NATE WOKE WITH AN idea fully formed in his mind the next morning. He wanted to give Elizabeth something back, something in return for her thoughtful silences and silken body and warm eyes. Something to make her smile.
He eased out of bed to find his phone and slipped outside to make a couple of calls.
Elizabeth was sitting up and blinking by the time he returned.
“No sailing today. I’ve got a surprise,” he said.
“What have you been up to?” she asked suspiciously.
“Come on. Out of bed and into the shower. We’ve got places to go, people to see.”
“Nathan. What’s going on?”
“It’s a surprise.”
“What kind of a surprise?”
She looked so adorable, with her mussed hair and faintly imperious frown. He ducked his head to kiss her before responding.
“The kind of surprise that’s a surprise.”
She was even more curious when he walked into town with her to collect her car.
He could feel her looking at him as he buckled his seat belt, knew what she was thinking. It was the first time he’d driven with her, and she had to be wondering how he’d cope.
“I’ll be fine, don’t worry,” he said.
It would have been true, too, if a car full of teenage surfers hadn’t blown through an intersection on the way out of town. Elizabeth braked sharply and they both jerked forward in their seats. The strap bit into his chest and he lifted his hands instinctively to shield his face.
“God. I’m so sorry. He came out of nowhere,” Elizabeth said.
She was pale from shock and Nate tried to find the words to reassure her but there was something in his throat and he couldn’t seem to breathe around it.
Not now. Don’t you do this to me. Don’t you dare freaking do this to me.
But his stupid, messed-up subconscious was off and running, running a highlights reel from the night of the accident. Cold adrenaline swept through him as the car pulled over to the curb. He heard the sound of a car door opening and closing. Then Elizabeth was unbuckling his seat belt and pulling him out of the car.
“Sit. Put your head between your legs,” she said, pushing him onto the grass at the side of the road.
He had no choice but to comply, sitting with his legs drawn up, his head hanging between his knees as he concentrated on slowing his breathing. In, out. In, out. After what felt like an age the shaking stopped. He opened his eyes and stared at the grass between his feet. Shit.
Shit, shit, shit, shit.
He’d organized something fun for her, then screwed it up with his bullshit. A simple drive out of town, no big deal, and he’d turned it into a three-ring circus.
The futility of what they were doing—what he’d been fooling himself they were doing—hit him. This was never going to work. He was a selfish prick for even trying to keep her by his side.
A warm hand landed in the center of his back.
“How are you doing?”
He was so frustrated, so freaking over it, he could barely stand to have her touch him. Especially when he knew how he must appear right now, hunched over on the side of the road like the basket case he was.
“I’m good,” he said between gritted teeth.
“I wish I’d got their license plate number. Horrible little oiks. I’d love to send a note to their parents. I’m sure they’d be thrilled to know their children were driving around like maniacs.”
Not quite what he’d expected her to say. But Elizabeth was always surprising him. He risked a glance at her. She was watching him, a question in her eyes.
There was no pity there. No contempt or regret or embarrassment.
It occurred to him that he was one lucky bastard to have opened the door to Elizabeth Mason just over a week ago. Possibly the luckiest bastard on the planet.
“Would this note be on monogrammed stationery?” he asked after a long silence. “I’m assuming you have some.”
“Of course. But unfortunately I didn’t bring it with me. So I’d have to make do with some from the Isle of Wight.”
“Yes. That would definitely get their attention—a stern reprimand on letterhead from the local pub.”
She smiled and gave a little shrug.
She was so damned gorgeous and sweet and funny….
She stood and dusted off the seat of her pants.
“It’s not a bad idea, you know—writing a note to their parents. You’d be surprised how many big, bad boys are still afraid of their mothers.”
He pushed himself to his feet.
“Come on. We’ll go home and you can give me some sailing pointers,” she said.
The thought of going home and disappearing inside his bubble of Elizabeth and beer and sun and silence seemed pretty good with the last of the adrenaline still making itself felt in his body.
But he’d been walking backward for so long. Retreating, retreating, retreating. No way was he going to cap the whole cowering-by-the-side-of-the-road thing by running home with his tail between his legs.
And he wanted to do this for Elizabeth.
“I’m not ready to go home yet,” he said.
