WHAT FOLLOWED FOR Kiara was a week that was almost dreamlike. Time out of frame. The following Monday Alice would start at her new school, so on the Saturday Bryn would take Alice and Bunji back to Clovelly. The new housekeeper was already installed, and Bryn had taken both Kiara and Alice over to meet her. Alice had been quiet and clinging to Kiara, but she’d come back to Two Tails seemingly resigned.
‘I can come back here sometimes,’ she’d said wistfully to Kiara, and Kiara had hugged her and told her of course she could.
For as long as Two Tails kept running.
Even then she’d stay in touch, she thought. In the short time she’d known her, she’d been stunned with the connection she felt. Alice’s isolation was yet another mirror of her own childhood.
As, it seemed, of Bryn’s.
And there, too, was a connection. More than a connection. The way she was starting to feel...
When he’d arrived back from the hospital on the Sunday, after that first night in her shared bed, she’d felt like a woman after her first ever sexual encounter. She’d felt almost absurdly shy, and anxious, and unsure where the relationship could go.
She’d also been frightened, as she’d been waiting to hear how...if... Maureen was recovering.
But on his return, he’d walked back into the kitchen, seen her look of fear and gathered her into his arms.
‘She’s conscious,’ he’d told her. ‘We’ve put her back to sleep now—an induced coma will give her an easier route to complete healing—but we let her stir for a little while I was there. She knew her family. She even managed to murmur her husband’s name, and at this stage it’s more than promising that there’ll be no long-term damage.’
Such a relief! He’d held her while her world seemed to settle, and then Alice had edged close, and she’d somehow been included in the hug. And Bunji had barked, and they’d looked down and the expression on the dog’s face—they could have sworn it was jealousy. They’d ended up laughing and Bryn had picked Bunji up and hugged her, too, and Kiara had felt...
Well, she’d felt as she had for a week now. As if things were happening she didn’t understand. Yes, Bryn and Alice were due to leave, but every night she lay in Bryn’s arms, and as the date to leave grew closer a huge question started to loom.
She didn’t dare hope, but the way he held her...
How did a woman stop dreaming?
‘How’s it going?’ Her friend, Hazel, rang halfway through the week. Hazel had been busy since Kiara had last seen her, and when she rang, she seemed almost dazed. The story had escalated. Her boss...the baby... Kiara was scarcely able to take in the events that had overtaken her friend, and then she had to struggle to find words to describe what was going on in her own life.
‘I think... I’m not sure...’ she started, and Hazel was astute enough to hear behind the words.
‘So you and Bryn...’
‘Hazel, I don’t know,’ she said honestly.
‘You’re sleeping with him?’
‘Yes.’ There’d never been any way she could lie to Hazel.
‘Are you in love with him?’
And how could she lie about something like this? ‘I think I am.’ Then she corrected herself. ‘No. I definitely am. The way he makes me feel... But Hazel...’
‘You don’t know how he feels?’
‘He holds me like he means it.’
‘But you don’t know?’
‘It’s just...he’s been a loner for such a long time. I know he cares. I think...he wants to take care of me.’
‘That sounds a bit like a one-way deal.’
‘I’d take care of him.’
‘Like one of your dogs?’ It was meant as a joke. Hazel said it lightly, but Kiara suddenly had a vision of herself, caring for Bunji. And she thought...was that how Bryn saw her? As a woman he could somehow save?
Why did she think that? They were equals, weren’t they? A man and a woman who could become friends as well as lovers.
She was growing to depend on him, she thought, with weird self-knowledge. The way she felt when she saw him leave in the mornings... The way she felt as she listened for his car returning every night...
There was a long silence and then Hazel, who knew her so well that maybe she could even read silence, said gently, ‘Oh, love, don’t let your heart get broken.’
‘That’s crazy.’ She said it strongly but strong wasn’t how she was feeling. ‘We’re mature adults. Whatever we work out...’
‘Working out doesn’t sound like happy ever after.’
‘Which you’ve found?’
Somehow she managed to change direction, to get Hazel to talk about her own happiness. The conversation ended. The kennels needed cleaning and dogs needed walking. Alice and Bunji were bouncing beside her, and reservations could be held at bay.
