by Lyn Denison
Peri drew a shuddering breath. “I was lying in bed. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. Since the other night. And this afternoon. And I had to come.”
“I was thinking about you, too,” Asha said huskily.
“I can’t cope with being like this, wanting to touch you, needing to feel your lips on mine. I’ve thought of nothing else.” Peri’s voice broke on a sob.
Stepping forward, Asha gently drew her into her arms, holding her close as she cried. Asha murmured soothingly.
“I’ve never felt like this before,” Peri said into Asha’s shoulder. “I’ve never wanted anyone as much as I want you. Don’t send me away. Please.”
“Never.” Asha found Peri’s lips and kissed her softly, gently. Then their kisses deepened as passion took hold of them.
Somehow they were on Asha’s bed and Peri’s fingers and lips were moving over Asha’s skin, setting her aflame. She reveled in Peri’s touch, the taste of her, the familiar scent of her.
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Copyright© 2007 by Lyn Denison
Bella Books, Inc.
P.O. Box 10543
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
First Edition
Editor: Cindy Cresap
Cover designer: S. Webber (Canada) & S. Tester (Australia)
ISBN-10: 1-59493-103-8
ISBN-13: 978-1-59493-103-1
For Glenda
My LT
With soft eyes
and thanks for the great 20 years
About the Author
Lyn Denison is an Australian who was born in Brisbane, the capital city of Queensland, the Sunshine State. Before becoming a writer she was a librarian. She’s not fond of composing her own bio as she’s a Libra and, well, there’s so much to choose from …
Her hobbies include genealogy, scrapbooking, photography, travel, reading, modern country music and her partner of nineteen years. (Saving the best for last.) Lyn’s partner works in an art gallery and they live in an inner city suburb of Brisbane.
Chapter One
Asha pulled her Holden Astra into the last parking niche in the riverside lay-by. With relief, she switched off the engine of her small sedan, unbuckled her seat belt and tried to relax her tensed muscles. Because she was unfamiliar with this side of the city, she’d left early in case she had trouble finding Mrs. Chaseley’s home. Now here she was with twenty minutes to kill before her appointment with the elderly woman.
She was glad of the time to calm the flutter of nervous anticipation she always felt when she was stepping out of her comfort zone. And taking on this project for such a well-known pioneering family left her feeling ambivalent. There was the anticipatory excitement she always felt with her research, but this time there was the unaccustomed fear of failure, that she wouldn’t quite measure up.
Asha tried to push away her feelings of inadequacy, feelings she told herself were unfounded. She had Tessa to thank for that. While part of her acknowledged she was being irrational blaming Tessa, she knew deep down she was the one responsible for her own feelings, her own actions, but her confidence in herself had taken a battering, along with her vulnerable heart. Tessa had had some input into that, surely?
With a sigh, she glanced over the wide expanse of the Hamilton reach of the Brisbane River. From this distance, the buildings on the far bank looked almost modest for their considerable real estate value, but the yachts bobbing on their moorings gave far more indication that these were very affluent suburbs. It was a lovely picture-postcard area of the city, and now that developers and the City Council were cleaning up the old wharves, the area had taken on a renewed and trendy outlook on life.
These up-market suburbs were a far cry from the part of Brisbane where Asha had grown up. Her stepmother and half sister still lived in the solid working class suburb with its mixture of older people and the influx of young families. Not so Asha’s father. After divorcing her stepmother and then marrying his secretary, he had moved into a prestigious inner city suburb to reflect his continuing business success.
It wasn’t that Asha begrudged her father his new life or his obvious wealth. He’d certainly worked for it. As an ex-cricketer who had played for Australia, Sean West’s small sports store had expanded into a state and then a national chain. As a sportsman, and now as a businessman, he was lauded and well liked. It was simply a pity, she contemplated wryly, that it had all been at the expense of his marriage to her stepmother.
Laura West was the only mother Asha had known. Her own mother had died when Asha was just four years old and her father, left with a small child to raise, had married Laura a year later. Asha had desperately missed her mother and had warmed to her gentle and loving stepmother. When her half sister, Michelle, was born two years later, Asha had been ecstatic to have a baby sister to play with.
The thought of Michelle brought a smile to Asha’s face, as it always did. Her sister was an amazing young woman, a free spirit who was studying Arts at the University of Queensland. Asha knew Laura sometimes wondered at the bright and bubbly personality of her biological daughter. The quieter Asha was more akin to her retiring and somewhat shy stepmother.
For the last three years, Asha had been living down at the Gold Coast, working in the Gold Coast City Council’s library service. Asha had loved the job, and through her work in the library, she had furthered an interest in genealogy that began in her teens with a school project on ancestry.
What had started with curiosity about her late mother’s family had blossomed from a hobby into a fully-fledged business. Asha obtained a Diploma in Family Historical Studies, and from there she’d been asked to construct and hold courses on genealogy at local colleges and schools.
She so enjoyed her subject and knew she passed on her enthusiasm to her students. And one of her students … She reminded herself she wasn’t going to think about Tessa, but Tessa had meant so much to Asha it was difficult not to do so, and she sighed in resignation. Although she knew she shouldn’t dwell on the past, Asha couldn’t help revisiting her first meeting with Tessa, and that wondrous, frightening, freeing time.
