Nobody But Him Page 8

  ‘How many are out there today?’

  ‘Just two, as far as we can see. A mother and her calf. I can’t believe they’re so close to the beach. It’s incredible. I grew up here … why don’t I remember this?’

  ‘I don’t recall that we spent a whole lot of time standing on the cliffs looking out to sea.’

  ‘Unless there were boys out there on surfboards,’ Julia replied with a chuckle.

  Lizzie laughed down the line. ‘The whales have only started coming back here in these numbers in the past few years. People come from all over Adelaide to have a look in the winter.’

  Julia couldn’t take her eyes off the display. ‘I suppose it took a long time for the gossip to get around in the whale community that we don’t hunt them anymore.’

  A black fluke appeared above the water line and around her, people gasped and snapped photos. Julia couldn’t stop her own intake of breath at the wonder of it.

  ‘Isn’t it awesome that the females come back every year, from right down at the bottom of the Southern Ocean near Antarctica, to calve right here and that they stay until their babies grow?’ said Lizzie.

  ‘It’s primal, isn’t it?’ Julia said wistfully. ‘That urge to go back to the same place.’

  ‘It must be,’ Lizzie replied. ‘Don’t you think there’s something magical about this part of the world that has women coming back? Even after they’ve been away for so long.’

  Julia smiled at her friend’s not-so-subtle dig. ‘Oh very good, Lizzie. You slipped in that little analogy and I barely noticed.’

  ‘Give me full marks for trying though, right?’ Lizzie’s laugh warmed Julia’s heart.

  ‘But if you’re comparing me to a whale, your life might not be worth living.’

  ‘Well, you do both like to wear black.’

  Just as the sun dipped behind the high cliffs of Middle Point, Ry saw the lights flick on next door. He hadn’t been waiting for Julia or anything like that. He’d settled on the sofa with some paperwork and his iPad, going over the discussions he’d had with the two local councillors earlier that day, interrupted every now with a casual glance out through his floor to ceiling windows at the panoramic coastal view.

  He quickly shoved his phone into the front pocket of his jeans and grabbed his keys. It was time to strike. Since Lizzie had told him about Julia’s mother, he’d had a hard time doing anything but go over what he’d said to Julia the other day.

  Thought you might be sick of the bright lights and the big city.

  He’d tried to convince himself that if he’d known about her mother, he wouldn’t have been such a total bastard. But he couldn’t be sure. He was clearly still bent out of shape about Julia Jones, even after all these years.

  What he did know was that he had to say something to her. He couldn’t let her leave Middle Point without making sure she knew how sorry he was to hear about what had happened. And with his conscience clear, he could get back to his own life. In a few weeks, she’d be back in Melbourne anyway. They could be adult about it. At least he could try to be.

  Simple. Easy. Then they could politely resume pretending they didn’t know each other. Yeah, that was a plan. He wouldn’t even have to go inside. It wouldn’t involve more than a few words, and would definitely not involve getting close enough to touch her or smell her perfume.

  He stepped into the fresh air and was taken aback by another stunning display in the southern sky. Middle Point was silhouetted by dazzling pale blues and pinks, the sun like a spotlight shining up into the clouds over the Point, the horizon blurred and shimmering in the haze. It calmed him, and he went over in his head all the good reasons he was making his future here in Middle Point. He was under no obligation to explain any of them to Julia. He was going to make this quick.

  He took the dozen steps from his door to Julia’s. So much for his vow to stay away.

  CHAPTER

  9

  ‘Julia?’

  She heard her name and a loud thumping at the front door. She swallowed and pulled her cashmere cardigan tightly around her. What could he possibly want now? God, why couldn’t he just leave her alone?

  He’s at the front door. The last time they’d been at her doorstep, she’d almost kissed him. Discussing rubbish on the street had been a whole lot safer. But now he was back. Knocking and calling her name. She was so glad they hadn’t kissed. Was absolutely relieved when he’d pulled away, even if her body had betrayed her by reacting like a hormone-crazed teenager. She’d tensed with pleasure when she’d seen the muscles in his jaw clench, wanted to be closer to him, to feel him pressing hard against her. His lips had been so close to hers they ached when he abandoned her.

