Only We Know (15 page)

‘No, that's not what I meant, Sam.' Her eyes opened wide and her hands pressed against his chest. He noticed with a growing sense of male pride that she didn't move them away.

He looked down.

‘Oh shit, sorry,' she said. ‘I'm filthy.'

‘You are.' He reached slowly around her waist, smoothed his hands over her hips and around to her arse and untucked the tea towel. He brought it between their bodies and began wiping the pink smears from his jumper. Damn it if she wasn't blushing.

‘What I meant was, I think he'd like to chat with you, that's all.' Calla squeezed around back towards the sink, her curls bobbing up and down in a wave as she did. Her hair really was the most amazing colour: auburn, blonde, dark-red curls. It looked like the sun was shining down on it wherever she was. Hell, he reckoned he'd be able to see it in the dark.

‘Chat? We don't do much of that.'

‘He's really excited to see you. He wouldn't stop talking about you just before, when you were outside. Go sit on the veranda with him.'

‘Right,' Sam said but he didn't move. He didn't want to stop breathing her in, didn't want to move away from her.

‘Sam …' Calla murmured. She looked over her shoulder, back to him, her voice breathy and almost a whisper.

For a moment he forgot where he was and what he was supposed to be doing. And everyone was worried about his old man.

He turned and went outside.

CHAPTER

19

‘So, Dad, had much rain?'

There was the scrape of a chair on the veranda and Sam's deep voice floated to Calla from outside. She was already attuned to the way it sounded, already aware of what it did to her. It pricked up her ears and, damn it, every other part of her. It sent her heart racing just a little. When Sam's voice fell silent, she could hear Charlie pipe up and the conversation between the two men slowly pick up a rhythm, and she was glad for it. She was relieved to have been able to urge Sam outside, glad there was somewhere else for him to be … rather than behind her, pressing against her, sending her pulse into overdrive and every bit of her throbbing into a quivering mess.

Calla tossed the now worn-to-shreds piece of steel wool into the bin and planted her hands on the rim of the sink, trying to catch a breath.

Something had just happened but she wasn't sure what. The temperature between her and Sam had just risen from Acquaintances to Interesting. It was there when he stood so close behind her that she could smell his aftershave, something pine forest. And then when she'd turned around and almost pushed her breasts into his face, and seen the look in his eyes as he gazed at her lips? Something had flared behind her breastbone that she hadn't felt in a long, long time.

Was it lust? Was it desperation? Whatever it was, it had hit her like a hammer blow. They'd taken a step, and were acutely aware of each other now. Not just as reluctant travelling companions but as a man and a woman. Already, she knew when he was near, like a metal detector beeping louder when it hovered over a piece of jewellery buried under the sand at the beach. There was something about their chemistry that was sparking a hormonal red-alert.

Was it the way he looked at her, all dark and intense eyes? Was it the way he took in every detail of her face in a quick once-over before ending up with a sharp focus on her lips? No, it wasn't just the way he looked at her. Just then, when she'd had her back to him, she felt him behind her without even looking. It wasn't just his voice that she was sensing from a distance. It was him, his body, the way he walked and the way he'd stood there. A heat had risen in her face, prickling the back of her neck and sharpening her hearing. And damn it, at one point it felt as if he'd been about to push her hair aside and press his lips to her neck, right in that sweet spot under her ear.

She blew out a slow breath and wiped her forehead with the back of her wet and soggy hand. She was probably letting her imagination run away with her. Damn this island. Damn his father's house. It was all so idyllic and peaceful and countrified and languid, with all that fresh air and views for a million miles of nothing between you and the ocean, that she'd got mushy. All that extra oxygen had fired up her imagination and she'd started seeing things that weren't really there.

Calla reached for the tea towel Sam had dropped on the bench and wiped her hands on it.

Seeing things that weren't there had almost broken her.

‘Yeah, we've had a lot of rain,' Charlie said with resignation in his voice. The years of drought had passed, much to the relief of the farmers and graziers, and the island had resumed its regular pattern of soggy winters.

