He rubbed his hands irritably through his hair. “I don’t know!” he said peevishly. “What do you want to do?”
“Why don’t you offer me a job and see what my reaction is?” Vivien suggested, then felt her own jaw drop open. Where did that come from?
Morris gaped at her too. “We don’t need a secretary,” he said.
Vivien leaned forward on her hands. “As a pilot, Morris, damn you. You’re short-handed and you know it.”
“Paul would never agree to it,” Morris replied.
“Why don’t we ask him and see?” Vivien suggested sweetly. Then she realized what it was she was trying to do. She was forcing Paul’s hand. A week of waiting had evaporated her patience and prodded by Maria’s encouragement and her rapidly approaching deadline, she was short-circuiting the process.
It was time to see if Paul meant what he had said.
Chapter Thirteen
The chance to confront Paul didn’t arise that day. Office activities ground to an early halt as they normally did on Friday afternoons and the next week was the official Sunshine Festival week. Things would be hectic then, with no chance to goof off at all.
However, the pilots still had jobs to complete, which kept them out all afternoon, including Paul. Vivien found herself driving back to her motel room that evening with all her frustrations swollen to unbearable levels. She was ready to do battle and her opponent had disappeared on her.
Trying to contain her seething impatience, Vivien went for a run on the beach but there were too many swimmers standing around in the shallows and at the edges of the water, where the hard, flat sand was and after covering barely half a mile, and constantly dodging people, Vivien returned to the motel. The swimming pool was crowded, so there was no chance of even swimming it out of her system.
Vivien banged around her motel room, halfheartedly clearing up, packing away, sorting out her clothes and generally creating more confusion than before. After picking up the same T-shirt for the third time and staring at it, trying to decide what to do with it, Vivien threw it across the bed and sank down onto the mattress and tried to laugh at herself. Her chuckle emerged weak and wobbly.
I’m just going to have to go out and find him, she decided. I can’t live with this suspense anymore.
* * * * *
When the phone rang, Paul was standing on the deck watching the sea roll into the beach. He had been standing there a while.
He had taken Morris’ advice to heart and was thinking. Following his instincts.
Following his nose.
Simple advice but it had unlocked all the pressure he had been feeling and allowed him to step back the half-step necessary to look at himself properly and to decide what to do.
No more games.
He went back inside and picked up the telephone, already knowing it was Vivien. He hadn’t consciously noticed until now, when he had been able to see a little more clearly, that she would be suffering the same time demands and pressure to decide as he would. After the disaster at lunchtime, she would be just as driven as he to do something about it.
There was an astonished silence when he answered. Her astonishment bypassed her social graces and she almost shouted into the phone, “Where the hell have you been?”
Paul grinned. Pressured, indeed. “So the true Vivien finally emerges. I wondered how long it would take for your cool professional persona to crack.”
“Well, it’s cracked,” she shot back.
“Time to talk, Vivien,” he said quietly, his amusement fading.
“More than time. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
* * * * *
Paul emerged from the house as Vivien pulled up on the same paved area as before. This time his casual, relaxed poise had disappeared. Vivien could sense the tension in him. Had it been there all week and she just hadn’t noticed? Or had the declaration of battle focused his energy?
Characteristic of his new reserve, Paul didn’t even attempt to greet her hello with his old, endearing way of picking up her hand and bringing it to his lips. Vivien stood in front of him and he suppressed the tendency by crossing his arms and taking a deep breath. His chest rose and fell.
“I’m here. Let’s talk,” Vivien said simply.
Paul glanced back at the gate that led into the front courtyard and to the front door. “I can’t talk inside,” he said. “Do you mind if we walk?”
Vivien shook her head. “Whatever.” She felt the same sense of restlessness herself. “Along the beach?”
“Yes.”
So they moved around the high courtyard walls and to the front of the house, stepping onto the path that meandered down to the beach. Neither spoke. Vivien felt it would be best to wait until they reached the hard flat sand just above the water to begin their conversation—then she would not have to concentrate on watching where she placed her feet.
Where the path opened out onto the beach proper, Vivien paused to kick off her shoes, which she left next to a saltbush. They would be safe there. Even though the beach was technically available to the public, no one but Paul ever used it. It was too far out of town and the surf and sand wasn’t good enough to draw either swimmers or surfers. There was much better to be had elsewhere along Geraldton’s extensive coastline.
Paul’s feet were already bare, although he was still wearing the pilot’s shirt and trousers he wore on most working days. He waited patiently for Vivien to draw level with him again, then turned toward the first small promontory, half a mile along the beach.
For a few moments they remained silent, although the beach itself was far from quiet. The soft boom of the surf was a continuous backdrop to the raucous cry of seagulls, flying and fishing in the pink and carmine rays of the sunset. A dozen feet up the beach a handful of the birds were fighting over the carcass of a sand crab, while more lucky crabs scuttled sideways across the sand into the water or down into their tunnels at the approach of a pair of humans.
