Читать книгу Dreaming Of... Australia: Mr Right at the Wrong Time / Imprisoned by a Vow / The Millionaire and the Maid - Annie West, Nikki Logan - Страница 14

‘SO you were only in for a few days? Amazing.’

Aimee lowered her skirt down her leg, back over the pin-scars high on her calf that she’d just been showing Sam. The only physical reminder she had of her night on the side of a mountain.

‘It’s good to be able to talk to you about this,’ she said, sipping her latte. ‘No one else gets it. They look at my little scars and think that somehow reflects the scale of the accident.’

‘You haven’t talked about it to anyone?’

‘The counsellor at the hospital.’ Though mostly about growing up as a human tug-of-war, as it turned out. ‘My friend Danielle.’ Mostly about you. ‘But I only gave my parents the basics …’

‘You mean you played it down.’ He smiled.

She thought about hedging, but then laughed. ‘Only because they were already so freaked out by a two a.m. phone call from your crew.’

‘Have you dealt with it at all?’

‘Yes. I’ve gone over it a hundred different ways. Things I might have done differently, should have done differently …’ She dropped her eyes away. ‘I’m pretty reconciled to having handled it as best I could.’

‘You were brilliant. You made it so easy for me to help you.’

She lifted her eyes. ‘I wanted to thank you. Right after … But you were—’ kissing your wife ‘—busy.’ She sighed. ‘The nomination was the closest I could get.’

‘You made the nomination?’

She nodded. ‘I felt like an idiot. All I knew was the date and location of the accident and your first name. But they did the rest.’

‘That changes everything.’

‘What everything?’

‘I didn’t want the award. I thought it was crazy that the state would nominate me for just doing my job. But you …’ His eyes warmed the whole front corner of the café and his smile soaked into her. ‘You I’ll accept it from.’

‘Good. You’ll never know the difference that day made for me.’

‘Tell me now.’

Her eyes flew wide as she lifted them. ‘Now?’

‘You didn’t make a speech at the awards. Make one now. Tell me what it meant to you.’

Words wouldn’t come. She opened her mouth to say something pithy, but that wouldn’t come either. She shuddered in a deep breath and began at the one place she knew she’d already taken him.

‘That night changed me, Sam. You showed me that there was a difference between taking charge and taking over. I hadn’t ever seen that before.’

Three little creases appeared between his brows.

Okay. She wasn’t explaining this at all well. She leaned forward. ‘It took me a long time to realise that the crash mats my parents surrounded me with as I was growing up was more about them than me. But by then I’d bought into all that care and concern and I’d forgotten how to be independent. Maybe I never even learned.’

Sam frowned at her and waited silently for her to continue.

‘Then I met Wayne, and I let him drive our relationship because I’d become so accustomed to other people doing my thinking for me. Taking over. Giving me instructions.’

Sam frowned. ‘Like I did.’

She shook her head. ‘You showed me that the best kind of capability doesn’t come from bossing. It comes from influencing.’

Sam frowned at her again.

‘You did it the entire time we were in the car. You wanted me to do things but you didn’t order me to. You simply gave me the facts and the reason for your request and your preference and you let me decide. Or you asked. And if I said no you respected that—even when it was the wrong decision. Then you just compensated for my glaring bad calls.’

He looked supremely uncomfortable with the praise. ‘Aimee, I just treated you the way I’d want to be treated in the same situation.’

‘Which is how?’

He thought about that. ‘Like an adult. With all the facts.’ Then his expression cleared. ‘Like a team.’

‘Yes! I have never in my life felt like I belonged to a team, where we worked together for a solution. It was always about compliance or conflict.’ She held up her two hands as though they were scales, with one or other of those words weighing heavily in them.

‘Well, I’m glad. We were a team that night. We had equal stakes the moment I climbed into that car, so we deserved equal say on what went down.’

She leaned forward earnestly. ‘See—that’s a novelty to me. The whole idea of equity. I love it.’

He seemed enchanted by her excitement. But a little bemused. ‘I’m glad.’

