by Diana Fraser
“You’ve gone down in my estimation, Amber. I thought you knew everything about everyone around here.”
“I have my informants, and they appear to have let me down.” She tapped him on the chest. “Find out who he is for me, big brother. I wouldn’t mind communing with nature with him.” They fell into step. “He’s tanned, so he likes to be outside. I bet he’s a musician. He looks the part. Those eyes.”
Gabe grunted. He hadn’t liked what he’d seen in the man’s eyes. They looked rapacious. Okay under normal circumstances, but not when trained on his little sister.
“Gabe, I mean it. I never see anyone I like, and now I have.” She did a pretend pout.
“You want me to go around asking after strange men?”
She turned to look. “He didn’t look so strange.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Do it, won’t you? For me. Ask around.”
“Okay, okay. He’s probably married with five kids.”
“No. I’m sure he wasn’t. He didn’t look married.”
“How do married people look?”
Amber shrugged. “It wasn’t so much how he looked, it was the look he gave me. No married man would look at a woman that way.”
Gabe opened his mouth to contradict her but sighed instead. There was no point. Whatever he said, Amber wouldn’t believe him.
“So will you check him out for me?” she pressed.
“If that’s what it takes to shut you up.”
She grinned. No trace of pout remaining. Not that it ever did on Amber’s face. “Yes, it is and thank you, sweetie. Now, let me return the favor and sort out your life for you.”
“I’m off!” said Gabe doing an abrupt about turn. But Amber’s soft grasp on his arm was enough to stop him. “Okay, what’s up?”
“She wanted me to give this to you later, but if you’re going to run off on me, I’d best give it to you now.”
“What?”
She rummaged in her tasselled, hand-embroidered handbag, pulling out a string of beads, and glasses case, handing them to Gabe, so that she could delve more easily into her bag. “You don’t even wear glasses!” he said, turning the round-rimmed glasses in his hand.
“No. But they’re cute, and they were a bargain.” She had a further rummage and pulled out an envelope, which looked as if it had been at the bottom of her bag for weeks. She held it out to him with a grin on her face.
“What the hell is this?” he asked, waving the envelope at her.
“Don’t be so damn grumpy with me!” replied Amber. “Open it and see.”
“You delivered it; you should know what it is.”
She put her hands on her hips. “Maybe I do, and maybe I don’t.”
“What kind of answer is that?” asked Gabe, slitting the envelope and extracting a single sheet of paper with only a few paragraphs handwritten on it.
“The only answer you’re likely to get.”
“Who the hell sends letters through the mail—” He stopped as he scanned its contents. “Oh.” He exhaled the word and turned away from Amber, not wanting her to be a witness to his reaction. He couldn’t have spoken anyway; all the breath was knocked out of him.
An invitation from Maddy to meet him at Christchurch airport. She was arriving that afternoon. And he’d canceled all his appointments because his sister had requested him to.
He swung around and waved the paper. “You knew about this, didn’t you?”
Amber raised her eyebrows and failed to control a grin. “Yes. You don’t mind, do you? She wanted to make sure you’d be able to come. She wanted my help.”
He nodded, a thousand thoughts and feelings fighting for attention in his brain, but only one surfaced. Maddy wanted to meet him. Before he could force himself to be reasonable, hope triumphed. She wanted to see him. His heart thudded, and he felt alive for the first time since she’d left. He allowed a vision of her face to fill his mind, something he’d been continually repressing since she’d left. Her hair flowing around her face, the way she shyly pushed it behind her ear as she looked at him. And then he thought of her eyes, cautious, distrustful. And his heart sank again. Maybe she was here to see the others, to check out the archaeological dig she’d worked on, and was only meeting with him first to get it over with. She may be distrustful, but she’d wasn’t cruel. No, this was a social call only. He felt slightly sick as the adrenaline ebbed away as fast as it had come.
“Amber, tell me, why has she come back?”
“I think she had some unfinished business here,” she said, with a twisted smile, as if trying to prevent herself from saying something.
