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  Or, Calla wondered with embarrassment, maybe he’d been so appalled by what she looked like when she’d got out of bed that he’d had to go outside and dry-retch.

  Another yawn found Calla and she rubbed her eyes. She grabbed her cup and did a little detour of her bedroom to grab a blanket to throw around her shoulders before joining Sam on the deck. The screen door squeaked her arrival. The air outside was crisp and clean. The view was the ocean and the Penneshaw beach, solitude and remoteness. It felt to Calla as if there was no one else around for miles.

  ‘Good morning,’ she said.

  He turned to her and threw her a smile. It did more to wake her up than the caffeine slowly trickling through her veins. His smile was like a triple-shot espresso.

  ‘Good morning,’ he said casually.

  There was a beat of silence between them. ‘Well, aren’t you going to ask me?’

  Sam turned to her with bemused eyes and a smile on his lips. ‘Ask you what?’

  ‘If I’m feeling okay. You seem to have been slightly obsessed by my well-being since we arrived here.’

  He laughed. ‘Okay then. How’s that headache this morning?’

  Calla thought about it for a moment before realising there was no nausea, no pounding, no throbbing. ‘What headache?’

  ‘Good to hear.’

  ‘And thanks for the coffee, by the way. It’s probably the reason I’m feeling good.’ Yes, definitely the coffee. Keep telling yourself that and you might actually believe it.

  ‘It was my pleasure.’

  Calla pried her sleepy eyes wide open to take in the view. The bright morning light and blue sky revealed a breathtaking expanse of sea and the far-off, mysterious mainland. She let out a deep breath. ‘That’s pretty impressive.’

  Sam nodded his agreement. ‘I’d forgotten. When you grow up looking at it every day, you kind of take it for granted.’ He cocked his head in her direction. ‘When you’ve had some breakfast, we should go see about your car. It was towed to the garage here in Penneshaw.’

  ‘Okay.’ She yawned. ‘Do you want me to make you something to eat? I figure it’s my turn.’

  ‘I’ve been up since seven. I’ve been for a run, had a shower and eaten toast with Vegemite.’

  God, she’d found an ironman. Calla looked down at her own workout clothes, which had never seen a workout. She felt like a sloth. She swallowed the embarrassed lump in her throat. ‘You run every day?’

  ‘Try to.’

  ‘Surely you don’t have to. I mean … look at you.’ And damn it all, she’d said that out loud.

  ‘Yeah, I have to.’

  ‘Even on holidays?’

  ‘This isn’t a holiday, Calla.’ With a flick of his wrist, he tipped the dregs of his coffee over the railing of the balcony on to the sparse garden below.

  She got the hint from his actions that he was done with their conversation. He was undoubtedly keen to get going and had been patiently waiting for her to get her shit together so he could leave and go and see his father. She’d delayed him and now felt terrible for it. He’d already been so kind and generous to her, more than a stranger deserved, and now it was time to thank him and say goodbye, let him go so he could see his father.

  Calla pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders. ‘Sam … I really appreciate your help. Giving me a lift back here and … and everything else you’ve done. But I’m sure your father wants to see you and I can handle things from here.’

  Sam glanced at her and seemed to get just the slightest bit taller. ‘Calla, it’s been no trouble.’

  ‘I know. It’s what you do for a living and you’re really good at it. Looking after people, I mean. But the thing is …’ She felt slightly more comfortable making this confession to the ocean than to him, so she turned away from his gaze. ‘My car is a wreck and it looks like I’ll have to go home. I figure I’ll get the bus or the boat or whatever back to Adelaide.’

  Sam turned to her. The look in his eyes suggested he was trying to figure out if she was serious or not. ‘You’ll go home, just like that.’

  She nodded.

  ‘Didn’t you come to KI for a reason? Don’t you want to find your brother?’

  That had been the idea. She was closer than she’d ever been to putting her family back together, but the events of the past twenty-four hours had started her wondering whether maybe it was best to forget her whole crazy plan. She was suddenly feeling a little fragile about it. And having all her senses assaulted by Sam’s kindness and caring hadn’t helped her either. ‘Things happen, Sam. Plans change. I’ll have to come back another time. In another car.’

