the quarry bill and the phone bill was a small green envelope addressed in the strongly slanting handwriting she’d never thought she’d see again. Graham.
“And if something screws up he doesn’t hold it against you, just expects you to fix the problem,” Art rambled. “He doesn’t waste words, either. I can’t bear a man who rabbits on about nothing.”
That outrageous statement shook Maeve out of painful memories of her brief marriage and made her smile.
Art pointed his spatula at her. “He’d been a good ’un for you, Maevie.”
“Don’t think so,” she said, taking a sip of her water. “He’s in the market for a wife.”
Art turned off the heat under the frying pan. “All the more reason.”
“Dad, forget it. Please.” Her life might be an emotional desert, but at least she’d more or less recovered her equilibrium. For a whole year after Kristy’s death she’d barely functioned. No one but her friend Rose knew all she’d been through. She was not ready for another plunge into matrimony and motherhood. Probably she never would be.
“Okay, okay,” Art said. “These burgers are ready. Want to cut up some rolls?”
Glad of an excuse to set Graham’s unopened letter aside, Maeve sliced hamburger rolls and slid them under the griller to toast. “There’s something lurking under the surface with Will,” she said. “Something I can’t quite put my finger on.”
“Will Beaumont is the most straightforward bloke a man could hope to meet,” Art declared. He waggled his fingers at her. “I suppose you got one of your weird ‘feelings’ about him.”
Maeve turned away from the fridge, her arms loaded with bottles of condiments. “I just got a glimpse. Not enough to go on. He’s missing something. Something to do with love.”
Art snorted. “Will Beaumont missing out in love? I wouldn’t think so. You should see the way the girls on the production line follow him with their eyes when he walks by.”
“I’ll admit he’s got sex appeal, but that doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with love,” Maeve said dryly. “However, I could be wrong. He’s a hard one to read.”
Art slid the hamburgers onto a plate and brought them to the table. “He’s been under a lot of pressure lately, always in a meeting with the accountant. There are rumors going around that the company’s in trouble financially.”
“Really? He’s got a great big house and a Mercedes parked out front.” The memory of Will shoving papers into his briefcase—papers he didn’t want her to see—flashed through her mind.
Art sat at the head of the table and fixed his hamburger with “the lot”—bacon, onions, a slice of beetroot, cheese, mayo, tomato and lettuce; then he topped the whole quivering mass with a fried egg. “What was it you wanted to talk to me about?” he asked, before opening his mouth wide and biting deep.
Maeve, who’d contented herself with lettuce and tomato, put her hamburger back on her plate and took a deep breath instead of a bite. “Do you ever miss having your own place?”
Art chewed and swallowed. “My word, no. That housing unit was as lonely as a monk’s cell, after your mother passed on.” He was about to take another bite, then lowered his burger and fixed her with his shrewd gaze. “Perhaps it’s you who miss having your place to yourself.”
Suddenly, she couldn’t tell him. Couldn’t inflict another loss on her father. “Of course not,” she said, laughing to prove the foolishness of such an idea. “It’s great having you here.”
He smiled tentatively. “Who else would you get to cook for you, eh?”
After dinner Art took himself off to the front veranda for his one smoke of the day. Maeve propped the green envelope on the windowsill in front of the sink, and ran hot water to build up a soapy froth. What did Graham want after all these years? The return address was care of the yacht harbor in Sydney, so she assumed he still had his sailboat.
After she’d stacked the last clean plate in the dish rack, she swept the floor and tidied the pantry. Then she sat at the table and attended to her bills, her checkbook at hand. At last, there was nothing for it but to read Graham’s letter. With trembling fingers she tore open the envelope:
Dear Maeve, I’ve been thinking of you a lot lately. I’m sailing for Fiji at the end of March. Before I go, I want to see you again. I’ll be in Mornington sometime in the next few weeks. Will call when I get in. Graham. P.S. Remember how we used to make love at sea under the stars?
Maeve’s hands dropped to her lap and the letter slipped through her motionless fingers to the floor. For a moment she did remember. Was there a part of her that still loved Graham? They’d had some good times before Kristy died. Some bad times, too, but that was part of marriage. If he was backtracking all this way just to see her, he must still care.
Did she?
WILL ARRIVED HOME from work late on Thursday evening to find Maeve’s ute in his driveway and Maeve sitting on the tailgate. Every red blood cell in his body went on alert. She’d cast off her shirt, and the scant black crop top left an expanse of taut brown skin above her cargo pants. Her dark hair was pulled into a long ponytail, which hung over her shoulder. In one hand she held a half-empty bottle of water and in the other a wide-brimmed hat, with which she fanned herself.
“I hope you haven’t been waiting long,” he said, emerging from the Merc. “The production line broke down just as I was leaving, and I stayed until it was fixed.”
She hopped from the tailgate and brushed off the back of her pants. “It’s okay. I mowed the lawn while I waited.”
“Such enterprise.” Will opened his front door. “Come in. We’ll get a cold drink and you can grill me.”
Maeve kicked off her boots and stepped past him into the entry hall. He watched her gaze lift to the overhead skylight, then sweep up the curved staircase to the landing. There, round windows like portholes let in more light. Finally she peeked sideways to the lounge room, which glowed warmly in shades of cream, yellow and terra-cotta.
“I love your house,” she said, turning to him with a surprised smile. “I didn’t take it all in the last time I was here. It’s perfect.”
“Thanks.” The house was light and bright, reflecting the sun and the sea, with hardly a straight line or a sharp angle in the place. After he and Maree had split, he’d needed a place where he could feel positive about the future. A home he could grow into.
But as he led the way down the hall to the kitchen, Maeve amended her verdict. “Almost perfect. So far I haven’t seen a single plant.”
He glanced over his shoulder to see her eyes sparkling. “And you won’t. I always forget to water them, so now I don’t bother trying to grow any.” He opened a bar fridge in the family room, displaying a dozen types of specialty beer, plus several bottles of white wine and different types of water. “What’ll you have?”
“Something nonalcoholic with ice, thanks.”
Will made her a tonic and lime juice, then chose a Red Dog lager for himself, and they sat at the patio table. Maeve flipped her clipboard open and proceeded
