Only We Know (11 page)

Sam twisted the petrol cap off and, as the nozzle gurgled and vibrated under his grip, he watched Calla walk away. There was something about a woman with long legs. And a nice arse. He studied the way it swayed. And that flaming-red hair swayed too, bouncing and bobbing on her shoulders. The weak winter sun caught it and it shone, red and gold.

He wondered what she'd do now. He could point her in the direction of the SeaLink office so she could get a ticket home. Help her with her gear. In fact, he could even offer to drive half of it back to Adelaide for her. He had a big car. He travelled light. Maybe he'd offer it. And then he could check up on her when he got home, in a purely professional way, of course. Yeah, maybe he'd do that.

There was something about the mysterious Calla Maloney. She'd got under his skin.

Hell. He had to stop thinking that way.

He couldn't discount the fact that maybe he was letting himself be distracted by her because it meant he could put off dealing with his family shit, as he'd so ungratefully described it to Calla the night before.

He'd been trying to avoid it for years, but it couldn't be ignored any more. Sam had had ever more frequent calls from his father's doctor and more nagging than he thought possible from his Auntie Ruth. At first, it had been general flag-waving, gentle warnings that the old man was getting on and might need some extra help. Then the calls had become more regular. Charlie had tripped over again, this time spraining his wrist. Someone had found him parked on the side of the road, disoriented. The warnings had become clearer. Charlie wasn't coping on his own. The doctor had mentioned a place he could move into in Kingscote, the biggest town on the island. Sam figured he might even know a few of the other oldies there. The company would surely help fill the long and lonely hours, help him when he was missing Roo's Rest. Charlie might also like an audience of like-minded old bastards when he complained about the fact that his only son had put him there against his will.

Sam felt a thumping in his chest. Only
surviving
son.

He finished filling the tank and headed to the shop, where he was greeted with a bellowing laugh. The bloke behind the register planted both palms on the counter and hooted. ‘Sam Hunter. How the hell are you?'

Sam took in the ruddy cheeks, the thinning hair, the big burly shoulders and stuck out a hand. It took a moment before recognition kicked in. ‘Fuck me. Adrian bloody Thompson. I haven't seen you in years. What've you been up to?'

They shook firmly and then both men propped their hands on their hips, took each other in. It had been more than twenty years since they'd been opposing ruckmen on the footy field and best mates in the pub after the game.

‘We're back on the island for good now. Me and Laura and the kids.'

‘Couldn't keep away, huh?'

‘Nah. We wanted the girls to grow up here and Laura scored a job at the hospital in Kingscote.' Adrian reached his hand around to the wallet tucked in his back pocket. ‘Check this out.' He flipped open the worn brown leather and Sam swore the bloke started to tear up. ‘Four girls. Can you believe that? Thank Christ they all look like their mother.' Sam took Adrian's wallet and looked at the photo politely. Four blondies, the youngest maybe two years old, smiled back at him.

‘They're gorgeous girls, mate. So, Laura's good?'

‘Still gorgeous.'

Adrian and Laura had been together for what felt to Sam like a million years. Sam had been right there at the Penneshaw pub the very night they'd hooked up. They were all eighteen and it was a summer Saturday night. A group of kids they'd gone to school with were settling in to celebrate someone's birthday; he couldn't remember now whose it was. They'd all had a few beers under their belts when a group of girls walked in. The boarding-school girls. The ones who'd grown up on the island but been sent away when they turned fifteen to go to Catholic schools over in Adelaide. Sam couldn't forget the mysterious thing that happened to those girls when they went away to school in the city. They left as the classmates you avoided when you walked past them on the street and came back as women, a major development not lost on the boys who stayed to finish high school on the island. Adrian's attention had been captured by one girl in particular. Short, barely five feet tall, white-blonde tumbling curls and big blue eyes. She'd batted them in Adrian's direction as she slipped her fingers into the back pockets of her denim shorts.

Nathan, a guy who played on Sam's team, a farm boy from the west of the island, had sidled up to Sam and Adrian with a drunken leer. Beer sloshed over the side of his glass as he gestured to her. ‘Check her out, will ya? She's like a walking head job.'