Three more days until Saturday. And then?
Whatever happened would happen, she told herself. She could accept it.
And the way she felt about Bryn?
She could not break her heart.
She would not!
Friday.
Bryn managed to finish work early. He came home to find his girls digging in the veggie garden, preparing a new tomato bed.
His girls... As his idea had progressed, more and more he’d felt the feeling of proprietorship grow. It scared him but he accepted it.
Into the mix of emotions that had been battering his world since the night his sister died had come Kiara. Gorgeous, courageous, caring Kiara.
His girls?
His woman.
It was an emotion that was almost primeval, inappropriate, surely, but the feeling he had for her...
Well, maybe it was primeval. Inevitable.
And the way their bodies responded to each other? Surely she had to agree?
They were digging compost into newly cleared beds, and they were both filthy. Most of the remaining dogs in the pens had been let out to join them. Bunji was digging as well—at last there were no dressings, no wounds that could reinfect—and she was glorying in being just a pup.
Being cared for. Being loved.
He’d take care of them all, he swore, and he smiled as he saw the trays of tomato seedlings waiting to go in. Three weeks ago, Kiara had been preparing to sell this place. Now she was looking at the future.
‘If I’m careful I think I have enough funds to keep me going for a year,’ she’d said proudly the night before, and he thought, what he was about to say would extend that indefinitely.
Bunji would have a home. Alice would have someone who cared, someone who made her laugh, someone she could hug. Kiara would be able to care for as many waifs and strays as she wanted.
And him...
He could keep doing the work he loved. He wouldn’t lose his independence, but whenever he wanted they’d be here for him.
His girls.
They’d seen him now. Alice waved a loaded shovel and then squealed as the load slid down her front. Then she giggled.
Kiara just straightened and smiled—and that smile was a smile a man could come home to for the rest of his life.
It was strange but the thought was vaguely unsettling. The rest of his life?
‘How’s Maureen?’ It was Alice, and she asked the question every time he came home. In the week they’d spent together the two seemed to have forged a close connection. People come...people go...
What he was proposing was for the rest of his life? The thought was huge. How to get his head around it?
‘She’s great,’ he managed. ‘She’s still a bit wobbly but she should be home in a couple of weeks.’
‘But I won’t be here,’ Alice whispered, and there was the echo of the scared little girl again. ‘Can I go and see her?’
‘Maybe in a week or so.’
‘Is she very far?’
‘She’s in my hospital.’ He turned and gestured across the massive ravine at the back of the house, over the untamed bushland that was part of Australia’s Blue Mountains. ‘If there weren’t so many trees, we could almost see Maureen from here. Tonight look out your window and you’ll see the lights across the valley. Maybe Maureen will be standing at her window, looking at our lights.’
‘Oh,’ Alice said in a small voice, and Kiara stooped to hug her.
‘But you will see her. I promise.’
And once again he was caught by how easily this caring business seemed to come to her. How amazing she was.
She needed to be amazing. This was the woman he hoped to be with...for ever?
And there was that gut-lurch again.
The thought of forever seemed like some sort of chasm, and he had no idea what it held. But in his pocket was a diamond—yeah, he’d had second thoughts because he needed Kiara to see he was serious. For in his head was a serious plan. A sensible plan.
This was no moment for qualms. He was committed to Alice anyway. He was...stuck.
That was hardly an appropriate thought for a man about to propose marriage, he thought wryly, but there were so many compensations. This woman, hugging his niece, smiling at Alice until she smiled back, then smiling up at him. This woman, with dirt on her nose, with dogs at her heels.
She was wonderful.
She was independent. She wouldn’t cling.
She was surely perfect.
‘I’ve ordered dinner in,’ he said, struggling to move to the practical. He’d thought he ought to take Kiara out, but organising someone to care for Alice would never work. Maureen, maybe, but with Maureen still in hospital his planned romantic dinner had to be at home.