  She tried to shake the memory away.

  More knocking. Five thumps this time, competing with the howl of the wind and the rattle in the front windows.

  ‘C’mon, JJ, open the door. I know you’re in there.’

  Julia reached out to touch the door handle and then hesitated.

  Stop. Breathe.

  She steeled herself, then opened the door.

  Oh God. Breathe again. That hair, mussed so sexily. That broad chest, those slender hips and those long, long legs. He looked infuriatingly fuckable. Eyes still that particular shade of tropical sea blue? Check. Jaw still stubbled? Check. Still the most gorgeous man she’d ever laid her eyes and hands and body on? Oh yeah.

  Julia stood tall and held her chin high. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Can I come in?’ From the insistent knocking she’d heard, she had expected him to be angry. He was anything but. His eyebrows were raised in a questioning look and his mouth formed a tentative smile.

  Don’t you dare stand there and be charming now. Despite every instinct, she stepped back and let him in. As he brushed past her, she tried really hard not to notice the way his dark denims moulded his thighs just so, or that the navy jumper he wore was stretched tight across his shoulders. She closed the door against the wind and they faced off.

  ‘What happened to the staying away from each other plan?’ Julia crossed her arms over her chest.

  ‘I just wanted to say–’

  ‘I don’t think we have anything more to say to each other, do you? I think we covered it on the beach yesterday. I think we’re at the “see you round” stage.’

  Ry moved closer and pressed an index finger to her mouth, which was parted mid-sentence. The gesture silenced her. She knew if she moved her lips in the smallest way the soft caress of his finger would feel like a kiss. Her mouth tingled and her cheeks felt hot. Why the hell did he have to touch her? The physical contact was blowing her fuses, scrambling her brain and making her angry with herself all in one mystifying move.

  ‘Please,’ he said quietly. Ry moved his finger from her lips, slowly, and dropped his hand to gently hold hers, moving his thumb in lazy circles on her palm.

  Julia looked down at her hand in his. What the hell was going on?

  ‘I didn’t know about your mother.’

  ‘Oh.’ She bit her lip.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Julia.’

  ‘Thank you for saying that.’

  Julia slipped her hand out of his grasp and turned away, her eyes welling up with tears. The last thing she wanted to do in front of him was cry. He couldn’t just waltz in here and act like some kind of Prince Charming, swooping in to be nice to her like he had been to his staff at the pub. All the staff, except her.

  ‘Let me make you a cup of tea.’

  She moved to the orange vinyl sofa and covered herself with a purple knitted blanket that was as old as the house.

  While the kettle boiled, Ry looked around and realised that time, although it had passed for them, had stood still inside these four walls. The open-plan living space was still filled with mismatched old furniture and décor. Six chrome-legged chairs were still placed haphazardly around the rectangular dining table. He remembered card nights and board games and meals and so much laughter. Hell, the old record player was still there too. The
Pye Modular 2000 with a stack of old LPs precariously balanced on a shelf below. He smiled and wondered if all those old records of Mary’s were still there. The soundtracks to The Sound of Music and Saturday Night Fever or even Frampton Comes Alive. Generations of greatest hits until the CD came along.

  The time he’d spent here with Julia was so vivid and the memories burned. If he were in his right mind, he would get the hell out of there. But looking across the room at her, tightly curled up on the sofa like a bug in a purple cocoon, he knew that was just not going to happen, not today. Right now she looked like she needed a friend and the least he could do was be that friend, history or not.

  Ry carried two mugs to the sofa and placed them carefully on the teak coffee table. Julia was hunched up, her knees up against her chest. He sat down and turned to face her. There was barely room and his knee nudged her feet. She didn’t raise her eyes to meet his, but looking closer, he could see they were red from crying.

  It was time to say something.

  ‘Was she sick?’ Ry tucked the blanket in more closely around Julia’s toes. Her eyes rose to meet his and she considered him a long time before speaking, as if she was weighing up what to tell him.

