The disembodied voice that issued from the speaker above the penthouse buzzer—Jake’s, she recognized—informed her that Mr Goodwin was not in residence and any enquiries should be directed to his office.
That wasn’t possible on a Sunday morning.
What was possible was to put herself on a train to the Gold Coast—Helensvale would be the nearest station—and take a bus to the Sovereign Islands, or a taxi if there were no buses. But what if he wasn’t there either? And what if Mrs Mills or Stan, or both, were having Sunday off? Of course she had had the number of the Tuscan villa, but she’d also learnt from her stay there that all incoming calls were screened.
Ignore the ‘what if?’s, Alex, she instructed herself, otherwise you’ll end up doing nothing.
The train journey from Central to Helensvale took over an hour and then there were no buses. So she took a taxi to Paradise Point and decided to walk over the bridge from there. She and Nicky had done it a few times; it was a pleasant walk. But she stopped and bought herself lunch first and ate it in the park, feeding the seagulls the scraps of her fish and chips.
She stopped again at the top of the bridge and looked down at the waters swirling below.
Because it was a fine Sunday there were plenty of water craft about from jet skis to houseboats. There were fishermen on the beach and picnickers in the park. Looking south towards Surfers Paradise, and west towards the hinterland, though, there were dark clouds building, giving warning that this magic day could also bring storms.
Looking north, she had a view very similar to the one she’d had from her guest bedroom, a view of water and mangroves and casuarinas.
She stirred and took a deep breath. Sweat was trickling down between her shoulder blades beneath the white blouse she wore with khaki shorts and yellow sandals. She started to walk.
Half an hour later she was walking back over the bridge. There had been no sign of life at the house and no one had answered the doorbell.
She couldn’t say exactly what her uppermost feeling was. There was a mixture of tearful and frustrated, foolish and downhearted, and—something new—apprehensive as she walked westward into the arms of what looked to be a ferocious thunderstorm.
The clouds were boiling and black, she could see lightning and the storm seemed to be racing towards her.
She quickened her footsteps. The little shopping centre at Paradise Point would afford her cover, but would she reach it in time?
So intent was she on the storm, she didn’t really notice what make of car flashed past her across the bridge as the first raindrop fell, until she heard a squeal of tyres and turned to see it reversing towards her.
It was a navy-blue Bentley; it was Max Goodwin wearing light trousers and a black shirt and leaning across to open the door for her.
Her heart leapt into her mouth and, despite the hours she’d had to think things through, she was suddenly quite unprepared for this encounter. She even seemed to be planted to the pavement as the rain grew heavier.
‘Alex, get in,’ he commanded. ‘It’s about to hail if I’m not mistaken.’
That brought her to life. ‘Oh, your car!’ she breathed and got in hastily.
‘Damn the car—what are you doing out in this?’ He put the motor in gear and drove off.
‘I—well, I—oh!’ she said as the heavens opened and he growled something indecipherable because, for a moment, he couldn’t see a thing. Then the windscreen wipers adjusted themselves and shortly afterwards they turned into the driveway and he activated the garage doors with a remote control from the car.
They drove into the garage just as the hail began. The noise was almost deafening as he led the way into the kitchen, and they stood side by side at the kitchen window and watched golf-ball-size hailstones bounce around on the exposed parts of the garden, the jetty and the Broadwater beyond.
Then, after about five minutes, as precipitously as the hail had come, it was gone, although the rain still fell steadily. Some parts of the lawn were covered in white.
He turned to her. ‘You were lucky not to get caught in that.’ He walked over and switched on the kitchen lights. Its black and cream interior was spotless and shining, but softened by Mrs Mills’ favourite herbs on the window sill and a bunch of daisies on the kitchen table.
‘Yes,’ she agreed fervently. ‘Thanks for stopping.’
He eyed her, her slightly damp presence, her hair that was curling riotously, her pretty yellow sandals. ‘What else would you have expected me to do?’
Alex clasped her fingers together. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Why are you here, Alex?’ he asked quietly.