  He rested a hand on her shoulder. She felt his strength through the layers of blanket she was enveloped in. It took a whole lot of effort to look up. He was close. His chocolate eyes were soft and kind of lovely. His lips were slightly parted and, when he spoke, his voice dropped low and deep. ‘Don’t get ahead of yourself. Let’s just get it checked out, hey?’

  CHAPTER

  14

  Sam attempted to slam the bonnet shut but it bounced back up with a disobedient crunch. Calla’s car had been towed to the garage in the main street of Penneshaw, and it looked sad and sorry. He’d tried starting it but it wouldn’t turn over. A cursory glance under the bonnet — he was no mechanic but he’d tinkered every now and then — revealed the damage to the engine. He was going to have bad news for her without even consulting the experts.

  ‘Sorry, Calla. The radiator’s leaking and there is a tow-bar-shaped dent in the front of your car. That front panel there is pushed against the right tyre: you can’t drive it anywhere.’

  She sighed, crossed her arms and looked like she trying not to cry. ‘I kind of figured that, but thanks anyway for the second opinion.’

  Man. He didn’t want to be talking about the damn car. He wanted to put his arms around Calla and tell her everything was going to be all right. He pulled himself up and pushed that stupid idea to the back of his mind. ‘Your insurance company will probably write it off. You are insured, right?’

  Calla nodded, looked up to the sky and sighed. ‘For what that’s worth.’ She kicked a tyre and then turned to rest her bum against the car.

  In front of them, a rented tourist mini-van, the kind with graffiti and spray-painted pictures all over it, pulled in by the petrol pumps and two young people stepped out, laughing. One headed into the small shop attached to the service station while the other filled the van with petrol.

  ‘Maybe I can get a lift with the hippies,’ she said in a small, defeated voice.

  Sam was taken aback by her change in tone. In the short time he’d known her, he’d heard her snarly, teasing and even questioning, but he hadn’t heard this. It threw him. He was used to seeing sadness, grief, shock. He walked through fire scenes with blinkers on. Attended car accidents and walked past fatally and traumatically injured people almost every day. So why did the look of defeat on Calla’s face hit him square in the gut? Her reaction was about more than a smashed vehicle. He moved next to her, leant against the car, crossed his arms. Together they looked down the main street and to the ocean for a moment, but he couldn’t keep his eyes there for long.

  Her shoulders were slumped in defeat, her arms crossed tightly in front of her. Her mouth was tight, and her curls fluttered around her pale cheeks like leaves on a tree moving in the wind. For the first time, he noticed the faint freckles dotted on her face, the top of her cheeks, her nose. That urge to comfort her rose up in him again, making his fingers restless, but he settled for gently nudging her with an elbow.

  ‘So. What do you want to do?’

  ‘I … I want to go home.’ Her voice hitched and he felt that too, somewhere in his chest.

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You can hire a car at the airport in Kingscote. I can drive you there to pick one up. That way, you can drive home.’

  ‘Thanks, but no. Could I ask another favour, to add to the exhaustive
list of things you’ve done for me?’

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘Is there any chance you can drop me back at the cabin before you head off to your father’s? I need to pack up my stuff and organise a ticket back to Adelaide.’

  Calla turned to look at him and let out a long, low sigh. Man, she looked like her dog had just died. And then he couldn’t stop it. He reached an arm around her shoulder, gripped her shoulder and gave her a squeeze. If he wasn’t mistaken, she leant in to him just a little, just enough so her breast brushed against his chest. He turned his head towards her and her soft hair caressed his jaw, his cheek and he moved closer, resting his chin on the top of her head.

  ‘It’ll be all right, Calla.’

  Neither of them moved for a moment. A magpie on a roof trilled. The big blue morning sky chilled the air but Sam didn’t feel it. When he felt Calla’s shoulders stiffen, he let go and she slipped out of his embrace.

