‘Ben!’ she shouted, but the wind just snatched the words out of her mouth and he didn’t turn around.
She fumbled with her sandals and yanked them off, the better to run after him.
‘Ben!’ she called again, her voice hoarse, the salt wind whipping her hair around her face and stinging her eyes.
At last he stopped. Slowly, warily, he turned to face her. It seemed an age until she’d struggled through the sand to reach him. He stood unmoving, his face rigid, his eyes guarded. How hadn’t she seen it before?
‘Ben,’ she whispered, scarcely able to get the word out. ‘I’m sorry... I can’t tell you how sorry I am.’
His eyes searched her face. ‘You know?’
She nodded. ‘Kate told me. She thought I already knew. I don’t know what to say.’
* * *
Ben looked down at Sandy’s face, at her cheeks flushed pink, her brown hair all tangled and blown around her face. Her eyes were huge with distress, her mouth oddly stained bright pink in the centre. She didn’t look much older than the girl he’d loved all those years ago.
The girl he’d recognised as soon as she’d come into the hotel restaurant. Recognised and—just for one wild, unguarded second before he pummelled the thought back down to the depths of his wounded heart—let himself exult that she had come back. His first love. The girl he had never forgotten. Had never expected to see again.
For just those few minutes when they’d chatted he’d donned the mask of the carefree boy he’d been when they’d last met.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said again, her voice barely audible through the wind.
‘You couldn’t have known,’ he said.
Silence fell between them for a long moment and he found he could not stop himself from searching her face. Looking for change. He wanted there to be no sign of the passing years on her, though he was aware of how much he had changed himself.
Then she spoke. ‘When did...?’
‘Five years ago,’ he said gruffly.
He didn’t want to talk to Sandy about what the locals called ‘his tragedy’. He didn’t want to talk about it anymore full-stop—but particularly not to Sandy, who’d once been so special to him.
Sandy Adams belonged in his past. Firmly in his past. Water under the bridge, as she’d so aptly said.
She bit down on her lower lip. ‘I can’t imagine how you must feel—’
‘No, you can’t,’ he said, more abruptly than he’d intended, and was ashamed at the flash of hurt that tightened her face. ‘No one could. But I’ve put it behind me...’
Her eyes—warm, compassionate—told him she knew he was lying. How could he ever put that terrible day of helpless rage and despair behind him? The empty, guilt-ridden days that had followed it? The years of punishing himself, of not allowing himself to feel again?
‘Your hands,’ she said softly. ‘Is that how you hurt them?’
He nodded, finding words with difficulty. ‘The metal door handles were burning hot when I tried to open them.’
Fearsome images came back—the heat, the smoke, the door that would not give despite his weight behind it, his voice raw from screaming Jodi’s and Liam’s names.
He couldn’t stop the shudder that racked his frame. ‘I don’t talk about it.’
Mutely, she nodded, and her eyes dropped from his face. But not before he read the sorrow for him there.
Once again he felt ashamed of his harshness towards her. But that was him these days. Ben Morgan: thirty-one going on ninety.
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