Elizabeth eyed him steadily. “You can surprise me another day, you know. If that’s what it’s about.”
He gestured toward the car. “Let’s go.”
She hesitated a moment, then she walked around to the driver’s side door. Nate stepped toward the open passenger door. He kept his gaze fixed on the seat in front of him, but it was impossible to stop the tension that banded his chest and choked his throat.
But he knew he could do this. He’d done it before, after the accident. He’d allowed people to drive him around, back and forth to doctors and consultants. To Olivia’s funeral. To the office. He hadn’t liked it, but he’d done it. And he’d finally gotten used to it, eventually.
So. It would be bad when he first got in. But it would get better. It would.
He took a couple of deep belly breaths, then slid into the car. His immediate impulse was to get the hell out. It was too small, too closed in. And once the car started moving, there’d be the speed to deal with, the world rushing up at him….
He closed his hand around the seat belt clasp and pulled the belt across his chest. He clicked it in place, then gripped the fastener as tightly as he could. Just to know that he could release the belt any time he wanted.
Elizabeth put on her own belt and started the car. She signaled to pull onto the road, but didn’t make any move to shift the car in gear or release the hand brake.
“We don’t have to do this,” she said.
“Yeah, we do.”
She didn’t say anything else, simply put the car in gear, released the handbrake and pulled out onto the road. A wash of anxiety rushed through Nate’s body, the instinctive desire to escape something that terrified him. He kept breathing into his belly, the way his therapist had taught him, and slowly his heart rate slowed and the hectic, swirling chatter in his mind settled.
He loosened his grip on the seat belt, then deliberately relaxed the muscles in his shoulders. Finally he focused on the road ahead.
“We need to turn right up ahead,” he said. “I’ll tell you when.”
“Okay.” She glanced across at him. “Would it help if I sang?”
“Are you any good?”
“No.”
He smiled. “Sure. Why not?”
She thought for a moment, then started singing “God Save the Queen.” She hadn’t been lying—she had a terrible singing voice. When she’d finished the British national anthem, she moved on to Abba.
By the time the turnoff came into view his hands were loose in his lap and most of the tension was gone.
“Right here,” he said.
She nodded and turned and he gave her directions the rest of the way. Soon they were pulling into the parking lot of the Phillip Island Wildlife Park. She read the sign, then spun toward him with a hopeful smile.
“This is the place where they have the baby wombats.”
He put on his best poker face. “Is it?”
“Nate…”
“Patience is a virtue. Surely your grandmother taught you that one?”
She poked her tongue out at him but followed him inside the administration building. The head ranger, Henry, came to the ticket booth when Nate gave his name to the cashier. They all shook hands and the older man led them into the park and along a dusty dirt track.
“This isn’t the usual tour, is it?” Elizabeth asked after a few minutes.
“I’m not sure,” Nate lied.
She nudged him with her elbow. “Is he taking us to see the baby wombats or not?”
“You’re the kind of kid who used to snoop around under the Christmas tree, feeling up her presents, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
She looked so hopeful that he couldn’t help laughing. He slid his arm around her shoulder.
“Relax, Lizzy. All will be revealed.”
It took them five minutes to reach the wombat enclosure. Henry paused before letting them inside.
“These joeys are six months old and they’re still in the pouch. They won’t leave permanently for another two to four months, but they come out regularly to look around. Be warned—their claws are long and strong, even though they’re only babies.”
Elizabeth nodded her understanding and followed him into the enclosure. Nate stood to one side and watched her face as Henry delivered a small, hairy bundle into her arms.
A slow, incredulous smile curled her mouth and her eyes lit with pleasure. “Oh. He’s beautiful! Nate, look at him, isn’t he adorable? Or is it a she?”
“They’re both boys,” Henry said.
“He’s so soft.” She ran her hands over his fur, then she glanced across at Nate, inviting him to share her pleasure.
Their eyes met and held and for a few precious seconds there was nothing else in the world. Then Henry brought over the second wombat and the moment was gone.
They spent fifteen minutes in the enclosure and Elizabeth was able to nurse both the baby wombats as well as pat their mother.
She caught his hand once they had left the park, forcing him to stop.