Sam sat on a log, which Charlie used for a table, and looked out at the view. The sloping green hills dipped down in the distance where the main road ran past the property then flattened out until another line of trees hugged the fence bordering the next property. In the distance, the beaches and cliffs of Antechamber Bay were lit by the winter sun. The light shimmered off the waves and brightened the clouds directly overhead into clumps of cotton wool. Further east, the sky was dark grey, full of more rain.

He'd taken the view for granted when he was a kid. It was where you looked to see if rain was coming and what you stared at for hours when all you wanted to do was leave the island and never come back.

Seeing it through adult eyes, he understood why his parents had chosen this spot to build their first and only home. It sat halfway up the hill, with scrub and open paddocks behind it, and the views from the front. Thinking about it, it was probably his mother who'd picked the location. (His old man was more practical, had grown up on the island and was as inured to the views as Sam had been as a kid.) How fitting that she'd died right there on the front veranda. Sam hoped she'd been taking in the ocean and the huge skies and the sun when she took her last breath.

Charlie began rocking in his chair. ‘Half the Wilkinsons' sheep have got foot rot. They had to get the vet in from Kingscote to see to them. Old Bill can't do it himself any more. He's an old bugger, you know. Eighty-six.'

Sam tried not to smile. ‘That's how old you are, Dad.'

Charlie thought about that for a moment. ‘Did I tell you Old Bill Wilkinson is eighty-six now?'

Sam took a deep breath. ‘Is he? He doesn't look a day over seventy-five.'

The conversation went around like that for half an hour. Sam heard all the old stories again. The histories of the families who'd settled this half of the island. Stories he'd heard when he was a kid and lately every time he came back to visit. His father had dementia. He'd known it before he'd driven over this time. Had known it for a good twelve months. That's what was making this trip so burdensome.

Charlie nodded his head to the front door. ‘So tell me about your wife. What's her name?'

Sam debated in his head for two seconds about whether it was worth correcting him. ‘Her name's Calla. I met her on the boat a couple of days ago. I'm just helping her out.'

Helping her out? Was that what he was doing? He remembered her words with a wry smile:
You're a firefighter with some kind of professional-hero complex who goes around butting in to everyone's business and trying to rescue people.

That wasn't what was going on here. The thing brewing between them wasn't about a hero complex or a job. It was about a man and a woman and sex. It was about the dance two people did before deciding whether they were going to give in to nature. Sam knew he was right there, in that place in his head. And in his jeans. And if Calla's reaction by the kitchen sink was anything to go by, she was there too.

The front door opened with a creak and Calla emerged backwards, holding a tray with a plate of biscuits and three steaming cups on it.

Sam jumped up to hold the door open. She didn't meet his eyes.

Charlie winked at his son. ‘She's a looker, all right. All that red hair.'

‘It's red, all right.'

When he spoke, Calla stumbled and the cups clinked against each other.

Sam leant in. ‘I'll take it,' he said and reached for the tray.

‘No need. I've got it.' Calla turned to Charlie. ‘Thought you might want another tea. And some biscuits.'

‘Look at that. Room service.' Charlie took an Anzac biscuit and his fresh cuppa. ‘Cheers; thanks, love.'

Sam took the two other cups and cocked his head. ‘Here, Calla. Why don't you sit down?'

‘I'm happy to stand.'

‘Please,' Sam said. ‘Get a load off and drink your coffee before it gets cold, although I know that's how you like it.'

‘Thank you,' Calla said. Her lips curved in a smile but she didn't look at him. Sam leant against a veranda post.

‘Your mother was a looker, Sam, just like this girl. Did I ever tell you the story of how we met?'

Charlie's face lit up and his eyes almost disappeared into the sagging wrinkles of his face. Or maybe he'd closed them to conjure the memory. It had been so many years since Sam had seen the old man smile that he couldn't be sure. Charlie had an Islander's face, whipped by the sun and the wind his whole life.

