There was no zoom on the thing. The negatives huge. Perfect for taking poster-worthy shots. But she imagined Rafe’s face in the distance. Such a good face. Strong. Serious. Achingly handsome.
Then he turned, looked dead into the lens.
Sable held her breath and...
Click.
She slowly let the camera drop. Her breath out a euphoric rush of air. When she looked up, the light, the edges of the vision, the reality beyond the iris, swarmed back into focus, like ink through water.
Rafe held his ground. Resting his elbows on the fence. Watching her across the distance as she watched him. Surely it defied the laws of physics, the way electricity seemed to crackle and arc through the air between them.
Then Rafe blinked, frowned and reached for his phone. Answered. And Sable’s next breath out shook.
The longer she left this, the more likely the hum between them would blur the lines. And she needed them to be crystal clear.
It was time.
She reminded herself, chances were he’d say no, right up front. Which was understandable. It was a huge ask.
But she had counter arguments. She had research. Doctor’s reports showing the bare facts of the uphill battle she was facing fertility-wise. But also her general excellent health otherwise. Financial records. Photos of neighbourhoods with great schools and hands-on programmes and parks...
She was ready for this. She needed this.
“Can’t make it happen if he’s twenty metres away, kid,” Sable muttered under her breath before slinging the camera rope over the other shoulder, then making her way to the carousel.
“Right,” said Rafe as she neared. “Leave it to me. I’ll see you in a bit.” He hung up, slipped the phone into his back pocket.
“You have to go?”
“I do.”
“Work?”
He nodded. Yet he didn’t walk away.
She moved in beside him, mirrored his position leaning on the railing. Tried to appear nonchalant while her heart thundered and her palms began to sweat. And said, “Have you ever wondered what your life might have been like if I’d stayed?”
Rafe’s entire body stilled. Big effort for a guy that tall. “Sable, I don’t think this is smart—”
“No,” she said, holding out a hand. “It’s okay. In fact, it might be healthy to play out the disaster we would have become.”
His face shifted, just enough to glance her way. All dark eyes, and suspicion. “Disaster?”
“Total disaster! Don’t you think?”
His grunt didn’t actually give away what he thought at all. But she went with it.
“I’ll start. Okay, so you would have got a job with Stan. No doubt. You were always a magician with cars, and Stan was smart enough to see past the Thorne thing, even back then. While I would have probably ended up working at the Shop and Go.”
Rafe winced, as she’d hoped he might.
“Taking photos on the side, of course. During summer, if it was still light when I got home. On weekends. Maybe branching out to photograph newborn babies. Family sessions. School photos. And that’s if the townspeople let the witch’s daughter anywhere near their kids.”
Rafe was facing her fully now, slowly twisting and untwisting the long blade of grass over and around his fingers. “Sounds...dire.”
“Right? So you’re working, I’m working. We’re earning a little money. Saving for a place. Or a holiday. A trip to Queensland maybe. But we’re content. Because we have each other. So content we’d have been knocked up in a year. Probably had three in three years.”
Oh, the ache in her chest as those words came out, so light, so blithe.
“So no holiday. No place of our own. I’d have had to stop work to look after the bubs. Which I’d have loved. Except we’d have had to move in with my mother.” She let that thought sit for a good long moment. “How’s that for a pretty picture?”
Sable glanced at Rafe to find his frown had deepened. The curling grass had unfurled from his finger, and lifted on the light breeze. His gaze was faraway as he said, “No kids.”
“Hmm?”
“No kids. The rest, maybe. But no kids. Not for me. You knew that.”
The ache in her gut grew serrated edges. Even while it was good news that his determination not to raise a child of his own was still prevailing, the fact that he still felt that way, a man with his kindness, and goodness, and genes. He’d have been a great dad.
“Right,” she said, shaking her head before she turned it into a nod. “That’s right. So this, now, the way things worked out, your life is better, right? Janie’s life is infinitely better. Just as it is.”
He looked into the middle distance and said, “All true.”
Had his voice trailed off a little there? No matter. Things were falling into place. Exactly as she’d hoped.
Till he said, “How about you?”
“Hmm? What now?”
“Is your life better now?”
She opened her mouth and closed it, trying to figure how to twist his question to get back on track. Instead she found herself comparing her mess of a life to her life back then: home fires and forest walks, creativity rushing through her veins, lazy afternoons spent with Rafe in the loft of the old barn. No, her life wasn’t better, not right now. But it would be and that was the point.
He moved then, slowly turning to face her, his gaze intent. And he said, “I know a little. Of what happened. In LA.”
“Oh?”
“I know that it’s been more than a year since you’ve released any new work.”
More than a year? Was that possible?
“And you and that famous chef of yours...you’re done.”
Hearing Rafe mention her ex was so unexpected, she flinched.
“Janie liked to keep tabs, kindly sprinkling me with news every now and then. Bear brought me up to date, when he heard you were in town. And fine, I might have searched the Internet on occasion.”
A quick flush rising in his swarthy cheeks, he looked