Home. The idea was still unsettling. He knew Kiara loved this place, but it wasn’t ideal. Could he talk her into moving? If they found acreage closer, he could talk to the architect who’d designed his place. Something a bit cutting edge. She’d want her dogs, of course—they’d have to be part of the deal—so it’d have to be remote enough not to bother neighbours, but money could solve most problems.
But that was for the future. Kiara’s smile was high beam. ‘An order-in dinner? It’ll cost heaps to get it delivered out here but if you’re sure... I could take a long bath instead of cooking. That’s only one step below you cooking for us.’
Him cook? He’d never thought... But it hadn’t been meant as a jibe. She was still beaming. ‘I’d hug you,’ she told him, ‘but I’d get compost over your suit. That has to be Italian, surely. Did I ever tell you how smooth you look? You fit in here like a pig in a parlour. Just lucky you’re heading home tomorrow. Alice, you want first bath or me? Toss you for it, heads or tails...’
‘I don’t want to go home,’ Alice said in a small voice.
‘Yeah, well, I have an idea about that,’ Kiara said briskly. ‘Once you’re at school we might organise you a weekend job. How about every Saturday you and Bunji come out here and help with the dogs? I can collect you if your uncle can’t bring you. For as long as Two Tails stays open, and even after, you’ll still be my friend.’
‘I guess. But I’ll still miss you.’
‘And I’ll miss you, but instead of thinking about it, let’s have bubble baths.’ And they headed to the house hand in hand, heading to serial baths.
Kiara had partially solved Alice’s immediate distress, he thought as he watched them go. But his solution was better.
It was better for them all. All Kiara had to do was agree.
He’d gone all out with his dinner order, and it was delicious. Thai food. Crunchy spring rolls filled with garden-fresh sprouts and seasoning. Tiny skewers—meat on sticks—with a chilli dipping sauce. Then dish after dish of gorgeous, fragrant concoctions that had all of them eating more than they thought they could. Even Alice. He watched her agonise over the last skewer and finally decide she had to be able to fit it in. The change to this little girl had been miraculous.
And then Alice yawned and kissed them both goodnight and there was another miracle all by itself. She was still a little teary about the thought of leaving in the morning, but she seemed resigned. Then he and Kiara settled on the rug by the fire, with half a bottle of champagne left between them—and the time was right.
Now or never.
‘Kiara...’ he began, and thought, How does a guy just come out and say these things? He’d heard of naff proposals in his time—banners flying from aeroplanes, romantic balloon rides and proposals at a thousand feet, declarations of devotion on stage in front of a crowd that would pressure a woman to accept, no matter what her inclination was...
It was surely better this way, he thought. In Kiara’s own space.
He felt a sudden shaft of uncertainty. In his pocket was a crimson box with a solitaire diamond. Maybe he had jumped the gun on this. Would it be applying more pressure?
Quit it with the qualms, he told himself and took a slug of champagne—and said it.
‘Kiara.’ He cleared his throat and tried again. ‘I’d like... I think it might work for both of us if you’d marry me.’
There. The thing was said. Not romantic but sensible. Given the way their bodies responded to each other, given their circumstances, surely it was a reasonable proposal? So why did it feel loaded?
The fire crackled behind them, but the silence behind it felt like a ten-ton weight. Or warnings of an avalanche, ready to crash from a height?
They were leaning on cushions wedged against the armchairs. The firelight was playing on their faces. The bottle of champagne was between them.
Maybe he should have chosen somewhere less intimate?
Kiara was looking at Bryn in astonishment. Then, very carefully, she shifted the champagne—and their glasses—out of his reach.
‘We’ve slept together for less than a week and now you’re thinking we should get married?’ She spoke slowly—as if not wishing to fire up a lunatic? ‘You’re never serious.’
‘I’m serious.’
‘You can’t be.’
‘I believe I am.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s sensible.’
‘Sensible?’
‘Yes.’
There was a long silence while she seemed to struggle to get her thoughts in order. It took a while.
‘Bryn, it’s been a great week,’ she said at last. ‘An awesome few weeks, if I’m honest. I’ve loved being with you. I love that you’ve helped me. I love the way you’re starting to love Alice, and I love that you’re getting your life back on track. I’ve also enjoyed the sex—truthfully, it’s been amazing. But us? Great as this time has been, you don’t want to get married.’
