Don’t forget to give me the goss. I’d like to see my two best friends happy.” Laila patted her hand and squeezed it.
She forced a frown to quell the direction of Laila’s thoughts. “You’re out of your tree, Laila. Haskell and I have known and disliked each other too many years to change now.”
Laila had known her too long to be put off by the belligerent tone. “Tell it to yourself, babe. The heated looks between you have been flying thick and fast all night.” She sighed and rubbed her belly. “Junior’s very active tonight. It’s all his father’s fault.”
“His father?” Jake and Danni asked at the same moment, with sly smiles. It was a regular joke after the birth of her very feminine daughter Ally, whom tomboy Laila had been so certain would be a boy.
Laila mock-glared at them each in turn. “Yeah, yeah, rub it in, both of you. Have your fun, while I suffer under the kick zone here.”
Danni dragged in a quiet sigh of relief that Laila dropped the Jim-topic. After the moment of unbearable sweetness two years ago and his sudden abandonment, she knew better than to think of how Jim had just been looking at her.
Except that she was thinking of it.
Beneath the table, she clenched her fists. What was it with her? She should know better than to hope—so why did she? He’d rescued her once—so what? It was in Jim’s nature to rescue people. And if for a short time she’d felt something for him…hoped, as she’d never done before with any man…that moment had shattered when he’d made his excuses and bolted at a gazillion miles an hour, as if she’d threatened him with slow torture.
It was no big deal. If nothing in her life had prepared her for Jim’s brand of kindness without agenda, or the unexpected hot sweetness that burst through her at his touch, she could handle it now. Over eighteen months of distance—crossing the world to get that distance—might not have replaced him, but at least she could see the truth right in front of her.
Some people were born for love and happy endings. It was not for her. She’d known that from the age of eight, when she’d tried to play Barbie and Ken with the other girls. Her dolls had always got embroiled in sarcasm matches and screaming rows. Her friends had thought it hilarious, but even at that tender age, some deep-buried part of her had known she wasn’t normal. She didn’t know how to give or receive love like the other girls. She didn’t know how to be happy, or to trust in any rare moments of joy lasting. Not for her.
It wasn’t in the genetics. She and Laila couldn’t be more opposite, let alone she and Jim—and that was leaving out all the things they did differently, like their work methods and their diets. Laila and Jake’s entire clan was here, singing family celebration songs, vying for the privilege of holding little Ally. Jim’s family was big, noisy and loving, and they all made the trek down here to celebrate Jim’s every achievement, coming over four hundred kilometres from the back of beyond to be with him.
Danni had chosen this university because it was three hundred kilometres from Sydney—and her home. Her parents had come to every one of her milestones, but had sat at opposite ends of the room and competed with icy precision for her attention.
No, not for her attention, for her to listen: they needed to spill their latest complaints about each other into her unwilling ears.
She was all they had, she knew that. Yet she’d only seen her parents once since she’d returned from Germany three months before.
The visit had ended after only two hours. Having gained space from them during her time in Europe, enduring their constant harping and sly, nasty comments about each other had been more than she could tolerate. After more than twenty years, she’d finally lost it.
Why don’t you separate and find your own lives? she’d said as she’d headed for the door. You should have done it when I was little, then I wouldn’t be so screwed up now. You didn’t stay together for my sake, you just want to keep punishing each other forever. I can’t stand any more. I’m your daughter, not your referee!
Since that day, her mum and dad had phoned her every day as usual, but although they’d tried apologising, asking, and finally begging her to come home, she couldn’t force herself to go back. If she had to hear one more snide, sarcastic remark between them…it felt as if she were dying of slow suffocation, a strangling of her spirit. It might entertain them, but it only hurt her, and reinforced the reasons why she’d never be normal.
She came out of her reverie to the realisation that something was wrong. By instinct, her gaze swerved to the large French doors leading onto the back veranda.
Jim stood leaning against the doorway talking into his phone, looking at her, yet it was as if she wasn’t there; his whole concentration was on the call. His body was taut, his face filled with quiet storms.
It was none of her business.
She turned her eyes back to the table, determined to show everyone that she didn’t care. She forced a smile to her face, and joined in the laughter and teasing common to their group of friends, but rare for her.
She couldn’t do it. Just as she always responded to wounded creatures in distress, she had to look at him…she had to know.
He no longer leaned on the doorpost, but stood rigid in the doorway, his face so hard it seemed carved in dark marble. His laughing eyes were like flint; his nostrils were flared. She’d never seen laid-back Jim look so shocked, or so thoroughly furious. And the pain inside the depths of those coffee-dark eyes…
He flipped his phone shut, turned on his heel and stalked back outside. She could almost feel little flicks of lightning following in his wake.
“Go to him,” Laila whispered.
Shocked, Danni stared at her friend. “Me? Jim and I aren’t even friends. You should be the one to help him. He loves you. He’ll accept your help.”
Laila’s eyes grew misty with tears. “I can’t.” She lowered her gaze for a moment. “I’ve been having the Braxton-Hicks contractions all day, on and off. I have to rest…and—and…” she sighed, her face filled with the wretchedness of guilt. “Please, just go to him. Make sure he’s all right—for me?”
Laila was hiding something from her, but the plea was genuine.
All her life, Danni held aloof from people; to grow too attached only caused pain. But from the time they’d met, Laila wouldn’t be held at a distance. Her open, loving heart didn’t know boundaries. She’d dragged the sarcastic loner Danni into her small circle and, seeing the hurt others caused Laila with the princess tag given to her as the only and most cherished daughter of an obscenely wealthy man, Danni had begun leaping to her friend’s defence before she’d even known Laila was a friend.
Laila was part of her heart now, and she asked so little. How could she refuse?
With a small smile, she walked out to find the man she wanted never to speak to again—at least not without her shield of protective sarcasm.
But that was what she had to do now, for Laila’s sake…and maybe for her own. If she did a good deed for Jim Haskell in return for his two years before, whatever it was she felt for him—lust, obligation—would be over.
The phone rang again almost as soon as he’d shut it, and again and again. He just kept disconnecting. He’d be damned if he’d answer it. The woman was
