Knew you’d love Matt’s place. And Dex. Give him a kiss for me. Dex, not Matt. Haha. Have fun horse riding and watch out for Matt. No repeat of Cabo! Love you. C
There hadn’t been a reply from Lucy, but Jules told herself that she was probably busy or asleep.
“Uh, I don’t know that I’d call myself a cook,” said Matt, “but I know my way around the barbie, and I can throw together a decent salad.”
“You got that right.” Jules reached over to the almost empty bowl, plucked a cherry tomato from the salad and popped it into her mouth. She groaned.
“That good, huh?” Matt teased. She nodded, closing her eyes and savouring the sweet tang of the tomato and the peppery olive oil—both from local producers, Matt had told her.
Jules swallowed her bite. “Seriously, dinner was amazing. We don’t eat a lot of lamb where I’m from. And, seriously, everything—I mean everything—tastes better here, you know? More intense, fresher. Maybe that’s just ’cause back home it’s winter and this time of year I tend to hibernate and live off takeout pizza and pot noodles.” Matt chuckled.
She stretched her arms above her head and inhaled deeply. “I love being here.” It was a rare moment for Jules, being totally unguarded, and she could almost feel herself sloughing off the layers of her staid existence. When she glanced back at Matt, she saw him watching her intently, a smile playing on his lips. “What?” she asked.
He reached across the corner of the table to capture her hand in his. “I’m glad you like it here. It’s not often we have guests.” He must have seen that she didn’t understand who he meant by “we” because he added, “Dexter and me.” At the sound of his name, Dexter lifted his head and looked at his master, his ears pricked and his eyes alert. Jules patted the top of his head and he plopped back down reassuming his position on the ground next to her chair.
Matt ran his thumb over her knuckles, his gaze following the movement of his thumb—a simple gesture that sent more of those tingles down her spine. It had been years since a man’s touch had affected her like that, and Jules luxuriated in the feeling.
Matt looked up at her. “I think it’s good for us having you here—well, good for me. You seem to notice all these little details, things I usually take for granted, things I don’t even see anymore.”
Jules was in two minds, one right there with Matt, taking in everything he was saying, and the other wondering who it was that he was describing. It certainly didn’t sound like her—or at least the Jules of late.
In an instant, a thousand memories flooded her mind at once.
Laughing at herself in a piazza in Italy, as she caught the scoop of gelato just before it hit the ground, then not knowing what to do with it—helpless with a hand full of gelato and her two best friends laughing along with her.
Racing Will to the bottom of a black diamond run and for the first time ever, beating her baby brother.
Singing loudly to Neil Diamond in the car with her mom, Aunt Jackie, Briony, and Bridget and laughing so hard when they got to the “bah, bah, bah,” part that she could barely breathe.
Playing backgammon with her dad up at the cabin when everyone else had gone snowshoeing and winning their best-of-three tournament, and her dad high fiving her, saying he was proud of her.
And a final thought, as she returned to the present …
Sitting on a patio in the middle of wine country in Victoria, Australia, with a thoughtful, sweet, and incredibly sexy man and his awesome dog.
Where the hell had this Jules been? The one who, like Matt said, appreciated the little things, who had a sense of adventure, who laughed easily, and didn’t sweat the small stuff.
“I’ve been a little stuck lately.” Matt’s words pulled her back to their conversation and she scoured his face for the meaning of his simple words.
“How so?” she asked, not prodding, just hoping her gentle tone conveyed that his secrets were safe with her.
“Just …” He sighed, taking back his hand. He fiddled with his paper napkin, tearing off shreds and rolling them between his fingers. He shot her a look that was intense and raw. “I have a good life, I do, but sometimes I feel like an observer, you know. Like there’s this guy Matt and he’s got his life set up a particular way, and he makes wine, and he travels a bit—not as much as he used to—and he sees his friends—also not as much as he used to.
“And it’s like, he’s here,” Matt held out his left hand, “and I’m over here.” He held his right hand apart from his left. “Like I’m an observer of my own life.”
His frankness had Jules captivated, but it was how he expressed exactly what she’d been feeling that tipped her over the edge.
He got it.
He got her.
Matt shook his head. “Sorry, that was …”
“No,” she said, protesting his apology. “I love that you …”
He spoke over her to finish his thought. “… A load of gobbledygook,” and the word made her laugh.
“Wait, sorry,” she said quickly. “I’m not laughing at you. I’m not, seriously. Just, ‘gobbledygook’? What even is that?” She started laughing harder, her hand lifting to her mouth. When she met Matt’s eyes, his were full of mirth and he joined in on the laughter, shaking his head at himself.
Jules laughed freely, long and hard, aware at some point that Matt’s laughter had died down and he was just watching her, an enchanted spectator of her amusement. “Yeah, yeah …” he said after a while. “Make fun of the Aussie.”
When her laughter subsided, she reached for his hand. “No, you are perfect.”
He started to brush off the compliment, but with Jules now knowing
