by Lilian Darcy
‘All fixed up,’ he told her a few minutes later, then he drove, with a welcome attention to her fragile state, the short distance across the road and down the vine-and rose-lined driveway to his mother’s house.
Federica was in the big, sunny kitchen, mixing a cake, and her face lit up when she saw Kit. Gian forestalled a large, warm hug. ‘Don’t, Mum. She’s feeling very fragile.’
‘Wine tasting. Headache. Lost it,’ Kit managed.
‘There. Salient points covered in six words,’ he said. ‘I need to get back and finish our business with Rick. Mum will look after you, Kit.’
He touched her arm briefly, his fingers leaving a warm trail, and it was almost too much. Again, she could have cried. Or lost the final remnants of lunch.
‘Poor thing,’ Freddie said. ‘And thank goodness Bonnie’s having her nap, because you look too fragile to handle her hugs and shrieks at the moment. She’s been asking if you could come over and draw some more fairies.’
It felt good to be fussed over by Gian’s mother. Headache tablets, tea and dry biscuits. Solitude and silence on the couch. The cake went into the oven and began to fill the house with a sweet, lemony smell.
A little later, when Kit was feeling better, she went back into the kitchen, sat at the big wooden table and had a fresh-cut chunk of Italian bread topped with some sharp, crumbly cheese. The saltiness helped to settle her stomach, and the tablets had begun to take effect.
‘Well, I’m never doing that again,’ she said cheerfully, and heard Gian’s laugh behind her as he opened the creaky screen door.
‘Not “scrummy” this time?’ he said.
The words and the tone arrowed straight into her heart. He remembered! It was two months ago now, but he remembered the exact, frivolous word she’d used to describe the wine at Kingsford Mill, and must remember, too, she was sure, the way they’d looked and smiled at each other that night.
She took a quick, unsteady breath and swivelled in her chair.
‘Not at two-thirty in the afternoon,’ she answered. ‘I should have known. My body’s just not made for it.’
‘You’re looking much better.’ His dark eyes swept over her, taking inventory in a way that made her instantly hot. ‘I told Emma I’d take you home.’ The door creaked shut behind him, and he slid into a chair on the opposite side of the table, then reached for the round bread and the big knife.
‘Thanks,’ she answered, watching his hands.
His fingertips anchored the big loaf in place while he sawed back and forth with the knife, his rhythm practised and easy. The slice fell away from the loaf and he reached for the cheese, shaving it off thinly. Nothing extraordinary about any of it, but his actions soothed and warmed her. She ached to reach out and touch him, to discover whether his fingers were warm or cool today, to feel his caress on her skin.
It wasn’t the first time she’d felt like this in recent weeks. Every time they encountered each other at work, she suffered through this same awareness, and had learned to be thankful for the fact that the pace was usually hectic when he was around.
She’d helped him to deliver a stillborn little girl. She had assisted with the vaginal delivery of a footling breech—a baby boy who’d turned in the womb just before the onset of a very rapid labour, leaving no time for the conservative approach of a Caesarean delivery.
She had encountered him on rounds during a two-week stint she’d spent in the postpartum side of the unit, and they’d met at the cafeteria and in the staff car park and in corridors and lifts.
This, though, was the first time in weeks that she’d seen him beyond the confines of the hospital, and the first time she’d seen him looking casual and relaxed in what was essentially his home.
Here, as she’d found during his brief appearance four weeks ago, it was much harder to ignore her awareness of him, and the silence between them was rapidly growing thicker. He was as relieved as she was, she sensed, when they heard a cry rising from the bedroom along the corridor.
‘That’s Bonnie waking up,’ he said. ‘Mum’s outside. I’d better go.’ He disappeared, calling to his little niece as he went. ‘It’s all right, Bonnie, love. Nonna’s outside. Uncle Gian’s here to pick you up. Come on, now.’
He was back in a few moments, with Bonnie in his arms. She looked flushed and fretful. He went to the fridge and poured her some milk, one-handed, then returned to his bread and cheese and sat her on one thigh, with his spare arm wrapped around her little waist. She was beginning to settle now.
