His carefree self of that long-ago summer had been forged into someone tougher, harder, colder. Someone who would not allow emotion or softness in his life. Even the memories of a holiday romance. For with love came the agony of loss, and he could never risk that again.
She looked up at him. ‘If...if there’s anything I can do to help, you’ll let me know, won’t you?’
Again he nodded, but knew in his heart it was an empty gesture. Sandy was just passing through, and he was grateful. He didn’t want to revisit times past.
He’d only loved two women—his wife, Jodi, and, before her, Sandy. It was too dangerous to have his first love around, reminding him of what he’d vowed never to feel again. He’d resigned himself to a life alone.
‘You’ve booked in to the hotel?’ he asked.
‘Not yet, but I will.’
‘For how long?’
Visibly, her face relaxed. She was obviously relieved at the change of subject. He remembered she’d never been very good at hiding her emotions.
‘Just tonight,’ she said. ‘I’m on my way to Melbourne for an interview about a franchise opportunity.’
‘Why Melbourne?’ That was a hell of a long way from Dolphin Bay—as he knew from his years at university there.
‘Why not?’ she countered.
He turned and started walking towards the rocks again. Automatically she fell into step behind him. He waited.
Yes. He wasn’t imagining it. It was happening.
After every three of his long strides she had to skip for a bit to keep up with him. Just like she had twelve years ago. And she didn’t even seem to be aware that she was doing it.
‘You’re happy to leave Sydney?’
‘There’s nothing for me in Sydney now,’ she replied.
Her voice was light, matter-of-fact, but he didn’t miss the underlying note of bitterness.
He stopped. Went to halt her with a hand on her arm and thought better of it. No matter. She automatically stopped with him, in tune with the rhythm of his pace.
‘Nothing?’ he asked.
Not meeting his gaze, swinging her sandals by her side, she shrugged. ‘Well, my sister Lizzie and my niece Amy. But...no one else.’
‘Your parents?’
Her mouth twisted in spite of her effort to smile. ‘They’re not together any more. Turns out Dad had been cheating on my mother for years. The first Mum heard about it was when his mistress contacted her, soon after we got home from Dolphin Bay that summer. He and Mum patched it up that time. And the next. Finally he left her for his receptionist. She’s two years older than I am.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
But he was not surprised. He’d never liked the self-righteous Dr Randall Adams. Had hated the way he’d tried to control every aspect of Sandy’s life. He wasn’t surprised the older man had intercepted his long-ago letters. He’d made it very clear he had considered a fisherman not good enough for a doctor’s daughter.
‘That must have been difficult for you,’ he said.
Sandy pushed her windblown hair back from her face in a gesture he remembered. ‘I’m okay about it. Now. And Mum’s remarried to a very nice man and living in Queensland.’
During that summer he’d used to tease her about her optimism. ‘You should be called Sunny, not Sandy,’ he’d say as he kissed the tip of her sunburned nose. ‘You never let anything get you down.’
It seemed she hadn’t changed—in that regard anyway. But when he looked closely at her face he could see a tightness around her mouth, a wariness in her eyes he didn’t recall.
Maybe things weren’t always so sunny for her these days. Perhaps her cup-half-full mentality had been challenged by life’s storm clouds in the twelve years since he’d last seen her.
Suddenly she glanced at her watch. She couldn’t smother her gasp. The colour drained from her face.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked immediately.
‘Nothing,’ she said, tight lipped.
Nothing. Why did women always say that when something was clearly wrong?
‘Then why did you stare at your watch like it was about to explode? Is it connected to a bomb somewhere?’
That brought a twitch to her lips. ‘I wish.’
She lifted her eyes from the watch. Her gaze was steady. ‘I don’t know why I’m telling you this, but right at this very moment Jason—my...my former boyfriend, partner, live-in lover or whatever you like to call him—is getting married.’
Sandy with a live-in boyfriend? She’d said she’d had a partner but had it been that serious? The knowledge hit him in the gut. Painfully. Unexpectedly. Stupidly.
What he and Sandy had had together was a teen romance. Kid stuff. They’d both moved on. He’d married Jodi. Of course Sandy would have had another man in her life.
But he had to clear his throat to reply. ‘And that’s bad or good?’
She laughed. But the laugh didn’t quite reach her eyes. ‘Well, good for him. Good for her, I guess. I’m still not sure how I feel about coming home one day to find his possessions gone and a note telling me he’d moved in with her.’
‘You’re kidding me, right?’ Ben growled. How could someone treat his Sandy like that. His Sandy. That was a slip. She hadn’t been his for a long, long time.
‘I’m afraid not. It was...humiliating to say the least.’ Her tone sounded forced, light. ‘But, hey, it makes for a great story.’
A great story? Yeah, right.
There went sunny Sandy again, laughing off something that must still cause her pain.
‘Sounds to me like you’re better off without him.’
‘The further I get from him the more I can see that,’ she said. But she didn’t sound convinced.
‘As far away as Melbourne?’ he asked, finding the thought of her so far away unsettling.
‘I’m not running away,’ she said firmly. Too firmly. ‘I need change. A new job, a new—’
‘Your job? What is that?’ he asked, realising how little he knew about her now. ‘Did you study law like your father wanted?’
‘No, I didn’t. Don’t look so surprised—it was because of you.’
‘Me?’ No wonder her father had hated him.
‘You urged me to follow my dreams—like you were following yours. I thought about that a lot when I got back home. And my dream wasn’t to be a solicitor.’ She shuddered. ‘I couldn’t think of anything less me.’
He’d studied law as part of his degree and liked it. But he wasn’t as creative as he remembered Sandy being. ‘But you studied for years so you’d get a place in law.’
‘Law at Sydney University.’ She pronounced the words as though they were spelled in capital letters. ‘That was my father’s ambition for me. He’d given up his plans for me to be a doctor when I didn’t cut it in chemistry.’
‘You didn’t get enough marks in the Higher School Certificate for law?’
‘I got the marks, all right. Not long after we got back to Sydney the results came out. I was in the honour roll in the newspaper. You should