While Rebecca unpacked the picnic lunch they’d brought with them, Seb made a camp fire and prepared a damper.
‘Mum, can we camp here tonight?’ Sarah asked eagerly, chomping on her sandwich and watching the fire crackle.
‘I don’t think so,’ Rebecca said, trying to suppress a shudder at the thought of sleeping out, now that it was getting cooler in the evenings and early morning.
‘But we’ve never been camping,’ Sarah huffed, her little face crinkled into one big frown.
Seb gave a rather incredulous chuckle. ‘You’ve never taken them camping?’
Rebecca looked up, immediately on guard. ‘Well, I’ve never liked it and their father wasn’t exactly the outdoors type.’
‘They have to go camping. It’s just not right that a kid doesn’t get to sleep outside in a tent at least once in their lives.’
Seeing the way her children’s eyes lit up, she knew – thanks to Mr Big Mouth – she was never going to hear the end of it now. ‘We’ll see.’
‘Aw,’ Sarah drawled irritably. ‘When she says that, it always means no.’
‘It means we’ll see,’ Rebecca repeated, eyeing her youngest firmly. Sarah refused to back down.
‘You said that about getting a horse, too, remember?’ she pointed out.
‘You did, Mum,’ Natalie added with an apologetic grimace.
Great! Now the kids are even ganging up on me. Rebecca looked at Seb, who was quietly eating and obviously enjoying the entertainment. ‘Don’t look so smug. If there’s any camping, you’re going to be there too – or maybe, you can just take them on your own,’ she threatened, receiving a small measure of satisfaction when the grin vanished from his face at the thought of dealing with two children all by himself.
‘Hey, I think the damper’s ready,’ he said quickly, diverting the girls’ attention and saving himself from further volunteering duties.
They finished off their lunch with damper, strawberry jam and cream – a perfect ending. With full tummies and the warm sun on their backs, they lounged around to let their lunch settle, although, too soon, the girls began to get antsy, ready for some more action.
‘Can we climb the trees for a while, Mum?’ Natalie asked as she pulled a dry T-shirt over her head and shook out her wet swimmers.
‘See?’ Rebecca said in a mock-haughty tone for Seb’s benefit. ‘My kids are not completely deprived of outdoor experiences. They like to climb trees.’ She nodded to seal the argument, before turning back to her children. ‘Sure you can.’ Ha! See? I don’t always wrap my kids up in cotton wool, Mr Hard-arse Drill Sergeant! But when she heard his next words, she suddenly wished she could call back her permission.
‘There’s some big ones just over there,’ Seb helpfully pointed out, deliberately avoiding Bec’s small frown of concern and leading them off towards the big fig trees further back from the river bank.
He’d forgotten how much fun a simple walk through the bush could be. Every tree, every spot, held a memory from a time so far removed from his present-day life that it felt as though it belonged to someone else. For the first time in ages, he thought of Marty and he didn’t feel the clench of dread in his gut that usually followed.
‘Mum, there’s an old cubby house up there,’ Sarah yelled, bounding about her mother’s heels like an excited puppy.
‘Who do you think built it?’ Natalie whispered as she tilted her head backwards to look up at the remains of a platform.
‘I did,’ Seb told them. ‘Well, me and Mar– a friend of mine when we were kids,’ he amended smoothly.
‘Really?’ Natalie asked, her big dark eyes looking up at him in awe.
‘Yep.’ He couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face at the wide-eyed look, and when he felt his guard waver, he knew he was in serious trouble. ‘You wanna climb up?’
‘Ah, I don’t know if that’s such a good idea. It might fall apart – it looks kind of … old,’ Bec said doubtfully.
‘I wasn’t going to send them straight up there. I’ll go up and test it out and then you guys can come up if it’s safe, okay?’ he said, already reaching up to take hold of the ladder.
‘Seb, you shouldn’t be doing that yet; you’re still healing,’ Bec warned him.
Flashing a grin, he shook off her concern and heaved himself up into the fork of the tree. He reached the platform and poked his head up through the opening. It was strange – he remembered this tree being a lot higher. He and Marty had felt like rulers of the universe up here – untouchable. He shook his head as he scanned the structure. Man, those were the days.
‘Is it all right, Seb?’ a small voice called impatiently from below, bringing him back him from his reminiscing.
