The months slid away as the busy season engulfed her. The international tourists flocked to her company and the Island reveled in its best visitor year yet.
Meg Donovan stood over the desk that Helen, her office girl, controlled. “Stats look good for now,” she commented and smiled.
Helen smiled back. “We’re doing all right, boss.”
The phone rang. Helen picked it up. “Island Complete Experiences, good afternoon. Certainly. Who shall I say is calling? Right, just one moment, I’ll try and locate her for you. Please hold.” She placed the call on hold and said to Meg, “Jarrad Scott.”
Meg blanched.
“Do you want to take it?” Helen asked, concerned.
Meg nodded without a word and headed into her office. How to do this? What to say? Cheerful. Be cheerful. “Good God,” she answered the phone. “This is a voice from the past.”
“How are you, Meg?”
“I am just fine,” she said, a smile on her lips. “And you?”
“I’m great,” he said. “Look, I’m here on the island. Can I come out?”
To the point, our Jarrad. Meg’s heartbeat thumped in her throat. “Of course, but I’m not where I was.”
He demanded directions, said he’d be an hour. She wanted to ask everything of him but he cut her off. “I don’t want coffee, I want to see you.”
“Of course. Are you all right?” Meg was trying to track the time between their last meeting. Two and a half years? Three.
“I will be when I see you.”
He rang off and for the next hour and a quarter she drove Helen mad with pacing until the office girl finally got it out of her.
When he burst into the office Helen suddenly found some mailing to do.
Meg stared at him, and he her. He hadn’t changed except for a different cut to his hair. The broad chest strained the buttons on his chambray shirt, his jeans still filled with healthy Jarrad.
“God, but you look good,” he breathed and took a step towards her.
Then stopped.
She stepped into his space and didn’t hesitate. It was a fury of a kiss, full of pent up longing, warm and hungry, slippery lips and darting tongues as each remembered the other from memories long tested.
“He’s gone, isn’t he?” he breathed into her mouth.
“Long gone,” she breathed back. “And Candy?”
“Cindy.”
They stood apart as Helen came back inside. Jarrad shook her hand, asked her if she enjoyed her job.
Meg hardly heard Helen’s answer.
“I never dreamed it was like this,” he said, gazing out to sea, standing in almost the exact place she always did.
She wanted to touch his broad back. “Jarrad. What—?”
“I’ve got a week, Meg. I needed to see you.”
“We never stayed in contact.”
“You never called.”
“You, either.”
“But we never forgot.” He turned back to her, took her hands. “I need to know how you are,” he said and kissed her. “I want to stay the week here, with you.”
“And Cindy?”
“She wants a baby.”
Meg’s heart stilled for a moment. “And you?”
“What about you, Meg?” he countered.
“I’m forty-one, Jarrad. I don’t think so.” She let go of him. “What is it you came back for?”
“You. What else?”
He was gruffer than before, angry even. She frowned and decided to change the subject. “I’ve had plans drawn up for the new B&B. Do you remember I told you?”
“Are they different to the ones you planned with him?”
“Of course.”
His hands slid down her arms. “Then I’d love to see them.”
The fear which consumed her fell away. She went to fetch the plans leaving him standing in her front room, gazing at the rolling ocean.
She suggested that they go up to the land so she could show him where everything would go. He drove them in his car, changed gears with his hand on hers, his grip fierce.
Meg’s head was empty of everything but him. He swung the vehicle on to the block, taking her directions through the scrub and up to the clearing. The view was breathtaking. Meg got out of the car, the rolled up plans clutched under her arms. She made a to-do of spreading them on the bonnet.
Jarrad grabbed a car-blanket and a couple of chairs and set up a picnic area. He pulled her down, the plans awry in her hands.
His kiss was fierce again.
“What is it?” she breathed, when she could.
“Meg, I’ve thought of nothing but you…”
“And Cindy.”
“Don’t do that. I can’t explain, except to say that she fits where you don’t want to. I want a child, Meg, and you say you don’t.”
“So I play second fiddle while you fiddle with someone else?”
He pulled her head close to his. “You remember those nights at your place? It was all I could do not to take you away with me. But you had your life—”
“And you had Cindy—”
“—and how was I to interfere with that?”
“You didn’t even try,” she cried and snatched herself away from him. “I’ve made my life, Jarrad. Don’t come rushing in here demanding what was never yours.”
“The hell it wasn’t mine.” He exhaled loudly, flattened his hand on the plans as they threatened to blow away. “I have a week,” he grated.
“What makes you think I’m here for you?”
The silence lengthened as he stared at her. “You’re here.”
“Jarrad.” She shook her head.
“Look, the years apart mean nothing,” he said. “You haven’t been out of my mind.”
“Have you been trying all along for a baby?”
The wind went out of his sails.
She looked at him steadily. “I didn’t ask, I should have... Are you already married?”
His body stilled. “If I were I wouldn’t be here.”
Meg took his hand. “Jarrad, I’m eight years older than you. And I don’t want a cheap relationship any more. I want the whole thing, all of a man, sharing all of our lives. I’ve built this business up to keep me going.”
“I can’t make a claim on you, Meg,”
“No, you can’t.”
He turned away. “All I’ve thought about is—”
“Cindy, a baby and me.”
“You don’t understand.”
Meg nodded once. “We parted less than good mates, Jarrad. This sort of reunion comes with a price, you know. Old hurts.”
“You were living a bloody lie with Martin and you turfed me out—”
“I didn’t turf you out.”
“There was no contact—”
“And you didn’t make any.”
“One last time, Meg, I want you. I want us.”
Meg stared down at the sheets of paper creating a ruckus under his hand as the breeze rustled through it. “You see that area there?” she said, pointing to the plans. “That’s going over there, optimising the view.” She moved his fist so he could see more clearly. “And this wall is here to create a wind break and also a private area for guests if they want to use the barbecue. It gives some shelter from the sou’easterlies. This, over here, is where I’ll garage the electric cars to take the guests to the beach. And this will be the gardener’s cottage, where the boss’s wife takes the hired hand.”
“The hired hand, huh?”
They spent the next hour wandering the block, hand in hand, sometimes stopping to gather the other close, sometimes just to gaze at the magnificent view overlooking land and sea.
At one point he went ahead of her and stood with his hands on his hips. “I don’t know if there’s anywhere I’d rather be right now,” he said over his shoulder. “I must be in the best place on earth.”
She’d thought of nothing but him for a long time, of what it would be like to sleep with this man who lingered in her thoughts day in and day out, to have him love her, want her day and night, make plans, laugh with her, cook in her kitchen, sing with her to her music.
Why shouldn’t she have it, even for just one week?