humour me, Jaz.’ The words scraped out of his throat, raw with emotion, but he didn’t care. He could deal with defeat but he would not stand for her pity.
In answer, she gave him one of the balled rejects. ‘Look at it.’
He was too tired to argue. He smoothed it out and grimaced. It was the picture of the playground. It was dreadful, horrible…a travesty.
‘No,’ she said when he went to ball it up again. ‘Look at it.’
He looked at it.
‘Now look at this.’ She stood up and held his drawing of the skyway in front of her.
Everything inside him stilled. It was flawed, vitally flawed in a lot of respects, and yet… He’d captured something there—a sense of freedom and escape. Jaz was right. It was better.
Was it enough of an improvement to count, though?
He glanced up into her face. She pursed her lips and surveyed where he sat. ‘This is all wrong.’ She tapped a finger against her chin for a moment, then her face cleared. She seized her duffel bag. ‘Come with me.’
She led him to a nearby stand of trees. He followed her. His heart thudded in his chest, part of him wanted to turn tail and run, but he followed.
‘Sit there.’
She pointed to the base of a tree. Its position would still give him a good, clear view of Melly playing. Melly waved. He waved back.
He settled himself against the tree.
‘Good.’ She handed him the sketch pad and pencil again. She pulled a second sketch pad and more pencils from her bag and settled herself on the ground to his left, legs crossed. She looked so familiar, hunched over like that, Connor thought he’d been transported back eight years in time.
She glanced across at him. ‘Bend your knees like you used to do…as if you’re sitting against that old tree at our lookout.’
Our lookout. Richardson’s Peak—out of the way and rarely visited. They’d always called it their lookout. He tried to hold back the memories.
Jaz touched a hand to the ground. ‘See, I’m sitting on the nearby rock.’
It wasn’t rock. It was grass, but Connor gave in, adjusted his back and legs, and let the memories flood through him. ‘What do you want me to draw?’
‘The view.’
Panoramas had always been his speciality, but he wasn’t quite sure where to start now.
He wasn’t convinced that this wasn’t a waste of time.
‘Close your eyes.’
She whispered the command. She closed her eyes so he closed his eyes too. It might shut out the ache that gripped him whenever he looked at her.
It didn’t, but her voice washed over him, soft and low, soothing him. ‘Remember what it was like at the lookout?’ she murmured. ‘The grand vista spread out in front of us and the calls of the birds…the scent of eucalyptus in the air…’
All Connor could smell was wattle, and he loved it, dragged it into his lungs greedily.
‘Remember how the sun glinted off the leaves, how it warmed us in our sheltered little spot, even when the wind played havoc with everything else around us?’
His skin grew warm, his fingers relaxed around the pencil.
‘Now draw,’ she whispered.
He opened his eyes and drew.
On the few occasions he glanced across at her, he found her hunched over her sketch pad, her fingers moving with the same slow deliberation he remembered from his dreams.
Time passed. Connor had no idea how long they drew but, when he finally set aside his pencil, he glanced up to find the shadows had lengthened and Jaz waiting for him. He searched the picnic ground for Melly.
‘Just over there.’ Jaz nodded and he found Melly sitting on the grass with her new friends.
‘Finished?’ she asked.
He nodded.
‘May I see?’
She asked in the same shy way she’d have asked eight years ago. He smiled. He felt tired and alive and…free. ‘If you want.’
She was by his side in a second. She turned back to the first page in the sketch pad. He’d lost count of how many pictures he’d drawn. His fingers had flown as if they’d had to make up for the past eight years of shackled inactivity.
Jaz sighed and chuckled and teased him, just like she used to do. She pointed to one of the drawings and laughed. ‘Is that supposed to be a bird?’
‘I was trying to give the impression of time flying.’
‘It needs work,’ she said with a grin.
He returned her grin. ‘So do my slippery dips.’
‘Yep, they do.’
The laughter in her voice lifted him.
‘But look at how you’ve captured the way the light shines through the trees here. It’s beautiful.’
She turned her face to meet his gaze fully and light trembled in her eyes. ‘You can draw again, Connor.’
Her exultation reached out and wrapped around him. He could draw again.
He couldn’t help himself. He cupped one hand around the back of her head, threaded his fingers through her hair and drew her lips down to his and kissed her—warm, firm…brief. Then he released her because he knew he couldn’t take too much of that. ‘Thank you. If you hadn’t badgered me…’ He gestured to the sketch pad.
She drew back, her eyes wide and dazed. ‘You’re welcome, but—’ she moistened her lips ‘—I didn’t do much.’
Didn’t do much.
‘You had it in you all the time. You just had to let it out, that’s all.’ She reached up, touched her fingers to her lips. She pulled them away again when she realised he watched her. Her breathing had quickened, grown shallow. She lifted her chin and glared at him. ‘If you ever turn your back on your gift again, it will desert you. For ever!’
He knew she was right.
He knew he wanted to kiss her again.
As if she’d read that thought in his face, Jaz drew back. ‘It’s getting late. We’d better start thinking about making tracks.’
She didn’t want him to kiss her.
He remembered all the reasons why he shouldn’t kiss her.
‘You’re right.’
