Chapter Twenty-seven
Declan stills, his other hand tightening at my waist. Something flares in his eyes, but he doesn’t say anything.
‘I mean, obviously, we couldn’t pause everything,’ I say quickly. ‘Given that I’ll still have to sell books and you’ll have to stand terrified in front of large crowds of people. But maybe we could . . . not fight with each other. In a completely uncomplicated way.’
Even as I’m speaking, there’s a tiny part of me that suspects that it’s a terrible, terrible idea.
But I’m not ready to step back under the tarp yet.
In a week, I’ll go back to reality, and Declan will go back to his complicated life, but what if we stretched the moment just a bit longer?
Maybe Wilderness Clarrie isn’t about finding myself in the bush.
Maybe it’s more about a break from the real world, to give me perspective when I get back.
We can spend the next week together, and then we can go our separate ways.
I can do this without getting emotionally involved.
I didn’t even like this man two weeks ago.
Declan clears his throat. ‘You want to . . . not fight with each other this week?’ he says.
‘Right,’ I say, swallowing. ‘I don’t want anything beyond this week,’ I promise. ‘We go home, we go back to our lives and maybe one day you come in to sign books and I smile at you pleasantly. But I just . . . I want to breathe, for a little bit. To maybe find a part of myself by not looking.’
‘That’s not really how finding things works,’ says Declan.
‘It definitely is,’ I say. ‘I wasn’t looking for my shop keys and they just turned up.’
Declan barks out a laugh, and the sound of his deep chuckle is so unexpected that my breath sticks in my throat. Then he hesitates, and my stomach twists.
‘To be clear, I am aware that I would be an idiot to say no,’ he says, holding my eyes. ‘But I’m still not sure if it’s fair to you.’
Frustration gathers in my chest, in my head, and I’m so damn tired of not getting to choose.
‘And who decides what’s fair to me? You? Am I not allowed to make a decision about what I want?’
The words pour out of me, because arguing someone into .
. . I don’t even know what – a book-tour fling?
– is obviously the most effective solution.
Declan pauses, but he doesn’t look away from me.
The bark of the tree is rough against my back, and there’s an internal part of me that is squirming with discomfort, but I don’t take the offer back.
‘If you need to say no, I will respect that,’ I tell him. ‘And I will try my best not to make it awkward. But don’t say no for me.’ Something opens inside my chest at the words, a freedom that I haven’t felt in a long time. ‘I want this, Declan. It’s okay if you don’t.’
Declan studies me for another minute. Then he closes his eyes, and I’m pretty sure he mutters something under his breath, but there’s one word that is clear.
‘Yes.’
‘Sorry, what?’ I say.
‘You know what I said,’ he says, opening his eyes again. ‘I would really like to . . . not fight with you for a week.’
‘To be fair, you start most of them,’ I say, nerves tingling in the bottom of my stomach and through my chest.
Silence falls between us again, and I honestly didn’t even think about what pausing everything else for a week might look like, but I can hear my heart beating in my ears. What happens next? I lick my still swollen lips and Declan’s eyes darken. He leans forward.
‘So, for the next week I can kiss you any time I want?’ he asks, the first to break the silence for once.
‘What is this, Sweet Home Alabama ?’ I say, and when his lips touch mine again I feel his laugh against my lips, and the metaphoric freaking rain on my face.
It’s after lunch by the time we make it to the petrol station.
We’re walking side by side, a few centimetres of space between us – not that I’m hyper aware of them or anything.
But despite having stopped to kiss more than once, holding hands again feels too .
. . intimate. Not a part of whatever the agreement is between us.
Still, it’s nice to walk together without arguing.
The small, dusty petrol station is just in sight on the horizon when Declan’s phone beeps.
He slides it out of his pocket and reads the message.
‘It’s Bri,’ he says, clicking to call her.
I hear the phone ringing against his ear, and at the reminder of the outside world the niggle of unease rises again in my throat.
But, even as I’m trying to think of all the questions that I probably should be asking myself, Declan reaches down with his free hand, absentmindedly folding his fingers between mine, and my heart stops. It’s just a week, Clarrie.
‘Hey, Bri,’ says Declan. ‘I just got your message. I’m sorry we missed the lunch meet-up. We got a puncture this morning, so we’ve been on our way to a petrol station to see if we can sort it out.’
I hear Bri gasp on the other end of the phone, and Declan pauses while he listens to her.
‘No, don’t worry about coming back. We’re almost at the petrol station now.
Yeah, we’ve been walking all morning,’ he says.
‘Clarrie’s a slow walker,’ he adds. He looks down at me and I raise my eyebrows at him and he raises one back.