“Amber,” he said warningly. “You know something, and you’re not telling me. Is it something connected to the dig?”
She shrugged. “I can’t say.”
“Can’t, or won’t.”
“The difference doesn’t matter. I’m not saying. Now, why don’t you stop asking me stupid questions and get in your car and go to the airport and ask her yourself.”
“Great, an hour’s drive to be told to get lost.”
“Maybe she’d like to see you. Have you thought of that?”
“To return something? To tell me to go to hell?”
“Now, why would she come all the way back to New Zealand to tell you to go to hell?”
“I don’t know! I don’t know anything anymore. Particularly when it comes to women.”
Amber put her arm around him and rested her cheek on his arm. He shook his head.
“It’s okay, Gabe. Just give her a chance.”
“Do you know anything, Amber? Please, if you know what it is she wants, put me out of my misery.”
She lifted her cheek and looked up at him. “There’s nothing to worry about. This is Maddy, remember. She wouldn’t hurt you.”
“Amber, she already has.”
Sadness flooded Amber’s face, and Gabe immediately regretted his words.
“You will go, won’t you?” she asked plaintively.
“Of course I’ll go. God knows why. But you know I love her. I’d go to the ends of the earth if she asked me to.”
“Lucky for you it’s only to Christchurch.” She grinned. He wished he shared Amber’s confidence.
* * *
Maddy’s flight from Thailand had been delayed, and she was a bundle of nerves as she walked into the arrivals hall. She didn’t need to go to baggage claims; she had all she needed on her. She glanced at the clock. She had half-an-hour before she met Gabe. She looked around and found a seat in the corner opposite the entrance. She checked the time again; she just had time to get a coffee. Jetlag was already making her feel dizzy.
Maddy had to wait in the queue which took forever because the coffee machine was faulty. But an anxious glance at the clock revealed she still had time. Finally, coffee in hand, she turned around and bumped into someone and spilled coffee down his shirt.
“I’m so sorry!”
The coffee stain was spreading fast. He pulled his shirt away from his body. “That’s hot! Good to see you too, Maddy!”
She looked up into blue eyes, full of humor.
“Gabe!” It wasn’t so much his name as a shout from her soul; a name that had filled her heart and mind for so long that it rushed out on the edge of her breath. She was frozen to the spot, unable to take her eyes from his.
It was Gabe who made the first move. He reached out and took her coffee from her shaking hand with a cautious smile. “How about I take it. It might save both our clothes.”
She nodded and swallowed. “I’m so sorry.”
He looked uncertain as if he wasn’t sure what she was apologizing for. But he obviously decided that, whatever it was, she was forgiven. “No problem.”
“Thank you,” she breathed weakly.
“Shall we take a seat?”
“Yes, sure. Sorry.” Maddy bit her lip. She wondered if she’d ever be able to stop apologizing to Gabe.
She followed him to the seating area, trying desperately to
regain any sense of equilibrium she may have had at the start of the journey. But then he turned and looked at her, a curious mix of wariness and affection in his eyes, and she wondered if she was a million miles off target. Whether her interpretation of events here had been skewed by all those months on a Thai beach. That he didn’t feel the way she imagined he’d felt for her. But it was too late to turn back.
He placed the coffee gingerly on the table and wiped his hands on the napkin which surrounded it. He sat down, leaned forward, his forearms on his knees and looked up at her with eyes that suggested far more control over the situation than she had.
“Well?” he coaxed.
“Yes, fine thanks.”
His grin broadened. “As happy as I am that you’re feeling well, it was the kind of ‘well’ which is meant to prompt a disclosure. Well”—he opened his hands in a sweeping gesture—“as in, ‘and so, why am I here?’”
“Right. Sorry.” A wave of heat prickled her skin. She’d never felt such a fool, but she had to continue. She dragged in a shaky breath, but it did nothing to calm her. “I asked you to come because I have a question for you.”