Sam had never seen Adrian move so fast.

A few seconds later, Nathan was prostrate on the floor with a burgeoning black eye and beer all over himself and the floor, looking like he was lying in a puddle of his own piss.

A minute later, Sam was witness to Adrian and Laura's first kiss. A kiss that led to some action in the car park at the end of the night — so Adrian claimed later — and then eighteen years of wedded bliss.

Adrian's grin today was still as broad as it had been the night he'd punched Nathan's lights out and scored that first kiss. ‘She's great, Sam. Still promising to kill me if I get her pregnant again.'

‘What, four isn't enough?' Sam laughed and handed back the picture.

‘If you could promise me a boy, I'd be in it.' Adrian winked. ‘So, what about you? You married?'

Sam's answer was well rehearsed. ‘Still a swinging single, mate.'

‘You're joking.' Adrian pulled in his chin and his brow furrowed.

‘Why, you offering?'

Adrian reached over and slapped Sam on the shoulder. ‘How long you here for?'

Sam rubbed his chin. ‘Not sure. I'm seeing the old man.'

‘He's a legend, mate. He's still driving but I've got no idea where the bloody hell he goes. He comes in every few months to fill up the car.'

Sam's jaw tightened as he tried not to react. He didn't need to be reminded that his old man was still driving. He could sense the fight he was going to have had just got bigger, and it wasn't going to be pretty or polite.

‘Hey, let me know if he forgets to pay you for the petrol.'

‘Yeah, no worries. It's happened once or twice but it's no sweat. I just add it to the tab the next time.'

‘Cheers for that. I've gotta get going. It was good to see you, Adrian. Give my best to Laura.'

‘No worries.'

Sam swiped his card to pay for the fuel and slipped out with a wave.

He had a redhead to find.

CHAPTER

15

Calla was relieved to put some distance between herself and Sam. She'd walked away from the petrol station with the wind at her back, the firm knowledge that he was checking her out as she walked away, and a million feelings whirling in her head. All his nice and kind and considerate, not to mention handsome, was freaking her out a little. She'd learnt the hard way that men who acted like that, who looked like that, couldn't be trusted. Josh had been an excellent teacher in that regard.

Her father had just died; her family had imploded. Everything had seemed helpless and hopeless and she'd been looking for an escape. And because of all that, she'd let her loneliness choose who she loved, rather than her head and her heart combined. It was the equivalent of buying a pair of shoes on sale because they were a bargain and then getting home and realising you bought them just because they fit, rather than because they suited you.

It was a false economy. Wanting to be loved by someone because you were lonely meant you accepted second-best for yourself. And she'd been caught in that trap. She wasn't going to go there again. This time, her head and her heart were flashing warning signals and they were saying clearly, in big neon lights:
Step away from the handsome firefighter
.

Just a few minutes before, when he'd slipped an arm around her shoulders, she'd felt something shift and change between them. Something had turned up a notch. Her head and her heart had gone on a little holiday, it seemed, and she'd let herself relax in the comfort of his embrace. She hadn't meant to drop her head on his shoulder the way she had, but something took over; something that wasn't her loneliness, her head or her heart. It had felt so good to let go and allow herself to be comforted by him.

Damn it. She stopped in her tracks and slapped a hand to her mouth.

It wasn't her head or her lonely heart that had kicked in. It was pure lust. It was the way any red-blooded woman would react when a man who looked like Sam Hunter pulled her close and hugged her. It was purely physical, that's what it was. Which was such a relief. She hadn't reverted to her old desperate self and read too much into what he'd surely meant as a kind gesture.

She turned a corner from the main street. Good, she resolved as the little shop came into view. That all made complete sense. His kindness to her was nothing out of the ordinary. He was being a firefighter, that's all. A professional hero. Phew. He'd been lovely to her but their lives would soon drift apart, as they should. Sam would be going to his father's, and she was going home. Her quest to find Jem had been interrupted, at least for the time being, and she would have to regroup and come back another time.