‘Hang on, wait till I come down and I’ll help you up.’
After a few minutes of reaching out and guiding the two girls up onto the platform, he turned and reached for Bec’s hand, lifting an eyebrow in silent challenge as she eyed him doubtfully. For a minute he thought she might refuse, but then, hesitantly, she placed her small hand in his larger one and allowed him to help her up.
His gaze dropped to the length of exposed tanned thigh that her modest white denim shorts revealed, and felt a surge of awareness run through him. He could picture the lean, supple body she’d had as a teenager and could remember how it drove him to distraction back then, but looking at her now, he suddenly realised how much better a woman’s body got with age. Her curves were rounder; she didn’t have the streamlined agility of a teenager, but the gentle, sexy, fuller-in-all-the-right-places figure of a woman.
He dropped his hands to her waist as she came level with him at the fork in the trunk. The space wasn’t wide enough for two adult bodies and the position pressed them firmly against each other. He watched her struggle to keep a neutral expression in place as he deliberately held her for longer than necessary.
‘Oops. I guess there’s not enough room up there for all of us at the same time.’
A flash of annoyance crossed her face, before her gaze finally met his. ‘Then why did you pull me up here?’
A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as he tightened the grip on her waist, enjoying the gentle curves beneath his hands and her softness against his body. ‘What?’ He shrugged innocently. ‘I thought you’d want to be close to the girls.’
‘And yet it appears that it’s not the girls I’m close to.’ Her observation would have held more bite if he hadn’t detected the slight tremor beneath it.
He saw her gaze shift slightly to his left, just above his shoulder, and her eyes softened. He knew what she was looking at. It had caught him off-guard just a few minutes before, on his way back down the tree. ‘Do you remember when I carved it?’
Bec gave a jerky nod, and blinked rapidly.
Their initials scratched in the smooth bark of the tree had been his pledge. A grand gesture of an adolescent’s undying love. He would have scoffed at the naivety of the action, except that as he’d let his own gaze wander over the jagged lines of their names, his heart almost exploded against his rib cage and he couldn’t dismiss it in as cavalier a fashion as he’d have liked. She could feel the steel of the muscle under his warm skin where her hands rested on his forearms in order to keep her delicate balance in the tree.
He was so different to the boy she’d once been so close to. This was a man, and not just any man – a man who’d been in battle and who had stared death in the face more times than she could ever imagine. And yet, looking deeply into his eyes, she’d found the boy she once knew.
The happy burble of the creek as it ran over the white gravel nearby faded away, and the birds stopped singing – there was nothing but Seb surrounding her. Her body ceased to care what year it was, what day, moulding itself to his and adapting to the new lines and ridges of his body.
By the gentle softening of his eyes. she knew that he, too, had left the here and now. Gone was the hard, cynical glint she’d come to expect and in its place was a reflection of her own longing, her own need – her own hunger. She could feel the warmth of his breath against her lips and her eyes fluttered closed as she waited for that first electrifying contact she knew was about to come –
‘Mum, are you coming up here, or what?’
Rebecca’s eyes flew open and she stiffened against the flood of embarrassment that washed over her. What was she doing? Her kids were three feet above her, on a bloody timber platform! They could have fallen off the edge and killed themselves while she practically made out with the man who’d walked away from her without a backwards glance twenty-odd years ago. What kind of mother was she?
‘Easy,’ Seb warned gently, his arms tightening around her as she upset their balance in the fork of the tree.
Yes! Far too easy, she thought bitterly. ‘Girls, don’t move – just stay still. I’m coming up to help you get back down. It’s time we were getting home.’
Twisting to make her way up to the next branch, she heard Seb chuckle. But her efforts to find a foothold only managed to push her backside harder against his taut midriff, and she smirked when Seb let out a surprised grunt behind her at the abrupt contact. Yeah, that wiped the cocky smile from your face, didn’t it, buddy?
Heaving herself up, she was reaching above her head for the next branch when she felt his warm hands slip from her waist to her hips, trying to steady her. Distracted by the movement, her foot slipped and she slid down the trunk to land in front of him – leaving behind a large portion of the skin from her shins on the ungainly descent.
A long string of swearing flooded out under her breath, her accusing gaze flying to meet his as his big frame begin to shake silently.
