* * *
Griff was feeling calmer as he stood in a group by the bar. Half his old rugby league team were gathered there and the guys were having a great old time sharing memories—the game when Tony King broke his leg while scoring a try, or the year they won the regional premiership by a whisker, when Jonno Briggs kicked a freakish field goal.
The whole time, though, Griff was all too aware of Eva’s presence, even though she was at the far end of the room with her back to him. He did his damnedest to stop looking her way, but it was as if he had special radar beaming back sensory messages about her every move.
‘Would you like something to eat, sir?’
A girl arrived, offering canapés.
‘Thanks.’ The savouries looked appetising. Griff smiled. ‘I might take two.’
The girl laughed and there was a flash in her eyes, a tilt to her smile—something that felt uncannily familiar. For a moment longer than was necessary, the girl’s gaze stayed on Griff, almost as if she were studying him. Fine hairs lifted on the back of his neck.
The feeling was unsettling and he might have said something, but then she turned and began serving the others. She didn’t look Griff’s way again and he decided he must have been more on edge about the whole Eva business than he’d realised.
He would be glad when this night was over.
* * *
Dinner was about to be served and everyone settled at long tables. Eva sat with some old girlfriends and their husbands. Griff was two tables away, almost out of sight, and she did her best to stop her gaze from stealing in his direction. She was relatively successful, but twice he caught her sending a furtive glance his way. Both times he looked angry and she felt her cheeks heat brightly.
‘Are you all right, Eva?’ asked Jane, who was sitting opposite her.
‘Yes, of course.’ Eva knew she must look flushed and she reached for her water glass. ‘Just feeling the heat.’
Jane nodded sympathetically. ‘It must be hard for you, coming back from a lovely cool autumn in Europe to the start of a sweltering summer in Queensland.’
‘Yes,’ Eva said. ‘You tend to forget about the heat and just remember the lovely sunshine.’
Others around her nodded in agreement or laughed politely.
As they finished their main course, speeches were made. Jonno Briggs, who’d gone on after school to become a professional footballer, told a funny story about running into Barney in a pub in Glasgow. Jane gave a touching speech about one of their classmates who had died.
There were tributes to a couple of their old teachers who had also returned for the reunion. Then someone decided to point out their most successful classmates and Eva, among others, was asked to stand. As she did so, somewhat reluctantly, there was a burst of loud applause.
‘Give us a pirouette, Eva!’ called Barney.
She winced inwardly, remembering the way she’d liked to show off when she was still at school. So many times she’d performed arabesques and grand jetés on the beach.
‘I couldn’t possibly,’ she told them now.
‘Oh, come on!’ called a jocular fellow at the back.
‘Sorry. My dress is too tight.’
This was accepted with good-natured laughter.
At least she didn’t have to mention the flaring pain in her hip. She would prefer no one knew about that.
The desserts arrived. Eva was served by the girl with the purple-streaked hair who had chatted to her earlier. She gave Eva an especially bright smile and a sly wink, as if they were great mates.
Eva usually avoided desserts and she only ate half of her crème brulée. With the speeches over, people were rising from their seats and starting to mingle again. There was self-serve coffee at one end of the bar and Eva crossed the room to collect a cup.
‘We should talk,’ a deep voice said at her elbow.
Griff’s voice. Eva almost spilled her coffee.
His expression was serious. Determined. Eva supposed he was going to grill her, ply her with questions. She was rather afraid of that clever lawyer’s mind of his. Would he try to uncover her secret?
A flood of terror made her tremble. When she turned his way, she did so slowly, hoping to appear unruffled. ‘What would you like to talk about?’
Griff’s cool smile warned her not to play games. ‘I suspect we’d both benefit from laying a few ghosts.’
She couldn’t think how to respond to this. ‘I...guess.’
‘Let’s go outside. You can bring your coffee with you.’
Eva was struggling with her hip and the high heels and she didn’t trust herself to carry a cup of hot liquid. ‘I’d prefer to drink it here.’
His expression remained unruffled. ‘As you wish. There’s no rush.’
‘Well, no, I guess not.’ In an attempt to banish her nervousness, she tried for lightness. ‘Not after twenty years.’
But with Griff standing there, waiting for their ‘talk’, she was suddenly so tense the coffee curdled in her stomach. After three sips she set the cup down.
He frowned. ‘You’re finished?’
‘Yes, thanks. Where would you like to go?’
He nodded towards a pair of glass doors that led to another, smaller, balcony. ‘We should have more privacy out there.’
Privacy with this man. Great. Just what she didn’t need, but she knew she shouldn’t refuse him. From the moment she’d decided to come back to the Bay, she’d been aware that this encounter was a possibility.
Perhaps it was time.
If only she felt ready.
As Griff opened the door for her to precede him, the only light on the balcony came from an almost full moon. They were facing the sea now and a breeze brought a flurry of salty spray. The moon shone over the surf, highlighting the silvery curl of the waves and the white froth of foam as it crashed on the pale sand.
Eva gripped the balcony railing, grateful for its support. Now, in the moonlit darkness, Griff seemed to loom larger than ever.
‘So,’ she said, turning bravely to face him. ‘What would you like to discuss?’
‘I’m sure you must know, Eva. Perhaps you’re hoping that after twenty years I’d simply overlook the way we broke up, but I’m afraid I’d like to know why you took off like that.’
She nodded, drew a deep breath. Of course she’d guessed this would be Griff’s question and she knew she must tell him the truth. If only it wasn’t so difficult, after all this time. When they were young they’d been able to talk endlessly, with an easy, trusting intimacy that would be impossible now. They’d shared everything.
Well, almost everything.
Now, they were virtually strangers.
She was tempted to use her mother as her excuse, but that would be cowardly. Although it had been her mum’s idea to take off, leaving no word.
‘I know you, Eva,’ her mother had said on that fateful night before they’d left Emerald Bay under cover of darkness, as Eva had wept and begged to go to Griff. ‘Be sensible, darling. If you try to explain what we’re doing, you’ll end up telling him everything. He might make demands and it will become way too complicated.’
Eva had tried to protest, but her mother had insisted. ‘You need to make a clean break now. You have to think