‘Have you dealt with it at all?’
‘Yes. I’ve gone over it a hundred different ways. Things I might have done differently, should have done differently …’ She dropped her eyes away. ‘I’m pretty reconciled to having handled it as best I could.’
‘You were brilliant. You made it so easy for me to help you.’
She lifted her eyes. ‘I wanted to thank you. Right after … But you were—’ kissing your wife ‘—busy.’ She sighed. ‘The nomination was the closest I could get.’
‘You made the nomination?’
She nodded. ‘I felt like an idiot. All I knew was the date and location of the accident and your first name. But they did the rest.’
‘That changes everything.’
‘What everything?’
‘I didn’t want the award. I thought it was crazy that the state would nominate me for just doing my job. But you …’ His eyes warmed the whole front corner of the café and his smile soaked into her. ‘You I’ll accept it from.’
‘Good. You’ll never know the difference that day made for me.’
‘Tell me now.’
Her eyes flew wide as she lifted them. ‘Now?’
‘You didn’t make a speech at the awards. Make one now. Tell me what it meant to you.’
Words wouldn’t come. She opened her mouth to say something pithy, but that wouldn’t come either. She shuddered in a deep breath and began at the one place she knew she’d already taken him.
‘That night changed me, Sam. You showed me that there was a difference between taking charge and taking over. I hadn’t ever seen that before.’
Three little creases appeared between his brows.
Okay. She wasn’t explaining this at all well. She leaned forward. ‘It took me a long time to realise that the crash mats my parents surrounded me with as I was growing up was more about them than me. But by then I’d bought into all that care and concern and I’d forgotten how to be independent. Maybe I never even learned.’
Sam frowned at her and waited silently for her to continue.
‘Then I met Wayne, and I let him drive our relationship because I’d become so accustomed to other people doing my thinking for me. Taking over. Giving me instructions.’
Sam frowned. ‘Like I did.’
She shook her head. ‘You showed me that the best kind of capability doesn’t come from bossing. It comes from influencing.’
Sam frowned at her again.
‘You did it the entire time we were in the car. You wanted me to do things but you didn’t order me to. You simply gave me the facts and the reason for your request and your preference and you let me decide. Or you asked. And if I said no you respected that—even when it was the wrong decision. Then you just compensated for my glaring bad calls.’
He looked supremely uncomfortable with the praise. ‘Aimee, I just treated you the way I’d want to be treated in the same situation.’
‘Which is how?’
He thought about that. ‘Like an adult. With all the facts.’ Then his expression cleared. ‘Like a team.’
‘Yes! I have never in my life felt like I belonged to a team, where we worked together for a solution. It was always about compliance or conflict.’ She held up her two hands as though they were scales, with one or other of those words weighing heavily in them.
‘Well, I’m glad. We were a team that night. We had equal stakes the moment I climbed into that car, so we deserved equal say on what went down.’
She leaned forward earnestly. ‘See—that’s a novelty to me. The whole idea of equity. I love it.’
He seemed enchanted by her excitement. But a little bemused. ‘I’m glad.’
His gentle teasing warmed her every bit now as it had back in the car. ‘Don’t laugh at me. This is revolutionary. I don’t ever want to go back to being that person who needed permission to get through the day. I still shake my head that I let it happen at all. You saved so much more than my physical self on the mountain.’
‘Don’t go canonising me just yet. I’m sure you were already halfway to this realisation yourself.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You were heading up to the highlands to reassess your life. You’d broken off your dud relationship. You were managing your parents.’
If by ‘managing’ he meant avoiding …’Okay, so I wasn’t starting from zero, but it took that accident to really spotlight what was wrong with my life. And you were wielding that spotlight.’
He grinned. ‘Nice analogy.’
‘Thank you. It’s the storyteller in me.’ She finished her coffee and signalled for another before turning back to Sam, her biggest and most exciting secret teetering on her tongue. ‘Anyway, that’s why I’m so grateful. It’s changed the way I do my work, too.’
He cocked his head.
‘I got to thinking about what you said—about how my oral histories collect dust once I’m finished with them.’
Sam winced. ‘Aimee, I’m sorry. I probably said a lot of careless stuff that night. I was just trying to keep you awake.’
‘You were absolutely right. But I’d been too uncertain of myself before to do anything to change that.’
‘Before?’
‘That’s how I’ve come to think of things. Before the accident and after the accident.’ Actually it was before-Sam and after-Sam, but she wasn’t about to tell him that. He’d bolt from the café before his spoon even hit the floor. She pressed her hands to the table, leaned forward, lowered her voice. ‘I’m going to write a book.’
His eyebrows shot up. ‘Really?’
‘Really. I’m going to pull together all the stories I’ve collected about people who grabbed their futures by the throat and took a crazy chance. People like Dorothy. And how that paid off … or didn’t. But the important thing is that they were the navigators of their own destiny one way or another. Oh! That could be the title … Navigators!’
He stared at her, bright interest in his eyes as her brain galloped ahead. ‘Good for you, Aimee.’
Her lungs struggled to reinflate as the full impact of all that focus hit her. She pushed them to co-operate, and it was almost harder speaking now than back in her squished Honda. ‘And it’s not because you made me feel like what I do isn’t complete … It’s because it’s not complete. These particular stories always resonated for me. I just never recognised it.’
Sam smiled. ‘I love the idea, Aimee. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.’
She straightened, took a deep breath and held his eyes. ‘Let me do you.’
His whole body jerked back.
‘Your story!’ she rushed on. ‘Oh, my God … Let me interview you for your story.’ Heat surged up her throat and she knew there was nothing she could do to change that. Intense Sam was only half as gorgeous as Sam in a full belly-laugh, but he treated her to one now, as she stumbled out of the awkward moment. ‘I want to include some more contemporary stories as well, and you’re about the most proficient navigator I’ve ever met. I’d love to include you.’
‘My story’s not really all that interesting, Aimee.’
‘Everyone’s