He waited a few moments but, with her suddenly dry mouth, what she had to say stayed in her head. “Go on,” he coaxed. “Tell me the worst.”
He imagined the worst! That loosened her tongue. Except all the words she’d rehearsed went out of her mind, instead her feelings diverted her to the moment of illumination; the moment he made her see her for what she had been—not an independent, decisive woman, but a scared one.
“Do you remember that time when we were swimming with the dolphins?”
His eyebrows raised and he sat back with a laugh. “Of course. I’ll never forget it. Is that why you asked me here? To challenge my memories of our times together?”
She shrugged and frowned. “In a way, yes. You see, it was the first time in a long time that I didn’t worry about what people thought of me, about how I was perceived—I was so in the moment that that mask, that barrier I’d placed between me and the world, fell right away.” She looked at him. “And you noticed.”
“Yes, I noticed. I remember it well. I felt I’d seen you properly for the first time.”
She smiled and grunted. “And you told me that everyone should risk everything for what they felt in their heart.” She shrugged, feeling awkward.
“‘Everyone’, ‘they’—I meant you of course.”
“Yeah, I know. And I told you that I didn’t know what I felt in my heart.” She looked up, and all awkwardness vanished. “But that was then. I know now.” She fisted her hand and held it against her chest, urging him, wanting him to understand exactly what she felt there. “I want to lay everything on the line for what I feel, here, inside.”
“Everything?”
“Yes. I’ve always hated showing my feelings to the world in case they got trampled on. A case of self-preservation, I guess. But I don’t need that any longer. I’m stronger than I’ve ever been, and that’s down to you. You’ve healed me.”
He grunted softly and sat back. “That’s what I do; I’m a doctor after all.”
She shook her head vigorously. “No, I don’t mean that. I’m sorry, I’m not explaining myself well at all. What I mean”—she took another deep breath—“is that, because of you, I can see more clearly now. Feel more clearly.”
“Well, that’s good. So where to from here?”
“To Belendroit.”
“To Belendroit?” he asked.
She licked her lips again. “Yes. I’ve some unfinished business there.”
“Right,” he nodded, the question answered. “Right,” he repeated. It might have been answered, but she could see it wasn’t the answer he’d hoped for. “I guess you want to see my family?”
“Of course,” she said, the real reason on the tip of her tongue, but she refused to reveal it yet. She had something to prove first.
“Something to do with the fact that it’s six months to the day when you first came?”
She nodded, not trusting herself to spill the real reason she wanted to go to Belendroit.
“Right. Let’s go and get this over with.”
Her heart contracted with pain, but she couldn’t weaken. She’d done enough of that over the past year. She needed to show Gabe that she knew what she wanted now.
* * *
Gabe lifted his focus from the road briefly to glance at Maddy, who had remained strangely quiet for most of the journey to Belendroit. He hadn’t a clue what she was up to, and he wasn’t going to pry. It was up to her now. Instead, he focused on the winding road, refusing to acknowledge the turmoil of feelings which having Maddy seated at his side brought forth. He pushed them down, just as he did when he was working for Médecins Sans Frontières when there was a rush on the field hospital after a violent clash, and guts spilled from wounds, parts of bodies were missing, and the stench and terror of death filled the air. At times like those he could literally feel his head cooling, his eyes and senses slowing, assessing, prioritizing, dealing with the mayhem while others around him either froze or panicked. He’d always had that ability. And it kicked in now. Except there were no wounded, only Maddy who appeared the least wounded he’d ever seen her.
“The leaves,” said Maddy. “They’re nearly gone.” She turned to Gabe with a wistful half-smile.
“Ah, you’ll find that’s what happens when it’s nearly winter,” said Gabe, refusing to heed the kick in his gut that her tentative smile gave him.
Maddy flashed him a grin at his attempt at humor. “Somehow in my mind, it had remained the same.”
“Nothing remains the same,” he said, shifting gears as they turned into a tight bend. The car revved up a steep incline, clinging to the edge of a cliff which rose above the harbor, a streak of sapphire amid emerald green hills.