‘I think I do.’ He was feeling faintly absurd. Totally off balance. ‘But that’s supposed to be your line.’
‘I don’t.’
‘Really?’ Her reaction wasn’t in the script. Nor was the look of distress he was starting to see.
‘Bryn, no.’
‘Why not?’ This wasn’t going well. He had to explain. ‘Kiara, hear me out. We’re both in trouble. You’re financially strapped and you’re alone.’
‘I’m not. I have friends...’
‘You have a community, yes, and you have Hazel and Maureen. But from what you’ve been telling me Hazel’s caught up in her own concerns. Maureen’s elderly and she won’t be around for ever. You’re too busy to get closer to anyone else. You’ll be left...’
‘A crazy old lady, surrounded by her dogs?’ She managed a wobbly smile. ‘That sounds like a threat.’
‘It’s not meant to be. It’s just practicality. I know you’ll manage alone—as will Alice and I—but couldn’t it be better for all of us if we work things out together?’
She looked into his eyes, as if trying to read what was behind his words. ‘What you’re proposing sounds like a house-share arrangement. You’re talking marriage?’
‘It is sensible.’
‘“Sensible” is house-sharing. “Sensible” is a short-term arrangement for convenience. Surely marriage isn’t meant to be...sensible?’
‘Then it should be,’ he said. ‘For my parents, yours too, for that matter, not being sensible meant disaster. From what I’ve seen, emotion and impulsiveness remove the ability to make sensible decisions.’
‘So you’re not saying that you’ve fallen in love with me?’ And her voice wobbled a little as she said it.
And what was it in that tremulous wobble that had him wanting to gather her into his arms, right there and then, as he’d held her for these last wonderful nights? He wanted her face buried in his chest. He wanted to tell her she was loved, and he’d love her. For always. The full romantic bit.
What was holding him back?
But the old fears were there, the certainties battered in from birth. He couldn’t lie. He couldn’t make a promise he might well not be able to keep.
He surely felt about her as he felt about no other woman, but his life was still out there, his independence, his freedom. If he let himself go one step further, if he let his emotions take him where they willed, then he’d be wide open. Exposed. His previous life was still with him, lessons instilled, reinforced and reinforced again.
‘Kiara, we’re fond of each other...’
‘Fond!’
‘More than fond,’ he conceded. ‘The way I feel about you... I want you.’
‘In your bed.’
‘Yes.’ There was no reason why he shouldn’t be honest.
‘But not in your life. You’d still work crazy hours. Medicine would be your life.’
‘And you’d still run Two Tails.’
‘And Alice would fit in the cracks in the middle?’
‘There’ll be Maureen,’ he said, feeling out of his depth. What was she expecting him to say—that he become a part-time parent? He wasn’t a parent. ‘Plus we’d have a housekeeper. We could also hire a nanny if you think Alice needs it.’
She was looking at him in horror and he didn’t get it. What else did she want from him?
That he be a part-time husband? He’d do what he could, but surely other couples fitted their love lives around their careers.
‘You don’t really want either of us,’ she said, and her words were bleak, as if she was stating the inevitable.
‘I do want you.’
‘But Alice?’
‘I have Alice, whether I want her or not.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake... Listen to yourself.’ She was angry now, flushed, furious. ‘Alice is your niece. You’re all she has in the world.’
‘Okay.’ He was so out of his depth he was no longer sure what he was saying. ‘I do want her...’
‘But she’ll be easier if you have a wife.’
‘That’s not what I meant.’
‘Then what do you mean?’
‘Just...that we could make a great family. You and me and Alice and Bunji.’ He was floundering and he knew it. ‘Maybe even another child if you wanted.’
‘If I wanted?’ There was no mistaking the anger now. ‘I? Not you. Not us.’
‘It’s just that...’
‘It wouldn’t have very much to do with you, would it? Because your family responsibilities would be taken over by me, by Maureen, by your housekeeper and maybe a nanny. Tell me, Bryn, if you didn’t have Alice, would you want me?’
