concentrate on my steak.’
‘The important things in life.’
‘Right.’
Darcy lived in a weatherboard cottage set to the side of the Tambrine Creek hospital. He locked the car and turned to find Ally already opening the gate leading to the back door. The catch was tricky. How…?
‘I lived here for years,’ she told him, seeing his confusion. ‘This is the doctor’s house, right? I’m the doctor’s grandkid.’
The thought was disorientating. She’d lived here before?
‘And I hope you’ve been looking after it.’
‘I have.’
‘Let’s see.’ Then the back door burst open, swung wide from within by the force of two dogs. Jekyll and Hyde. Jekyll was an ancient black and white but mostly grey cocker spaniel and Hyde was his younger compatriot, a sprightly eight-year-old golden version of the same breed. They bounded down the path with joy.
‘Hey, guys.’ Darcy squatted to hug them. They submitted and then wheeled to investigate Ally.
She promptly sat on the path and hugged back. Enveloped in a mass of wriggling canine joy, she smiled up at him with delight.
‘This is your family. Where are the chooks?’
‘Roosting,’ he told her. ‘And, no, I’m not waking them up for hugs.’
She giggled and hugged the dogs again, struggling to her feet. They were gorgeous. Dogs and girl…
Particularly girl.
For Ally, the sensation that she was coming home was almost overwhelming. Apart from the dogs. Her grandpa had always refused to have a dog. ‘Pets interfere with your life,’ he’d snapped, and that had been that.
But Darcy had dogs. Gorgeous dogs. She glanced up at him and he was smiling and she thought…
Well, she thought she ought to concentrate on dogs.
Maybe now she could get a dog. Maybe.
There wasn’t room in her little apartment above her shop.
Maybe a very small dog?
He was holding the back door wide and she hesitated. She hadn’t been here for seventeen years. Despite her grandfather’s coldness, she’d loved this place. If it had changed…
It hadn’t. She walked into the kitchen and it had hardly changed at all.
Oh, everything was fresh. The room was freshly painted. Shabby gingham curtains had been replaced by new ones. There was a gleaming modern refrigerator and a microwave. But the vast wooden table was the one she’d sat at all those years ago, and her grandmother’s old rocker was still in the corner. Her grandpa hadn’t liked anyone using it but Ally had snuggled into it when he hadn’t been around. In it her mother had seemed closer. She was sure her mother had used the rocker.
And the stove. ‘You kept the stove. You make toast on my stove.’ She darted across and hauled open the fire- door. Darcy had stoked the stove before he’d left that morning and now it contained a bed of glowing embers. ‘I so wanted the stove to be the same. Yum.’ She opened the oven door and peered into its black depths. ‘I used to put my feet in here every morning all through winter. I had leather slippers and I’d rest my feet in here while I toasted my toast.’
‘I still do,’ Darcy told her. ‘All my toast tastes of ancient footwear.’
And suddenly they were grinning at each other like fools. The tensions and heartache of the day dissipated in this one crazy moment-when he was looking at her with a delight that matched hers. With a grin that…
Whoa.
She forced herself to break eye contact, and she was aware that he did the same, breaking away at the same moment. They could be mature adults and ignore this, she thought frantically.
Ignore what?
Darcy had turned to the fridge and was delving into the freezer.
‘Do you need help?’ she managed, thrown suddenly right off balance.
‘I cook steak and salad just fine. It’s my staple diet.’
‘You want me to feed the dogs, then?’ she asked, and her voice was still stupidly breathless. Damn, how had he done that to her?
‘If you would,’ he said brusquely. Maybe he was as disconcerted as she was. ‘Their food’s in the container on the back porch and their bowls are there, too. A cup and a half each and don’t let them con you into more.’
‘I’m a rigid disciplinarian,’ she told him, but she still hadn’t got her voice under control. And when she made her way out to the back porch, she couldn’t stop the sensation that she felt like she was escaping.
From what? She didn’t know. All she knew was that she intended staying out there for a while, ostensibly watching as the dogs enjoyed their dinner but in reality staring out at the night sky, listening to the sea in the background, smelling the night scent of the gums and trying to adjust to the crazy feeling of unreality that was all about her.
Maybe it had been a mistake to come back here. The way she was feeling. The way she was feeling about Darcy?
This was nonsense, she told herself crossly. Just because the man had the most romantic name and he looked like a Hollywood hero…
No. It wasn’t that. It was the way he smiled at her. The way he made her feel.
She sat on the back step and hugged her knees. Men didn’t make her feel like this. Relationships weren’t her scene. The way to survive was to keep herself independent. Heart-whole and fancy-free.
Jekyll finished his dinner and came and nuzzled her hand. She fondled his silky ears and he gazed up with adoration.
‘Maybe a very small dog,’ she whispered. ‘But that’s all, Ally Westruther. Anything more would be a disaster and you know it. You have a plan. You stick to it.’
The steak was wonderful. When Darcy called her for dinner she found steaks that almost covered the dinner plate and the first mouthful had her in heaven.
‘Yum.’
‘You really do enjoy your food.’ He gazed at her in fascination.
‘Hush,’ she said reverentially. ‘I’m eating.’
He did hush, but she was aware that he was watching her as she ate, and there were still questions in his eyes.
Hadn’t she told him enough? For heaven’s sake…
If he asked her more she just might tell him, she thought ruefully. Sitting here in this room, with the hiss of the old kettle on the wood stove in the background as it had been in the background all her childhood. It undermined her defences and left her feeling as if there was nowhere to go.
In desperation she gazed around the room, searching for the personal. Something that would tell her something about this man and take the attention from her. Deflect it to him.
There was a photograph on the mantelpiece. It was of a young woman with deep chestnut curls, a wide smiling face, laughing grey eyes. Lovely.
‘Who’s that?’ she asked, and he turned to look as if he wasn’t sure who might have been photographed and sitting on his mantelpiece. Then he turned back to his steak.
‘That’s my wife.’
She thought about it. She ate a bit more steak.
‘That’s your wife,’ she repeated at last. ‘You mean…as in present tense?’
‘She’s dead. She died six years ago.’
Ally flinched. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Yeah.’
Some people would stop there, Ally thought ruefully, but when had she ever stopped when going on could get her into trouble? It was her life skill.
