So lucky. Then he’d met Angie when a hairdryer at the hairdressing salon where she worked had shorted and started a fire, and he’d fallen hard and fast and he hadn’t give a damn about whoever his brother was dating after that, Caleb knew he’d found the one. He’d thought himself the luckiest man alive two years later when Angie had said, “I do”.
But apparently his luck had run out about then, because Angie, who’d married him knowing he was a firefighter started whining whenever he was on night duty or had a callout, telling him she could never make plans and it was no kind of life in which to bring kids into the world.
A truck roared by, spewing out diesel fumes. Damn right, it stunk. She’d known what kind of life it was before they were married, and he’d been staggered to think that somehow she’d just assumed he’d have a change of heart and decide to get some kind of boring desk job.
That’s when she’d given him the choice. The job, or her.
The sad thing was, by that stage, it hadn’t been hard to choose.
The heavy city traffic thinned on the other side, and he powered down Henley Beach Road toward the coast.
He’d thought his luck had changed for the better when he hooked up with Ava. A dream arrangement. No commitment, no ties, and the bonus was no whining about night shift or coming home stinking of smoke. Just hot sex and plenty of it.
He caught his breath in the salt tinged air at Henley Square, chugging water and munching on an energy bar as seagulls squawked overhead while he stared out over the summer beach scene with the long jetty over the turquoise blue sea of the Gulf.
He sure hadn’t meant to blow it by falling in love.
Dickhead.
He turned his bike for home, powering hard against the slight gradient towards the foothills where he lived, pushing himself harder until his muscles burned and his mind was blank and, for just a moment, one blessed moment, he could forget what he had lost.
One day at a time, Ava told herself while she cooked up a batch of red curry paste, refusing to give in to the sadness of knowing she’d never see Caleb again. She’d heard it took twenty-one days to break a habit and it was barely seven.
Through her kitchen window, she could see the world turning reddish gold under the westering sun. Inside, the air turned pungent with spice and heat as she ground the chillies, garlic, and spices in her pestle. She had a food processor somewhere in her cupboards that did the job in a fraction of the time, but today there was something satisfying about physically grinding the ingredients, pulverising the toasted cumin and coriander seeds, pounding down the lemongrass and galangal until the smooth paste came together. All she had to do was persist and be patient and it would come together.
Just like all she had to do was hang on, and day-by-day, this hollow ache in her soul would subside and pass.
But there was a peace there too, as if baring her soul and speaking it aloud had released the log jam of self loathing. Nothing could change her past, but the truth was out there. It was almost as if the gorge’s eucalyptus scented air had swept inside her aching soul and chased away the darkness.
Oh, it had lost her Caleb, but it was better this way. One thousand times better to let him go now. One thousand times better than to incur the savage slash of betrayal. She knew all too well how that felt. She was never going back to that dark place again.
Even if it meant a little pain now. That was all it was.
It would pass.
In time.
Chapter Eleven
One shift rolled into the next and February rolled into March. Nominally autumn, though that didn’t mean the mercury couldn’t still reach dizzy heights and that the threat of bushfires was over. There would be no end to the bushfire season until April thirtieth, and only then if there had been good solid rains and the bushfire threat had dropped below severe. Only a few years back they’d had a bushfire in the Adelaide Hills in May. Ridiculous, once upon a time, but after a string of dry years, there was no reason the bush couldn’t burn given half a chance, no matter what the month.
But for now the weather had moderated, temperatures hovering in a band between the mid-twenties to mid-thirties Celcius. Perfect weather for sitting on your ass at home watching telly. Not. He didn’t want to spend yet another night doing that.
“You wanna come to the Maylands tonight?” Caleb asked Richo, as they changed into civvies at the end of their shift.
Richo grinned. “Not likely. I’ve got a date with Gillian. We’re taking in a show at the Fringe before heading out somewhere for dinner.”
“Oh.” So he was still seeing Gillian. Well, at least something good had come out of Ava’s exhibition. Not that it helped Caleb. And he’d already learned Tina and Matt had plans when he’d asked them. It seemed everyone else in the world was getting shagged.
“Mate,” Richo said, shaking his head and with a hand on his shoulder. “You’ve got to get out more. There’s a whole Fringe Festival going on out there. Mad March in Adelaide, and you’re sitting around looking hangdog all the time. You’ve got to get over her, and the only way to do that is to put yourself out there. If I were you, I’d be carrying that newspaper clipping of you and that painting around in your back pocket and showing every chick in the bar. They’ll be falling over themselves to tear your clothes off.”
“Thanks,” he said,