“Thank you. I don’t know how you arranged for that to happen, but it was wonderful. Just…wonderful.”
He shrugged, embarrassed by her gratitude. “Smartsell donated some money to the park’s on-site hospital building fund last year. I made a phone call or two. It was no big deal.”
“It was to me.” She stood on tiptoes and kissed him.
He smiled. Couldn’t help himself. He’d wanted to give her something, a small moment of pleasure, and he had.
Later that night, he rolled her onto her knees and took her from behind, the way he knew she liked it. She rocked her hips and cried out when she came, then he grit his teeth and hung on and made it happen all over again before he let himself lose control. When they were both lying limp and breathless afterward, he ran his fingers through her hair and tried to remember what it was like before she came into his life.
He couldn’t. Probably because he didn’t want to. She made everything better. Her smile, her laughter—God, he loved to make her laugh. He also loved the way she shivered when he touched her, and the way she was simply there when his stuff got on top of him, how she looked at him so calmly, not judging, before saying something incredibly prosaic and everyday and grounding….
She was smart and practical and generous and bloody brave. And she was in his arms, right now. In his life. It was almost too good to be true.
“You should give up your room at the pub, move in here,” he said, before he had a chance to second-guess himself.
He felt her body tense in his arms, then she lifted her head so she could look into his face. They stared into each other’s eyes for a long moment, then she returned her head to his chest. “Okay.”
He waited for her to say more, but she didn’t.
“We can move into the main house, if you’d prefer it,” he said.
She lifted her head to look at him again. “What about my father? Wouldn’t he want to have a say in that…?”
Nate shrugged. “There are two bedrooms. He offered to move into the studio when I first came down to the island, but I didn’t much care where I was.”
She frowned, then her brow cleared. “This is your place, isn’t it? God, I’m so dense sometimes. All this time, I thought you were renting from my father, but it’s the other way around, isn’t it?”
“I bought this place to renovate it. Was going to do something big and modern like the place next door.”
She wrinkled her nose and he laughed.
“Maybe you should take a look inside before you pass judgment. It’s pretty nice over there. Imported stone floors. Teak woodwork. State-of-the-art everything.”
“And absolutely no charm or character, I bet. No, thank you. I’ll take these four walls and two windows and wooden floor over that perfect place every time. Every time.”
He was silent for a moment. “So I take it that’s a no to moving into the main house?”
“Correct.”
She returned her head to his chest and he resumed combing his fingers through her hair.
She was moving in. He knew it was only temporary, until Sam returned from the Sydney-to-Hobart race. Knew that she had no solid plans for what might happen after she met her father, and that her life was elsewhere, about as far from Nate’s very circumscribed world here on the island as it was possible to be…
But for now, she was staying. That was more than enough for a guy who had turned taking it day-by-day into an art form.
IT TOOK ELIZABETH ALL OF twenty minutes to move out of the pub and into Nate’s place the next day: she packed her bag, paid her bill then drove the rental to his house and parked in the drive.
There wasn’t a single doubt in her mind that she was doing the right thing as she dragged her suitcase from the trunk of the car. Whatever it was that was happening between her and Nate, it felt right. This place, right now, was exactly where she wanted and needed to be.
When she entered the studio, Nate was shoving a huge old wardrobe into the corner.
“Where did that come from?” she asked.
“Spare room. Thought you’d want somewhere to put your things.”
“Ah. Other than on the floor or the bed, you mean?”
Then she glanced around and realized he’d cleaned up. Even the bed was freshly made.
“Dear me. Don’t you think it’s dangerous to set standards that may never be met again?” she asked, absurdly touched that he’d gone to so much trouble for her.
“It’s all downhill from here, baby,” he said, but he was smiling.
“I guess I’d better unpack, then.”
He helped her, then they walked to the yacht club and took the Ducky out for the afternoon, gliding across the deep blue ocean, the salt spray on their faces and the wind in their hair.
It became a routine of sorts over the next week—whatever needed to be done was tackled in the morning, then they went sailing or Nate surfed while she paddled in the shallows and watched him defy Mother Nature and gravity all at once.
Twice the postman delivered fat envelopes from Smartsell. Nate barely glanced at them before adding them to the pile in the corner. She didn’t say a word. One day, he’d want to pick up the threads of his old life, but clearly he wasn’t ready yet. So be it.