  ‘All right? All evidence to the contrary,’ she said, and turned back to offer him a sad smile, ‘but thanks for the thought.’

  Sam wasn’t mistaken in thinking he heard a little sniff, and wondered if it was the cool air or her tears. He stood, motioned to the shop. ‘I’ve got to get some petrol and sort out what we do from here with your car. You want anything from inside? Juice? A coffee?’

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘Chocolate?’

  Calla’s lips curved just a little. He was ridiculously happy that he’d managed to make her smile.

  ‘I need some fresh air, I think.’

  ‘Okay. Why don’t you go for a walk? I’ll come and find you. It’s hard to get lost in Penneshaw.’

  Calla remembered her first night on the island. She’d managed it with no problems at all. ‘I think there’s a little art and craft gallery around the corner. Do we have time if I walk over and have a look?’

  ‘Sure. I’ll meet you there.’

  Sam twisted the petrol cap off and, as the nozzle gurgled and vibrated under his grip, he watched Calla walk away. There was something about a woman with long legs. And a nice arse. He studied the way it swayed. And that flaming-red hair swayed too, bouncing and bobbing on her shoulders. The weak winter sun caught it and it shone, red and gold.

  He wondered what she’d do now. He could point her in the direction of the SeaLink office so she could get a ticket home. Help her with her gear. In fact, he could even offer to drive half of it back to Adelaide for her. He had a big car. He travelled light. Maybe he’d offer it. And then he could check up on her when he got home, in a purely professional way, of course. Yeah, maybe he’d do that.

  There was something about the mysterious Calla Maloney. She’d got under his skin.

  Hell. He had to stop thinking that way.

  He couldn’t discount the fact that maybe he was letting himself be distracted by her because it meant he could put off dealing with his family shit, as he’d so ungratefully described it to Calla the night before.

  He’d been trying to avoid it for years, but it couldn’t be ignored any more. Sam had had ever more frequent calls from his father’s doctor and more nagging than he thought possible from his Auntie Ruth. At first, it had been general flag-waving, gentle warnings that the old man was getting on and might need some extra help. Then the calls had become more regular. Charlie had tripped over again, this time spraining his wrist. Someone had found him parked on the side of the road, disoriented. The warnings had become clearer. Charlie wasn’t coping on his own. The doctor had mentioned a place he could move into in Kingscote, the biggest town on the island. Sam figured he might even know a few of the other oldies there. The company would surely help fill the long and lonely hours, help him when he was missing Roo’s Rest. Charlie might also like an audience of like-minded old bastards when he complained about the fact that his only son had put him there against his will.

  Sam felt a thumping in his chest. Only surviving son.

  He finished filling the tank and headed to the shop, where he was greeted with a bellowing laugh. The bloke behind the register planted both palms on the counter and hooted. ‘Sam Hunter. How the hell are you?’

  Sam took in the ruddy cheeks, the thinning hair, the big burly shoulders and stuck out a hand. It took a moment before recognition kicked in. ‘Fuck me. Adrian bloody Thompson. I haven’t seen you in years. What’ve you been up to?’

  They shook firmly and then both men propped their hands on their hips, took each other in. It had been more than twenty years since they’d been opposing ruckmen on the footy field and best mates in the pub after the game.

  ‘We’re back on the island for good now. Me and Laura and the kids.’

  ‘Couldn’t keep away, huh?’

  ‘Nah. We wanted the girls to grow up here and Laura scored a job at the hospital in Kingscote.’ Adrian reached his hand around to the wallet tucked in his back pocket. ‘Check this out.’ He flipped open the worn brown leather and Sam swore the bloke started to tear up. ‘Four girls. Can you believe that? Thank Christ they all look like their mother.’ Sam took Adrian’s wallet and looked at the photo politely. Four blondies, the youngest maybe two years old, smiled back at him.

  ‘They’re gorgeous girls, mate. So, Laura’s good?’

  ‘Still gorgeous.’