‘I thought I’d heard most of the ways you could use that word until now. You’d make a good platoon sergeant, with that mix of profanity,’ he said.
‘I hate climbing trees,’ she snarled.
Wisely, he clamped his mouth shut and swung back to the ground, reaching up to help her down. ‘I’ll go back up for the girls. There’s a first-aid box in the back of the car, won’t be a tick.’ He began climbing before she could argue. Her stinging grazes reminded her they needed attention and she made her way carefully to the ground.
Within minutes, her two excited children were clambering over each other to be the first to tell her all about the fort and how high it was, and how far they could see.
‘Mum, can we come back again? Please?’
Saved from answering – and from putting Seb in an awkward position – she began to dig through the first-aid box for some antiseptic cream.
Warm hands took the kit from her and gently pushed her back to sit on the edge of the four-wheel drive’s open tailgate as Seb took over patching her up. ‘You’ve picked up a few splinters – some of them look deep. I’ll take care of them back up at the house.’ He applied the antiseptic and covered the deepest grazes with a gauze patch and tape.
‘Are you a nurse like Mum?’ Sarah asked, her head tilted to the side as she watched his calm, practised movements.
‘No, but I know a bit about first aid.’
‘Why?’
‘Because sometimes where I go, there aren’t any doctors or hospitals close enough to get to if we get hurt. So everyone needs to know how to take care of each other.’
‘Have you ever been hurt?’
Rebecca’s gaze went from her daughter’s awestruck face to Seb’s carefully neutral one. It was strange seeing him relate to her daughters.
‘A few times.’
‘Do you have any scars? I fell over in our driveway when I was three and I have a scar on my knee – see?’ Sarah bent down and pointed to her small knee, looking up at Seb expectantly.
She saw Seb hide his smile as he crouched down to inspect the tiny white scar. ‘Wow, that’s a beauty. No, I don’t have any as impressive as that.’
‘Mum said I was really brave. I had to have three stitches, didn’t I, Mum?’
‘You must have been brave. Stitches are nasty.’
From her previous examinations, Bec knew he had a lot of scars – some that looked suspiciously like bullet wounds – and there were places where she’d detected skin grafts that had covered the more serious wounds. She met his eyes and they shared a small smile. He clearly didn’t want to freak her children out with his multitude of old wounds. His thoughtfulness touched her, but secretly she knew her children would find it fascinating – kids were morbidly entranced by stuff like that.
After packing up the first-aid kit, Seb scooted them all into the car and they headed back to the house.
His father had afternoon tea ready and the girls eagerly began filling him in on their adventures. Rebecca felt as though she’d done nothing but eat all day.
‘While Dad feeds the kids more chocolate biscuits, why don’t we go and dig out those splinters?’
Protest though she tried, Seb was adamant she was going to have them taken out, so unless she wanted to throw a tantrum in front of her two impressionable children and make a complete idiot of herself, she had little option but to follow him meekly back into the house.
He seated her on the lounge, positioned a small footrest beside her knee and began to extract the surprisingly long pieces of timber imbedded beneath her skin. His touch was gentle and even though it stung like blazes, she gritted her teeth and bore it without protest.
‘You’re very good with kids.’
‘For an “army jerk”, huh?’ He grinned without taking his eyes from the task.
‘For a single guy with no kids of his own, I was thinking.’
‘I like kids. A fair bit of our work involves humanitarian operations. We deal with underprivileged kids in small villages. I like being around them.’
‘You’re one big contradiction, you know that?’ she said, bracing herself for him to dig for a particularly deep splinter.
‘How?’
‘You’re trained to kill. You push yourself beyond what’s considered humanly possible, and then you turn around and provide medical care for little kids. That’s kinda going from one extreme to the other.’
He shrugged. ‘I always walk away from helping kids with my faith in humanity restored. They tell things as it is and even in some of the scariest hellholes on the planet, kids are basically all the same. Given the chance, they’ll run and laugh and throw a ball. It helps to balance out the crappy things we have to do sometimes.’
Rebecca stared at the man in front of her and felt her throat close up. As though her silence alerted him to a shift in the atmosphere, he looked into her eyes and she felt a tremor run through her body at the intensity of his expression. She knew all she needed to do was lean forwards and he’d meet her halfway; she could see it in his eyes, the same blaze of awareness he’d be able to read in hers.