Maddy caught her breath. “It’s such a contrast to where I’ve been.”
Gabe gave Maddy a few moments to elaborate as he smoothly settled the car into top gear as they hit a straight piece of road. She didn’t. “Are you going to tell me where you’ve been?”
She raised an eyebrow and smiled. “If you ask.”
“Consider me having asked.”
“Yes. I’ve been in Thailand, on the island of Ko Samet.”
“And what were you doing there for so long?” For some reason, a flash of jealousy zapped through him. A beautiful woman like Maddy in a well-known tourist resort. She would have been the object of many men’s desires. “Having fun?”
The smile turned into a frown. “I wouldn’t describe it as fun.”
“Come on; Ko Samet is party central.”
“Not where I was. I stayed in a small resort on the other side of the island. It was very quiet, peaceful. It gave me time and space to think about things.”
“And your thoughts led you to returning here. Almost six months to the day, just as Jonny wanted you to?”
She nodded.
Gabe’s gut tightened with nausea. He slammed on the brakes a little too hard to slow down for a corner. He was aware of Maddy lurching forward slightly in response. This was ridiculous. Was all this some kind of joke? He loved her, whether she knew that or not. He wasn’t about to tell her again. What was the point? She simply wanted to complete her promise to Jonny and to catch up with the rest of his family to say the goodbye which she’d omitted to do when she left three months earlier.
They entered the town of Akaroa and wound around the harbor toward Belendroit. Gabe waved to a couple of people before they came out the other side of the town. The sun was slow to burn off the mist and, despite the fact it was mid-afternoon, the light was hazy, and Belendroit appeared almost ethereal amidst its surrounding trees.
“I don’t know if anyone is home, but I guess your visit is more symbolic than anything. I guess it doesn’t matter to you if anyone is there or not.”
“That’s a lot of guesses,” she said lightly.
He shrugged. “It’s all I have.”
/>
She grunted as if hurt and looked away. He was immediately sorry. He wouldn’t hurt her for the world, even if she didn’t love him.
He turned into the driveway and was surprised to see some cars parked. “Strange,” he said peering out the front window across the cars. “Looks like some of the family are here.” He looked at her. “Anything to do with you?”
She shot him a quick, nervous smile. “Yes.”
He watched her as she got out the car and looked around. She was up to something, and whatever it was, she was determined to keep him in the dark. And all he could do was follow, and find out what was going on. It was an unusual feeling for him, for someone else to be in control and him following. And there was only one person in the world who could do it without him resisting—Maddy.
He followed her past the barking cocker spaniels—Stanley and Boo were quite ecstatic to see her—and on, toward the house. Strangely there was no one on the veranda, and, even stranger, it was tidy. There wasn’t a teapot or roughly folded newspaper in sight.
Gabe shot Maddy a suspicious look but before he could ask her anything she’d run up the steps and disappeared into the house, just as his father emerged from around the corner of the house.
“Gabe!”
“Dad,” Gabe greeted. “What’s going on?” He began to follow Maddy, but his father reached out and put his arm around him and gave him a big hug. His father had always been emotionally demonstrative, but something didn’t feel right. Maybe it was the way his father retained a firm grip on his shoulder.
“Going on? Why would you ask that? Can’t a father hug his son?”
Gabe narrowed his eyes, never leaving his father’s, who looked positively mischievous.
“Something,” said Gabe with emphasis, “is going on. And I’d like to know what.”
His father grinned. “That’s the lot of us men, son. Women always know what’s going on, and we find out eventually, but only when they’re ready to tell us.”
Gabe opened his mouth to respond, but his father interrupted, after looking over Gabe’s shoulder.
“It was the same with your mother, you know. She knew best, always did. Not that I ever realized that until after the event.” He sighed heavily. “Anyway, I digress. Did you know that we received a standing ovation at the last showing of our play at the repertory?”