And I honestly have no idea what comes over me, but I lean forward and lick the side of his neck and he coughs.
‘Sorry, Bri, I missed that,’ he says.
I smile not a little smugly as Bri speaks again.
‘No, I was just a bit distracted, because Clarrie licked me,’ Declan says into the phone.
My jaw drops open and Declan grins, a massive, all-out smile that takes over his entire face.
I let go of his hand and snatch for the phone, and he switches it to the other side.
I don’t even know what I was expecting when I suggested pausing, but it wasn’t this.
There’s a lightness in my chest, and I can feel a laugh at the back of my throat. Because of Declan Archer .
‘No, I’m serious,’ he says. ‘It was almost a bite.’
He looks back at me. ‘She doesn’t believe me,’ he says to me, letting me snatch the phone from him. ‘Bye, Bri,’ he calls.
‘Hi, Bri,’ I say, ignoring Declan.
‘Clarrie! I don’t know who that man on the phone was, but it wasn’t Declan Archer,’ says Bri.
There’s a male voice in the background, and Bri must turn away from the phone slightly because her voice changes.
‘No, no, Jed, it was just an expression. I mean it was Declan, but he sounded different. We don’t need to go back and get Clarrie,’ she says – I’m assuming to Jed.
Then her voice moves closer to the receiver.
‘Actually, do we need to come back and get you? Declan said no, but he also sounded like he might’ve had heatstroke or something. ’
It makes me snort, and Declan just raises an eyebrow again.
‘No, we’re fine,’ I tell her. ‘Hopefully we’ll get the tyre sorted and we’ll see you later today.’
‘No rush!’ says Bri brightly. ‘Just call us if you need us. We’re happy to come back.’ Then she pauses. ‘Jed says to tell Declan if he sees an orange-bellied parrot to make sure he stops and takes photos.’
‘Thanks, Bri,’ I tell her. ‘We will.’
I disconnect the call and turn back to Declan.
‘She didn’t believe me, did she?’ he says.
‘She’s worried you might have heatstroke,’ I tell him. ‘And Jed said to take a picture of an orange-bellied parrot if we see one.’
‘As if we’d see an orange-bellied parrot and not take a picture,’ mutters Declan, and it’s me who reaches out to take his hand this time.
Thankfully, the petrol station has spare tyres. It also has a friendly mechanic named Merry, who offers to drive us back to our car, and then changes the tyre for us more quickly than I even knew was possible before wishing us a happy Wednesday.
At one point Declan turns round to meet my eyes, and there’s so much light in them that I swallow. One week, Clarrie.
Then Merry is gone with a beep and a wave, and Declan and I are both sitting in our seats again, silent on the side of the road. And despite our earlier agreement, for the life of me, I have no idea what happens next.
‘I have never seen someone change a tyre so fast in my life,’ says Declan.
He starts the engine, but doesn’t fasten his seat belt yet. He leans forward to look out of the front windscreen at the position of the sun. He takes a breath, and when he turns to look at me it’s with hesitation on his face, like he’s about to take the last few hours back.
‘What?’ I say. ‘Are you about to confess something?’
He smiles, but it’s a distracted smile that doesn’t quite quench my apprehension.
‘Merry mentioned that today was a Wednesday,’ he says, like it means something.
‘Right.’
Declan looks out of his window again, and the car engine continues its steady, pulsing idle. ‘I know we need to be another five hours from here tomorrow, but how do you feel about a small detour? It’ll add about an hour to the trip.’
‘Because it’s a Wednesday?’ I say.
‘Because it’s a Wednesday,’ says Declan.
‘Where would the detour be to?’
‘If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise.’
‘I didn’t know it was a surprise detour.’
‘You didn’t ask,’ says Declan.
I frown, and he raises his eyebrows at me.
His face has settled, as though now that he’s announced the day of the week, he’s made whatever decision he was pondering when he looked out through the windscreen.
And, even though it was me who made the decision to let go for this week, the amount I want to say yes scares me.
‘There might be snacks,’ he says seriously.
A week, and then back to reality.
‘You should have led with that,’ I tell him. I reach over my shoulder and fasten my seat belt.
Declan grins, and clicks on his own seat belt. Then he takes out his phone.
‘I’ll just let Bri know,’ he says, typing quickly.
Then he chucks his phone into the side pocket and pulls out into the empty lane. After a few minutes, his hand snakes across the empty console to take hold of mine.
Warmth pools in my stomach, and I look out of the window, enjoying the sensation.
And maybe my heart flutters a little, but that’s fine. It’s totally fine.