It took a disturbing amount of willpower to lower her gaze and ease away from him. He smelt so good, and the heat she could feel radiating from him tantalised her senses and clouded her better judgement, but she managed to grab her fleeing good sense by the hair and drag the potentially volatile situation to a halt. She wasn’t looking for a relationship with Seb Taylor. Not with any man, but especially not Seb Taylor.
It was somewhat unsettling to realise that she hadn’t learnt her lesson the first time around. Her hormones were obviously suffering some kind of memory loss if they were contemplating going down that particular track again.
‘Thanks … for this.’ She waved her hand over her shin and the first aid kit spread on the floor by his knee. ‘And for today. The kids have had a ball.’
Even though she’d put some distance between them, a quick glance at his face told her that he’d been all too aware of how close they’d just come to resparking a far from burnt-out ember. Those hazel eyes were watching her, assessing her and weighing up what he was going to do about it.
‘You’re welcome.’ His hand came to rest on her knee, and Rebecca could feel the warmth off his touch through to the bone. God help me, I’m only human, she thought with an urgency that bordered on desperate.
He’s only here until he recuperates … then he’ll leave again. The small voice inside was barely a whisper, but she heard it over the rush of conflicting emotions, and it was enough to slap her back to reality.
He was going to leave.
Again.
‘I better get the girls home, they’ve had a long day.’
For a minute she thought he wasn’t going to let her get to her feet, but slowly he eased away a fraction. Without waiting for him to move away completely, she slipped past and made a beeline for the sound of voices outside, where she would be safe from making some kind of horrendous mistake.
Again.
Despite the turmoil raging inside her, Rebecca was able to smile at the scene she found on the side verandah. Her children sat either side of Angus, Sarah on a big chair, legs swinging back and forth as she chatted about goodness only knew what, and Seb’s father giving her his complete attention. Natalie munched contentedly on a biscuit and let her younger sister hold court.
Her announcement that it was time to go was followed by a loud chorus of protests – not all of them from her children.
Grinning at Angus, Rebecca shook her head. ‘Surely you need a break from all this chatter by now?’
‘Nonsense, I’m just finding out all about a magical unicorn named Trudy.’
Rebecca sent him a knowing smile; if her youngest child didn’t end up having some kind of career in writing, she’d be very surprised. The child came up with more stories than she could possibly keep up with. Each day there was a new chapter in her story of Trudy, the Magical Unicorn.
‘Well, we’ll just have to save the rest for next time. I need to get home. We’ve been gone all day.’
As they gathered together shoes, coats and belongings, Rebecca thanked Angus and kissed his cheek gently. Stepping away, she glanced up to see Seb watching from the doorway, a strange look crossing his face at her farewell, and she averted her gaze quickly. His expression had seemed far too much like regret, and right now, when she felt so vulnerable, acknowledging it was only asking for trouble.
Walking out to the car with them, Seb held open her door while she slid into the driver’s seat and fastened her seatbelt.
‘Thanks again for having us. The kids had a ball.’ Her eyes strayed to the rear-view mirror to check on the two faces looking weary from their big day, and she smiled.
‘What about their mother?’ he asked quietly.
‘I had a lovely time as well. Thank you.’
He grinned, his gaze probing at her own like a physical touch. ‘I’ll call and check on your wound,’ he said and she knew he was taking delight in being able to throw her words back at her.
‘I think I’ll survive,’ she said dryly.
‘Humour me. I’ll call you tomorrow.’ He closed the door on any further protests. He lifted a hand and waved, taking a step away as she turned the key in the ignition and reversed her car.
It was a quiet trip home, and when Rebecca pulled up in her driveway, she realised with a start that she’d been so caught up in her own thoughts that she hadn’t noticed both girls had fallen asleep.
True to his word, Seb called the next day and asked about her shin.
‘I think I’m going to make it. It was touch and go there for a while, but things are looking better today.’
He ignored her sarcasm and went on to invite her and the kids for a drive to Nambucca, to take a walk along the famous V-Wall, a long break wall of massive square-cut blocks of concrete lining the walkway that followed the river out to where it ran into the ocean. The bar that was created at the entrance was a dangerous rip that often claimed the lives of those foolish enough to try to cross it in small boats or in bad weather.