After much deliberation, she made contact with her grandparents for the first time after arriving in Australia. She and her grandfather exchanged a few very polite words about the weather and her grandmother’s health before Elizabeth told him about Sam being interstate and that she most likely wouldn’t be home for Christmas because she was waiting for him to return to the Island. There was a short pause and she pictured her grandfather’s face, knew that he was probably aching to tell her what a mistake she was making, what a huge mistake she’d already made by ending things with Martin.
“Well. We’ll miss you, of course. But if this is something you feel you have to do…”
“It is.”
“Then we both wish you the best of luck, Elizabeth,” her grandfather said.
It was hard to stay angry when she could hear the sadness in his voice. They talked for a few more minutes before ending the call and afterward she went for a long walk along the beach to clear her head.
When she returned to London, she was going to insist that they all sit down and talk honestly, adult to adult, for perhaps the first time in her life. Perhaps then they would all have a better understanding of one another.
A WEEK TO THE DAY after Elizabeth had moved in with Nate, they arrived home from an afternoon out on the Ducky to find a beaten-up four-wheel drive parked behind her car in the driveway.
“Looks like you’ve got a visitor,” she said.
She glanced at Nate, but he was frowning.
“Who is it?” she asked.
He threw her an unreadable look. “That’s Sam’s car.”
She stilled. Sam. As in Sam Blackwell. Her father.
“I thought he wasn’t due back until after the New Year?”
It was only the fifteenth. She hadn’t even begun to think about coming face-to-face with him yet. Hadn’t even begun to think about what she wanted to say to him, what she wanted to ask. “He wasn’t.”
Nate took her hand and gave it a squeeze. “You okay?”
She thought about it for a second, then nodded. “Yes. I mean, I have to meet him sometime, don’t I?”
They walked down the driveway and past the house. The rear door was open, the bead curtain swinging in the breeze. The radio was on in the kitchen and she could see someone moving around inside. Her father.
Nate walked toward the back steps but she resisted his lead. He stopped and looked at her.
“You want a moment?”
She nodded, appreciating his understanding. He didn’t say anything else, simply squeezed her hand one last time before releasing it and climbing the steps to the house.
Elizabeth pressed her palm flat against her churning stomach as he disappeared inside.
Her father. She was about to meet her father. Unexpectedly, despite the fact that she’d been waiting for him for more than two weeks now. She wanted so much from this meeting. She wanted to have a father again. She wanted to belong to someone.
It was a hell of a lot of expectation to bring to a first meeting, but there wasn’t much she could do about that.
She could hear conversation inside the house. She took a deep breath, let it out, then climbed the back steps.
The bead curtain announced her arrival and two heads turned toward her as she stopped just inside the door. A nervous smile curled her mouth as she stared at the very tanned, fit-looking man leaning against the kitchen counter. His hair was cropped short and mottled with gray, and he was dressed neatly in a pair of dark navy tracksuit pants and a polo shirt. His eyes seemed very blue against his dark skin as he looked at her, the lines around his eyes and mouth deeply scored. She tried to find some point of resemblance between them. The eye color, perhaps—although her mother had been blue-eyed, too. Maybe the shape of her chin? And perhaps her high forehead…?
She took a tentative step forward. “Hello. Um, I’m Elizabeth.”
He nodded. “Sam.”
He’d been studying her, too, and she waited for him to say something else, ready to take her cue from him. But he didn’t say anything. Instead, he turned to Nathan and resumed their interrupted conversation.
“Anyway, they reckon it’ll take weeks just for the swelling to go down, let alone for them to work out if they can operate or not. Bloody doctors.”
Elizabeth stared at his profile, utterly thrown. She hadn’t expected her father to throw his arms around her and hold her to his bosom or anything as dramatic as that, but she’d expected something. Some recognition that she was more than a casual acquaintance.
Across the room, Nate was frowning, his gaze going from her to Sam and back again.
“Sam was just telling me that he’s torn a ligament in his knee. Which is why he’s home early,” he said.
For the first time Elizabeth noticed the crutches propped in the corner and the bulge around her father’s left knee beneath his tracksuit pants.