‘I wouldn’t have met you.’
‘That’s not what I’m asking. Does sleeping in my bed, in my arms, count for nothing?’
Emotion had never been his forte—indeed, he’d learned to quash it. He could cope when confronted with tearful patients or emotional relatives, but on his own turf? With the woman he’d decided to marry? He was really struggling.
And now her voice was cold. ‘I imagine this proposal is because I tick off most boxes for suitability,’ she said bleakly. ‘Good with children. Tick. Can help train Bunji. Tick. Likes Alice. Double tick. Has a career so won’t get in your way too much. Good in bed. How many ticks are we up to?’
‘Kiara...’
‘I don’t get it.’ She was now sounding ineffably weary. ‘But it is like one of your medical forms. I seem to have ticked enough of the boxes, so I win a wedding to the wonderful Bryn Dalton.’
‘There’s no need to be offensive.’
‘Isn’t there?’ She shook her head, her eyes bleak. ‘Sorry, Bryn, no.’
‘Is that all you can say?’
‘To a very generous offer? Yes, it is. Enough.’ She rose and headed for the door but then she turned back. ‘You see, Bryn,’ she said, in a voice that was now full of pain, ‘I have a problem. Somehow over the last weeks I’ve managed the impossible. I’ve actually fallen in love.’
‘Then...’
‘Then nothing.’ The pain was almost tangible. ‘Because your contract would be totally one-sided. I’d love Bunji, I’d love Alice, and yes, I’d love you. And you...you’d do what you thought was necessary to make us all happy.’
‘Couldn’t that be enough?’
‘There’s not one snowball’s chance in a bushfire it’d be enough,’ she retorted. ‘I might be emotionally challenged but I know that much—I’d end up breaking my heart.’
‘But why?’
‘Because you don’t care,’ she flashed. ‘Not really, not so deeply in your gut that it’s a visceral thing. And I know you don’t get it, and it’s not worth me trying even to explain. So tomorrow you take Alice home and you get on as best you can with the love you’re prepared to give.’
‘Kiara, I don’t know how to love her any more than I already do.’
‘Don’t you want her?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, honestly. ‘If there was any other way...’
‘Well, you’d better make your mind up pretty fast,’ she said brutally. ‘Your plan to have me take over loving hasn’t worked. She’s a great kid. I’d keep her myself if there was any way Two Tails could make enough to support more than one of us, but I can’t. So it’s up to you, and she deserves more.’
‘I know it, but I can’t...’
‘Or won’t,’ she said bluntly. ‘Loving’s easy, Bryn. You just have to open your heart and trust.’
‘But you won’t.’
‘It’s a two-way deal,’ she told him. ‘Sorry, Bryn, nice try but I’m going to bed.’
And she walked out and closed the door behind her.
But upstairs...
Alice had settled into bed, but she hadn’t slept. The thought of leaving in the morning was too huge. She lay and stared into the dark, and then Bunji had stirred at her feet and started to whine.
And she remembered she’d forgotten her water bowl.
Bunji was supposed to drink downstairs—that was the rule—but her leg was sore and it’d take two minutes to head down to the bathroom on the next level and fill her bowl. And as she did, she heard voices floating up from the open living-room door.
‘Don’t you want her?’ That was Kiara—talking about her?
‘I don’t know,’ Bryn was saying. ‘If there was any other way...’
The words made her freeze.
Somehow, in all the awfulness of the last few months, she’d never doubted that her uncle wanted her. Hadn’t he climbed down the cliff to save her?
Wouldn’t he want her to stay with him—wherever he was—for ever?
‘Don’t you want her?’
‘I don’t know.’
Something cold felt as if it were squeezing her insides. Something vicious, something searingly painful. Bunji, who’d crept down with her, put her soft head against her knee and snuffled.
She hugged her dog, but all she could feel was pain. If Bryn didn’t want her, what would he do with her? Send her to this unknown school he’d told her about? But she’d still have to stay at his place at nights and on weekends. The boarding school, then, the one Aunt Beatrice had insisted on?
