Happy Mother's Day! (39 page)

‘That’s it?’ she finally asked.

Well, now, that wasn’t quite the reaction he’d been expecting. He’d thought himself indescribably brave in laying himself on the line like that.

But if she wanted more from him he wasn’t quite sure he had more to give, because even though Matt had told him to think about himself for once, he feared it would never be just about him.

What if she stayed and this thing between them never got off the ground? It would be his fault that she’d given up her dream job.

What if she stayed but was not looking for anything more than a fling and Kane became even more attached to her before she figured that out?

What if he thought he was ready for her, and found down
the track that he wasn’t as strong as he thought he was? What if his feelings for her weren’t enough?

Or, just the opposite, what if they stayed together but his need for her always outweighed her need for him. Could he live like that? He knew that Dinah had always felt that way, but she had Kane to think about. But, now he was in the same shoes, could he?

‘That’s it,’ he said, his spine stiffening. ‘It’s the best I can offer you right now.’

Oh, God. He was trying.

Siena could see that. He was making her the best offer he could. It was a really sensible offer. For any regular girl, any together girl, it was a lovely offer.

But for this girl it wasn’t enough.

She loved James. She had fallen hard for his gentleness, his tenderness and his kindness and his wish to see the best in a bad situation.

But the problem was, he was the one who had started her thinking that she deserved more in the first place.

‘You asked if I was a huffer as a kid,’ she said, biting her lip so as to stop the completely irrational feeling that she was about to cry. ‘I
still
am a huffer, James. I’ve lived my own life for so long I am set in my ways. I’m stubborn. I’m a pain in the butt. And, just like Rick has said, I’m a born nomad. So thank you for your really sweet offer. But I’m afraid that it’s only the second best offer I’ve had this weekend.’

She was lying through her teeth. She knew it the minute the words left her mouth. His offer was so tempting it terrified her. She was so interested she could feel a definite wobble beginning in the region of her lower lip, especially when faced with the expression on James’s face. With every word she said
his face closed down, all semblance of the smile evaporating until she wondered if she had only ever imagined it.

James was ready to call her bluff, to blurt out that he didn’t believe a word she was saying. The tears brimming in her eyes, the passion with which she had kissed him, even his own heart told him she was lying.

But there was no single logical reason he could think of why she would.

‘Right,’ he said, backing away. He glanced at his watch, not even seeing the face. ‘It’s late, so I should head back.’

He’d said what he’d come to say. He had bared his feelings for her as much as a simple cabinet maker without all that much experience in these matters could.

He’d brought her flowers, he’d thrown stones against her window, he’d told her that he’d thought of little but her since they’d met, he’d even felt himself lose a little bit of his soul to her when they had kissed.

But she didn’t want him.

A set of car lights hit them both, bathing Siena in a beam of light that showed her breathing was heavy, she clutched his roses to her chest so tightly her knuckles had gone white, her hair was a mass of curls and her lips were swollen from his kiss.

For a brief second his instincts told him that she loved him right back, but for some crazy reason was sending him away anyway. It took all of James’s strength not to haul her over his shoulder and drag her back to his place so he could spend the night showing her why she was wrong and he was right.

But then a fat drop of rain landed on the back of his neck. Followed by another and another. The storm had arrived and he had about twenty seconds to get back to the car before he would be drenched.

He took another step away and it felt as if he’d walked a mile. ‘Goodnight, Siena.’

He waited for her to give him something, to tell him why she had told Kane he was the greatest man she had known, to reciprocate his feelings, to grab him by the shirt-front with as much passion as she had only moments before.

But her lips did not move, even to tell him goodbye.

And, with that, he turned and walked away, his eyes blurred by more than the sudden driving rain.

Siena’s throat was clogged with fear and love and confusion and self-recrimination as she watched James run through the belting rain, get into his car and drive away.

She’d let him go. She’d actually been strong enough to let him go.

Well, she wasn’t going to get a minute of sleep that night so at least she had hours ahead of her to beat herself up about it.

The sudden tropical shower died enough for her to make a quick dash for the house. She kept running, up the stairs and into her room, where she threw herself on to her lumpy bed.

Her poor flowers looked even worse for wear than when he had given them to her. More had lost their petals and some had lost their heads completely. She didn’t blame them. She felt as though she’d lost hers days ago.

As she twirled them about she noticed there was a card attached. Curiosity got the better of her, as always, and she opened it to find a copy of the photo that had been taken of them on the Skyrail when they had smiled at the frog. He must have bought it on the sly when she’d been browsing in the gift shop for a present for the twins.

As she stared into the photo, in its silly rainforest-inspired cardboard frame, two single tears spilled from her misty eyes and down her hot cheeks.

In the photo she was leaning into James, smiling wider than she had ever known herself to smile. And James only had eyes for her.

O
NE
o’clock Saturday afternoon, Siena sat by Max’s pool in the same seat in which she had sat merely twenty-four hours before.