His gentle teasing warmed her every bit now as it had back in the car. ‘Don’t laugh at me. This is revolutionary. I don’t ever want to go back to being that person who needed permission to get through the day. I still shake my head that I let it happen at all. You saved so much more than my physical self on the mountain.’

‘Don’t go canonising me just yet. I’m sure you were already halfway to this realisation yourself.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You were heading up to the highlands to reassess your life. You’d broken off your dud relationship. You were managing your parents.’

If by ‘managing’ he meant avoiding …’Okay, so I wasn’t starting from zero, but it took that accident to really spotlight what was wrong with my life. And you were wielding that spotlight.’

He grinned. ‘Nice analogy.’

‘Thank you. It’s the storyteller in me.’ She finished her coffee and signalled for another before turning back to Sam, her biggest and most exciting secret teetering on her tongue. ‘Anyway, that’s why I’m so grateful. It’s changed the way I do my work, too.’

He cocked his head.

‘I got to thinking about what you said—about how my oral histories collect dust once I’m finished with them.’

Sam winced. ‘Aimee, I’m sorry. I probably said a lot of careless stuff that night. I was just trying to keep you awake.’

‘You were absolutely right. But I’d been too uncertain of myself before to do anything to change that.’

‘Before?’

‘That’s how I’ve come to think of things. Before the accident and after the accident.’ Actually it was before-Sam and after-Sam, but she wasn’t about to tell him that. He’d bolt from the café before his spoon even hit the floor. She pressed her hands to the table, leaned forward, lowered her voice. ‘I’m going to write a book.’

His eyebrows shot up. ‘Really?’

‘Really. I’m going to pull together all the stories I’ve collected about people who grabbed their futures by the throat and took a crazy chance. People like Dorothy. And how that paid off … or didn’t. But the important thing is that they were the navigators of their own destiny one way or another. Oh! That could be the title … Navigators!’

He stared at her, bright interest in his eyes as her brain galloped ahead. ‘Good for you, Aimee.’

Her lungs struggled to reinflate as the full impact of all that focus hit her. She pushed them to co-operate, and it was almost harder speaking now than back in her squished Honda. ‘And it’s not because you made me feel like what I do isn’t complete … It’s because it’s not complete. These particular stories always resonated for me. I just never recognised it.’

Sam smiled. ‘I love the idea, Aimee. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.’

She straightened, took a deep breath and held his eyes. ‘Let me do you.’

His whole body jerked back.

‘Your story!’ she rushed on. ‘Oh, my God … Let me interview you for your story.’ Heat surged up her throat and she knew there was nothing she could do to change that. Intense Sam was only half as gorgeous as Sam in a full belly-laugh, but he treated her to one now, as she stumbled out of the awkward moment. ‘I want to include some more contemporary stories as well, and you’re about the most proficient navigator I’ve ever met. I’d love to include you.’

‘My story’s not really all that interesting, Aimee.’

‘Everyone’s story is interesting, Sam. Just not to them.’

He stared at her. ‘You’re serious? You want to put me into your book?’

‘I want to thank you—’ She held up her hand as he went to interrupt. ‘In a way more meaningful than just an award nomination or a couple of cups of coffee. You were present at the moment that redefined my life and I want to reflect that importance.’ She sat up straighter. ‘So, yes, I want the man that saved my life in my book.’ Such naked insistence still didn’t come naturally to her, but she squashed down her instinctual discomfort.

‘Can I think about it?’

She took a fast breath. ‘No. You’ll refuse if you think about it.’

His smile then warmed her heart. ‘Look at you, getting all take-charge.’

Her laugh burbled up into an excited squeak. ‘I know!’

‘Maybe you know my story already.’

‘You’re a modest man, Sam. It’s part of your charm. I understand that you won’t want this story to be some kind of reflection of how important you think the work you do is, but I really want it to reflect how important that work is—was—to me.’ She forced herself to keep her stare locked on him, even while every cell of Old Aimee demurred, whispered that her insistence was ungracious. Not feminine. Scandalous. ‘Please say yes.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘What’s involved?’

‘You’ll hate it,’ she said without the tiniest pause. ‘It involves more coffee.’

