shook his head. ‘She never remarried?’
Shirley raised her hand. ‘Guilty again. It was hard to find love with a toddler in tow.’
Hayden frowned. ‘Where are these words coming from? They’re not yours.’
She actually had to think about it. Though she knew exactly where the ideas had come from—and the words—when she let herself acknowledge it. ‘My mother wasn’t quite so prosaic when it came to her own emotions as she was when discussing Nietzsche or Socrates or Demosthenes.’
‘And you were how old?’ His words were as unexpectedly gentle as his touch late at night.
She shrugged. ‘Depends; she said some more than others.’
But enough that she’d received the message loud and clear. Enough that Shirley had spent her young life trying to make up for crimes she hadn’t even meant to commit.
He stared at her. ‘My mother was far from perfect, but everything she did she did for me. I can’t imagine her ever putting her own needs ahead of mine like that.’
The intense desire to excuse her mother overwhelmed her. That was straight from the ancient part of her brain. ‘She was brilliant and focused and hardworking and totally dedicated to her job.’
To the exclusion of all else.
He turned and looked at her. ‘I guess all that focus had to be coming from somewhere.’ She glanced away. ‘I’m really sorry it was from you.’
She shrugged. ‘It’s not your fault she wasn’t better at the personal stuff—’
‘It wasn’t your fault either, Shirley.’ He moved them onwards, visibly battling with something. He lifted the pole out of the water and sat down in front of her, with it lying flat across the gondola. ‘I’m sure there are things in your childhood you did do and you can feel all the guilt in the world you want over those, but don’t take on your father’s abandonment. That’s a reflection on him, not you. And if your mother let you be the reason she never tried to build a new family for you, then that’s on her. Plenty of single mums build new families. Their kids are only an impediment if they’re looking for one.’
‘Why would she seek out reasons not to find love again?’ Who didn’t want to be loved? Other than Hayden.
‘Maybe she couldn’t find it and it was easier to blame something external for that.’
She stared.
‘I’m just saying you shouldn’t carry guilt for her issues,’ he finished.
She sat up straighter. ‘I’m not.’
‘You’re carrying something. Why else would you have this burning desire to finish her list?’
‘To honour her memory.’
‘Why does it need to be honoured?’
‘Because I loved her.’ Even if it wasn’t a perfect love. She was the only mother—the only parent—she’d had.
‘You don’t need a bunch of activities to love her. Why the list?’
She stared at him. Utterly at a loss. How had their nice day on the water turned suddenly so very confrontational?
He wobbled back up onto his feet and moved them along again. ‘That’s a rhetorical question, Shirley. You don’t have to answer to me. Only to you.’
They rowed in silence, the splish-splash of the pole becoming quite hypnotic.
‘Amazing we turned out such a balanced pair, really,’ he murmured into the warm air.
His smile was contagious. Then it turned to a chuckle and a full-out laugh and the gondola rocked. Neither of them could really claim any prizes for mental health. Not if you scratched below the surface. Not even far below.
Maybe misfits were drawn to each other.
‘Take me back to the jetty, Hayden,’ she breathed.
Jetty, car, her place. It was a one-hour trip, minimum. The sooner they could be in each other’s arms, the better. And the list clock was ticking.
‘Does that mean you don’t want to see my place?’
She lifted her head. ‘What place?’
‘The house behind the jetty. It’s mine.’
She twisted to peer down the canal the way they’d come. A huge beige monstrosity stood beyond an immaculate field of heavily reticulated turf.
‘That’s yours?’
In her periphery, she saw him nod. Watching her closely.
She turned back and folded her hands in her skirt and stared somewhere over his shoulder. ‘I like the cottage better.’
He stopped poling. Stared at her. Then he slowly started up again and muttered, ‘Me too, actually.’
‘Though it is pleasingly close,’ she teased, and plucked at the front of her peasant blouse. Loving the way his eyes instantly refocused.
‘You want to see it?’
‘You made me a boat—’ she shrugged, all absent concern ‘—I suppose that deserves some reward.’
He turned the gondola and punted double-time back towards the jetty. Following the strong movements of his muscles gave Shirley a thoroughly good mental distraction from his innocent question.
She’d never asked herself why the list had become her obsession virtually the moment she’d discovered its existence. Why she’d ridden it hard through the past decade. Why she’d built her life around accomplishing it.
For a woman used to asking the hard questions, this simple one her stumped.
Why the list?
‘Home sweet home,’ he said, sliding the patio door open and letting her into the ultra-white, ultra-clean living area.
‘No, it’s not. You don’t live here.’ A house full of props selected by a stylist, maybe, but nothing his. No mess. No plants. No books. It was the latter that gave him away most—his cottage was overflowing with books. Stuffed into every available crevice. ‘You probably bring women here. Maybe you stay here when you have late meetings. But you don’t live here.’
‘I did,’ he murmured, reaching into the enormous stainless-steel refrigerator for bottled water. She got glimpse enough to know the only other thing in there was a long-life milk carton. Unopened. ‘For quite a few years.’
She slid onto a white leather stool. ‘When did you move out to the cottage?’
His hand paused on the steel lid of the ornate designer water bottle, then flicked it off carelessly. Its tumble clattered and echoed in the big house. ‘Couple of years ago. When I scaled back at