She hesitated before accepting. Was it really a good idea? She was uncomfortably aware that they were playing with fire here. After yesterday, he’d have realised she wasn’t as immune to him as she’d tried to make herself believe.
She knew from the notes in his file he’d be returning to where he was based in Western Australia upon completion of his recovery. The sensible thing would be to say no, and just stay away from the man until he was safely back in Perth, far away from temptation.
‘Sure. That would be nice,’ she heard herself say. It seemed some habits were hard to break – like taking notice of that little sensible voice inside her head, for instance.
When they arrived, the sun was out and it was a beautiful day, despite the cool weather. The roar of the ocean always managed to awe and inspire her. It was frighteningly picturesque; there was simply no way you could ignore its power, and as they walked along the wall, she watched the breakers crash against the rocks below and shuddered at the thought of being out there in it. The sun felt warm and heavy on her shoulders and she breathed deeply, filling her lungs with the salty tang of ocean. The girls ran ahead, stopping to look at the drawings and paintings on the rocks: legal graffiti, a way for tourists and locals to leave their mark on the place.
On the way back, Seb was quiet as they walked, holding out a hand to help her down the track that led from the sea wall to the small beach. They sat down on the cold sand as the girls ran along the tide mark, chasing the waves in and out; their squeals of delight carrying on the wind among the hungry cries of seagulls.
‘A few months ago, I wouldn’t have imagined this is how I’d be spending an afternoon,’ he said, leaning back on one elbow.
Rebecca took her eyes from the girls for a moment to look down at him. ‘Probably not doing your tough-guy image any good,’ she agreed.
‘I can’t help but get the feeling you have something against my career.’
Rebecca turned back to her children once more as she considered his observation. ‘I don’t have anything against your job. I just think it’s odd that Sunday walks along the beach and picnics by the creek seem to be how you’re happy spending your time here.’
‘What else am I going to do? I’m hardly up for a spot of abseiling or running a marathon at the moment.’
He had a point. His injuries did limit what he could do, despite the fact that he was healing at an impressive speed. No, that wasn’t what she’d been referring to; it was the way that all this domestic bliss seemed to fit him so well. It was becoming far too easy to picture him like this, when she knew that all this was only temporary.
‘I’ve never really had the opportunity to relax like this before.’
She glanced over and saw that his gaze was on the girls as they drew pictures in the sand with a long stick they’d found on the beach.
‘It’s nice.’
‘But it’s not something you’ll be doing once you return to your unit,’ she said matter-of-factly.
She felt him watching her as she scooped the white, powder-soft sand into her hands, letting it slowly trickle out again.
‘Is that why you’ve been giving me the cold shoulder today?’
‘I haven’t been giving you the cold shoulder.’ She frowned a little at his observation.
‘Seems to me something’s spooked you, and we both know what it was, don’t we?’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ she said dismissively, dusting her hands and wrapping them tightly around her knees as she drew them up in front of her.
‘There’s still something there, isn’t there, Bec?’ he said softly.
Rebecca shut her eyes briefly and fought to get her pulse back under control. She wasn’t ready to deal with this yet. Maybe sometime, in say, oh, the next millennium, she might be, but one glance at his set jaw and she knew he wasn’t going to let her avoid his question.
‘Well, that’d be rather pointless, wouldn’t it? It’s not as though there’s anywhere for it to go,’ she muttered.
When he didn’t comment, she forced herself to look at him. Even though he wore a shuttered expression that hid what he was thinking, his silence gave him away. The fact that he hadn’t discounted the idea and he wasn’t agreeing that the whole notion was completely ridiculous surprised her enormously. If she were brave enough, she would ask him what he was thinking, but somehow she had a feeling he wasn’t thinking any more clearly than she was right now – and further conversation was definitely not going to be helpful to her peace of mind.
A few minutes later, the girls came back, saving them from having to discuss the subject further and it was decided – despite the cooler weather – that ice-creams were definitely needed to complete the day.
Seb declined to stay for dinner as he dropped them back at her house and she breathed a sigh of relief, deciding that, on this occasion, ignoring a problem was the best course of action for the time being. Surely it would work itself out and go away … eventually.