For one mad moment, probably because it was impossible to persuade herself he was pleased to see her, she was tempted to tell him it was pure coincidence that she happened to be walking over the Sovereign Islands bridge, but of course there was no way she could support that…
She stared at him for a long moment and that indefinable difference in him was there again. But perhaps, it struck her, it wasn’t a health issue. Could it be a mental burden? Could it be that while he might not be able to live with Cathy Spencer—or she couldn’t live with him—he could never stop loving her?
Did that make any difference to her resolve, though? It had always been a possibility.
She swallowed. ‘I was worried about you.’
He didn’t move and he didn’t respond immediately. He folded his arms and leant back against a cupboard, and then he didn’t respond directly. ‘How did you get here?’
She shrugged. ‘Train, taxi, Shanks’s pony. I tried the penthouse first, but you weren’t in residence.’
‘Why were you worried?’
Alex recalled that once before she’d thought she’d never seen him with his emotions so controlled but, if anything, they were even more locked down now. His face might have been carved in stone and his eyes were giving nothing away.
‘Because I can sense something’s wrong.’
‘Yesterday…’ he said and hesitated.
‘Yesterday…’ she paused and lifted her slim shoulders ‘…yesterday—it seemed important to prove to you that I was fine and I’m not here to—to reverse that. I know there’s no future for us, I’ve accepted that. I just thought—maybe there was some way I could help?’
‘Help?’ he repeated.
‘It probably sounds silly.’ Her eyes were dark with anxiety.
‘If only you knew.’ His tone was clipped and harsh.
Alex froze as she was transported back to the night of the dinner dance and their encounter on the staircase, so relatively close by, when he’d said to her that she’d be the last person he’d tell if he knew what was wrong with him…with the same cadence.
She lost her nerve completely. She whirled on her heel and ran to the door. She wrenched it open and ran out into the garden, uncaring of the rain, uncaring of anything but the fact that she was not proof against this kind of hurt.
He caught her as she’d almost made it around the side of the house towards the road.
‘Alex, don’t—what the hell are you doing?’ he rasped as she slipped through his fingers. He made another lunge at her and fastened his hands around her waist, but at the same time she heard him give a gasp of what sounded like pain.
She froze again and turned to look at him.
His face was white and his teeth were set, and the rain poured down on them. It was so heavy it was like a grey curtain around them obliterating the landscape.
‘What?’ she asked huskily. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘It’s my back—it’s my whole bloody life.’
‘Your b-back? What’s happened to it?’ she stammered.
‘Will you come in out of the rain and let me explain?’
‘But I thought you were angry!’ she protested as raindrops beaded her eyelashes and streamed down her fresh cheeks. ‘I still think so—’ her voice was raw with emotion ‘—and—’
‘Alex,’ he interrupted, ‘no, and we’re now soaked to t
he skin, it’s thundering and lightning above us—we need to go inside.’
‘Mrs Mills will kill us if we make puddles everywhere!’
‘We’ll go through the laundry, towel off, then go upstairs and change,’ he said practically and took her hand.
‘But I don’t have anything to change into.’
‘Yes, you do.’ He led her towards the laundry door. ‘Your clothes are still here.’
Alex stopped. ‘I thought you’d have given them to someone.’
He shook his head. ‘No chance of that.’
She was still trying to work out that remark as she showered and changed in her old bedroom. She’d looked through the inter-leading door to see Nicky’s room was much as she’d left it: toys, games, clothes—two sets of everything to make travelling between his mother and father easier, she guessed.
There was one thing that was new, however: a framed photo of the three of them—rather the four of them. Max, Cathy, Nicky and Nemo. It was a happy photo; Nicky looked carefree and excited, whereas his parents were looking at him with smiles on their faces.
And back in her room, there, indeed, were all the clothes purchased for her ‘makeover’, as she’d left them five months ago, including the underwear she’d never used.
She flicked through the clothes hanging up—at least half of them she’d never worn—and hesitated over the least formal outfit, the one she and Margaret Winston had decided on for the river cruise Alex had never gone on.