‘Drink your milk, gorgeous,’ he told her, and pressed a casual kiss to her dark little head.
He grinned at Kit and she smiled back, but she knew the smile fell away from her face too soon. She felt out of place, just wrong somehow. She shouldn’t be here, when they’d agreed not to keep seeing each other, not to pretend friendship with each other, and when their reasons for making those agreements hadn’t gone away, and never would.
She could imagine how they must look, grouped at the table over a simple snack.
Like a family.
One of them dark and one of them fair, with a little girl who took after her daddy.
But they weren’t a family, of course. Gian didn’t belong to Kit, and Bonnie didn’t belong to either of them.
As if to emphasise this fact, Freddie came in through the back door at that moment, swung Bonnie up from her seat on Gian’s thigh and said, ‘I thought I heard you, sweetheart. That was a good big sleep, and now we’ll never get you to bed tonight.’
‘You could have left her, Mum,’ Gian said mildly. ‘She was quite happy where she was.’
‘You took her shopping this morning. You need more time to yourself, Gian.’
‘You do, too, Mum. You’ve been looking very tired, lately.’
Freddie ignored him. ‘You need time to…’ she glanced at Kit ‘…see friends. And relax. If Kit’s feeling better—are you feeling better, Kit?’
Kit fell innocently into the trap at once, and said, ‘Much, thanks.’
‘Then you should take her round and show her the farm. Take her down to the creek.’
‘You’ve seen the creek before, haven’t you, Kit?’ Gian said. ‘It’s the same one that runs through Helen’s property.’
Before Kit could answer, Freddie cut in, ‘Not this part of the creek. Take her. She’ll appreciate the walk. And the fresh air.’
Gian’s eyes met Kit’s briefly. They both recognised that it was easier to accept than to argue.
‘Sorry,’ he said, as soon as they were safely outside.
‘I like creeks. And fresh air.’ And, heaven help her, she liked being with him, no matter how much she told herself that she shouldn’t. There was an extra sweetness in the air, a lightness in her heart and a liquid warmth in her bones.
‘You know what I mean.’
‘Yes.’ She laughed. ‘Of course I do! Your mother’s going to get the wrong idea.’
‘Past tense, I think. She already has it. This is what I wanted to say, weeks ago, when you turned down coffee. Things like this will happen. I’m not sure how to handle it.’
‘As friends, as far as everyone else is concerned? That works, doesn’t it?’
‘No.’ Decisive, clipped, firm and not a hint of hesitation. ‘It doesn’t.’
She felt a little pang of anticipation, and a flutter of fear. He was striding away from the house, knowing exactly where he intended to go. To the creek, she guessed. Not because Federica had suggested it, and not because of her own insipid claim that she ‘liked creeks’. It was because at the creek they could be alone.
Why hadn’t she let him say it over coffee, that night when he wanted to? Coffee was public, and safe.
‘It doesn’t work, Kit,’ he repeated. ‘Not for me. And it’s not how you wanted to handle it when we talked before.’
He strode on in silence down the dirt track that led away from the farmhouse, through the citrus grove, across a sheep paddock, over a rise and down to the rocky, euc
alyptus-shaded creek. She had to walk at a rapid pace to keep up with him, and wondered if she’d have done better to take to her heels and sprint as hard as she could in the opposite direction.
‘So,’ Gian said as they cut through the dry grass of the creek bank and came down onto the big, water-smoothed stones. ‘The creek.’
‘We used to do all sorts of great things further upstream in this creek-bed when we came for holidays,’ Kit said. ‘It looks just the same.’
‘We must have come close to meeting each other then,’ Gian answered.
There was an old, fallen tree trunk lying in a dry section of the creek bed. It was iron-hard and silvery grey with age, warm and smooth in the sunshine like the well-fed belly of a huge horse. Gian rested one foot on the tree, and leaned his forearm across his knee.
‘The friends thing,’ he said. ‘As far as I’m concerned, it’s only possible if that’s how two people actually feel. Pretending friendship is an uncomfortable thing to do. False. Dangerous.’
