warm golden skin covered in the palest smattering of tiny freckles stamped itself upon his consciousness…
Waxing his boat late one evening. A sound. The scrape of a shoe on concrete. Turning. Ava, a shadow in the doorway. Tears glistening on those same cheeks.
And then the kiss. Their first kiss. Their first everything.
Her slim pale arms in the air, so trusting, as he slid her Greenpeace-emblazoned T-shirt over her head. The depth of feeling in her large eyes as she unclasped her bra. All that beautiful pale skin revealed just for him. Only for him.
Ava…
Once again her name shot through him, though this time it came to him like the first summer breeze: surreptitious, lingering, and a herald of delights yet to come.
He closed his eyes, rested his lips upon her cheek for the barest amount of time and did his best not to breathe through his nose. But the second it occurred to him he couldn’t help himself.
With his first breath she smelled faintly of soap, of powdered make-up and of orange blossoms.
With his second he got schoolroom chalk, old library books, and the fresh-cut grass at that spot by the Yarra where they’d gone every day one summer holiday to play backyard cricket.
And finally, most strongly, miles of freshly vacuumed carpet beneath his feet as he’d stood in Melbourne Airport’s International Terminal, completely stunned to realise that she was really leaving him behind and leaving his broken heart trampled beneath her feet.
He pulled away and the delicious scent of powder and orange blossoms returned, leaving him wanting more.
And for a man who wanted for nothing, that was something. His was a life of wealth and success, of fast cars and fast women. Of the best of everything money could pay for. It was a life lived loud and hard, no apologies to anyone.
He should have thanked her. His drive, his detachment, his determination to win at all costs had sprung from the ashes of that long-ago day.
Ava Halliburton had made a man of him.
Yet as Caleb turned his back on her he hoped she had an airline ticket burning a hole in her purse.
Ava stood alone in the middle of the big white puffy wedding marquee, her heart pounding so loudly in her ears she was surprised she’d heard a word Caleb had said.
Coming home had been nerve-racking enough knowing she was set to confront those in her immediate family whom she hadn’t spoken to in a long time. So she’d deliberately put Caleb to the back of her mind.
Caleb Gilchrist. The boy she’d hero-worshipped since she was fourteen. The boy who’d always pulled her plaits, had coined the nickname Avocado, which had stuck all through high school. Her brother’s best friend. The devil on her shoulder. The thorn in her side.
Her first.
It was a good thirty seconds before she realised she was still watching him walk away.
She bit her lip and looked around her, sure that the strange guilty pleasure of it was written all over her face. But once she was sure nobody gave a hoot about the practical stranger in their midst, her eyes slid back to him.
The years had been good to him. Better than good. They’d given him shoulders a tailor would kill to dress. A mien of haughty condescension that oozed power and privilege. He wore his tuxedo with such authority and ease he could have given James Bond a run for his money.
He now had a jaw that she’d barely been able to keep from tracing. His ash-brown hair was cut short, hiding any evidence of its natural curl. And his dark hazel eyes, which had always been fuelled by a mischievous glint, were now lit by a very different fire. Confidence? Experience? Or a play-by-play photographic memory of their night together?
She closed her eyes tight on the reminiscence.
All that had been a long, long time ago. Eons. A lifetime. Yet a funny kind of energy skidded down her bare arms.
When she opened her eyes, she watched him chat with someone she didn’t know. He smiled his killer smile and her chest tightened.
And she wasn’t even a woman who was usually struck by so much obvious male beauty any more. She liked men who were…seasoned. Men whose suits bore elbow patches rather than designer labels. Men whose beards had grown in rather than men whose stubble made them appear downright wicked.
Her current man was of a generation that meant it had been some time since he’d had the kind of knockout rear view that made a girl happy to see him walk away.
Her man? Ha! For a moment she’d forgotten she was now all alone in the world with no man to speak of. In fact, she wasn’t sure she’d ever had a man in her life long enough to call him her man. Lucky for her she was smart enough to know why.
If her mother had been less interested in where she lived, how she dressed, and who knew about it, then she and her father would never have separated, their divorce would not have been as vicious and unexpected, and Ava would have gone out into the world feeling more safe, more secure, and less likely to run from every situation in which she felt herself getting sucked into any scenario even vaguely resembling a relationship.
Feeling like a wallflower, and one in need of a therapist if she didn’t get her head sorted and fast, Ava began a slow weave through the space, hoping she at least looked as if she knew where she was going.
She smiled benignly at others she didn’t know. People obviously important in her brother’s life. It made her more than a little sad that she’d spent so much time away, and less than sure she’d made the right move in coming back.
To Stonnington Drive. A row of thirty homes, no more, but a stronghold all the same. It was the last bastion of the provincial old-fashioned good life to be found in what was now a relatively cosmopolitan city.
Stonnington Drive men wore suits long after they’d retired from high-powered jobs in the city. Stonnington Drive women believed in gin, tennis, and boarding school for the kids.
Ava believed it a suffocating, pulverising existence. The pressure to keep up with the Joneses, and the Gilchrists for that matter, had broken down her parents’ marriage in the most vociferous, public, ravaging way. The run-on effect had left her searching for guidance wherever she could find it. And every day she’d been away from the place she’d thanked her lucky stars she’d managed to get out when she had.
For who knew at nineteen how strong one’s principles really were? Another year there, another reason to stay, who knew…?
She glanced over to her brother to find Caleb had joined him. Damien had survived their childhood and made good. But he’d been older. Stronger. Luckier.
The two men put arms around one another as they ducked heads and talked. Best friends, even after all these years. As close as brothers. Closer even, considering her father had always treated Caleb like the second son he’d never had.
No wonder.
He was the perfect by-product of his upbringing: rich, good-looking, arrogant, lackadaisical.