  Adrian and Laura had been together for what felt to Sam like a million years. Sam had been right there at the Penneshaw pub the very night they’d hooked up. They were all eighteen and it was a summer Saturday night. A group of kids they’d gone to school with were settling in to celebrate someone’s birthday; he couldn’t remember now whose it was. They’d all had a few beers under their belts when a group of girls walked in. The boarding-school girls. The ones who’d grown up on the island but been sent away when they turned fifteen to go to Catholic schools over in Adelaide. Sam couldn’t forget the mysterious thing that happened to those girls when they went away to school in the city. They left as the classmates you avoided when you walked past them on the street and came back as women, a major development not lost on the boys who stayed to finish high school on the island. Adrian’s attention had been captured by one girl in particular. Short, barely five feet tall, white-blonde tumbling curls and big blue eyes. She’d batted them in Adrian’s direction as she slipped her fingers into the back pockets of her denim shorts.

  Nathan, a guy who played on Sam’s team, a farm boy from the west of the island, had sidled up to Sam and Adrian with a drunken leer. Beer sloshed over the side of his glass as he gestured to her. ‘Check her out, will ya? She’s like a walking head job.’

  Sam had never seen Adrian move so fast.

  A few seconds later, Nathan was prostrate on the floor with a burgeoning black eye and beer all over himself and the floor, looking like he was lying in a puddle of his own piss.

  A minute later, Sam was witness to Adrian and Laura’s first kiss. A kiss that led to some action in the car park at the end of the night — so Adrian claimed later — and then eighteen years of wedded bliss.

  Adrian’s grin today was still as broad as it had been the night he’d punched Nathan’s lights out and scored that first kiss. ‘She’s great, Sam. Still promising to kill me if I get her pregnant again.’

  ‘What, four isn’t enough?’ Sam laughed and handed back the picture.

  ‘If you could promise me a boy, I’d be in it.’ Adrian winked. ‘So, what about you? You married?’

  Sam’s answer was well rehearsed. ‘Still a swinging single, mate.’

  ‘You’re joking.’ Adrian pulled in his chin and his brow furrowed.

  ‘Why, you offering?’

  Adrian reached over and slapped Sam on the shoulder. ‘How long you here for?’

  Sam rubbed his chin. ‘Not sure. I’m seeing the old man.’

  ‘He’s a legend, mate. He’s still driving but I’ve got no idea where the bloody hell he goes. He comes in every few months to fill up the car.’

  Sam’s jaw tightened as he tried not to react. He didn’t need to be reminde
d that his old man was still driving. He could sense the fight he was going to have had just got bigger, and it wasn’t going to be pretty or polite.

  ‘Hey, let me know if he forgets to pay you for the petrol.’

  ‘Yeah, no worries. It’s happened once or twice but it’s no sweat. I just add it to the tab the next time.’

  ‘Cheers for that. I’ve gotta get going. It was good to see you, Adrian. Give my best to Laura.’

  ‘No worries.’

  Sam swiped his card to pay for the fuel and slipped out with a wave.

  He had a redhead to find.

  CHAPTER

  15

  Calla was relieved to put some distance between herself and Sam. She’d walked away from the petrol station with the wind at her back, the firm knowledge that he was checking her out as she walked away, and a million feelings whirling in her head. All his nice and kind and considerate, not to mention handsome, was freaking her out a little. She’d learnt the hard way that men who acted like that, who looked like that, couldn’t be trusted. Josh had been an excellent teacher in that regard.

  Her father had just died; her family had imploded. Everything had seemed helpless and hopeless and she’d been looking for an escape. And because of all that, she’d let her loneliness choose who she loved, rather than her head and her heart combined. It was the equivalent of buying a pair of shoes on sale because they were a bargain and then getting home and realising you bought them just because they fit, rather than because they suited you.

  It was a false economy. Wanting to be loved by someone because you were lonely meant you accepted second-best for yourself. And she’d been caught in that trap. She wasn’t going to go there again. This time, her head and her heart were flashing warning signals and they were saying clearly, in big neon lights: Step away from the handsome firefighter.