Vivien cleared her throat and broke the silence between them. “Last weekend you made me promise to stay here for the week, come what may. I’ve kept my side of the bargain, despite my boss turning the thumbscrews on me. Now it’s your turn.”
Paul pushed his hands into his pockets. “I haven’t protested over a single decision my mother has made. I’ve even calmed Carlos down. I haven’t stopped her from doing anything that she has proposed to do.”
Vivien thought he was turning the conversation but then she realized that he wasn’t. He was trying to demonstrate that he had been tolerant, forbearing and open-minded. Which he had been, she freely admitted it. But it wasn’t enough. “You’ve been very patient with Maria,” she told him. “I think you’ve seen that she is already much happier than she was a week ago.”
Paul nodded. “Yes, I am beginning to see that you were right about her, now.”
“Why don’t you sound happy about it, then?” she asked. “Is it that you wanted me to be wrong? If I was proved wrong, you could safely tell me to climb back into my bandbox and shut up?”
Paul scowled and kicked at a tiny hillock of sand, sending it flying. “No,” he said finally.
“Then why are you frowning?” Vivien asked reasonably.
It took him a long moment to formulate his answer and Vivien held her breath. Paul was digging deep, trying to find the truth. She didn’t want to break his concentration by jumping into the silence with a trivial prompt.
“I thought I understood my mother,” he said at last, speaking slowly. “Now, I find I’m wrong. I don’t know her at all. It’s making me question everything that I thought I knew. All my old frames of reference have been turned upside down.” He grimaced. “That isn’t a very comfortable thought.”
“It’s just change,” Vivien reassured him softly. “Change is always uncomfortable. But it will all get back onto an even keel, given time.”
Paul shook his head. “I grant you that change is uncomfortable but this is someho
w worse. You’ve managed to affect a part of my life that I thought would never change. I hadn’t realized just how much influence it had over me until now, when I’m feeling the effects of changes that you have set in motion.” He laughed dryly. “I’m both appalled and amused to discover just how much of my parents’ culture and attitudes I’m still carrying around with me, unchallenged.”
“Until now,” Vivien concluded softly.
“I had always prided myself on being a liberal thinker.” Some of his chagrin came through as a dry, ironic note in his words.
“You are. Even the most liberal of thinkers must be aware of attitudes to be able to question them.”
His frown deepened. Then he looked at her sideways from under his brow. “You’re right,” he said and gave a short laugh.
“But of course,” Vivien said, with mock serenity. She was secretly pleased. Paul had managed to take a giant step. Even becoming aware of one’s unconscious prejudices and assumptions was quite a feat. But Vivien needed more. She wanted him to take the next natural step. She wanted him to deliberately choose to change those attitudes. It was the only way a relationship between them would have any chance of a future. “So what about us, Paul? What are you going to do about us?”
“You’re only going to be happy with positive evidence, aren’t you?”
She wanted to protest that she wasn’t that uncompromising, that she could trust him enough to finish the process that he had begun, but the hard truth was that she couldn’t accept such a gamble. She had left Geraldton and begun her life from scratch because Paul had been unable to change. To risk the chance of having to live through that pain again, she needed more.
Her silence answered him. Paul pushed his hand through the thick heavy fringe of his hair. “What do you want, Vivien? What will convince you to stay? To return to...me?”
His hesitant pronoun told her he was being utterly candid. It was possibly the first time he had been so frank since she had arrived two weeks ago. Regardless of the cost to his considerable pride and dignity, he had removed the mask, now. She could only do him the same service.
“I want a demonstration from you that if I stay in Geraldton you will let me be involved in all of your life. I can’t be a domestic stay-at-home. It’s not part of my nature. Perhaps it might have been but between my parents’ love of adventure and your constant challenges when I was younger, I’m not capable of being content with that now. I want to fly. I love it just as much as you do. You can’t stop me but I won’t stay if I think that you would begrudge me any of the same freedom and opportunities that you take for granted.”
The silence this time was so long that Vivien began to grow afraid. Hadn’t he understood that this was what she had been asking for? Was this so surprising and shocking to him that he needed time to consider it? Or was he trying to find a way of saying no? Vivien found the rhythm of her footsteps was faltering and without a conscious decision she found herself coming to a halt on the hard, wet sand.
Paul turned back to face her. The sun had gone down now but there was still enough light to see the wary expression on his face. “What’s wrong?”
“You can’t do it, can you?” she said and her voice was hoarse. “You’re going to send me away.”
Paul shook his head. “What I can’t do,” he began and Vivien’s breath deserted her in a rush as she thought this was the beginning of his refusal to give her what she wanted. In the frozen moment while her senses reeled, he continued on. “What I can’t do is think of a way to actually demonstrate what you want. It’s a bit difficult to call up a handy situation or event to use.”
Vivien closed her eyes in relief and actually felt herself sway a little with the giddiness. She opened them quickly. “Have you spoken to Morris this afternoon?” she asked him.
Paul shook his head. “I came home early. To think,” he added.
“Then he wouldn’t have put my proposal to you yet.” Vivien cocked her head and studied Paul closely, to watch for his first and most revealing, reaction. “I want you to give me a job as one of your pilots.”