‘It was 1963 and there was a bloody great big carnival at Penneshaw.' Charlie leant back in his wooden chair and gripped his cup. ‘People came from everywhere, from the island and from Adelaide and even Sydney for it. There were famous visitors too. There were so many people they had them camping on the oval. It was a national spear-fishing competition, that's right. There was a beach sprint and I won that. Crikey, I could go like the clappers back then. It was the first day of the carnival and your mother turned up from Adelaide in an orange swimsuit and she won the beach-girl contest. That night, there was a dance at the Penneshaw Hall and I was the first one to ask her to dance. You know, we danced so hard that night, all of us young fellas, that the new jarrah floor collapsed?'

Calla brushed her curls away from her face, and Sam could see that her eyes were shimmery with tears. ‘What was her name, Charlie?'

‘Jean. Her name was Jean.' Charlie turned to her. ‘Did I ever tell you the story of how we met? It was 1963 …'

The ocean and the mainland had disappeared in the darkness by the time Calla unlocked the door to the holiday cabin. Sam followed her inside with weary footsteps and she went into the bathroom, closing the door behind her.

They'd spent the rest of the day with Charlie and, as the sun had set, they'd made him an early dinner, and then driven away with a promise to be back in the morning. There had been no point trying to pick his brain that afternoon. As the sun had started to fade in the western sky, he had only become more confused. Sam and Calla had exchanged glances when he started the fourth recital of how he'd met Sam's mum. They'd easily, without any words exchanged between them, come to a mutual understanding that any questions about Jem would have to wait. And no words had to be exchanged either, about the fact that Sam would take Calla back to the cabin at Penneshaw for the night and stay there with her. Sam could easily have slept at his father's house, in one of the twin singles still set up in the second bedroom, but there was nowhere for Calla to sleep, and it was ridiculous for him to drive back and forth in the dark.

Sam had enjoyed the drive into the night, being with Calla in the warm cocoon of the car. She'd been quiet, contemplative. They'd talked for a little while about nothing much, the danger of kangaroos in the dark, the stars, but Calla had grown drowsy and had fallen asleep ten minutes after they'd turned on to the main road, her head against the window, her fingers clasped together in her lap. Sam turned the music off, listened instead to the soft sound of her breathing. He liked being able to look at her without her knowing he was. While he kept a keen and careful eye on the road ahead, and his lights on high beam, he snuck a glance every minute or so. She was snuggled inside her coat, the sleeves long, almost down to her fingers. Her flaming hair was all around her face, her lips parted slightly as she breathed. He wondered if he should make up a story and tell her that she snored. He wanted to tease her some more, hear her laugh, see her cheeks flush. She rose to the bait every time. And she gave as good as she got. When she turned the tables and teased him, her chin lifted, her eyes narrowed, and she tried really hard to hide a smile but couldn't manage it.

Who was this woman? She'd walked into his father's house that day and taken over without either him or Charlie realising it. She'd been kind, considerate and, most importantly, subtle. She'd taken one look and known what needed to be done. Not to mention she'd had Charlie eating out of her hand. She seemed to know exactly what to say and do to make the old man comfortable.

Sam dropped his car keys onto the kitchen bench with a jangle, put a bag of shopping alongside them and went straight for the bottle of wine. He twisted off the cap, found two glasses and poured generously.

He heard the bathroom door close and Calla joined him. She stood on the other side of the kitchen bench and yawned.

‘Here,' he said and handed her a glass.

‘Thanks.' She narrowed her eyes at him. ‘So … I'm allowed to drink now?'

He smiled. ‘You were right. You weren't concussed.'

She gasped in mock horror. ‘That kills you, doesn't it? Being wrong about something.'

‘I like to be pleasantly surprised every now and then.'

They looked at each other. Drank some wine. Outside, the wind had picked up and was rattling the sliding door.

‘Sam,' Calla said after a long pause. ‘I need to talk to you about Charlie.' She put her glass down on the bench.

He knew what was coming. Knew she'd seen things that he hadn't wanted to. ‘Yeah, I know. But can we eat first? I'm starving.'

‘Me too, but there's nothing to eat. We may have to get takeaway. Is there takeaway here?'