great, thanks.’ Lizzie lowered herself onto a bar stool and blinked at the food laid out before her. Dan appeared to be in total command of the kitchen. He retrieved a bottle from the fridge, unscrewed the top and half-filled their glasses. She felt his eyes on her as she tasted the wine.

  ‘Nice,’ she murmured, the taste of honey and melon on her lips and palate. ‘I love a good, honest riesling.’

  Dan’s looked at her strangely. ‘That’s a strange way to describe a drink.’

  ‘No, not at all. It’s a riesling, plain and simple. It’s not trying to be a fashionable new variety, a complicated blend of new grapes with names we’ve never heard of it. It is what it is and is proud of it.’

  He liked her description. It was a lot like the woman herself.

  ‘None of that was running through my head when I pulled up at the bottle shop. I chose something local from the Fleurieu Peninsula. Isn’t that what locals do?’

  ‘You’re still a blow-in, my friend,’ Lizzie grinned up at him. ‘It takes more than buying a bottle of wine to make you a local.’

  Man, she had a killer smile. Dan mused if she’d turned it up a notch just to mess with him. Then he wondered if she could tell that he’d been totally messed up about her since the minute he opened the door. She looked incredible and, even now, making small talk about the wine, all he wanted to do was run his fingers up her arms, feel her soft skin, touch the silk of her top and caress her breasts until her nipples hardened under his touch. He wanted to drive her as crazy as he was feeling.

  ‘It’s a nice thought, though, supporting our local winemakers.’ Lizzie sipped again, stroking the stem of the glass. ‘But I have a confession to make.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I do have one exception to the buying local rule.’

  Her guilty smile was doing strange things to him.

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Once – and only once a year – I indulge myself and buy a bottle of the best vintage French champagne. The best I can afford, anyway,’ she added with a rueful shake of her head.

  ‘Why only once a year?’

  ‘Because New Year’s only comes once a year. It’s my gift to myself for making it through another twelve months. Every first of January, I sit out on my deck, drink French champagne and toast absent friends. Usually by myself, which means I don’t have to share it with anybody.’

  ‘Sounds kind of selfish, if you ask me,’ Dan smiled. ‘Not sharing it with anyone.’

  Lizzie’s mouth gaped in amusement. ‘That’s the best part. All that bubbly loveline
ss to myself.’

  Dan sipped his wine. ‘Why don’t you do it more often if you love it so much? What’s stopping you?’

  ‘Besides the cost?’ Lizzie scoffed. ‘It’s like this, Dan. If you drink vintage French champagne all the time, what would you have left for that one special day? You’d kill the pleasure of it.’

  He had a lot more to learn about Lizzie, he decided. And he wanted to know everything. He topped up her glass and returned the bottle to the fridge.

  ‘I hope you like steak. I didn’t check to see if you’re a vegetarian.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  Dan opened the door to the oven and checked inside. After he’d adjusted the temperature, he looked back to find Lizzie staring at him with a quizzical expression, a question half-formed on her lips.

  She waved her glass in his general direction. ‘I thought you couldn’t cook.’

  Dan shook his head. ‘I never said that.’

  ‘So why was I delivering meals to you every night?’

  He shrugged. ‘Buggered if I know. I told you I didn’t need them but you kept coming anyway. And they were pretty damn good so I stopped fighting it. I’m no Jamie Oliver but I do okay.’

  And then Lizzie’s smile disappeared. ‘Damn them.’ She put her wine glass down and grabbed a cracker, snapping it in two with an irritated bite.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Who else? Ry and Julia.’

  ‘Yeah, they give me the shits sometimes, too, but what’s that got to do with my cooking?’

  She stopped talking, her expression became blank and she nibbled on her lower lip like she did. It was starting to drive him bat-shit crazy.

  Her eyes darted to the clock on the wall. ‘Oh, nothing. They just told me you couldn’t cook and I fell for it.’

  Dan sensed there was something else there that she didn’t want to say. He moved out of the kitchen and around the bench, close to her, until his thighs pushed against her knees.

  ‘What is it, Elizabeth?’

  ‘Nothing, Dan.’

  ‘Why don’t I believe you?’

  ‘Your best friend and mine are sneaky and manipulative and… they totally played me. They wanted me to…’