Except Aimee felt certain it had never passed for Coraline McMahon. She was strong and honourable, and hadn’t been afraid to reinvent herself for her son’s sake, but she’d carry the secret pain of Danny’s loss to her grave.
Aimee slid the documents back into their file and swallowed back tears. Would she have the same strength of character? Endurance? Would she grow to accept Sam’s unavailability or, like Cora, would her heart form a callus around the wound so that she could survive?
‘Phone, Aimee …’
She jumped at Sam’s voice, so close behind her, and reached for her mobile as the special ring-tone he’d recorded on her phone the day before repeated itself.
‘Phone, Aimee …’
But just as she went to accept his call she paused, glanced at Cora’s notes, and then at the hotel wall between their suites. She tuned in to the heart that hammered in Pavlovian response just to the sound of Sam’s voice. The cell-deep anticipation that excited her blood.
‘Phone, Aimee …’
And she let it go to voicemail.
She opened the door, expecting hotel staff to collect her bags, and found Sam there, instead, a deep scowl marring his handsome face and fire sparking in his eyes. Her stomach clenched.
‘Why are you leaving?’ he said.
Because it’s not healthy for me to be around you, like this. Because I need to remove myself from the temptation of touching you.
‘You don’t need me for this afternoon’s meetings so I might as well fly out today.’ Without you.
‘But what difference does one more night make?’
Her whole body stiffened up. That was not an easy question to answer. If he knew what she’d be wanting to do right through that night … What she’d wanted to do that first night, with a head full of images of him in his towel … Or last night, fuelled by sensual dream images of his strong, lithe fabric hawk kite twisting around her … How long she’d lain awake taking herself through the mental pros and cons of rolling out of bed and tiptoeing next door … How hard it had been to finally settle on not doing it …
Her arms crept around her front. ‘None, to you. But I’d like to get home now that I’m not needed. I’ve done my part for your department.’
It was more defensive than she’d meant it, but that couldn’t be helped. Being strong had to start somewhere.
He frowned. ‘You have. You’ve been amazing. I just …’
‘What, Sam?’
‘Are you leaving because of yesterday? Because of what I said on your recorder?’
There was nothing too controversial about what they’d recorded at the café. But ‘yesterday’ could only mean the kites. She tossed her hair back. ‘I’m leaving because I’m done.’ Totally. ‘And because staying has absolutely no purpose.’
His eyes smouldered the way they had at the end of their kite-flying. He was busting to say more, but even he had to see the sense in not hurting each other any further.
Aimee’s skin stretched to snapping point as they stood there, silently.
‘So … good luck this afternoon.’ She stood back to close her door.
‘I’ll call you. When I get back to Hobart.’
Her heart squeezed. ‘Why?’
His scowl bisected his handsome face. ‘Your book. Don’t we need to finish the interview?’
The book. The last remaining thread between them. A totally fake thread.
She pressed her fingernails into her palms. ‘I think I got everything I needed yesterday.’
‘I’ll call you. To be sure.’
She’d seen him angry, amused, confused, delighted. But she’d never seen Sam so … adrift. Cutting him completely free just wasn’t something she could do at this very second. She needed more strength for that.
She sighed. ‘Okay.’
No one said she had to answer his call.
The banks of the Derwent were busy as always—even for a week day. Small watercraft under billowing sails glided along its gleaming surface, and presumptuous ducks busied themselves nearby, waiting for any scraps that might tumble from Aimee’s lunch. Parallel pairs of prams pushed by athletic mums dominated the shared pathway and cyclists had to rumble onto the grass to go around them.
Aimee sat on her comfortable bench, tucked back into a recess in the thick foliage edging the pathway, munching absently on her chicken sandwich, her eyes very much lost amongst the boats out on the channel. Glorious golden rays of sun sprinkled down, warming all they touched.
Was there anything more restorative? A productive morning in Hobart’s research library, a simple lunch by the Derwent and a silent mind. A rare treat after the emotion of the past few days.
Aimee sighed and sipped her apple juice.
A clutch of power-walking nannas passed her, chatting across each other like the ducks grumbling around her feet, and she followed them with her eyes as she ate. She missed Danielle. Not that they’d ever been power-walking-type friends, but she missed having someone to chat to, to share work with, since her friend had gone on a month’s leave back to New Zealand.
Maybe that was what she needed? Some more friends. Broader horizons. New people. Non-Sam people.
As if just thinking his name had made him manifest, the gaggle of fast-moving nannas split like a cell, dividing around two people strolling towards her secluded corner of riverbank in the distance, then reformed behind them.
Her tasty chicken turned to ash in her mouth.
Sam.
With his wife.
They stopped in the distance and watched the boats go by, the downward tilt of Sam’s head indicating he was listening intently. Eager to see her after his three days away.
Aimee’s body reacted as immediately and inappropriately as it always did to the sight of Sam: tightening, anticipating. Going all gooey. But for the first time it wasn’t him that dominated her focus.
Melissa was as small and slim as she remembered from the confused chaos of the A10. But she was better lit in the golden noon light than she had been in the dimness of early morning on the mountain, and infinitely better dressed in businesswear rather than the running pants and sweater she’d had on that cold morning. Dark hair tumbled around her shoulders and seemed to blaze red in the sunlight.
She was … radiant.
Aimee’s heart pattered harder, and she dropped her eyes rather than be caught staring. Not that Melissa would have a clue who she was. But Sam would, if he turned around and saw her. Her mouth dried.
She hadn’t expected Melissa to be so lovely. She’d built an image of a fusty scientist gadding around in a lab coat stained by God knew what in a poor attempt to diminish her. What kind of cosmic injustice was this, that she should get Sam’s heart and be beautiful, too?
But of course he would pick someone beautiful. Ethereal.
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