  ‘No, she wasn’t. That’s why it was such a shock. Lizzie called me. Mum hadn’t turned up for coffee. They had a standing Sunday morning arrangement, probably so they could both complain about how I never called.’ Her laugh caught in her throat and turned into a sob.

  ‘The doctor said she’d had a stroke overnight. She died right there in her bedroom.’ Julia nodded her head toward the rear of the house. ‘I’ve been avoiding that room, and this place, for a year. Since the funeral, actually.’

  He desperately wanted to touch her but clenched his fists on his knees to stifle the urge. ‘What are you going to do with the place. Will you sell it?’

  ‘I should ask for your advice on that, shouldn’t I? Aren’t you some big property type now?’

  ‘Some decisions aren’t about economics, Julia. I reckon this one isn’t about the dollars and cents for you.’

  Ry could see her defences were down, could hear the raw hurt in her voice, and couldn’t help but notice the lost look in her eyes. It simply cut him up. The urge to take her in his arms and hold her was too strong to fight. It was what anyone would do in the circumstances, he told himself. So fuck it. He stretched his right arm up and around her and gathered her close. To his great surprise, she didn’t fight him, instead moving in closer to rest her head on his chest. He didn’t want to, but found himself caressing the silky strands of her hair, twirling them tight around his fingers.

  ‘You know,’ he said eventually, ‘my parents met right out there on that beach, during a surfing lesson.’

  She turned slightly to meet his eyes and he could see the hint of a smile in them.

  ‘I didn’t know that.’

  ‘It’s true. My mum was game for anything, still is. Apparently she’d decided there was no way she was going to sit on the beach watching the boys have all the fun. So she signed up and Dad was a goner as soon as her saw her stand up on her board for the first time. That’s why we used to come down here every summer. It was their favourite place in the world.’ He faltered, pushing aside a memory that was still too painful.

  ‘Mum has always tried to convince me that I was conceived down here in one of the car parks, in the back of a station wagon. But that may or may not be bullshit.’

  He could feel the tension slipping from Julia’s shoulders as she softened and relaxed, curving into him. Oh mother of God. Her hand had come to rest on his thigh. He let out a breath and an unfamiliar feeling washed over him. Being here in this daggy, falling down beach house, looking out at the coast he loved, surrounded by so many images and memories of the happiest time in his life. And Julia. Nestled next to him, letting him be strong for her. He closed his eyes and rested his chin gently on the top her head.

  ‘I think I remember that car,’ Julia said quietly, ‘was it that brown one you used to drive?’

  ‘Yep, handed down to the prodigal son when Mum and Dad bought the first of a long line of Italian sports cars.’ The memory of it made him grin. ‘It was just the right size for stashing surfboards in the back.’

  ‘Do you still surf?’ she asked.

  ‘I haven’t for years.’

  The car wasn’t just the right size for surfboards, but for doing other in things too, he remembered. In that very same car park just across the road. The memory of those teenage discoveries, combined with the closeness of her, her scent, the way she felt in his embrace meant one thing. And she would realise it if her hand moved just a few inches up his leg. It was so wrong to be having this reaction.

  Lucky for him he had a sure-fire remedy for taming the wild beast.

  ‘So, did your husband come over with you to help settle things here, clean up the place?’

  He felt it. She stiffened in his arms. ‘I’m here alone.’

  Not quite the unequivocal answer he was looking for. Julia pulled away from him and sat up, hugged the blanket around herself once again. He got the clear idea that she wanted him to leave. He’d done what he set out to do, to say how sorry he was about her mother, so she was right. He could take the hint. It was time to go.

  Ry stood slowly. ‘Julia.’ He fisted his hands into the pockets of his jeans. She met his gaze with sad eyes.

  ‘When I bought the place next door, I didn’t know …’

  ‘I know, Ry. Thanks for the cup of tea.’

  ‘I’ll see you round,’ Ry replied and quietly closed the door after him as he left.