Asha had met Tessa not long after she moved to the Coast, at just the second course she had taught. A couple of months later they were sharing Asha’s pleasant little unit with its view of the mountains.
The familiar heavy weight of betrayal and despair settled on Asha. She’d fallen for Tessa the first moment she’d seen her. Dark, dangerous, so exciting Tessa, with her sleepy-lidded, sensual eyes and her athlete’s body. However, Tessa’s athletic body was due more to genes than any working out on Tessa’s part, but the forbidden promise in her dark eyes had been so very true.
Asha had fallen under Tessa’s sybaritic spell, and their physical relationship had been so much more than the conservative Asha could have imagined. Tessa had been Asha’s first love and Asha had thought she was Tessa’s. She bit back a painful, self-derisive laugh.
Asha had begun to suspect she was a lesbian when she was still in high school, but that was a secret she had kept buried deeply inside her. Too shy to broach the subject with anyone, she had done her own surreptitious research, read as much as she could on the so-called “alternative lifestyle.” Even so, she was half-convinced her secret crush on her English teacher was simply part of growing up, but deep down she suspected that wasn’t the case with her. When she me
t Tessa, she knew without doubt those feelings were not just an adolescent stage she’d gone through.
At thirty, Tessa was eight years older than Asha, but the age difference hadn’t been an issue with them. In fact, Asha often felt years older than the vivacious Tessa.
When Tessa boldly asked Asha to go for a cup of coffee after the second week of Asha’s eight-week course on genealogy, Asha had barely hesitated before accepting the invitation. Part of her, the part she usually kept hidden, recognized and exalted in the promise in the depths of Tessa’s liquid, knowing eyes.
Two cups of coffee and three hours of talking later, they’d parted. Tessa had taken Asha’s hand, leaned closer and kissed her softly, slowly, on the cheek. Asha had sailed along in a daze of sexual arousal for a very long week before the next class.
When Tessa came in late Asha felt herself flush with relief, relief that was almost palpable. She had been filled with terror that the other woman might have sensed her more than friendly interest and been so repulsed by it Asha would never see her again. Tessa slipped into her seat, her full lips lifting in a knowing, enticing smile, and Asha knew she’d fallen in love for the first time in her life.
When Tessa suggested coffee again, this time at her unit, Asha had willingly agreed. They had barely closed the door on the outside world before Tessa pulled Asha into her arms and kissed her, a deep, sensual, lingering kiss that took Asha’s breath away.
They didn’t have the proposed cup of coffee until morning. Making love with Tessa had been fantastic, and Asha fell more deeply in love. No. It wasn’t love, she berated herself. What she’d felt for Tessa was more like plain and simple lust. Now, three years later, sitting overlooking the picturesque riverscape, and with the comfort of that famous, or infamous, hindsight, Asha could see that the cracks in their relationship had appeared less than six months after Tessa moved into Asha’s unit. There were the drinking binges followed by the tearful apologies. Then there were the nights Tessa didn’t come home until the early hours of the morning and the spurts of anger when Asha questioned her.
Tessa worked as a travel consultant and often went away on work-related trips. When she began staying away for weekends, Asha accepted Tessa’s explanations. She was in love with her and trusted her completely.
One afternoon when Asha couldn’t reach Tessa on her mobile phone, she’d rung the office. Tessa’s boss told Asha that Tessa had taken their new travel intern to a travel expo in Brisbane. Surprised that Tessa hadn’t told her about the expo, she’d been about to hang up when Tessa’s boss inquired about Asha’s recent illness. They’d been so sorry Asha was too ill to come along to the weekend at Cooran Cove.
Asha had hung up in a daze. Tessa had said she was going away on a working weekend to Cairns. Why had she lied? Asha had been hurt and she’d confronted Tessa when she arrived home at midnight.
“Why did you lie to me?”
“About what?”
“For a start, you told me you were going to Cairns when you were really going to South Stradbroke Island,” Asha said tersely. “I don’t understand why you felt you had to lie to me.”
Tessa shrugged and then disappeared into the bathroom while Asha sat on the side of their bed. They’d barely spoken to each other all week. They hadn’t made love for ages. Coming to a decision, Asha stood up and walked into the en suite. For once the sight of Tessa’s lean body barely registered.
“We have to discuss this, Tessa,” Asha said earnestly. “I really can’t cope with lies.”
“You’re overreacting.” Tessa sauntered into the bedroom. “I only made up the story about you being sick because I knew you wouldn’t want to go. I thought it was easier all round.”
“Tessa—”
“You know you never want to go to my work promotions.”
“Once.” Asha raised her hands and let them fall. “Once I didn’t want to go because it was my stepmother’s birthday.”
“If you told her you were a lesbian, that we were together, she wouldn’t expect you to run every time she calls,” Tessa remarked cuttingly.
