They both spoke at the same time.
‘Why—?’
‘Why—?’
Then answered at the same time.
‘My father—’
‘Your father—’
Sandy gave a short nervous laugh. ‘And my mother, too,’ she added, turning away from him, looking down at a display of mini-books of inspirational thoughts, shuffling them backwards and forwards. ‘She told me not to chase after you when you were so obviously not interested. Even my sister, Lizzie, got fed up with me crying over you and told me to get over it and move on.’
‘My dad said the same thing about you. That you had your own life in the city. That you wouldn’t give me a thought when you were back in the bright lights. That we were too young, anyway.’ He snorted. ‘Too young. He and my mother got married when they were only a year older than I was then.’
She looked up to face him. ‘I phoned the guesthouse, you know, but your father answered. I was too chicken to speak to him, though I suspect he knew it was me. He told me not to call again.’
‘He never said.’
Sandy could hear the beating of her own heart over the sound of the rain on the roof. ‘We were young. Maybe too young to doubt them—or defy them.’
An awkward silence—a silence choked by the echoes of words unspoken, of kisses unfulfilled—fell between them until finally she knew she had to be the one to break it.
‘I wonder what would have happened if we had—’
‘Don’t go there, Sandy,’ he said.
She took a step back from his sudden vehemence, banging her hip on the wooden fin of a carved dolphin. But she scarcely felt the pain.
‘Never torture yourself with what if? and if only,’ he continued. ‘Remember what you said? Water under the bridge.’
‘It...it was a long time ago.’
She didn’t know what else she could say. Couldn’t face thinking of the ‘what ifs?’ Ben must have struggled with after the fire.
While he was recalling anguish and irredeemable loss, she was desperately fighting off the memories of how much fun they’d had together all those years ago.
She’d been so serious, so strait-laced, so under her father’s thumb. For heaven’s sake, she’d been old enough to vote but had never stayed out after midnight. Ben had helped her lighten up, take risks—be reckless, even. All the time knowing he’d be there for her if she stumbled.
He hadn’t been a bad boy by any means, but he’d been an exciting boy—an irreverent boy who’d thumbed his nose at her father’s old-fashioned edicts and made her question the ways she’d taken for granted. So many times she’d snuck out to meet him after dark, her heart thundering with both fear of what would happen if she were caught and anticipation of being alone with him.
How good it had felt when he’d kissed her—kissed her at any opportunity when they could be by themselves. How his kisses, his caresses, had stirred her body, awakening yearnings she hadn’t known she was capable of.
Yearnings she’d never felt as strongly since. Not even for Jason.
Saying no to going all the way with Ben that summer was one of the real regrets of her life. Losing her virginity to him would have been an unforgettable experience. How could it not have been when their passion had been so strong?
She couldn’t help remembering their last kiss—with her father about to drag her into the car—fired by unfulfilled passion and made more poignant in retrospect because she’d had no idea that it would be her last kiss from Ben.
Did he remember it too?
She searched his face, but he seemed immersed in his own dark thoughts.
Wearily, she wiped her hand over her forehead as if she could conjure up answers. Why had those kisses been printed so indelibly on her memory? Unleashed passion? Hormones? Pheromones? Was it the magic of first love? Or was it a unique power that came only from Ben?
Ben who had grown into this intense, unreadable, tormented man whom she could not even pretend to know any more.
The rain continued to fall. It muffled the sound of the cars swishing by outside the bookshop, made it seem as if they were in their own world, cocooned by their memories from the reality of everyday life in Dolphin Bay. From all that had happened in the twelve years since they’d last met.
Ben cleared his throat, leaned a little closer to her over the barrier of the counter.
‘I’m glad you told me you never got my letters, that you tried to phone,’ he said, his voice gruff. ‘I never understood how you could just walk away from what we had.’
‘Me too. I never understood how you didn’t want to see me again, I mean.’
She thought of the tears she’d wept into her pillow all those years ago. How abandoned she’d felt. How achingly lonely. Even the agony of Jason’s betrayal hadn’t come near it.
Then she forced her thoughts to return to today. To Ben’s insistence that he didn’t want her hanging around Dolphin Bay, even to help his injured aunt at a time of real need for the old lady.
It was beyond hurtful.
Consciously, she straightened her shoulders. She forced a brave, unconcerned edge to her voice. ‘But now we know the wrong my father did maybe we can forget old hurts and...and feel some kind of closure.’
‘Closure?’ Ben stared at her. ‘What kind of psychobabble is that?’
Psychobabble? She felt rebuffed by his response. She’d actually thought ‘closure’ was a very well-chosen word. Under the circumstances.
‘What I mean is...maybe we can try to be friends? Forgive the past. Forget there was anything else between us?’
She was lying. Oh, how she was lying.
While her mind dictated emotion-free words like ‘closure’ and ‘friends’ her body was shouting out that she found him every bit as desirable as she had twelve years ago. More so.
Just months ago—when she’d still had a job—she’d worked on a campaign for a hot teen surf clothing label. Ben at nineteen would have been perfectly cast in the lead male role, surrounded by adoring bikini-clad girls.
Now, Ben at thirty-one could star as a hunky action man in any number of very grown-up commercials. His face was only improved by his cropped hair, the deep tan, the slight crinkles around his eyes and that intriguing scar on his mouth. His damp shirt moulded to a muscled chest and powerful shoulders and arms.
Now they were both adults. Experienced adults. She’d been the world’s most inexperienced eighteen-year-old. What would she feel if she kissed him now? A shudder ran deep inside her. There would be no stopping at kisses, that was for sure.
‘You may be able to forget we were more than friends but I can’t,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I still find you very attractive.’
So he felt it too.
Something so powerful that twelve years had done nothing to erode it.
Her heart did that flippy thing again, over and over, stealing her breath, her composure. Before she could stutter out something in response he continued.
‘That’s why I don’t want you in Dolphin Bay.’
She gasped at his bluntness.
‘I don’t mean to sound rude,’ he said. ‘I...I just can’t deal with having you around.’
What