‘Me too. I mean, I recognised you too.’
What did he see as he looked at her? What outward signs had the last years of living life full steam ahead left on her?
‘You’ve cut your hair,’ he said.
‘So have you,’ she said, and he smiled.
Automatically her hand went up to touch her head. Of course he would notice. Her brown hair had swung below her waist when she’d last seen him, and she remembered how he’d made her swear never, ever to change it. Now it was cut in a chic, city-smart bob and tastefully highlighted.
‘But otherwise you haven’t changed,’ he added in that husky voice. ‘Just grown up.’
‘It’s kind of you to say that,’ she said. But she knew how much she’d changed from that girl that summer.
‘Mind if I join you?’ he asked.
‘Of course. Please. I was just having a drink...’
She sat back down and Ben sat in the chair opposite her. His strong, tanned legs were so close they nudged hers as he settled into place. She didn’t draw her legs back. The slight pressure of his skin on her skin, although momentary, sent waves of awareness coursing through her. She swallowed hard.
She’d used to think Ben Morgan was the best-looking man she’d ever seen. The twelve intervening years had done nothing to change her opinion. No sophisticated city guy had ever matched up to him. Not even Jason.
She’d left the menu open on the table before her. ‘I see you’ve decided on dessert before your main meal,’ Ben said, with that lazy smile which hadn’t changed at all.
‘I was checking out the salads, actually,’ she lied.
‘Really?’ he said, the smile still in his voice, and the one word said everything.
He’d caught her out. Was teasing her. Like he’d used to do. With no brothers, an all-girls school and zero dating experience, she hadn’t been used to boys. Never hurtful or mean, his happy-go-lucky ways had helped get her over that oversensitivity. It was just one of the ways he’d helped her grow up.
‘You’re right,’ she said, relaxing into a smile. ‘Old habits die hard. The raspberry brownie with chocolate fudge sauce does appeal.’ The birthday cake you had when you weren’t having a birthday cake. But she wouldn’t admit to that.
‘That brownie is so good you’ll want to order two servings,’ he said.
Like you used to.
The unspoken words hung between them. Their eyes met for a moment too long to be comfortable. She was the first to look away.
Ben signalled the waiter. As he waved, Sandy had to suppress a gasp at the ugly raised scars that distorted the palms of his hands. What had happened? A fishing accident?
Quickly she averted her eyes so he wouldn’t notice her shock. Or see the questions she didn’t dare ask.
Not now. Not yet.
She rushed to fill the silence that had fallen over their table. ‘It’s been a—’
He finished the sentence for her. ‘Long time?’
‘Yes,’ was all she was able to get out. ‘I was only thinking about you a minute ago and wondering...’
She felt the colour rise up her throat to stain her cheeks. As she’d walked away from the information kiosk and towards the hotel hadn’t she been remembering how Ben had kissed her all those years ago, as they’d lain entwined on the sand in the shadows at the back of the Morgan family’s boat shed? Remembering the promises they’d made to each other between those breathless kisses? Promises she’d really, truly believed.
She felt again as gauche and awkward as she had the night she’d first danced with him, at a bushfire brigade fundraiser dance at the surf club a lifetime ago. Unable to believe that Ben Morgan had actually singled her out from the summer people who’d invaded the locals’ dance.
After their second dance together he’d asked her if she had a boyfriend back home. When she’d shaken her head, he’d smiled.
‘Good,’ he’d said. ‘Then I don’t have to go up to Sydney and fight him for you.’
She’d been so thrilled she’d actually felt dizzy.
The waiter arrived at their table.
‘Can I get you another drink?’ Ben asked.
‘Um, diet cola, please.’
What was wrong with her? Why was she so jittery and on edge?
As a teenager she’d always felt relaxed with Ben, able to be herself. She’d gone home to Sydney a different person from the one who had arrived for that two-week holiday in Dolphin Bay.