A hint of a twitch in his left eye was the only clue that he was smiling on the inside. But it was enough. ‘If we’re going to have more coffee I need some food to soak it up,’ he said. ‘Are you hungry?’

‘Ravenous.’

Suddenly she was. After months of barely picking at even the most delectable meals. Sam was going to be in her book. Sam was going to share a little bit of himself with her.

And an entire afternoon.

All of a sudden her chest didn’t feel large enough for the organs in it as she squeezed out speech. ‘What time’s your flight?’

He stared at her, his eyes carefully neutral. ‘Late enough.’

It was beyond refreshing to see a woman inhale her lunch the way Aimee did, despite their plates being piled high with home-cooked Italian food and herbed bread. He was so used to Melissa and her friends either fussing about the dressing on the tiny salad they were expecting their bodies to function on, or getting stuck into something more substantial and then punishing themselves endlessly for enjoying it.

The kind of unabashed feeding frenzy he was witness to now reminded him of home. Of his family.

They’d taken their meals to a more comfortable booth, and chatted about other rescues he’d worked on in the past year, and about her heritage work, and whether either of them had been in Canberra before, and then, before he’d even looked away from her, a waitress had materialised from nowhere and was clearing their empty plates and bringing more coffee.

‘I may never sleep again,’ Aimee joked as she blew the steam off her fourth latte.

But there was something about this afternoon: something blindly indulgent that made a bottomless cup of coffee and pasta carb-loading seem as reasonable as his almost gluttonous need for conversation.

Aimee’s conversation.

He knew she was intelligent from their hours in the car, but back then she’d been suppressed by pain and medication and—if her epiphany was to be believed—by her own personal demons. But this Aimee had a lightness and an optimism so untrained and raw it was almost captivating. Like a newly emerged butterfly testing out its wings. Definitely engaging. And thoroughly contagious. So much so that by the time she slid a little digital recorder from her handbag into the centre of the cleared table and set it to record he was no longer dreading his decision to help her out.

‘You carry that with you everywhere?’

‘Yup.’

Her eagerness touched him almost as much as her innocence prickled at his senses. Taunted him. Drew him. ‘You really are excited by this book, aren’t you?’ he said.

Her green eyes sparkled. ‘Beyond words. This idea is one hundred percent mine—sink or swim, for better or worse.’

He twitched, but only slightly. Was the mention of marriage vows intentional? A reminder to both of them to keep things professional? If so, it was it was well timed.

‘So …’ She adjusted the recorder and pointed one end towards him. ‘Tell me about your family. You’re the oldest of … what was it? … seven?’

‘Eight. Second oldest.’

‘Big family.’

‘Lots of love to go around.’

‘That’s nice. So no one went wanting?’

He reeled a little. ‘Uh …?’

She smiled so serenely it took the edge off his anxiety about where this was going. ‘Don’t worry—this isn’t some kind of exposé. I just want to get to the heart of your background. I like to leap right in. It saves lots of preliminary warm-up.’

Plus, they’d been warming up all afternoon, technically speaking. ‘Okay, uh … no … No one went wanting.’

‘How much of that was thanks to big brother Sam?’

He thought about that. ‘We all pitched in and looked after each other. Dad worked pretty long hours so Mum needed support.’

‘Were you her favourite?’

‘There’s a loaded question.’ He laughed. ‘I felt like her favourite, but I’m sure every one of my siblings would say the same. Mum was good like that.’

‘Tell me about your parents. How did they meet?’

Sam took her through what he knew of the romance that was his parents’ marriage. Some of the challenges, the wins, the losses, their decision to come to Australia and start a new life.

‘Sounds almost idyllic.’

‘It wasn’t without its challenges, but my folks have worked their way through every major bump in their road to happiness. They’re great role models.’

‘How many of you are married?’ she asked.

He blinked. ‘Just me and one sister.’

‘Too hard to live up to for everyone else?’

His stomach tightened. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean your parents’ example. Pretty tough act to follow?’

He struggled against the automatic bristling that came when anyone criticised his family. She was just curious. And she wasn’t all that far off the mark, in truth. ‘I think we’d all consider it inspirational. Not demoralising.’

