stared out at the lights sparkling in the darkened town beneath him and gave a huff of laughter.
‘That would be ironic laughter,’ he muttered to himself, remembering trying to explain irony to Alex, she pushing the twins on the swings while he’d leaned over the fence. Later, that was, after she’d got used to him being around and had actually asked him for some help with some assignment she was doing.
‘Definitely ironic!’
‘Are you talking to yourself?’
He turned to see her, and all the physical reactions he’d had at the hospital happened again.
‘Never!’ he lied. ‘That would really label me a nut job.’
Alex smiled, intensifying all the stuff going on inside his body.
‘You might think back to when I met you,’ she teased. ‘You were hanging upside down on the side fence, so the nut-job label was firmly in place from the beginning.’
Will gathered the tattered remnants of his dignity.
‘I was being a bat!’ he reminded her. ‘Showing the twins how they hung in their trees.’
She laughed with such frank and open delight his insides melted.
But along with all the physical confusion came the clang of warning bells.
They were both damaged people, besides which she was probably married, or engaged, or partnered—too beautiful to still be single—while he was no catch—single father still hurting from the loss of his wife, shying away from the very thought of love. Not that this was a date …
‘Are you okay?’
‘I guess,’ he answered the still smiling woman, although okay was a long way off.
He was sitting at a table that had a view over the mouth of the river and up along the coast as far as a distant headland.
The view provided the distraction he needed.
‘Can we see your house from here?’ he asked, looking not out to sea but up the river.
Alex looked too, checking the scattering of houses on the far side of the river from the town—reached by ferry during its operating hours or by a long detour back around via the highway when the ferry stopped at midnight.
‘I think so,’ she said. ‘You see the ferry down by the wharf and the fishermen’s co-op on it—the shed-looking thing? Beyond that there’s the bit of waste land and the huge old fig tree—well, we’re two houses down from the tree, although you probably can’t see the house because they seem to have built an enormous place beside it.’
She smiled and shrugged her shoulders.
‘We’re two houses down,’ she repeated. ‘It’s funny talking about “my house” when I haven’t been there for so long. Although I didn’t make it back in time to see Dad before the operation, we’d spoken on the phone a couple of times, and he’d been so upset about what had happened in the past that I promised when I came I’d stay with him, at least until he’s over the op.’
Will smiled, brown eyes twinkling in his tanned face, and Alex immediately regretted this reunion.
It was because he was a familiar face that she was noticing little things about him—like the twinkling eyes.
And she certainly shouldn’t be noticing twinkling eyes when he was wearing a wedding ring.
She touched his finger.
‘You’re married, that’s nice. Kids?’
The twinkle disappeared and Will’s open, friendly face went completely blank.
‘Let’s get you a drink first.’
He was on his feet, waiting for her order.
On his feet too quickly?
Far too quickly!
Get with it, Alex!
‘G and T in a long glass, please.’
That’s better. Or it would have been if she hadn’t watched him walk towards the bar, seeing the breadth of his shoulders and how his back sloped down to slim hips and—
You will not look at his butt! The man is married, he is off limits, he’s nothing more than an old—not exactly friend but someone she had known quite well.
It’s just that he’s the first familiar face you’ve seen that you’re reacting this way.
He brought her drink and a small bowl of cashews for them to share, then settled back down at the table, this time looking out at the stretch of beach.
Do I ask again? Alex wondered, as an uneasy silence hovered around them.
‘I’m a single father,’ he began, still staring out along the beach. ‘My wife died when Charlotte was born—cancer—Charlotte’s three and a half.’
Will turned back to his companion as he spoke, aware of how stiff and remote he must have sounded as he’d blurted out his story.
Lack of practice in telling it—he knew that. Telling it was one of the reasons he’d avoided going out—telling it hurt …
Had she felt that pain—heard it in his voice—that her fingers, cold and slightly damp from the glass, reached out and took his hand, giving it a squeeze?
‘Oh, Will,’ she said softly. ‘I cannot imagine what pain that must have caused you—and what a loss it must have been. We see awful things every day in our work, yet we somehow think we’re immune to it.’
She hesitated, her fingers tightening on his hand.
‘Do you want to talk about it—to tell me?’
And suddenly he did. It was almost as if he’d been waiting for Alex to return—or someone like Alex to come along—so he could put it all together and let it all out, releasing some of the terrible tension he’d carried inside his body for so long.
‘We met as students, married after graduation then waited a while to have kids—an intern’s life is appalling so we were hardly ever together. Then, when we decided to have a family, Elise, her name was Elise, was diagnosed with breast cancer when she was three months pregnant. It was a very aggressive strain and the specialists wanted her to abort the baby and get immediate treatment. She refused, knowing the treatment would leave her sterile.’
He paused but Alex kept quiet, perhaps sensing there was more.
‘We fought about it, Alex,’ he finally added, looking into the blue eyes across the table from him, seeing her understanding and concern. “That’s what hurts so much now, that I fought her over this, said terrible things.’
‘But only out of love,’ Alex said quietly, and he knew she understood.
‘She
