‘No.’
Her face shuttered closed—not completely but in a half-fan—and he bit back a sigh. False start number one.
A moment’s silence ensued and then she turned to him with a smile that was too bright. ‘Is your campaign going well?’
He bit back a curse. Was that all people could think to converse with him about—his darn job? ‘Yes.’
Another moment’s silence. False start number two. For pity’s sake, he was good at small talk. He opened his mouth. He closed it again. The deep heaviness in his chest grew. Normally he could push it away, ignore it, but today it gave him no quarter. It was this stupid plane strike and the break in his routine. It had given him time to think.
Thinking wouldn’t help anything!
She glanced at him, her face sober, and he knew then that she was going to bring up the subject he most dreaded. He wanted to beg her not to, but years of good breeding prevented him.
‘How are you and your parents now, since your brother...?’
That was a different approach to most, but...The heaviness started to burn and ache. He rested his head back against his seat and tried to stop his lip from curling.
‘I’m sorry. Don’t answer that. It was a stupid thing to ask. Grieving in public must be harrowing. I just wanted to say I’m truly sorry for your loss, Aidan.’
The simple words with their innate sincerity touched him and the burn in his chest eased a fraction. ‘Thank you, Quinn.’
Two beats passed. Quinn shuffled in her seat a little and her ponytail bounced. ‘I’m moving to an olive farm.’
He straightened and turned to her. ‘An olive farm?’
‘Uh-huh.’ She kept her eyes on the road, but she was grinning. ‘I bet that’s not a sentence you hear every day, is it?’
‘It’s not a sentence I have ever heard uttered in my life.’
‘It’s probably not as startling as saying I was moving to an alpaca farm or going to work on a ferret breeding programme. But it’s only a degree or two behind.’
She’d made things good—or, at least, better—just like that. With one abrupt and startling admission. ‘What do you know about olives?’
She lifted her nose in the air. ‘I know that marinated olives on a cheese platter is one of life’s little pleasures.’
He laughed. She glanced at him and her eyes danced. ‘What about you; what do you know about olives?’
‘That they grow on trees. That they make olive oil. And that marinated olives on a cheese platter is one of life’s little pleasures.’
She laughed then too and he couldn’t remember a sound he’d ever enjoyed more. He closed his eyes all the better to savour it. It was the last thing he remembered.
* * *
Aidan sat bolt upright and glanced around. He was alone in the car. He peered at his watch.
He closed his eyes and shook his right arm, but when he opened them again the time hadn’t changed. He’d slept for two hours?
He pressed his palms to his eyes and dragged in a breath before stretching to the right and then the left to ease the cricks in his back and neck. Finally he took stock of his surroundings. Quinn had parked beneath a huge old gum tree to give him shade. At the moment she, Robbie and Chase kicked a ball around on a big oval in front of him. She’d hitched her dress up to mid-thigh into a pair of bike shorts.
His eyes widened. Man, she was...fit!
He shook his head and pressed fingers to his eyes again.
With bones that literally creaked, he pushed out of the car and stretched. Warm air caressed his skin and he slid his suit jacket off to lay it on the front seat. Quinn waved and then pointed behind him to an amenities block. ‘They’re clean and well maintained,’ she called out.
He lifted a hand to let her know he’d heard.
When he returned he found her sitting cross-legged on a blanket at the edge of the oval beside an assortment of bags.
‘Where are we?’
‘Wundowie.’
He pulled out his smart phone and searched for it on the Internet. ‘We’ve been travelling...’
‘Nearly two and a half hours, though we’re still only about an hour out of Perth. There was a lot of traffic,’ she said in answer to his raised eyebrow. ‘And there was some mini-marathon we had to be diverted around.’ She shrugged. ‘It all took time. Would you like a sandwich or an apple?’ She opened a cooler bag and proffered its contents towards him. ‘Or water? There’s plenty here.’
He reached for a bottle of water. ‘Thank you, I’m parched.’
‘But well rested,’ she said with a laugh.
His hand clenched about the water bottle, making the plastic crackle. ‘You should’ve woken me.’
She turned from watching the boys as they continued with their game. ‘Why?’
He opened his mouth. He closed it again and rubbed the nape of his neck. ‘I, uh... It wasn’t very polite.’
‘It wasn’t impolite. You were obviously tired and needed the sleep.’
She selected an apple and crunched into it. ‘Please eat something. It’ll only go to waste and I hate that.’
He took a sandwich. Ham and pickle. ‘Thank you.’ And tried to remember the last time he’d let his guard down so comprehensively as to fall asleep when he hadn’t meant to.
It certainly hadn’t happened since Daniel had died.
His appetite fled. Nevertheless he forced himself to eat the sandwich. He wouldn’t be able to stand the fuss his mother would make if he became ill. And this woman beside him had gone to the trouble of making these sandwiches for her children and herself and had chosen to share them with him. The least he could do was appreciate it.
He and Quinn sat side by side on the grass with their legs stretched out in front of them. They didn’t speak much. A million questions pounded through him, but they were all far too personal and he had no right to ask a single one of them.
But the inactivity grated on him. It didn’t seem to have that effect on Quinn, though. She lifted her face to the sky and closed her eyes as if relishing the sun and the day and the air. Eventually she jumped up again. ‘I’m going to have another run with the boys for a bit. Stretch my legs. Feel free to join in.’
He glanced down at himself. ‘I’m not exactly dressed for it.’
She took in his tie, his tailored trousers and polished leather shoes. ‘No,’ she agreed and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so summarily dismissed. ‘Oh,