Slim navy trousers with a sea-green blouse and matching espadrilles. Funnily enough, she reflected, it was the most colourful outfit of the lot and Margaret, she remembered, had insisted on it.
Was now the time to be thinking about clothes, though? she mused as she dressed with hands that were slightly unsteady. But she had no idea what was to come, did she?
Max was already in the kitchen when she came down and he’d opened a bottle of wine and poured two glasses. There was also a tray of canapés on the kitchen table that Mrs Mills must have left for him. Tiny cucumber sandwiches, cheese straws, a little bowl of olives, vol-auvents with savoury fillings, nuts and dried fruits.
He looked up as she came into the kitchen. ‘We could go through to the den.’
‘Here is fine,’ she murmured and pulled out a chair.
He’d changed his jeans and shirt for grey sweat pants and a blue T-shirt. His feet were bare and his dark hair was tousled and damp.
He sat down opposite her and moved the glass bowl of daisies to one side. ‘I had an accident,’ he said, ‘about three months ago. It was one of those stupid, bizarre things. I fell off a ladder and ruptured a disc, amongst other things.’
Alex blinked at him. ‘That’s awful—but what were you doing up a ladder?’
He smiled with considerable irony. ‘I was playing cricket with Nicky. I hit a six that ended up in a gutter. Nemo—’ he grimaced ‘—charged round the corner just as I was about to come down. He bumped into the ladder and rocked it and I fell off.’
He sipped his wine and chose an olive. ‘Several operations followed, and some doubt that I’d get back to full mobility.’
‘Wasn’t—surely—why didn’t I read about it in the papers?’ she asked, wide-eyed.
‘I kept it as quiet as possible for business reasons. I was still fully functioning mentally for the most part and sometimes just the hint that whoever is supposed to be in charge is not all there can destabilize markets and cause all sorts of rumours and trauma.’
Alex was about to say, So that’s why Simon’s sister thought you were off the scene—but changed her mind.
‘I’m really sorry.’ She looked at him with patent concern. ‘But you can walk although you’re still in pain—is it just a matter of time for the pain to go too?’
‘So I’m told now. In six weeks I should be pain-free and back to normal.’
‘Well, that explains it. I knew there was something different about you. I could tell by your eyes you were under some sort of intense pressure. I actually thought it might be to do with Cathy Spencer.’
He sprawled back in his chair and watched her intently. ‘How so?’
Alex spread her hands, then sipped her wine, and wished heartily she hadn’t brought it up. She also remembered she never got away with not answering his questions.
She studied the canapés intently, then shook her head. ‘Uh…because you hadn’t been able to persuade her to marry you but you still loved her?’
The silence that followed as her words died away was almost complete. It had stopped raining but the gutters were still dripping; it was still grey and overcast outside although the storm had passed over.
‘I could have married her. It was what she wanted in the end, funnily enough.’
Alex spluttered on another sip of wine. ‘I—I don’t understand,’ she whispered.
‘Don’t you?’ He heaved a sudden sigh. ‘I can’t blame you. I didn’t understand myself until it was too late. But I discovered I couldn’t marry anyone—unless it was you.’
Alex went white with shock. And the sea-green blouse made her tawny hazel eyes look more green and darker against her pallor.
‘But—’ she licked her lips ‘—you went out of your way to distance yourself. You made sure there could be no delusions for me. You—’
‘Alex,’ he intervened, ‘I convinced myself I wasn’t for you. I did know that it would have been all too easy to drown my sorrows, my burdens in you—’ He broke off and shook his head.
Her lips formed a perfect O.
‘Don’t look so surprised. I did kiss you.’
‘I know,’ she breathed, ‘but that was heat-of-the-moment stuff. That was probably gratitude and affection that got a little out of hand, that’s all.’
He smiled dryly. ‘It wasn’t, and it wasn’t the first time I’d thought of you in that way either. Oh—’ he grimaced ‘—I told myself the same thing then. I also told myself—’ He stopped and got up and came round her side of the table.