‘I didn’t mean we should pretend to each other,’ Kit answered, her voice low. ‘That’s what I said before. I didn’t want us to pretend to each other about any of this. But what choice is there as to how we behave in front of other people? Honesty can be dangerous, too. I couldn’t bear for Freddie or Aunt Helen to know that we—that there was something we both felt, and that we had such unassailable reasons for deciding not to let it happen.’
‘It’s better, isn’t it, than enduring their efforts to throw us together? How do we get them to stop? Those Italian mothers and Scottish aunts! You know they care about us. Let’s tell them the truth.’
‘No, Gian. I don’t want to tell them about it.’
‘I think you’re wrong.’
‘I couldn’t stand to hear them assuring us that it didn’t matter. People—kind people, who care—are often very good at telling those they love that problems don’t matter, when actually they do.’
‘I think you’re wrong,’ he repeated.
‘It’s my body, Gian.’ Her voice was hard.
‘And it’s beautiful.’ His voice was husky. ‘I’ve tried, but I can’t get over that. Your body is beautiful. And you’re beautiful, Kit.’
He closed his thumb and forefinger in a ring around her wrist and slid them slowly up her arm. They both watched as the fine hairs there stood on end. He bent closer, shifted his weight, touched his fingers to her neck and brushed them along her jaw. She shuddered, and they both recognised that it was from pure need.
Whatever her mind might tell her, her body wanted this, and so did her heart. She felt the pressure of his thigh against her hip as he pulled her closer, and closed her eyes, as if that way she could pretend to both of them that his kiss would take her by surprise.
Stupid. Pointless.
She knew quite well that he was going to kiss her. There was no other reason for a man and a woman to stand this close. She could already feel the ridge of his arousal, and the insistent heat of his hard muscles beneath his smooth skin.
Her heart was hammering, and she began to melt inside. She waited for his kiss, but it didn’t come.
‘Look at me, Kit,’ he whispered. ‘Open your eyes.’ She did so, dragging lids that felt heavy and sleepy with wanting. He was watching her mouth with shadowed eyes, watching her lips part in expectancy and readiness, and his regard was so intense that it was almost as if he was touching her. He clearly intended to leave her with no room to doubt her own response, or his need.
Their kiss hung in the air while time slowed, slowed. His mouth was so close that she could feel his breath on the open fall of her lower lip. She chased him shamelessly, lifting her face, reaching up to anchor her hands in the prickly-soft hair of his nape, wanting desperately to consummate the moment of contact.
He laughed a little, the sound low and rich inside him, and his arms tightened around her, one hand flattened in a gesture of possession over the curve of her rear.
‘See?’ he said. ‘See how much you want this, just the way I do?’
At last he touched her mouth, tasting her, claiming her for a moment, then drifting away once more.
‘Oh!’ she said.
He grinned, satisfied.
But then his control seemed to break, and suddenly he was crushing himself against her—mouth and chest and arms and thighs, leaving no room to breathe or speak or think, only what was needed for bare survival. Ragged breathing, snatched words, disjointed thinking.
Kit knew she should pull away, knew there were so many reasons why this shouldn’t be happening, but somehow she couldn’t remember any of them. In the two months since they’d agreed to turn their back on what they felt, and in the weeks since she’d pushed him away when he had tried to talk to her after the birth of Tracie McDowell’s baby, none of it had gone away.
It had only strengthened. She was astonished at how much it had strengthened, when she’d only ever seen him in the course of their work, and during that one brief interlude at the farm.
She felt as if Gian Di Luzio had been in her life forever. Could barely remember a time when she hadn’t listened for his voice when the phone rang in the unit, hadn’t felt her heart quicken at the sound of his footsteps, hadn’t known the way his eyelids creased when he was tired, or the way his voice seemed deeper pitched when he was called in to a delivery in the darkest hours of the night.
Still, this shouldn’t be happening.
He slid his hands up beneath the stretch knit of her top, and traced the curve of her ribs with his fingers. He didn’t touch her breasts, but she wanted him to. Her nipples hardened and stung with need, and she arched her back, aching for him to fill his hands with her weight.
