Chapter Fifteen #2
A splash dampened her knee and she righted herself. ‘Oops.’ She brushed the spilled champagne from her jeans.
Cole grinned, taking a deep inhale as he shook his head. ‘Even better than I’d imagined.’
‘You imagined it? Kissing me?’ Technically they’d already kissed but that had only been a shabby prelude to the real thing.
‘Ever since I laid eyes on you.’
Should she admit she’d thought about it too?
Was that pushing things too far, too fast?
She’d always taken relationships slowly, been one hundred percent sure before she’d committed.
But there was something about this moment, the narcotic warmth of the summer evening, the hush of quiet birdsong through the bush, the instant giddiness the champagne seemed to be eliciting … And there was something about this man.
‘I’ve thought about you too. More than kissing.
’ The whispering of it, the intoxicating potency of the admission, the wicked brazenness of sharing her secret, almost tipped her over the edge.
If they did take this further, it wouldn’t take more than a brush of his hand over her skin to have every one of her senses erupting.
Cole cleared his throat. The bob of his Adam’s apple was captivating. ‘Maybe we should eat.’
‘Good idea.’ It wasn’t. A better idea would be to rip their clothes off and get down to business right here and now but he’d gone to so much trouble. And the anticipation would make it even better.
Crossing her ankles and squeezing her legs together as subtly as she could went some way to dampening her ‘enthusiasm’.
Cole laid out a banquet of gourmet cheeses, crackers, dips, sliced carrots and celery, crusty bread and sliced fruit alongside two sets of plates and cutlery. ‘I hope this is okay. I wasn’t sure what you liked or how hungry you would be.’
Her brain immediately gave his words a sexual slant and set off an eruption of giggles.
Cole looked up, perplexed, but then a light went on in his eyes.
This time his face turned beetroot red. ‘Oh, I meant—’
‘It’s fine.’ She rested a hand on his forearm and gave it a squeeze. ‘I know what you meant and this looks amazing. Thank you.’
‘Dig in.’
The poor guy probably thought he was out with a man-eater. And he wasn’t far wrong. She needed to rein in her sex-deprived self and concentrate on getting to know more about his life. At least for the time being.
‘How was it that you became a farrier?’ This was the first date she’d ever been on with a man who didn’t have a university degree. If anyone was going to break down that particular bias, it was him.
‘When I was at school I did some part-time work at a local riding ranch, helped out the lady who owned the place. I started helping the farrier when he came and it turned out I had a talent for it. Good with my hands,’ he quipped.
‘I really liked being out in the fresh air and working with the horses so when I finished school, I started an apprenticeship.’
‘You did your HSC?’
‘Yeah. My original plan had been to be a teacher, but the farrier work got me hooked.’
‘And you never wanted to move out of Yarrabee?’
He shook his head. ‘Never. Every time I went to Sydney I couldn’t wait to get out of the place. Too much noise. Too many people with their phone in their hands and their head up their arse.’
‘Exactly why I moved. And the cheaper house prices.’
‘Why Yarrabee?’
‘My family used to holiday close by, at Blackwattle Lake. Dad had a boat and we’d go fishing and generally laze about. I always loved coming into Yarrabee. It had this kind of old-world charm. So when I thought about moving out of the city, this was the first place I looked.’
‘And psychology? What made you want to dive into the depths of people’s minds?’
She took a sip of champagne, fortifying herself for the answer.
‘I was in Year 11 when my father died and didn’t really know what I wanted to do.
But afterwards, our whole world fell apart.
My mother refused to talk about Dad at all.
It was like he’d never existed. My sister threw herself into her dancing and was hardly ever home.
We didn’t have counselling. I pretty much stopped eating and my doctor referred me to a psychologist. He saved my life.
I wanted to help other people the way he’d helped me. ’
‘It must be tough, listening to other people’s problems all day.’ His forehead wrinkled. ‘Dealing with idiots like my brother.’
‘It can be confronting. And I don’t always get it right.
’ She hadn’t been raised to follow any particular religion but the overwhelming urge to come clean must be what Catholics felt in a confessional booth.
‘I didn’t get it right with Owen. I should never have taken on his case. I knew it could be triggering for me.’
‘Triggering?’
‘I’ve learned how to guide other people towards facing up to things in their life and their past that are causing issues for them.
But turns out I’m not so skilled at dealing with my own trauma.
In my first session with Owen, I lost the plot.
Hearing about his drug taking and joyriding took me straight back to that night.
Even though I did end up having therapy for a while after my dad died, I’ve never been able to process the knowledge that it was my fault. ’
‘But didn’t you say you were at a party? How could it have been your fault?’
‘I had my dad wrapped around my little finger from the day I was born. And I knew it. Was never afraid to use my power over him to get my own way. My mother didn’t want me to go to the party but in my most self-centred, teenage princess way, I convinced my dad to give me permission and to pick me up.
If I hadn’t, he would have been in bed, we would have had a lovely family dinner together, preparing for Christmas Day.
Instead, he and my mother fought over him being too lenient on me.
So their last words to each other were said in anger. And he never came home.’
A memory of her mother’s tortured voice as she berated a teenage Hannah for being so wilful seeped through her consciousness like slow-moving venom.
‘She married my dad’s best friend two years later and moved to Denmark. My sister went to a drama school in Perth, met a guy and didn’t come back. I don’t think either of them have ever forgiven me for Dad’s death.’
In the deepening twilight, time seemed to have slowed, the whole world reduced to this moment, wobbling on its axis.
Cole reached out and took her hand and the touch of his palm was grounding.
‘Have you forgiven yourself?’ His voice soft as velvet, his eyes searching hers.
‘No.’ She stared out into the distance to where lights were coming on in the town, twinkling like a handful of glitter tossed against a blurry abstract landscape.
The tears spilled and she let them fall.
‘I’m not sure I ever will. But I can stop pretending he never existed.
I can honour his memory.’ She turned towards the man beside her, drawn by some irresistible force she didn’t quite understand, that had no scientific basis, but was as real as flesh and blood and as strong as gravity. ‘And I can start living in the moment.’
They leaned together, their glasses abandoned, his hand cupping the back of her neck, her fingers combing through the waves of his hair. Her heart beating faster with every press of their lips.