a fantasy.’
‘Hell, yes,’ he said with feeling.
‘How do you know it is a fantasy?’ she couldn’t resist challenging. ‘You’re an only child too.’
‘But I grew up down the road from a number of Waltons-esque families. And let me tell you, they were superficial images. I think it’s better off staying small. Very small.’ As in solitary. But even though he knew the answer, even though he knew this was a hopeless conversation, Ruben couldn’t resist asking her, ‘Are you into kids?’
‘I’m not sure. Probably not.’
‘Really?’ Most girls didn’t mean it when they went all definite denial. But Ellie hadn’t been definite; she seemed more thoughtful.
‘Not unless I meet the right guy, you know?’ she finally expanded. ‘He really has to be the right guy. I need him to be there and I need him to want the kid. It’s not nice not to be wanted. I want any kids of mine to have two parents who want them, who love them, who are there for them. For everything.’
Ruben understood—she wanted her kids to have the kind of parents she hadn’t had. He felt hurt for her, but impressed at the same time with her courage. Now she knew what she wanted and she wasn’t going to settle for less. Not for some guy like him. Because he already knew he couldn’t ‘be’ there. His one significant ex had wanted him to ‘be’ there—and that was just for her, not kids as well. If he couldn’t be there enough for a grown woman, there was no way he could be there for children.
‘I’m guessing you’re a no-kids man?’ Ellie sounded amused at his silence.
‘I like kids but they wouldn’t fit in my life. I’m not someone who can guarantee to “be there” for them. I’ve got things I want to do and I don’t think it’s fair to have a family when you can’t give them everything they want.’
‘That beck-and-call thing, huh?’ she asked dryly.
She might be all sarcasm, but he meant it. He didn’t want a family holding him back from all he could achieve. He didn’t have the ability or the desire to meet the demands of a long-term relationship. He’d tried it years ago with Sarah and failed miserably. And his father had succeeded in the relationship but failed on the business front. There was no such thing as managing it all. ‘I’m years off being ready for it in terms of my career and I don’t want to be old like my father was. I love him for having me, but I wish he’d done it sooner.’
‘So your mum was quite a bit younger?’
‘Try thirty years,’ he admitted shortly. ‘Hard to have everyone thinking he was your grandfather.’ He chuckled to lighten it the way he always did. ‘And the looks the two of them got when they were walking along the street, hand in hand and smooching like teen lovers. They just didn’t give a damn.’
He felt her stiffen beneath his fingers and felt the old resentment burn in his gut. He hated intolerance.
‘I thought they had an unhappy marriage?’ Ellie had all but stopped the machine. ‘Isn’t that what you meant by his folly of a marriage?’
‘Oh, no.’ Ruben laughed, relieved her tension hadn’t been in judgment of his parents. ‘No, people couldn’t cope with their age gap.’
‘And gave you a rough time over it?’
‘You can imagine the slurs at a small-town school back then.’
‘What’s wrong with two people making each other happy?’ Ellie sounded as if she was frowning. ‘Why can’t people just be pleased for them? Doesn’t everyone want to find a great love like that?’
He smiled at her naïveté—she’d watched too many Hollywood happy endings. ‘People can be unkind when they don’t understand or if it’s something they’ve not been around much.’ He hardly ever discussed it, he’d encountered too much intolerance—even in this supposedly modern world. There was just that inevitable smirk or comment—as if his dad were up there with Hugh Hefner or something. But Ellie’s instant emo defence of them had him explaining more than he usually would. ‘They really were a love match and really in love. Sickening really.’ Sometimes even he’d felt excluded from it. This despite knowing he’d been the much-wanted, much-loved product of their relationship. And he’d been determined not to break their blissful ignorance and had never once told them of the taunts he’d suffered. He’d learned to handle the other kids his own way. When he’d first started school as an undersized six-year-old, with English as a second language, a weird accent in a small town with a father already almost at retirement age and a mother younger and more beautiful than everyone else’s? It had been sink or swim—and Ruben had mastered the stroke. ‘They just saw through each other’s layers to the person within, and they loved what they saw.’ He still felt that mix of happiness for them and frustration with them—because they’d been unable to achieve much else because of that total adoration of each other.
‘Has your mum met anyone else since?’ Ellie asked quietly.
‘No. I kind of wish she would,’ he found himself admitting aloud for the first time in his life. ‘But she’s adamant it isn’t going to happen.’
‘Because she buried her heart with him?’
‘Yeah. I think she’s scared of getting that hurt again.’ He understood that too. The loss had been unbearable. ‘She couldn’t stay in New Zealand. Couldn’t stay any place where she’d been with him.’
‘But what about you? You were so young.’ Ellie’s body had gone taut beneath his fingertips again.
He laughed off her concern—the way he laughed off anything that touched too close to vulnerable aches. ‘I wanted to finish what he’d started. I wanted to do that for him.’
‘But it must have hurt her to leave you?’
Her sweet concern stabbed now and he didn’t want it. ‘Mama knew I was okay. And I was busy.’ He’d made sure she’d thought he was okay. By then he was a master of hiding his hurt—those years of coping with childhood taunts had taught him well. You covered up—no one could grin and bear it like Ruben. He could turn any nightmare around with a comment and a smile, hiding how gutted he might be inside. He’d won them over with the ability to laugh and make others laugh—but he never let them close. Not when he knew too well how much it hurt to lose those you held close.
‘It would have hurt her more to stay.’ He dismissed the topic completely, switching to tell her something more about the mountain on their right, and then another anecdote from when Andreas had owned the lodge.
As the big building came into view he directed her to take the bike right up to the main entrance. He’d have it cleaned and put away later. For now it was the two of them who needed hosing down. Indeed, off the bike the first thing Ellie did was glower at his mud-covered clothes and then down at her own.
‘I don’t have any other jeans, you realise.’
Ruben couldn’t contain his amusement. She looked like an earth goddess—a curvy sprite of a woman. Little curls had sprung around her temples, her face damp, her eyes shining. ‘You can borrow some of mine.’
‘Like they’d fit.’
‘They’ll be fine. Now come on,