She almost cried when he took his hands away, but then he began to peel her top upwards, pressed his mouth to her neck, her temple, her ear, and whispered, ‘I want to see you. I don’t want anything in the way.’
Slowly, she pulled the top over her head and felt the impatience in his fingers as he slid her bra straps down, twisted the fastening apart and dragged the garment from her arms. He groaned at the sight of her, and the fire in his dark eyes wrapped her in a swirl of female awareness.
Kit couldn’t remember ever being desired like this, so nakedly, so hungrily. He wasn’t afraid to show it, didn’t care what she thought. He just wanted her, and it felt like a physical force, a molten flood of fire.
‘Let me touch you?’
‘Yes. Oh, yes.’
He brushed his hands lightly across her nipples, bent to kiss the valley between her breasts, deepened the valley by lifting her in his hands. She shivered, closed her eyes, folded her arms behind her neck and felt the warmth of the sun and of his mouth on her bare skin. His lips seared across hers once more, his hands captured her breasts briefly then came to rest at her waist.
‘Now,’ he said. ‘Just try and tell me you don’t want this. Try and tell me it isn’t good. We’ve tried to step back and it hasn’t worked. Nothing about what we first felt has gone away, and I’m tired—very tired, Kit—of the pretence.’
All at once, she felt tired, too.
And tricked.
She stepped out of the radiant heat of his hold on her and faced him, not troubling to hide the evidence of her desire. ‘Did you hear what you just said, Gian?’ Her voice was high. ‘Nothing has gone away. Nothing has changed. The issue that made us agree to step back in the first place is still there, and it still matters.’
‘Does it? Have we given ourselves a chance to find out if that’s true?’
‘It matters to me. There’s nothing you can say. Nothing you can do. Not this…’ She touched herself, brushing her palms across her peaked nipples, showing him what he’d done to her, knowing his body ached in just the same way. ‘Not anything. I won’t put myself through it again. I can’t—’ her voice cracked ‘—watch my infertility destroy another relationship, the way it destroyed what I had with James.’
Gian closed his eyes, and a shaft of four o’clock sunlight
shone on his cheeks and his lashes. ‘Put your clothes on,’ he said harshly. ‘We can’t talk when all I can think of is the shape of you, and the way you feel.’
‘We’re not talking,’ she answered, as she bent to retrieve her bra and her top from beside the log where they had fallen. ‘There’s no need. I hate talking.’
He folded his arms across his chest, making the smooth muscles of his upper arms bulge and his forearms look like thick, braided rope. As she fiddled with the catch on her bra—her rubbery fingers wouldn’t function—Kit watched his face, but it never moved. His mouth was pressed shut, his eyelids were thick and tanned and satiny over his eyes.
But perhaps he’d been listening to what she was doing, because as soon as she pulled her top down to meet her flowing skirt, he said, ‘Done?’ And opened his eyes.
‘We’re not talking,’ she repeated.
‘I want to hear about James.’ His mouth was hard, and he’d narrowed his eyes. ‘How long were you together before the problems started?’
‘Three years.’ She thought for a moment, and revised aloud, ‘Two, really. I—Maybe I shouldn’t have pushed him into trying for a baby when he didn’t feel ready. His resentment started then, but he—No, he didn’t try all that hard to hide it. I just didn’t want to see it. I was so sure that if I could just conceive—’
‘You think it was totally your fault, and you’re taking on that same burden now. With us.’
‘No. No, I’m not saying it was totally my fault.’ She gave a harsh, jerky laugh. ‘Believe me, the fact that James was sleeping with someone else behind my back is not something I’m taking on as my fault at all!’
He was silent, then he whistled. ‘OK. Yes. That’s a betrayal.’
‘It was, yes. Gian, you deal with infertility, and with pregnancies and deliveries that go wrong. Babies who aren’t perfect. I don’t have to tell you what those kinds of problems sometimes do to people. I’m not going to do it to us.’
‘Because “us” is important?’