She had to stop being so uptight. This was the same Ben. Older, but still Ben. He seemed the same laid-back guy he’d been as her teenage heartthrob. Except—she suppressed a shudder—for the horrendous scarring on his hands.
‘Would you believe this is the first time I’ve been back this way since that summer?’ she said, looking straight into his eyes. She’d used to tell him that eyes so blue were wasted on a man and beg him to swap them for her ordinary hazel-brownish ones.
‘It’s certainly the first time I’ve seen you here,’ he said easily.
Was he, too, remembering those laughing intimacies they’d once shared? Those long discussions of what they’d do with their lives, full of hopes and dreams and youthful optimism? Their resolve not to let the distance between Dolphin Bay and Sydney stop them from seeing each other again?
If he was, he certainly didn’t show it. ‘So what brings you back?’ he asked.
It seemed a polite, uninterested question—the kind a long-ago acquaintance might ask a scarcely remembered stranger who’d blown unexpectedly into town.
‘The sun, the surf and the dolphins?’ she said, determined to match his tone.
He smiled. ‘The surf’s as good as it always was, and the dolphins are still here. But there must be something else to bring a city girl like you to this particular backwater.’
‘B...backwater? I wouldn’t call it that,’ she stuttered. ‘I’m sorry if you think I—’ The gleam in his blue eyes told her he wasn’t serious. She recovered herself. ‘I’m on my way from Sydney through to Melbourne. I saw the turn to this wonderful non-backwater town and here I am. On impulse.’
‘It’s nice you decided to drop in.’ His words were casual, just the right thing to say. Almost too casual. ‘So, how do you find the place?’
She’d never had to lie with Ben. Still, she was in the habit of being tactful. And this was Ben’s hometown.
‘I can’t tell you how overjoyed I was to see those dolphin rubbish bins still there.’
Ben laughed, his strong, even teeth very white against his tan.
That laugh. It still had the power to warm her. Her heart did a curious flipping over thing as she remembered all the laughter they’d shared that long-ago summer. No wonder she’d recognised it instantly.
‘Those hellish things,’ he said. ‘There’s always someone on the progress association who wants to rip them out, but they’re always shouted down.’
‘Thank heaven for that,’ she said. ‘It wouldn’t be Dolphin Bay without them.’
‘People have even started a rumour that if the dolphins are removed it will be the end of Dolphin Bay.’
She giggled. ‘Seriously?’
‘Seriously,’ he said, straight-faced. ‘The rubbish bins go and as punishment we’ll be struck by a tsunami. Or some other calamity.’
He rolled his eyes. Just like he’d used to do. That hidden part of her heart marked ‘first love’ reacted with a painful lurch. She averted her gaze from his mouth and that intriguing, sexy little scar.
She remembered the hours of surfing with him, playing tennis on that old court out at the back of the guesthouse. The fun. The laughter. Those passionate, heartfelt kisses. Oh, those kisses—his mouth hard and warm and exciting on hers, his tongue exploring, teasing. Her body straining to his...
The memories gave her the courage to ask the question. It was now or never. ‘Ben. It was a long time ago. But...but why didn’t you write like you said you would?’
For a long moment he didn’t answer and she te
nsed. Then he shrugged. ‘I never was much for letters. After you didn’t answer the first two I didn’t bother again.’
An edge to his voice hinted that his words weren’t as carefree as they seemed. She shook her head in disbelief. ‘You wrote me two letters?’
‘The day after you went home. Then the week after that. Like I promised to.’
Her mouth went suddenly dry. ‘I never got a letter. Never. Or a phone call. I always wondered why...’
No way would she admit how, day after day, she’d hung around the letterbox, hoping against hope that he’d write. Her strict upbringing had meant she was very short on dating experience and vulnerable to doubt.
‘Don’t chase after boys,’ her mother had told her, over and over again. ‘Men are hunters. If he’s interested he’ll come after you. If he doesn’t you’ll only make a fool of yourself by throwing yourself at him.’