After sleeping not a wink the night before as she had stayed up finding a way through the fog to see what she really wanted her future to entail, the only thing keeping her awake was nervous tension.

‘So?’ Max said, watching her over the top of a Martini. ‘What will it be, Siena? Do you plan to continue rising to the top in taking the Rome position or are you going to be like the majority of my girls and let real life get in the way of a good thing?’

‘Neither, Max,’ Siena said, her voice sounding a heck of a lot stronger than she felt. She was about to take the biggest gamble of her life and she had no idea if she could pull it off.

But all the sacrifices she had ever made of her time, and her loyalty to the company, and most importantly the reward at the end, would make taking the biggest chance of her life worth it.

‘Max, I have an offer to make you I think you can’t refuse.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘I thought my remuneration package for the Rome gig was fairly unbeatable.’

‘And it was. But it’s not the package that concerns me. I want … I need to be here. Not Rome. I need to stay in Cairns.’

Max watched her over the rim of his glass before he sighed and ran a ringed hand across his temple. ‘Oh, Lord, if you tell me you’ve met a boy I’ll drown myself in my Martini right now.’

‘I wouldn’t want you to do that, Max. But I’m afraid I have met a boy.’

Max rolled his eyes. ‘If only one could hire eunuchs with the talent you girls have. But alas. It seems that, having a mostly female workforce, I will continue to lose my favourite girls to family.’

‘But that’s just my point. You don’t have to lose me, Max. I just think you could use me in a way that suits both of us.’ She pulled a piece of paper out of her handbag with a shaking hand. ‘May I?’

He waved a flamboyant hand her way, allowing her to continue.

It would mean less pay, it would mean more hours, and it would mean that never again would she have to push a ridiculously heavy drinks trolley down an aeroplane aisle while wearing heels at thirty thousand feet.

It meant that she would have to find herself a permanent base in Cairns instead of a tiny serviced apartment in Melbourne that merely served as somewhere to store the hoards of clothes she was partial to collecting on her European stopovers.

But that was fine with her. Because it meant that she could also make James a counter offer to the one he had made the night before, which she hoped would be too good for him to refuse as well.

It was time to stop running. And, as she had sat watching the sun rise from Rick’s back porch that morning, she realised that she already had.

She set out to tell Max what her new job would entail, with
all the confidence in the world that he would then blithely fire her on the spot for daring to presume that she knew more about his business than he did.

James sat in his studio, looking out over the large square garden of his suburban home.

It felt too quiet. It was Saturday yet Kane wasn’t home to help him out in his workshop as he usually did. Cate and Dave had called that morning to ask if Kane wanted to come with them and their kids to the Cairns lagoon for the day. And without hesitation his shy, quiet son had actually smiled and said, ‘Can I?’

He stared at his mobile phone, which sat silent and still on his workbench.

Dust fluttered slowly through a ray of sunlight.

Siena ought to have finished with Max ages ago. In the last hour he had see-sawed through moments in which, despite her insistence that she didn’t want to stay for him, he was hopeful she had told her boss to shove the Rome job, and others where he was just as sure she had done as she had always intended and taken the job and run.

Either way, after she had let him leave without saying a word the night before, he was all but certain he was not on the list of those she would be calling with the news.

But, even after the way they had left things, he
needed
to know.

He loved her. Having lived a night with the thought that he might never see her again, he knew that he loved her more now than ever. His love for her filled him up, brought him pleasure and pain, and he wouldn’t have traded either for the world. And because he loved her he wanted her to be happy. Sure, he would prefer her to be happy with him, but if she had to leave.

He slammed a fist against his workbench. Damn it! If only he’d said things differently the night before. Told her more of his feelings. Kissed her longer. Refused to let her go.

Never before had he felt that something so important was so far out of his control. His whole life had been about control—controlling his feelings, his actions, his wife, his son’s temperament. But this, the most important moment in his life to date, was not his to decide.

Feeling uninspired to work, as if his heavy limbs couldn’t be trusted to construct even the most basic design, he instead opened his blog.

To say goodbye? To post a final entry? It felt like the right time to say enough was enough.

Even though he had learnt a hell of a lot more than he bargained for in taking on Siena Capuletti and her roller coaster ride of a change of scene, he had to be thankful that she had helped him complete that important stage of his life.

From now on he knew he had friends who would happily talk through his concerns. Matt. Mandy. Dave and Cate. His blog had served its purpose but it no longer had a place in his life.

His fingers paused over the keyboard as he searched for a way to say goodbye. But, before he typed a word, he noticed that some time that morning someone had left a comment against his most recent post.

He’d never had a comment before. That was probably one of the main reasons why he had continued with it for so long, because he’d thought nobody had been paying it any attention.

His hand hovered over the mouse, but curiosity won in the end and he clicked on the comment box. And then his throat closed over completely as he read the words on the page.

James let loose a nice loud helpful swear word.

