‘Ravenous.’
Suddenly she was. After months of barely picking at even the most delectable meals. Sam was going to be in her book. Sam was going to share a little bit of himself with her.
And an entire afternoon.
All of a sudden her chest didn’t feel large enough for the organs in it as she squeezed out speech. ‘What time’s your flight?’
He stared at her, his eyes carefully neutral. ‘Late enough.’
It was beyond refreshing to see a woman inhale her lunch the way Aimee did, despite their plates being piled high with home-cooked Italian food and herbed bread. He was so used to Melissa and her friends either fussing about the dressing on the tiny salad they were expecting their bodies to function on, or getting stuck into something more substantial and then punishing themselves endlessly for enjoying it.
The kind of unabashed feeding frenzy he was witness to now reminded him of home. Of his family.
They’d taken their meals to a more comfortable booth, and chatted about other rescues he’d worked on in the past year, and about her heritage work, and whether either of them had been in Canberra before, and then, before he’d even looked away from her, a waitress had materialised from nowhere and was clearing their empty plates and bringing more coffee.
‘I may never sleep again,’ Aimee joked as she blew the steam off her fourth latte.
But there was something about this afternoon: something blindly indulgent that made a bottomless cup of coffee and pasta carb-loading seem as reasonable as his almost gluttonous need for conversation.
Aimee’s conversation.
He knew she was intelligent from their hours in the car, but back then she’d been suppressed by pain and medication and—if her epiphany was to be believed—by her own personal demons. But this Aimee had a lightness and an optimism so untrained and raw it was almost captivating. Like a newly emerged butterfly testing out its wings. Definitely engaging. And thoroughly contagious. So much so that by the time she slid a little digital recorder from her handbag into the centre of the cleared table and set it to record he was no longer dreading his decision to help her out.
‘You carry that with you everywhere?’
‘Yup.’
Her eagerness touched him almost as much as her innocence prickled at his senses. Taunted him. Drew him. ‘You really are excited by this book, aren’t you?’ he said.
Her green eyes sparkled. ‘Beyond words. This idea is one hundred percent mine—sink or swim, for better or worse.’
He twitched, but only slightly. Was the mention of marriage vows intentional? A reminder to both of them to keep things professional? If so, it was it was well timed.
‘So …’ She adjusted the recorder and pointed one end towards him. ‘Tell me about your family. You’re the oldest of … what was it? … seven?’
‘Eight. Second oldest.’
‘Big family.’
‘Lots of love to go around.’
‘That’s nice. So no one went wanting?’
He reeled a little. ‘Uh …?’
She smiled so serenely it took the edge off his anxiety about where this was going. ‘Don’t worry—this isn’t some kind of exposé. I just want to get to the heart of your background. I like to leap right in. It saves lots of preliminary warm-up.’
Plus, they’d been warming up all afternoon, technically speaking. ‘Okay, uh … no … No one went wanting.’
‘How much of that was thanks to big brother Sam?’
He thought about that. ‘We all pitched in and looked after each other. Dad worked pretty long hours so Mum needed support.’
‘Were you her favourite?’
‘There’s a loaded question.’ He laughed. ‘I felt like her favourite, but I’m sure every one of my siblings would say the same. Mum was good like that.’
‘Tell me about your parents. How did they meet?’
Sam took her through what he knew of the romance that was his parents’ marriage. Some of the challenges, the wins, the losses, their decision to come to Australia and start a new life.
‘Sounds almost idyllic.’
‘It wasn’t without its challenges, but my folks have worked their way through every major bump in their road to happiness. They’re great role models.’
‘How many of you are married?’ she asked.
He blinked. ‘Just me and one sister.’
‘Too hard to live up to for everyone else?’
His stomach tightened. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean your parents’ example. Pretty tough act to follow?’
He struggled against the automatic bristling that came when anyone criticised his family. She was just curious. And she wasn’t all that far off the mark, in truth. ‘I think we’d all consider it inspirational. Not demoralising.’
She watched him steadily. ‘That’s nice, then.’
‘Yeah, it is.’
‘Is that how it is for you?’
His chest matched the tightness in his gut. Here it comes. The subject neither of them was mentioning. ‘What?’
‘Your marriage. Do you aspire to a relationship as strong as your parents’?’
‘You’re assuming it’s not already like that?’ And that was a big call on just a few hours’ collective acquaintance in which the topic had almost never been raised. He couldn’t stop his arms folding across his front.
A hint of colour pinked her cheeks and highlighted the deep green of her eyes. It galled him that his body noticed that even when he was annoyed. He forced his hormones to heel.
‘You’re right. I am. Sorry. I just …’
But she swallowed back whatever she’d been about to say. So he called her on it: partly to see just how strong her reinforced spinal column really was, and partly because he wanted to see what had made her assume as she had. If he was giving off clues to strangers that his marriage wasn’t rock-solid, did that mean Mel might pick up on them, too?
‘Just what?’
A dozen expressions chased across her expressive eyes and finally resolved into caution. ‘She didn’t come. Today,’ she added when he just stared at her. ‘Today was a really big deal and she didn’t come. And I know that the complimentary air tickets were for two because I didn’t use my plus-one either.’
She had no one to bring. His antenna started vibrating with a bit too much interest at that piece of information and so he buried it under a landslide of hastily whipped up umbrage and forced his focus where it belonged. Defending Melissa was second nature.
‘She works. Hard.’
‘I know. You said.’ Then Aimee leaned forward and he got a flash of cream curve as her breasts rose and fell. ‘But so does your father, and I’m guessing he would have moved the earth to be there if it was your mother shaking the Governor General’s hand and being recognised by his country.’
A cold, twisted kind of ugly settled in his belly. It was sixty percent righteousness, forty percent guilt, and one hundred percent reflex. He’d had exactly those thoughts himself. ‘Are you offering me relationship advice? Seriously?’
His subtle emphasis