He pulled out a chair, turned it and sat down facing her. ‘Alex, I kissed you because I couldn’t help myself, but then I knew I had to end it before you got seriously hurt. That’s why I did what I did. I didn’t know,’ he said intensely, ‘how I was going to handle Cathy and Nicky, most particularly Nicky, without marrying Cathy and somehow trying to make a go of it. I didn’t know then,’ he added barely audibly, ‘how, once you were gone, I was going to feel.’
‘How did you feel?’
He sat forward with his hands on his knees. ‘I woke up one morning and thought—if I don’t ever see her smile at me again, suddenly and when I’m least expecting it, my life’s not going to be worth living.’
Alex looked astonished.
‘It took me by surprise too,’ he said ruefully. ‘It also opened the floodgates. I think I recalled with perfect clarity just about every word you ever said to me. I remembered the couple of times I’d held you in my arms, and, not only the lovely feel of you, but every time I remembered them, I got worried in case you were having panic attacks and I wasn’t there to help you.
‘I couldn’t walk into the green room in Brisbane without picturing you; same for the pink room here, same for the barbecue and the den. Mrs Mills asked me what to do with the clothes you’d left behind. I told her to leave them where they were—I sometimes went in and looked at them.’ He lifted his shoulders. ‘Every time I touched the first outfit you wore to the cocktail party, I thought of your legs—although, actually, it was your eyes that got me in first.’
Alex blinked.
‘Remember the first interview?’
She nodded.
‘When I asked you to take off your glasses? That’s what changed my mind about you, Alex, those beautiful eyes. They exerted a strange power over me then and have done so ever since. So—’ he sat back and folded his arms ‘—after working things out so neatly, like distancing myself from you, like organizing things to help you over it, what should happen?’
He let
a beat go by, then answered his question with obvious irony. ‘I couldn’t get you out of my mind. I was restless and edgy—someone actually called me a difficult, dangerous bastard to my face—but not over the things everyone thought I was restless and edgy about.’ He shrugged. ‘I was lonely, so damn lonely.’
Their gazes locked and Alex felt a tremor of hope run through her, but there were still questions on her mind.
‘But…but Cathy,’ she said, then couldn’t go on.
‘Cathy was at a low ebb when she suggested we get married. Not only was her mother a real prop—and losing her father before she was born had to contribute to that—but, unlike you, it was Cathy’s first close-up brush with mortality. I think all of that made her rethink things like our core differences and convince herself we could overcome them and—and made her try to rekindle the spark.’
Alex’s eyes widened.
‘It didn’t work,’ he said. ‘And she worked out why.’
Alex looked a question at him.
‘Yes, you,’ he replied. ‘Cathy’s no fool. She was also—gallant. She said how fortunate it was someone Nicky seemed to love. And she’s been very generous over the practicalities of bringing up Nicky. She’s moved to Brisbane—I know it’s to her advantage as well, but it means I won’t have to fly to Perth for school sports days, birthdays and so on.’
‘I hope she finds someone,’ Alex said.
‘Yes. And Nicky, well, he may question things when he gets older, but he seems to love me and he seems to trust me now. We got to do a lot of things together before the accident, and even after it he brought me jigsaw puzzles and books and we took up model-making. He even offered me Nemo for company when he couldn’t be there.’
‘I wish I’d known,’ Alex said involuntarily. ‘About the accident.’
He sat forward again. ‘I nearly sent for you so many times but I was gripped by all sorts of doubts. Would I ever be able to walk again? Was I the right person for you, anyway? Had it been a fleeting crush? According to Mr Li you were doing just fine.’
‘I wondered about that,’ she murmured.
‘If I was keeping tabs on you? I was.’ He looked grim for a moment. ‘If I was expecting to hear you’d gone into a decline, that wasn’t the news I got. But…’ he paused ‘…Alex, my biggest doubt the more I thought about it was—even if it had happened for you, you hadn’t wanted to fall in love with me.’ He frowned. ‘I know circumstances made it a highly questionable thing to do at the time, but—was there more to it?’
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