The yellow
open
sign hanging from a purple wooden post in the small front garden announced that the craft shop was ready for customers and Calla opened the purple screen door and walked inside. She slowly moved through the shop, taking in the handcrafted items, the pottery in dark browns and pale greens, plates and bowls and mugs. There were photographs, paintings and handmade items of country craft that Calla always loved to see when she travelled away from the city.

She did that a lot. She went wherever the work was, whenever someone could scrape together enough money or win a grant to bring her in. A couple of times a year she conducted art workshops in country schools. She adored seeing the faces of country kids come alive when they had a paintbrush in their hands, especially the students who weren't good at sport or maths or words, but could find pictures in their heads and recreate them on paper or canvas or wood or clay. Something came alive in them, and Calla loved watching it bloom.

In every country destination, she made a point of stopping by the local arts and crafts shop. Most towns had them, filled with items made by people who'd been practising their craft for fifty years. Calla could paint, but she couldn't knit or sew or crochet; she hadn't taken the time when her grandmother was alive to learn them at her knee, and hadn't had a mother who knew them. Whatever play time she'd had as a child, she'd spent with a paintbrush or a pencil or a crayon in her hand. The solitary nature of her artistic pursuit wasn't an accident. When she was younger, she could hide away in her bedroom with a sketchpad and a pencil, loud music in her ears, and distance herself from the fighting and the tension and the ugliness of her parents' relentless arguments. Sometimes, when it became unbearable, she would take Rose and an often-reluctant Jem to the playground at the end of the street, where they would play for hours on the slide and the swings and she could draw in the peaceful quiet of happy laughter and rustling leaves from the trees above her.

‘Hello there.' An older woman with pale-grey hair knotted in a bun high on her head was sitting behind the counter of the craft shop, her knitting needles clicking a rhythm that sounded like a song.

‘Good morning,' Calla replied. ‘What a lovely shop.'

‘All handmade here on the island. Let me know if I can help you with anything.'

‘Thank you, I will.' Calla turned to her left and entered a room to the side of the reception area. It was filled to the brim with pottery, oil paintings, framed photographs, fine silk-screened scarves and postcards. She chose one for Rose, a black and white artistic shot of the view from Penneshaw's cliff tops. In the main room, an old, scratched wooden table caught her eye. It displayed an assortment of jams, pickles and relishes. It was all so enticing that Calla's fingers itched to buy the lemon marmalade she'd spotted. To its right, another wooden table was filled with knitted scarves, children's jumpers and beanies. The pale light filtering through from outside illuminated the display. Calla's eyes were drawn to a light olive-green knitted cap, with fine stripes of pink, burgundy, yellow and aqua. She couldn't help but touch it, and it was feather soft and warm as toast under her fingertips. She lifted it, tugged it over her curls and bent her knees so she could see it in the display mirror. The crazy combination of colours picked up the colour of her eyes and she felt instantaneously warm. Like an Ugg boot for her head. Calla knew she had to have it.

‘Nice.'

She let out a breath. That voice again. The deep rumble, the huskiness. She turned to Sam and rearranged the cap on her head. ‘You think so?'

He stood in the middle of the shop, arms crossed, legs set slightly apart. A knowing smile on his lips and crinkles in the corners of his eyes.

‘Here, let me help you with that.' The woman from behind the counter stood up and approached Calla. ‘Pull it back a little bit and it will let your lovely curls be seen at the front.' The woman arranged the cap and Calla checked it out in the mirror. She was right. Now it looked less football beanie and more French beret.

‘Thank you. It's lovely,' Calla said with an appreciative smile.

‘Aren't those colours perfect for your wife?' There was a distinctive sparkle in the old woman's eyes as she stared adoringly at Sam.

‘Yes, they are, aren't they?'

Calla pulled it off her head with a tug and widened her eyes in Sam's direction.

‘Darling, doesn't your dad love lemon marmalade? Or chutney? Perhaps some strawberry jam? There's a wonderful display here and I think you should buy one of each for him, don't you?'