Kiara?
The voices floated on from downstairs.
Kiara couldn’t afford to keep her.
For a moment she thought she might vomit, but then she hauled herself together. A solitary childhood had left her resourceful.
She was thinking suddenly of one of the last times she’d seen Maureen. They’d been making cupcakes for the yard sale.
‘They’re brilliant,’ Maureen had said of Alice’s colourful creations, and she’d hugged her. ‘You’re so precious. If you were my grandy I’d take you home in a heartbeat.’
‘Really?’
‘Really. My daughters have left home, and I’ve always wanted a granddaughter like you.’
Maureen.
The more she thought about it, the more it made sense. Kiara couldn’t keep her. Her uncle didn’t want her. Maureen did.
So where was Maureen? She was struggling to remember what Bryn had said.
‘She’s in my hospital.’ He’d gestured across the valley, across the untamed bushland that was part of Australia’s Blue Mountains. ‘If there weren’t so many trees, we could almost see Maureen from here.’
Maureen was recovering in Sydney Central Hospital. Bryn’s hospital.
She crept along the passage until she came to the bathroom. Here, on the second level, balancing on the toilet seat, she could gaze down the valley, over the moonlit mountains, over the tops of the mass of bushland and to the great glow in the distance that was Sydney.
Specifically, Sydney Central.
She knew hospitals—her mother had been in and out of them with drug overdoses many times in Alice’s short life. They were easy enough to navigate. You just went to the front desk, told them you wanted to see your mother, and someone would appear and take you to see her. Or explain very nicely why you couldn’t. With her mom that’d been because she was being crazy, and Maureen wouldn’t be crazy.
Maureen would want her.
So all she had to do was head for the lights, find the hospital—surely everyone would know where Sydney Central was—and then ask to see her... her what? What would she call Maureen?
Grandmother, she decided, and the idea pleased her. She’d love a grandma.
And Maureen would hug her again—she knew she would—and she’d take her home because Maureen really wanted her.
Someone had to want her.
She sniffed but then swallowed and decided not to cry. She’d done enough of that, and she had a plan.
She’d need to pack a little food—it seemed a long way to the lights. And she’d also take Bunji. Bunji was her friend, and she wouldn’t be so alone if she had Bunji. It’d take courage, but with Bunji she thought she could do it. She was brave, and it was a good plan.
And if it worked, she wouldn’t need to bother Kiara—or Bryn—ever again.
Why had she bothered to go to bed at all? Kiara lay and stared at the ceiling and tried to figure why she’d knocked back...an offer too good to refuse?
For in the bleakness of the night, without Bryn’s body to warm her, that was what it seemed like. A magical offer. A happy-ever-after. Kiara and Bryn and Alice: security for them all, Two Tails for ever. Maybe even a baby. Sometimes in her quiet times she’d found herself aching for a child of her own. So why couldn’t her dream include Bryn? A friend, a lover, a husband.
But what Bryn was offering was all on his terms. Financial security. Friendship. But only when he wasn’t working or studying or at conferences. She knew full well that the only reason she’d seen so much of him up until now was because he’d hurt his leg.
So what was left? Passion? Probably yes, but even there, love didn’t come into the equation.
She knew Bryn well enough now to realise what he felt for her was probably as strong as it was going to get. Even that emotion had surprised him, she decided. He’d proposed with the air of a man doing a business deal.
So...he needed her for practical reasons. He was stuck with Alice, and he was arranging his ducks in a row so he could get his life back into the order he so valued. He might even end up being a decent husband and father. He’d do his best and his best would keep them safe. Maybe even contented? He was talented, he was devoted...
No. He was devoted to his work. To his independence.
Marriage to her would mean he had more independence, not less. The thought left her feeling so bleak she shivered.
Maybe she should go fetch one of her dogs for comfort, she thought, as the night wore on and sleep was nowhere, but teaching dogs to sleep on beds was not in her training scheme. She thought of Bunji, who’d probably be in bed with Alice. That had to be one happy ending.
Alice and Bunji...happy ever after.
Why did that thought make her lonelier still?