  Julia watched him go and sat, unmoving, waiting for the throbbing in her chest to subside. And it wasn’t there just because thinking of her mother made her heart ache. She felt transported back to the exact same place she’d been in fifteen years before. When they’d sat in this very room, on this orange vinyl sofa, her head on his shoulder, his arm about her. When they’d been madly in love but so different.

  Big-shot city boy and small-town Middle Point girl.

  Exactly the person she didn’t want to be anymore.

  Why couldn’t she have run into him in Melbourne, she wondered, when she wore business suits, silk shirts and high heels, when she looked professional and capable? When she was on her way to the top of the corporate ladder with expectations that she would keep climbing? When she didn’t feel like the small-town girl anymore, but a woman with talent and a plan? When she called the bohemian streets of Brunswick home and knew the shops and cafes along Lygon Street like the back of her hand?

  Instead, here she was in her daggiest sweat pants and ugg boots, wearing an ancient knitted blanket like a poncho. And crying. That was the most embarrassing part. She’d assumed she was all cried out about her mother’s death, but being back in her hometown, in her mother’s house, surrounded by Ry at every turn, was more than she could bear.

  And he was everywhere, it seemed, to remind her of what she’d done so many years before. She didn’t often look back with regret. She was older and wiser now, more confident and happier in her own skin. She’d made something of herself and was proud about it. Her life in Melbourne was fantastic. Great friends, a social life that never stopped. Hell, she could be out every night of the week if she wanted to.

  Since moving there she’d had her fair share of men, more than some but a lot less than most. One of them had almost become serious but he’d been transferred to Sydney and they’d said their goodbyes with no hard feelings.

  She threw off the purple blanket and walked to the windows, contemplating the views over the beach and ocean that she’d missed so much. The sun was almost gone for the day and it cast a glimmering light over the coast, illuminating Ry’s glassed palace. A flash of movement caught her eye and she looked over to it. On the first floor, someone was pressed up against the glass windows, staring out to sea.

  It was Ry. She saw him raise his arms up, stretch up high and then rest his palms above his head on the windows.
The move broadened his chest and elongated his already long body. He looked like a swimmer about to dive into a race.

  Julia blew out a breath and tried to avert her eyes, she really did. Biting her lower lip, she looked away towards the beach and along the coast to distract herself. It didn’t work.

  She stole another look, feeling guilty for her fleeting appreciation of his body, and then lifted her gaze to his face. She was struck by the fact that he didn’t look at all happy, standing in his multi-million dollar beach house, surrounded by the Scandinavian furniture and, no doubt, shiny European appliances on which The Princess had whipped up many a gastronomic feast. In fact, for someone looking out to sea and along one of the State’s most beautiful beaches, he looked like he wasn’t actually seeing any of it. He looked bloody miserable. Maybe he was missing Amanda. Hadn’t she gone back to the city and left him all alone?

  Julia turned away before he saw her. His expression was about so much more than missing his wife. She knew the feeling behind that sad face. Coming back hadn’t made her feel happy either. There were too many memories coming crashing in at her, wave after wave of regret.

  There was a way to run from it, to escape and never look back. She knew there was because she’d done it before. When she’d reached her fork in the road, she had chosen her path and her life was somewhere else now. She’d always had a plan and, even when it was tough and lonely, she’d never wavered. Seeing Ry again and how he’d moved on, had simply reinforced her conviction that you could never really go back.

  Which meant she had to sell her mother’s house.

  Funny how finally making the decision hadn’t made her feel any better.

  CHAPTER

  10

  ‘Thanks so much for coming over. You’re a lifesaver.’

  Stella whisked in from the cold, clad in a dramatic, architecturally structured grey woollen coat that flowed behind her like a Frank Gehry museum. As Julia closed out the wind, she smiled at her friend’s audacity. Such style in Middle Point probably went largely unappreciated but Stella clearly didn’t care. She sauntered into the centre of the room as if it was a fashion show and she was the supermodel. Glancing around, she peeled off her coat to reveal a black knit jumper and tight black leather trousers. She dropped her coat onto the back of the sofa and propped her hands on her hips.