“Yes, well, we’re not talking about Mum, are we? We’re discussing us, specifically why you’re never home these days.” Asha took a steadying breath. “Are you having an affair?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Tessa exclaimed. “The travel business is shaky these days. It’s not a nine to five thing anymore. I have to make contacts. Who knows when I might need them? What if the agency closes down?” Tessa appealed dramatically.
“Is that likely?” Asha knew it was a family-owned business and she was concerned.
“Who knows in this climate?”
“But your boss told me they’ve just put on a trainee consultant. Why would they do that if business was bad?”
Tessa turned away, the low light picking up the curves of her lithe, naked body.
“Your boss said you’d taken the new staff member up to Brisbane today.”
“So?” Tessa pulled back the bedclothes, not meeting Asha’s gaze.
“If you feel you have to tell me lies about it then why wouldn’t I think you had something to hide?”
“I didn’t lie.”
“It was a lie by omission, wouldn’t you say?”
Tessa rolled her eyes. “My, what big words you use, my little librarian.”
“Tessa! I’m deadly serious. Are you having an affair with her?” Asha asked, swallowing nervously as she waited for Tessa’s reply.
“Get real, Asha!” Tessa turned from the bed and grabbed a cigarette out of a pack in her bag. She lit up, knowing Asha hated her smoking in the unit.
“What else can I think? You’re never here.”
“I work. Remember?” She walked over to the window and stared out into the night.
“You don’t work twenty-four hours a day.”
“I told you the travel industry is in a slump.”
“If that’s so then logically you should have less to do,” Asha remarked dryly.
“How would you know?” She spun back to face Asha. “You’ve got that cushy job in the library. You wouldn’t know what it was like out in the real world.”
“I put in the same hours you do,” Asha said. “If you add my genealogy classes, probably more.”
Tessa gave a snort. “That’s exactly it. You live in a fantasy world with your nose in your books. And if it’s not your books, you’re stuck in the past with other people’s ancestors.”
Hurt, Asha stood and gazed at Tessa as though she’d never seen her before. “When we met I thought you were interested in genealogy, too,” she said softly.
“I was interested. I was curious about my grandparents. You found them for me.” Tessa shrugged indifferently. “And that was that.”
“You moved on,” Asha remarked, knowing it was true. Tessa rarely kept an interest longer than a few weeks. Is that how she regarded Asha? Interesting for a while and then to be discarded for something, or someone, new?
“I prefer to live in the present,” Tessa continued, pacing back and forth. “Life’s for today. Not yesterday.”
“Yesterday? Our past means something to me. I thought it meant something to you, too.” She shook her head. “What happened to us, Tessa?”
Tessa exhaled in exasperation and stubbed out her cigarette. “We’ve had some good times, but things, life, doesn’t stand still. It moves on. You must see that, Asha.”
“Is that what you’re trying to tell me? That you want to move on? Why can’t we do it together?”
“I really don’t think you’re into moving on, Asha. That’s your problem.”
“My problem? I can’t see that I could do anything more than I’m doing. I don’t understand what more you want from me.”
“If you don’t know then there’s not much point, is there?” Tessa moved her shoulders irritatedly. “Anyway, I’m tired of this conversation. Let’s go to bed.” She sat down, patting the bed beside her. “You know talking’s not my thing.” She gave a sly grin. “I�
�m more of an action person.”
Asha gazed at the queen-sized bed, at the attractive woman looking at her with her sensual dark eyes. And suddenly that bed, lying beside Tessa, was the last place Asha wanted to be. Quietly she collected her things from the en suite and took her pillow. “I’ll be in the spare room.”
“Suit yourself. But you know where I am if you get lonely.”
The next morning, after a sleepless night, Asha told Tessa she wanted her to leave. Tessa flatly refused. This unit suited her, no matter that it had been Asha’s, that most of the furniture, although not new, was Asha’s too.
Two weeks later, two weeks of arguments, recriminations and then heavy silence, Asha took a day off work, found a small, barely habitable flat, and moved out. As the weeks passed, she grew thinner and paler and all the joy she’d felt seemed to have seeped out of her. Her job didn’t hold the appeal it once had. When her senior assistant took her aside one morning, asking her what was wrong, she knew she had to get her life together.
Later that evening, sitting alone in the shadowy dullness of the dingy, one-roomed unit, she tried to take stock of her life. She missed Tessa, and it seemed their friends were Tessa’s friends. Asha had never felt more alone. Her job was a chore rather than the joy it used to be.
Resolutely, she made herself get dressed, walk down to the little street of cafe’s around the corner and order a meal. She had to put Tessa and all she’d meant behind her and get on with her life. In fact, she had to snap out of it, sort herself out, be like Tessa and make a fresh start. On the way home she bought a newspaper and pored over the positions vacant columns. She chose a couple of promising jobs, and after an afternoon spent updating her résumé, she sent applications off before she could change her mind.
The interviews she found more than a little harrowing, but surprisingly, although she didn’t get the job she’d applied for, she was offered a position that would be available in four months time. It involved research and that was her forte, after all. It would also mean moving back to Brisbane, and she knew that was the change of scene she needed. She accepted the position and handed in her resignation at the library. After working out her month, she packed her things and headed home, feeling better than she had in months.