But in spite of her mother’s advice she’d tried to phone Ben. Three times she’d braved a phone call to the guesthouse but had hung up without identifying herself when his father had answered. On the third time his father had told her not to ring again. Had he thought she was a nuisance caller? Or realised it was her and didn’t want her bothering his son? Her eighteen-year-old self had assumed the latter.
It had been humiliating. Too humiliating to admit it even now to Ben.
‘Your dad probably got to my letters before you could,’ said Ben. ‘He never approved of me.’
‘That’s not true,’ Sandy stated half-heartedly, knowing she wouldn’t put it past her controlling, righteous father to have intercepted any communication from Ben. In fact she and Ben had decided it was best he not phone her because of her father’s disapproval of the relationship.
‘He’s just a small-town Lothario, Alexandra.’ Her father’s long-ago words echoed in her head. Hardly. Ben had treated her with the utmost respect. Unlike the private school sons of his friends her father had tried to foist on her.
‘Your dad wanted more for you than a small-town fisherman.’ Ben’s blue eyes were shrewd and piercing. ‘And you probably came to agree with him.’
Sandy dropped her gaze and shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Over and over her father had told her to forget about Ben. He wasn’t suitable. They came from different worlds. Where was the future for a girl who had academic talents like hers with a boy who’d finished high school but had no intention of going any further?
Underneath it all had been the unspoken message: He’s not good enough for you.
She’d never believed that—not for a second. But she had come to believe there was no future for them.
Inconsolable after their summer together, she’d sobbed into her pillow at night when Ben hadn’t written. Scribbled endless notes to him she’d never had the courage to send.
But he hadn’t got in touch and she’d forced herself to forget him. To get over something that obviously hadn’t meant anything to him.
‘Men make promises they never intend to keep, Alexandra.’ How many times had her mother told her that?
Then, once she’d started university in Sydney, Dolphin Bay and Ben Morgan had seemed far away and less and less important. Her father was right—a surfer boyfriend wouldn’t have fitted in with her new crowd anyway, she’d told herself. Then there’d been other boys. Other kisses. And she’d been too grown up for family holidays at Dolphin Bay or anywhere else.
Still, there remained a place in her heart that had always stayed a little raw, that hurt if she pulled out her memories and prodded at them.
But Ben had written to her.
She swirled the ice cubes round and round in her glass, still unable to meet his eyes, not wanting him to guess how disconcerted she felt. How the knowledge he hadn’t abandoned her teenage self took the sting from her memories.
‘It was a long time ago...’ she repeated, her voice tapering away. ‘Things change.’
‘Yep. Twelve years tends to do that.’
She wasn’t sure if he was talking about her, him, or the town. She seized on the more neutral option.
‘Yes.’ She looked around her, waved a hand to encompass the stark fashionable furnishings. ‘Like this hotel.’
‘What about this hotel?’
‘It’s very smart, but not very sympathetic, is it?’
‘I kinda like it myself,’ he said, and took a drink from his beer.
‘You’re not upset at what the developers did on the site of your family’s beautiful guesthouse?’
‘Like you said. Things change. The guesthouse has...has gone forever.’
He paused and she got the impression he had to control his voice.
‘But this hotel and all the new developments around it have brought jobs for a lot of people. Some say it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to the place.’
‘Do you?’
Sandy willed him to say no, wanting Ben to be the same carefree boy who’d lived for the next good wave, the next catch from the fishing boats he’d shared with his father, but knew somehow from the expression on his face that he wouldn’t.
But still his reply came as a surprise. ‘I own this hotel, Sandy.’
‘You...you do?’
‘Yep. Unsympathetic design and all.’
She clapped her hand to her mouth but she couldn’t take back the words. ‘I’m...I’m so sorry I insulted it.’
‘No offence taken on behalf of the award-winning architect.’
‘Really? It’s won awards?’
‘A stack of ’em.’
She noted the convivial atmosphere at the bar, the rapidly filling tables. ‘It’s very smart, of course. And I’m sure it’s very successful. It’s just...the old place was so charming. Your mother was so proud of it.’
