‘If ever there was a moron…’ Tad lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling. He was alone. He’d thrown his jacket over a chair and kicked off his shoes. If he hadn’t opened his big mouth and gone on and on about Josh and his damned rescuer complex, he’d be in Miri’s bed and most definitely not alone.
He swore.
The hell of it was not being able to shake the sneaking suspicion that his subconscious had raised the topic on purpose. Did he want to be single all his life? No! But faced with a woman who made him think of the future — as well as sex — he’d panicked.
‘Well, you sure fixed that problem, mate.’
Miri hadn’t been able to leave the restaurant fast enough. Although the reason hadn’t been merely his choice of conversation.
His gut clenched and his fists curled as he recalled the look on her face, the expression of hurt and betrayal before the flicker of dark lashes against the soft skin of her face hid her eyes and the brave tilt of her chin rejected his words.
I don’t think you’re an emotional mess, but the real issue is, do you?
Regret ate at him, feeding his anger. Not that his observation or quietly voiced challenge was wrong, but that he’d been stupid and insensitive enough to fall into sergeant mode when he wanted to be her lover. A lover recognised and respected her strength and resilience and didn’t provoke her hostility with an ill-timed attempt at character growth.
He’d seen her vulnerability at the zoo yesterday. He knew damn well he should have gone more carefully. Been sensitive.
Instead, they’d eaten the remainder of their meal in tense silence punctuated by jerky, gunfire attempts at conversation. Neither had wanted dessert. He’d paid the bill, driven her home, and when he’d attempted to walk her to her door…
Oh yeah, that had gone well — not.
‘I’ll manage,’ she’d clipped.
And with a bad-tempered roar, he’d sent his car snarling away as the door of the apartment block closed behind her. Not his finest moment.
***
Miri paced the balcony with a mohair rug wrapped over her pyjamas. This hadn’t been how she’d expected the night to end, not in her dreams, and not given the incendiary kiss with which the evening had started.
Now Sydney’s sparkling lights looked cold and distant. Glamour without soul.
Is that what was between her and Tad? Attraction without heart?
It hadn’t felt like it. She’d thought there’d been a genuine connection beneath the sizzle of their sexual tension. His sense of humour matched hers. She liked him.
She’d thought he liked her, respected her, yet…
This isn’t Tad’s fault, ma cherie.
The small voice sounded like her gran’s.
‘It’s not mine,’ she said out loud. But she had been the one to take personally his story of his workday. For good reason! What sort of idiot talked about dysfunctional relationships on a first date?
One that thought she wasn’t dysfunctional?
Ouch. She slid lower in her chair. What was it he’d challenged her with?
I don’t think you’re an emotional mess. Do you?
Damn. Nothing like being forced to face the truth. She collapsed backwards onto a sun lounger, tucking her feet up under the blanket. Her toes were cold, her thoughts even more jaggedly frozen.
She glared at the beautiful skyline. No. She wasn’t an emotional mess. She wasn’t going to take sole blame for the debacle of the evening, but perhaps the counsellor she’d seen had been more right than she’d been willing to accept. Survivor guilt.
There’d been an element of self-sabotage in her behaviour, as if she didn’t have the right to be happy. The ambivalence had been there, hovering throughout her time with Tad, only being completely defeated when they’d kissed. Apparently lust successfully combatted everything.
Did that mean she should follow her body and not her brain?
In her heart, she knew she could trust Tad. So if she wanted a second chance with Tad, what would she have to do to win it?
***
Dawn broke, but there was no pelican to greet it. Miri made herself a cup of tea and brought it down with her, abandoning the balcony to sit on the bench and watch the harbour lighten from dark, steel grey to a pearlescent beauty. She waited for Tad.
Every footstep made her think it was he.
It had been a long, lonely night, but her gran would have been proud of her. She’d grown up. She’d faced her fears and embraced hope.
But if Tad wouldn’t even run this way…
She finished her tea and put the mug down by her feet. A few more minutes and then she’d leave. It was time to pack her bags, clean the apartment, text Selwyn with a thank you for the loan of it, and pick up the rhythm of her life.
As tragic as the hostage situation and Scott’s death had been, she’d accepted her grief and sense of failure during the night. At 3a.m. there was room only for honesty.
Tad feared becoming defined as a rescuer, but what was she? She’d taken on responsibility for a boy who she’d first met when he’d pointed a shotgun at her.
Sometimes you rescued. Sometimes you were the one who was rescued. Both took courage and trust.