She watched him steadily. ‘That’s nice, then.’

‘Yeah, it is.’

‘Is that how it is for you?’

His chest matched the tightness in his gut. Here it comes. The subject neither of them was mentioning. ‘What?’

‘Your marriage. Do you aspire to a relationship as strong as your parents’?’

‘You’re assuming it’s not already like that?’ And that was a big call on just a few hours’ collective acquaintance in which the topic had almost never been raised. He couldn’t stop his arms folding across his front.

A hint of colour pinked her cheeks and highlighted the deep green of her eyes. It galled him that his body noticed that even when he was annoyed. He forced his hormones to heel.

‘You’re right. I am. Sorry. I just …’

But she swallowed back whatever she’d been about to say. So he called her on it: partly to see just how strong her reinforced spinal column really was, and partly because he wanted to see what had made her assume as she had. If he was giving off clues to strangers that his marriage wasn’t rock-solid, did that mean Mel might pick up on them, too?

‘Just what?’

A dozen expressions chased across her expressive eyes and finally resolved into caution. ‘She didn’t come. Today,’ she added when he just stared at her. ‘Today was a really big deal and she didn’t come. And I know that the complimentary air tickets were for two because I didn’t use my plus-one either.’

She had no one to bring. His antenna started vibrating with a bit too much interest at that piece of information and so he buried it under a landslide of hastily whipped up umbrage and forced his focus where it belonged. Defending Melissa was second nature.

‘She works. Hard.’

‘I know. You said.’ Then Aimee leaned forward and he got a flash of cream curve as her breasts rose and fell. ‘But so does your father, and I’m guessing he would have moved the earth to be there if it was your mother shaking the Governor General’s hand and being recognised by his country.’

A cold, twisted kind of ugly settled in his belly. It was sixty percent righteousness, forty percent guilt, and one hundred percent reflex. He’d had exactly those thoughts himself. ‘Are you offering me relationship advice? Seriously?’

His subtle emphasis on you didn’t escape her, and the hurt and disappointment in her expression were immediate. As if she’d been suspending breath, waiting for something to happen.

And he’d just been that something.

Shame bit—down low.

‘No.’ She smiled, but it was half-hearted and without the luminosity of before. ‘That would be like asking me to get you out of a stricken vehicle on a mountain. It’s just not in my skill set.’

He hated his own overreaction almost as much as how fast she was to put herself down when challenged. Both smacked of long-standing defensive tools. So her healing was still a work in progress, then.

She went on before he could. ‘But I do know something about people. And subtext. I’m trained to read between the lines.’

‘My relationship with Melissa is not fodder for your book,’ he stated flatly.

‘You think your wife is not material to your life story?’

He wiped his hands purely for the satisfaction of throwing his serviette down onto the table. The international symbol for this discussion is over. ‘I think if you want to include her then we should get her agreement.’

This was where a polite person would step back, oil the waters. Aimee just leaned forward. ‘You’re protective of her.’

‘Of course I am. She’s my wife.’

‘You love her.’

‘She’s my wife,’ he reiterated.

Her perfect face tipped. ‘Why are you so defensive?’

‘Why are you so pushy? Are you upset I didn’t tell you I was married? I met Melissa through one of my brothers, we were together two years and then we got married. End of story.’

Except that was complete bull. There was so much more to their story.

A hint more pink crept into her cheeks. Or was it just that the colour around it had faded? She leaned forward again, lowered her voice. ‘Why didn’t you mention her to me before? There were so many opportunities.’

A dangerously good question. Was it because he’d felt the simmering something between them in their perilous little nest on the mountainside and hadn’t wanted it to evaporate? Was he that desperate for a hint of attraction, even back then?

Uncertainty clenched, tight and unfamiliar, in his chest.

‘It was none of your business.’ Present tense included. How do you like that subtext?

Her face froze and her fists curled into nuggets on the table. She took a moment collecting herself. It reminded him of something …

‘I …’ She pressed her lips together, sat back.