‘My parents left the guesthouse long ago. Glad to say goodbye to the erratic plumbing and the creaking floorboards. They built themselves a comfortable new house up on the headland when I took over.’
Whoa. Surprise on surprise. She knew lots must have changed in twelve years, but this? ‘You took over the running of the guesthouse?’ Somehow, she couldn’t see Ben in that role. She thought of him always as outdoors, an action man—not indoors, pandering to the whims of guests.
‘My wife did.’
His wife.
The words stabbed into Sandy’s heart.
His wife.
If she hadn’t already been sitting down she would have had to. Stupidly, she hadn’t considered—not for one minute—that Ben would be married.
She shot a quick glance at his left hand. He didn’t wear a wedding ring, but then plenty of married men didn’t. She’d learned that lesson since she’d been single again.
‘Of course. Of course you would have married,’ she babbled, forcing her mouth into the semblance of a smile.
She clutched her glass so tightly she feared it would shatter. Frantically she tried to mould her expression into something normal, show a polite interest in an old friend’s new life.
‘Did you...did you marry someone from around here?’
‘Jodi Hart.’
Immediately Sandy remembered her. Jodi, with her quiet manner and gentle heart-shaped face. ‘She was lovely,’ she said, meaning every word while trying not to let an unwarranted jealousy flame into life.
‘Yes,’ Ben said, and a muscle pulled at the side of his mouth, giving it a weary twist.
His face seemed suddenly drawn under the bronze of his tan. She was aware of lines etched around his features. She hadn’t noticed them in the first flush of surprise at their meeting. Maybe their marriage wasn’t happy.
Ben drummed his fingers on the surface of the table. Again her eyes were drawn to the scars on his hands. Horrible, angry ridges that made her wince at the sight of them.
‘What about you?’ he asked. ‘Did you marry?’
Sandy shook her head. ‘Me? Marry? No. My partner...he...he didn’t believe in marriage.’
Her voice sounded brittle to her own ears. How she’d always hate
d that ambiguous term partner.
‘“Just a piece of paper,” he used to say.’ She forced a laugh and hoped it concealed any trace of heartbreak. ‘Sure made it easy when we split up. No messy divorce or anything.’
No way would she admit how distraught she’d been. How angry and hurt and humiliated.
His jaw clenched. ‘I’m sorry. Did—?’
She put her hand up to stop his words. ‘Thank you. But there’s no point in talking about it.’ She made herself smile. ‘Water under the bridge, you know.’
It was six months since she’d last seen Jason. And that had only been to pay him for his half of the sofa they’d bought together.
Ben looked at her as if he were searching her face for something. His gaze was so intense she began to feel uncomfortable. When—at last—he spoke, his words were slow and considered.
‘Water under the bridge. You’re right.’
‘Yes,’ she said, not sure what to say next.
After another long, awkward pause, he glanced at his watch. ‘It’s been great to see you, Sandy. But I have a meeting to get to.’ He pushed back his chair and got up.
‘Of course.’ She wanted to put out a hand to stop him. There was more she wanted to ask him. Memories she wanted to share. But there was no reason for him to stay. No reason for him to know it was her birthday and how much she would enjoy his company for lunch.
He was married.
Married men did not share intimate lunches alone with former girlfriends, even if their last kiss had been twelve years ago.
She got up, too, resisting the urge to sigh. ‘It was wonderful to catch up after all these years. Please...please give my regards to Jodi.’
He nodded, not meeting her eyes. Then indicated the menu. ‘Lunch is on the house. I’ll tell the desk you’re my guest.’
‘You really don’t have to, Ben.’
‘Please. I insist. For...for old times’ sake.’
She hesitated. Then smiled tentatively. ‘Okay. Thank you. I’m being nostalgic but they were good old times, weren’t they? I have only happy memories of Dolphin Bay.’ Of the time we spent together.
She couldn’t kiss him goodbye. Instead she offered her hand for him to shake.
The Summer They Never Forgot Page 2