“I don’t need another pilot,” he said slowly. It wasn’t a protest but a perfectly reasonable objection made by a businessman thinking about the financial side of his business.
“Because you have Jack here. You can’t keep him on contract forever. It’s too expensive. Even just hiring for peak seasons is exorbitant. You can afford me. Morris has shown me the books. You know as well as I that with another pilot on hand, business will grow to take up the slack.”
“That’s assuming you have the resources. I wasn’t planning on buying any more aircraft in the near future.” He still wasn’t protesting, she noted. He was absorbed in processing the idea and looking at it from all angles.
“I have my own Gazelle. If the company took over the hire purchase payments for me, you could have exclusive use of both me and my helicopter’s services.” She tried to smile, even though her heart was trip hammering away trying to cope with the adrenaline screaming through her system and her facial muscles had turned to soft putty. “It’s a good bargain in anyone’s language,” she pointed out.
Paul stood head down, considering.
Vivien stared at his still figure, silently urging him to agree. This was the acid test and a perfect demonstration of his willingness to let her have the freedom she needed to be her own complete person. If he refused, she knew that their relationship would never survive and she might as well pack her bags and leave Geraldton tonight. There would be no point in staying any longer.
“Finding it hard to say yes when it comes right down to it?” she asked.
Paul lifted his head up to look at her and smiled, his eyes dancing. “I was just trying to figure out how I was going to convince Morris that employing another pilot would be a good business move. I know I own the business but Morris is a stubborn old cuss when he sets his mind to it.”
Pure, unadulterated delight swelled up from Vivien’s toes, swept over her and left her weightless. “You’ll hire me?” she said, wanting the confirmation.
“Yes,” Paul said with a grin at her persistence.
“With no conditions or restrictions?”
“With no conditions or restrictions,” he repeated solemnly.
“Well then, for god’s sake, will you kiss me?” she demanded. “I’ve been going crazy all week wanting you to kiss me.”
He swept her into his arms with a laugh. “If I had touched you I might have gone crazy myself,” he said. “But now I can make up for it.” And he did, his mouth capturing hers in a kiss that was sweet and searing at once. To Vivien, it carried the symbolic weight of their future with it and it left her trembling in his arms.
Paul rested his forehead against hers for a brief moment. “Vivien...” he sighed. “For seven years I’ve daydreamed about a time when I might have you here with me again. I never imagined it would take place like this.”
“The problem with daydreams is that the other people in your dreams behave the way you want them to.” Vivien buried her fingers in the thick, silky hair at the back of his head. The short ends tickled her palm and she realized her tactile memory had unconsciously led her to expect the smooth long locks of the ponytail he had once worn, even though she had quickly become visually accustomed to the shorter style. “You’d better get used to me not behaving the way you always expect,” she teased.
“There are ways of making you behave the way I want,” Paul growled and lowered his mouth to hers once more. She already knew what it would feel like when his lips touched hers and her mind raced on ahead. What would more than the touch of his lips do to her now? It once had the power to set her alight with an uncontrollable passion that matched his in fervor. What would it feel like now? What would his lips feel like on her breasts, on her thighs? Would his hands be able to send shivers of delight through her again? Or had she grown too worldly, too experienced, had she lost the naïveté that would let her sink deep into the spell he could cast over
her?
His mouth touched hers, covered hers and she felt his breath escape him in a rush. His hands tightened their hold around her, pulling her against him. “Put your arms around me,” he said, his mouth moving against hers with a delicious friction.
“We’ll get wet,” she protested, her voice low. “The tide’s coming in.” Even as she spoke, a wave curled up the sand and soaked away. Paul glanced at the wet line bare inches from their feet and released her and took her hand. He lifted her hand to his mouth and, instead of kissing the back of it, as he often used to, he turned her hand over and pressed his lips to her palm. The warm, moist touch of his tongue as he tasted her skin sent sparks shooting through her. She caught her breath and his eyes, which hadn’t shifted away from her face, narrowed, the pupils dilating.
“Come with me,” he said, his voice low.
“Where?” she asked curiously. She allowed herself to be led across the beach to the ivory white sand dunes that seemed to gleam with their own inner light in the darkening evening.
Paul found a hollow tucked between the rolling dunes, far enough away from the sea that its volume dropped to a subliminal whisper and deep enough to be protected from the errant evening breeze, so that the air inside was still and warm and smelled faintly of sandalwood from the tree that stood half buried at the further end of the hollow. The sand was soft and dry beneath their feet.
Paul brought her back against him and kissed her firmly. He slid his arm around her waist, his hand spreading across the small of her back. The contact made her shiver. “I want you. Now,” he murmured.
“Yes,” she agreed. There was no need for further discussion.
He rapidly discarded her sundress and the wispy lace bra and pants she wore beneath and paused for a moment to let his gaze rake over her body. Vivien felt a small moment of shyness. It had been so long. Her body had surely changed from what he remembered. Would those changes repel him? She stood very still.
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