Maybe the muddle she and Tad had gotten into couldn’t be resolved, although she’d try. Maybe they weren’t meant to be. Her heart hurt even as it held onto hope, but looking out across the water and feeling the energy of the city, she knew she’d survive whatever happened, as others had. There was a future waiting to be built. One which she knew she was part of. As a photographer, she framed the world in a way for people to understand and appreciate it. Her passion for life had resurfaced, even if a certain sexy sergeant mightn’t be part of it.
She hooked her feet up on the bench and hugged her knees, the coldness of dawn seeping into her muscles.
The fast, rhythmic strike of footsteps on the pavement had her turning, her pulse picking up.
Tad.
He wore a blue shirt and black shorts. Unshaven. He saw her. His steel-grey eyes locked on hers. He slowed from a run to a walk, and stopped in front of the bench. ‘Hi.’
‘Hi.’ She unfolded, letting go of her knees, her feet touching the ground.
The air ached with tension. Just being here was her statement that she was interested. It was a pretty small statement. She owed him — she owed herself — more. ‘About last night.’
He sighed, a loud whoosh of breath. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘It was hardly your fault.’ But some of her tension relaxed. ‘It forced me to think. To think differently.’
‘Me, too.’ He sat beside her on the bench, not touching, and leaned forward, elbows on knees. ‘There are a lot of divorces in the force. A lot of relationships break under the strain. I guess I hadn’t realised how much others’ disasters have affected me. I think part of me retreated into sergeant-mode, where I have some control.’
‘Life doesn’t come with guarantees.’
He turned his head, looking at her.
She smiled, wryly. ‘I had to face that last night, too. I wanted life to be fair. If you try hard enough, all should be well. But I didn’t save Scott. Nor can I guarantee what there’ll be between us. All I can decide is whether it’s worth the risk.’
‘Yeah.’ He looked back at the ground.
Her heart sunk. He didn’t think she was worth the risk.
‘Sex between us would be good.’ He shifted, angling his body to watch her reaction. ‘We’ve both known that, more or less from the start.’
She nodded. The issue was that she’d thought the attraction between them was so strong because they connected on another level besides sex. But how did you talk feelings with a guy? It wasn’t that she believed in soul mates or anything like that. Only, she’d given up lying to herself and the truth was a person rarely encountered a desire so strong that it tied you up in knots yet left you unwilling to walk away.
‘But neither of us would leave it at just sex, would we?’ he asked.
‘No.’
He smiled faintly. ‘I’d have appreciated a lie and an invitation upstairs.’
‘No, you wouldn’t.’
‘You have no idea.’ Anger roughened his voice. ‘I handled this all wrong. We got serious when we should have been playing.’
That light-hearted stage of learning about one another, laughing, flirting, dreaming — they’d rushed through it, right into real life. But there was one advantage to real life: it was genuine, something you could build on and believe in. ‘I’m going home to Bankstown.’
‘So this is goodbye?’ He had his cop face on. No expression.
She couldn’t tell if he hoped for a yes or no. ‘You…’
He bent his head and kissed her; his aim was a fraction off, but he quickly adjusted. His mouth was hard and fierce.
Her response was just as unstoppable. She kissed him frantically, pulling at his shirt, wanting more of his muscled body over her. His heat and the sweat of exercise made her think of sex.
‘Damn running shorts.’
She had no idea what he was saying. She was enjoying the feel of his chest under her hands and the way he shuddered when she rubbed over his nipples, their tight, excited nubs… ‘Oh.’ She looked down and saw his problem. She giggled and he nipped her earlobe. ‘The water would be cold.’
‘I am not jumping into Sydney Harbour.’ He drew back from her and hooked his knee up, the one furthest from her, hiding his problem from any passing joggers. ‘Just sit there and don’t be sexy.’
Another giggle escaped her. It wasn’t simply humour. It was overwhelming relief that as mixed up as they’d gotten, he was in as deep as her. ‘If you walked behind me, we could go up to the flat.’
The heat in his eyes flared. ‘You are not helping. I have to go to work.’
‘Oh.’
His gaze snagged on her pouting mouth. ‘I might have to jump in the water.’
She smiled.
Boom!
The explosion shattered the morning quiet, shockwaves faintly reaching them and alarms shrieking in the aftermath of the violence. The brilliant orange of a fireball, its heart hidden by buildings and the curve of the bay, glowed a moment against the morning.
‘Stay here.’ Tad ran.