“That must have been very disappointing for you. I know you were looking forward to the race,” she said.
Sam glanced at her briefly before looking away again. “Disappointing isn’t the word. I’m going to miss all the majors this season now, on top of losing a major charter to the Caribbean. I’ll be stuck on these bloody things for months.” He thumped the crutches with a fist.
She tried to think of something else to say, but her mind was a complete blank. “Well. That’s disappointing,” she said again.
Her father shrugged impatiently and reached for his crutches.
“Better go unpack.” His gaze took in the plates in the sink and the newspaper Nate had left folded on the kitchen table. “Looks like there’s plenty of work to do around here, anyway.”
He tucked the crutches under his arms and started down the hallway.
Elizabeth stared at his retreating back for a long beat. Then she swiveled on her heel and headed for the door. She barreled down the stairs and across the yard and didn’t stop until she was in the studio. Then she simply stood, hands loose by her sides, and tried to understand what had happened.
She’d just met her father for the first time. They’d introduced themselves. And then he had proceeded to ignore her.
“You okay?” Nate’s warm hands landed on her shoulders, his thumbs brushing the nape of her neck.
“I just— I thought—” She shook her head, unable to articulate the jumble of hurt, outrage, anger and disappointment churning inside her.
Nate slid an arm around her, his forearm beneath her breasts as he pulled her against him. He pressed a kiss into her hair and laid his cheek against her head. His silent support helped calm her thoughts and finally she faced the reluctant truth.
“This isn’t going to be what I want it to be, is it?”
Nate pulled her tighter against his body. “Give it time.”
“Nate. The man is not interested. Never has been.”
“It’s not about you, Lizzy. He doesn’t even know you. Whatever is going on is Sam’s problem. He’s always been more happy on his own than with anyone else. That’s why he looks after this place for me. In the off season, there are only about seven thousand people on the island, and he likes it that way.”
She understood what he was saying but it felt like a cruel joke to have found a parent only to learn that he wanted nothing to do with her.
“Want to walk into town and buy some fresh fish for dinner?” Nate asked.
She nodded, unable to speak past the emotion choking her throat. He turned her around in his arms and tilted her chin so she was forced to meet his gaze.
“It’s his loss, Lizzy. Believe me.”
There was so much warmth in his eyes. It went a long way to assuaging her hurts. She reached out to touch his face. He was such a good person. It continually amazed her that in the midst of all the crap he was dealing with he found room to care for others.
For a long moment she battled with the urge to say the things that were in her heart. It was too soon, her gut told her. But one day she wouldn’t bite her tongue. One day she would tell this wonderful, wounded, generous man how she felt about him.
She dropped her hand.
“Let’s go.”
NATE HELD HIS TONGUE ALL afternoon and well into the evening. He watched Sam sit silently through a meal of fish and grilled prawns and salad, never once asking Elizabeth about her life, her teaching, her dreams, her past, and told himself that it was Sam’s problem and not Nate’s place to interfere. He’d never been the kind of person who stuck his nose into other people’s business. It simply wasn’t his style. He dealt with his crap and he let other people deal with theirs, a mind-set that had only become more entrenched since the accident. He didn’t want people offering him unsolicited advice, getting in his face, and he extended the same courtesy to others.
But listening to Elizabeth make polite conversation with her father over dinner, watching her take Sam’s indifference on the chin again and again as Sam offered monosyllables and shrugs and avoided eye contact made Nate want to hurt something. Preferably Sam.
Not surprisingly, Sam made an excuse about catching up on his sleep after dinner and disappeared to his room. There was a small silence, then Elizabeth turned to Nate with a bright smile.
“Want to toast marshmallows on the barbecue again?”
That brave, bright smile pretty much tore it for him.
“Sure. Why don’t you get a head start and I’ll be out in a tick?” he said easily.
“Okay. But remember, he who snoozes loses.”
“Sure. I won’t be long.”
What he had in mind would take about sixty seconds—he figured that was about how long it would take for him to grab Sam by the scruff of the neck and shake some sense into him.
Nate waited until Elizabeth had gone outside before walking to Sam’s bedroom. The door was slightly ajar and he knocked on the door frame and waited, temper simmering.