Clinging to the mouse for dear life, he took a deep breath and read the whole message again, just to make sure he wasn’t dreaming.

When he finally believed every word to be true, he swore even louder and grabbed for the phone, his hands shaking as directory enquiries put him through to Rick’s Body Shop.

‘Rick speaking.’

‘Rick, it’s James Dillon. Is Siena there?’

‘No, mate. That crazy-looking driver of hers picked her up to take her to the airport about half an hour ago. She still has to work that flight back to Melbourne. But I thought you—’

James hung up and was out of his chair, into the kitchen, grabbing his car keys and pulling a T-shirt over his bare chest and running down the front path faster than he had ever run before.

Slow Saturday drivers threatened to block his every turn, but somehow gaps in the traffic opened up before him every time he needed them to. Lights turned green upon his insistence. The fates were giving him one last chance to get this right.

As he neared the airport a big baby-blue poster advertising
MaxAir caught his attention. And he almost crashed the car as Siena’s beautiful smiling face looked back at him.

He slowed, rubbed his eyes, saw that it was really her. She was dressed as a flight attendant in one of those blue suits and matching Jackie O hats, her glorious curls pulled back off her face into a severe bun, a wide smile on her lovely face, her eyes sparkling for all the world to see. Her stunning ocean-green eyes, her fine cheekbones, her heart-shaped face, her—

The car behind him beeped its horn and he pulled away. The poster could wait. If the fates continued to conspire in his favour the real thing could be at the end of the line.

The real thing.

God, he had so much to tell her and this time he was going to tell her right.

He’d left the night before thinking he’d said all he had gone to her to say. But after reading her love letter to him, for that was what it had been, he knew that he’d been holding back.

Damn it! He could have blown it all.

If she hadn’t have been brave enough, and sensitive enough, to see through the superficial things like roses and throwing pebbles against her window, and tenuous offers to
give it a go and see what happened
he could have lost her.

He sailed over a speed hump as he drove into the short-term car park, found a spot and landed on the pavement running, thankful that he had remote central locking or he would have left the damn car to its own devices.

Pushing past tourists with baggage trolleys and families slowly wandering into the terminal to pick up loved ones, he rushed along the length of the outdoor car park.

He wanted to be with this woman for the rest of his life. He loved her stubbornness and the fact that she was hard
work and that she made Kane laugh and made him smile. He loved the fact that she was sure, and that their courtship had weathered storms a-plenty and come out the other side stronger. And he loved the fact that she loved him right on back. That part he loved most of all.

But he hadn’t told her any of that.

Instead he’d dangled a carrot and hoped for the best. And now, hours after she had written that note, she could have given up on him and taken the Rome gig and left.

Unable to wait for the electronic doors to slide slowly open, he pushed through a side door of the departure gates. Running backwards, he eyed the monitor showcasing all departing flights until he found the MaxAir flight to Melbourne.

And then he was off, ignoring the packed escalator, taking the steps two at a time and travelling down the long hallway as fast as he could without arousing the attention of airport security.

As he closed in on the departure lounge, he took in the scene around him, willing his senses to slice through the hundreds of travellers to pick up only on her familiar dark curls, the classy scent of her perfume, her soft skin and those winning wilful eyes.

Where else did he find her but sitting in a café, a half-drunk cappuccino sitting congealing at her side, as she concentrated wholeheartedly on the dozen salt packets balanced in a precarious pile before her?

He slowed to a walk, taking advantage of a few moments to watch her, just watch her being her.

Her head was cocked to one side, her dark curls tamed into a slick wavy hairdo reminiscent of a forties movie star, sexy as hell in her baby-blue MaxAir uniform, looking nothing like the robot he had accused her of being all those millennia ago, but very beautiful, and very soft, and very real.

Marring the vision of true incandescence, her stormy green eyes seemed heartbreakingly sad and he guessed that lashings of eyeliner had been used to cover up evidence of tears. Tears he had caused? Tears that made his chest feel tight with regret. Tears he hoped to never let happen again.

Siena. The woman he loved. How had it ever come to this? How he had been lucky enough to find love twice in a lifetime, he had no idea. He’d done something right by somebody to deserve such a blessing. Especially because he knew in his heart that this time it would last a lifetime.

‘Siena,’ he said, his voice thick with emotion, no longer able to hold back from going to her.

Siena looked up. And she couldn’t believe her bloodshot eyes.

‘James?’

She’d been sitting there, thinking of nothing but him, wondering if he might find her letter one day, if he ever braved his blog again after her confession that she had read it all, and then there he was. Real. There. Hers.

She rose from her seat, staring into his face—his breathing was ragged, his clothes askew, his eyes bright and vivid and warm and willing.

He stood before her dressed almost the same as he had been that first day, in an old T-shirt, soft jeans clinging to lean hips, heavy scuffed work boots, short ash-brown hair just a little ragged from running his hands across it as he always seemed to do when she was acting a little nuts, which was often enough.