And never before had he been so sorely tempted to agree with anyone. His fingers clenched and unclenched while his mind battled with the insoluble dilemma.
Because he also knew that a man would also be a fool not to acknowledge that just having Ava wasn’t enough. That he wanted her on his terms too, not only within the confines of the strict boundaries on which she insisted.
His voice, when it came, was mired in the agony of a difficult choice. “No.”
“What?”
“I said, no,” he repeated, feeling stronger for it, knowing he was being honest with himself and with her. “I don’t agree.”
“But that’s the way it has to be. That’s what we agreed, remember? That’s what we both wanted.”
“Sure, that’s exactly what I had wanted – then. But that was a year ago. Now, like it or not, agreement or not, I want more.”
Her eyes were wide, cognac-coloured pools of disbelief. “You can’t mean that. I thought—”
And suddenly he couldn’t sit any more. He sprang up from the table, pacing into the kitchen and back. “You thought I’d be happy being put back in my box, being brought out on special occasions or when it suited you? You thought I’d accept your crazy conditions without questioning them? This is killing me, Ava. I can’t go on this way. I don’t understand why we have to. We know each other enough by now to know we’re good together, so why do we have to put limitations on it?”
She blinked up at him. “I can’t...”
“You can’t, or you won’t?”
“I...” she said, getting to her feet, the chair scraping across the wooden floor, the discordant sound in tune with his jarred senses. She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I should go.”
“You don’t have to. This doesn’t have to be the end. Not unless that’s what you want – what you really want.”
She collected her bag and cradled it in her arms against her chest. “You don’t give me much choice.”
He growled out a sigh as he raked his fingers through his short hair. “Don’t put this back on me. Think about it, Ava. I’ll give you space and time and you can think on it. Think about us.”
“Thank you for dinner,” was all she said, as she headed for her car.
He collected the flowers from the glass, adding another couple of sprigs freshly picked from the tree, and met her at her car.
“Thank you,” she said, once again putting the flowers to her face and breathing in the heady fragrance.
“You’re not too tired to drive?”
She smiled wearily as she placed the flowers on the passenger seat. “It’s not far. Goodbye.”
And then he watched the taillights of her hatchback disappear down the street, wondering if tonight was their last together. One year ago today, give or take, they’d got together and damned near combusted when they had. One year later and they hadn’t even kissed. Talk about a lousy anniversary.
He rubbed the back of his neck as he headed back inside and smelt the scent of the frangipani on his hands and thought about the lonely nights stretching out before him with no Ava in his life.
But then, she’d never really been there.
Ava never saw it coming.
She’d felt drained as she drove away. Totally exhausted. After barely sleeping last night and working all today in the sun at the show, it had taken every last shred of energy she’d possessed to be able to hold her nerve with Caleb.
And, for a moment there, after she’d laid out the ground rules, she’d almost sworn that he was on the same page, and that she’d secured his agreement. But then he’d turned the tables on her, and suddenly he’d been the one calling the shots.
Why had he done that, when he knew what would have to happen?
Why had he insisted it wasn’t enough, when it was all it could ever be?
Sure, she’d been as much to blame for letting Caleb get too close. Those sketches had blurred the lines between them, smudging the boundaries just as she smudged the images of him in charcoal on the page. She’d let her excitement for the collection rule her head.
Stupid.
But she’d expected him to understand. She’d expected him to back off. All tonight was supposed to be was a timely reminder of the boundaries. A circuit breaker, that was all.
She hadn’t expected him to be the one to pull the pin on their affair.
“Think about it,” he’d said, when there was nothing to think about. She’d learned something since that naïve girl of sixteen and her equally stupid twenty-year-old self. She’d learned to take care of herself and her career. She’d learned to take control of her own destiny.
And nobody was taking that away from her ever again.
The narrow ribbon of road followed the creek bed, wending its way through the sparsely populated valley floor. Soon she’d be home and she could crawl into her bed. She felt sleep tugging at her now, weighing down her eyelids. Not long to go. She rounded a bend, confused to see two glowing lights ahead where there should be none. She was almost upon them when she realised and she slammed her foot on the brake, all the gear that she’d taken to the show, the paints and chairs and umbrella that she hadn’t bothered to unpack yet, crashing into the back of her seat with the sudden deceleration.
The car skidded to a stop, just inches short of the beast. The kangaroo jerked upright, looking confused, the spell the headlights had held it in broken, before it turned its head and bounded gracefully away, disappearing into the bush at the edge of the road.
She rested there with her head on the steering wheel a few moments,
