She made her way to the boathouse to find the door open and Ben unpacking gourmet sandwiches from the hotel café and loading cold drinks into the refrigerator.
Again, he was whistling, and she smiled at the carefree sound. He hadn’t realised she was there and she was struck by the domesticity of the moment. Did she want this with Ben? Everyday routine as well as heart-stopping passion? Much, much more than a few days together?
The answer was in his eyes when he looked up and saw she was there. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Yes to sharing everything.
Everything but the rearing of kids.
He put down the bottle he was holding, she dropped her handbag, and they met in the middle of the room. Ben held her close. She stood in his arms, exulting in the warm strength of him, the thudding of his heart, the way he smelled of the sea.
‘I’m glad you’re here,’ he said.
‘Me too,’ was the only reply she could manage.
Her heart started a series of pirouettes—demanding its message be heard.
She loved him.
Emotion, overwhelming and powerful, surged through her. So did gratitude for whatever power had steered her back to him.
But could wounded, wary Ben love her back in the way she needed?
He kissed her—a brief, tender kiss of welcome—then pulled away.
‘How did it go with Ida at the hospital?’
When she told him about Ida’s questioning about their love-life he laughed, loud and uproariously.
‘The old girl is outrageous,’ he said, with more than a hint of pride. ‘So what did you say to her?’
‘I was so embarrassed I didn’t know where to look.’
He pulled her close again. His voice was deep and husky and suggestive. ‘What would you have told her?’
She twined her arms around his neck. ‘I think you know last night was the most amazing experience of my life.’ She had trouble keeping her voice steady. ‘Why didn’t I say yes all those years ago? Why, why, why didn’t I fight harder for you?’
‘Water under the bridge, remember?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘It mightn’t have been such an amazing experience when I was nineteen.’
‘Not true. You were the best kisser. Still are.’
‘Always happy to oblige,’ he said.
She smiled. ‘Last night...the dinner dance...it was fun, wasn’t it?’
‘You were a big hit.’
‘Was I? I’m still not quite sure how to handle the townfolk. In particular the way they compare me to Jodi.’ And I’m not sure how, if we have a future, I’ll handle being second in your life.
‘You’re still worrying about that?’ He took her hand and led her to the bedroom. ‘There’s something I want to show you.’
‘And I’m quite happy to see it,’ she quipped. ‘We can eat lunch afterwards.’
He laughed. ‘That’s not what I meant. But we can do that too.’
He went to the dresser. He opened the top drawer and pulled out the framed photo he had put there yesterday—the yesterday that seemed a hundred years ago. She braced herself, not at all sure she could cope with seeing Jodi and Ben together in happy times. She prayed the baby wouldn’t be in the photo. One day she would have to go there. But not now. Not when this was all too raw and new.
Ben held the photo so she couldn’t see what it was. ‘It concerned me when you said you were worried about coming second with me. About being in the shadow of the memory of another woman. It’s ironic that Jodi felt the same way about you.’
Sandy frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
He handed her the photo. Astounded, she looked from it to him and back again. ‘But it’s of me. Of you. Of us.’
The simple wooden frame held a faded snap of her very young self and Ben with their arms around each other. She—super-slim—was wearing a tiny pink floral-patterned bikini; her hair was wet and tangled with salt and fell almost to her waist. She was looking straight at the camera with a confident, happy smile. Ben’s surfer hair was long and sun-streaked and he was wearing blue Hawaiian print board shorts. He wasn’t looking at the camera but rather down at her, with an expression of pride and possession heartrendingly poignant on a teenager.
She had to clear her throat before she spoke. ‘Where did you get this from?’
‘From you. Don’t you remember?’
Slowly the memory returned to her. ‘Lizzie took this photo. We had to get the film developed at the chemist in those days. I bought the frame from the old general store. And I gave it to you to...to remember me by.’ She’d had a copy, too. Had shoved it in the back of an old photo album that was heaven knew where now.
‘Jodi found it at the bottom of a drawer in my room just before we got married. She brought it to me and said we needed to talk.’
‘I...I thought you would have thrown it out.’
‘She thought so too. She asked me was I still carrying a torch for you.’
‘Wh...what did you say?’
‘I said I’d cared for you once but was now totally committed to her.’
Sandy swallowed hard against a kick of that unwarranted jealousy. ‘You...you were getting married. Wouldn’t she know that?’
‘We were getting married because she was pregnant with Liam.’
Sandy let out a gasp of surprise. ‘I...I didn’t know that.’
‘Of course you didn’t. But she was sensitive about it. Wanted me to reassure her that I wasn’t marrying her just because I “had to”.’
‘Poor Jodi.’ Her heart went out to the lovely girl who had cared so much for Ben, and she wished she had more than vague memories of her.
‘So, you see, as far as Jodi was concerned you were the “third person”, as you put it, in our marriage.’
‘I...I don’t really know what to say. If...if you were married I wouldn’t come anywhere near you.’
‘I know that. You know that. And I’m sure Jodi knew that. But no matter how much I reassured her that we would have got married anyway, just maybe not so soon, she had that little nagging doubt that she was my second choice.’
‘And yet you...you didn’t throw out the photo.’ She was still holding the frame in her hands, her fingers tightly curled around the edge.
‘No. I went to put it in the bin, to prove my point, but Jodi stopped me. Said it was unrealistic to expect we wouldn’t each come into the marriage with a past. She just wanted to make sure you stayed in the past.’
‘And here I am...in...in the future.’
‘I hadn’t thought about this photo in years. Then, after that morning on the beach with you and Hobo, I dug it out from a box in the storeroom at the hotel.’
‘And put it on display?’
Ben took the photo frame from her hands and placed it back on top of the dresser. ‘Where it will stay,’ he said.
‘So...so why did you hide it from me yesterday?’
‘I thought you’d think it was strange that I’d kept it. It was too soon.’
‘But it’s not too soon now?’
‘We’ve come a long