It hit him then—what he was being reminded of. Aimee looked right now as she’d looked back on that mountainside. Pale … stiff. When she’d been in shock, but trying not to let on. It was such a direct echo of how she’d looked all those months ago, hanging off the side of the A10, that he couldn’t help the memories surging in. How close he’d felt to her when she was toughing it out in the darkness. How impressed he’d been at her calmness under pressure. How open she’d been with him about her fears and vulnerabilities. How hard he’d worked to keep her safe.

How connected he’d felt to her.

Apparently mutual.

Even now, after he’d just been a bastard and hurt one of the most open and innocent people he knew rather than manning up to his own inadequacies.

It was palpable.

He shifted to dislodge his body’s intense focus.

‘You know …’ Her face twisted in concentration. ‘I owe you an apology, Sam. I’ve spent so much time dwelling on those hours up in the highlands I think I’ve …’ she physically grappled for the right word ‘… infused them with too much meaning. That day was life-changing for me, but it really was just business as usual for you. No wonder you’re uncomfortable with the nomination. With my obsession on having you in my book.’ She reached forward and turned off the recorder, her eyes averted. ‘I’m so sorry.’

Shame gnawed at his intestines. He was being an ass. ‘Aimee …’

She forced her earnest gaze back to his. ‘I wanted to do something as meaningful for you as you did for me that day. And I don’t have anything to give you other than my interest and the way I see your story fitting into my book. I can’t offer you anything else to express how much you did for me.’

‘You don’t need to.’

‘I do need to. For me. I need to … balance the scales.’ She reached for her handbag. ‘But I’ve forced a connection that isn’t there for you, and I’m sorry.’

Everything inside him twisted. ‘Don’t leave …’

Her laugh was brittle and her hurried words were for herself. ‘I’ve already made a fool of myself with you once. I really should learn from my mistakes.’

That kiss. So she did remember it. ‘Aimee—sit …’

A tiny frown braved the storm of recrimination blustering around it. ‘I wish you all the best for the future, Sam.’ She was on her feet and swinging her bag onto her shoulder, and then a heartbeat later she was stepping away. Walking away. Doing what he should do. What was best all round.

But he knew he wouldn’t. He stood.

‘So that’s it?’ The corner of his lip practically curled. ‘Thanks for saving my life, Sam. Have a nice life.’ Two people at nearby tables tried very hard to pretend they hadn’t heard that.

Aimee slowly turned back to him, her face guarded. ‘You want my firstborn in return?’

Frustration ripped at him. He was screwing this up. Royally. ‘Don’t leave, Aimee.’

She stood like the proverbial salt pillar, indecision etched into her expression. So he battled on. Risked exposing his true self. ‘Your rescue was not business as usual—though it should have been. I don’t know what that means, and I don’t want to read into it, and I absolutely don’t want to do anything about it.’ He sucked in a breath, and the people at the next table abandoned their efforts to not listen in. ‘But you of all people asking me about my marriage was just too …’

He ran out of courage. And words. And air.

Her handbag slipped off her shoulder and she twisted the strap in her hands. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

‘No. Not at all.’ But, yes, he really did. Aimee Leigh was the last person he should want to talk about his marriage with, but just then she was also the only person he could imagine talking about it with.

‘All right.’ She collected the handbag in front of her. Its next stop was surely back on her shoulder and swinging out through the door.

Suddenly all his priorities shrank down to just one simple one: keeping Aimee in this café. ‘But I don’t want us to part like this, either. I’m sorry for snapping. I’m … not used to talking about my personal life.’

She smiled, and it was so full of sorrow she might not have bothered. ‘No. I think we should quit while we’re ahead. I’ll pretend you never answered as you did if you’ll pretend I never asked what I did.’

‘Make-believe works for you?’ He hoped so, if it meant her last memory of him wasn’t his being an ass.

The handbag was up and on her shoulder now. ‘Let’s both agree to try.’

She was turning, and he missed her already. ‘What about your book?’ It was desperate, but if it kept her here …

She paused, but didn’t turn back. She looked at him over her shoulder. ‘Maybe another time. Bye, Sam.’

‘I’ll hold you to that!’ he called as she moved decisively through the door.

And then she was gone.

Again.

This time it was his fault.