“Who is it?” Sam asked.
Nate pushed the door open. Sam was sitting on the edge of the bed, his bad leg extended in front of him. He’d stripped to his boxer shorts and polo shirt and for the first time in all the years Nate had known him he looked older than his fifty-two years.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Nate demanded.
“Just leave it, mate.”
“No, mate, I won’t. She’s your daughter. Have a conversation with her. Get to know her.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Yeah, it is. It’s really simple.”
“Look, I know you’re only looking out for her, but it’s best this way. I just spoke to a mate up in Melbourne, he’s going to let me bunk down with him for a few weeks.”
“So, what? You’re just going to head off tomorrow? You’re giving her one night? When she’s flown halfway around the world to find you?”
Sam didn’t say anything.
“You’re an asshole, you know that?” Nate said. “A selfish asshole.”
Sam’s mouth tightened and he pushed himself awkwardly to his feet. “You finished? Had your say?”
He hobbled forward, trying to crowd Nate out of the room.
Nate jabbed a finger at him. “If you do this, if you take off tomorrow, you’re the biggest pussy I know.”
“That’d sting a whole lot more if it didn’t come from a guy who’s been hiding in the bottom of a beer bottle for the past four months.” Nate flinched.
“What’s wrong? You can dish it out but you can’t take it?” Sam said. “Don’t come in here on your high moral horse, telling me what to do and how to behave when you don’t even have the balls to open your own bloody mail.”
The other man’s face was red and a vein pulsed at his neck.
“If you go, don’t bother coming back,” Nate said.
He turned and walked away. The door slammed behind him, the sound echoing up the hallway. Nate strode into the kitchen and swore viciously. He really, really wanted to punch something. His hand curled into a fist and he tensed, ready to smack a hole in one of the overhead kitchen cabinets. Then he remembered Elizabeth was outside, waiting for him.
He didn’t want her to know what had gone down. Didn’t want her to know he’d had to threaten her father to try and make the guy stick around.
He let his breath hiss between his teeth and braced his hands on the counter, dropping his head and taking a few seconds to let the anger drain out of him. If Sam went ahead with his plan and bailed on Elizabeth tomorrow… Nate was going to be sorely pressed not to punch his lights out.
He lifted his head and released his grip on the counter. He would deal with whatever came tomorrow when it happened. Right now, Elizabeth was waiting for him.
He turned toward the door but his gaze snagged on the pile of envelopes overflowing from the magazine rack in the corner.
For a moment he stood frozen. Then he brushed a hand over his head.
Bloody Sam.
Annoyed all over again, he grabbed a couple of beers from the fridge and took them outside. Elizabeth looked up from toasting a stick full of marshmallows as he exited the house.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
“Yeah. Why wouldn’t it be?” he said, even though he could hear the edge in his own voice.
“You’re frowning, for starters.”
She paused, waiting, and when he didn’t say anything she cocked her head to one side. “Going to play it strong and silent on me, huh?”
“Silent, anyway.”
He sat on the picnic blanket and she held the stick out to him.
“Have a marshmallow, then.”
It was one of the things he loved about her the most, the calm way she had of simply accepting things the way they were. She never pushed. She never clung or offered advice he hadn’t asked for or tried to tell him what to do or how to be.
He slid a marshmallow off the gooey stick and put it in his mouth. It tasted like burned sugar and she laughed when he pulled a face.
“Not my best batch.”
He caught her hand and pulled her down onto the blanket.
“You okay?” he asked.
Her smile faded a little. “I’ll survive.”
He fought a battle with his conscience as he looked into her eyes. Was it better to warn her or not? If Sam chose to go tomorrow, there was no way she could fail to take it as a kick in the teeth. But if he warned her in advance and Sam didn’t wind up going, he would have upset her for nothing.
“You’re frowning again.”
She reached out and pressed her fingers against his forehead.
“Sam’s talking about heading up to Melbourne tomorrow.”
Her gaze dropped to the blanket. He reached for her hand and squeezed it. Still she didn’t say anything and he used their joined hands to pull her into his lap. He wrapped his arms around her and she pressed her face into his neck.
They sat in the dark, the fire dying to embers, not saying a word for a long time.