Temporary Intrigue

by Huston, Judy

  She hadn’t been into the living room since returning from Queensland. It would bring back too many memories of Josh, looking so comfortably at home with his long legs stretched out to the fire, his brown eyes watching her so warmly. Reminders of him seemed to be everywhere, tearing at her, but somehow she knew they would be strongest in that room.

  At the same time, oddly enough, the memories of her confrontation with Leigh did not repel her from the kitchen. She felt detached from those images, able to view them dispassionately. The images of Josh were the ones that hurt almost more than she could bear.

  Hard work was the remedy.

  She was tackling the ironing from the previous day’s washing when Sandra rang. Although glad to talk, Dimity refused the suggestion that they have dinner together.

  “I’m too tired to go anywhere,” she said. “I’m going to have some soup, soak in a bath and crawl into bed.”

  Tiredness, however, didn’t bring sleep. The pain she thought she had managed to subdue was there, as raw and aching as ever, as soon as she tried to relax.

  Towards dawn she swung her legs out of bed, threw a blanket around her shoulders and padded out to the kitchen in her bed socks. After making tea she sat at the table with her hands wrapped around the warm mug, hearing the occasional snuffle from the veranda as Bert slept soundly in his clean, cosy kennel.

  It was time to face facts.

  Living without Josh in her life was going to be more painful than she could contemplate. She couldn’t believe how much she missed the warm intimacy they had shared, how hard it was to accept that so strong a yearning could be one-way. She could never have imagined how much it now hurt to know he had probably already moved on and forgotten her.

  But she wasn’t going to wreck her life over this. She had to believe he was gone; she had to accept the hurt and deal with it. One day she might even start to heal, although that was too far off in the future to consider.

  Meanwhile, she was going to restore order to the chaos of her life. She would see the financial adviser, start organising the gallery and hire an accountant to look after the business side of things for her.

  It was a big step to take. It scared her. But she was going to do it anyway.

  And she was darn well going to make a success of it.

  However, her resolution threatened to falter a few hours later as she sat studying facts and figures the financial adviser had scribbled on a large writing pad.

  “So you think I need that amount of capital to make it feasible?”

  He nodded matter-of-factly.

  “You already have most of it in savings, but I wouldn’t risk starting without the full amount as minimum. Maybe you could try borrowing the rest against your house.”

  Dimity frowned at the figures, wishing they were different.

  “If I take out a loan I’ll have to get some type of job to pay it off, which wouldn’t leave me the time I need to focus on the gallery. I’ll have to think of something else.”

  After the meeting she drove to the foreshore, parked near the hotel and sat staring at the harbour, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel.

  What was she going to do? Unless she could borrow or raise the extra capital, she might have to go back to temping and start saving again. But the prospect was too depressing to consider.

  Maybe art teaching was an option. But she had no experience working in schools, and even if she found a job she would be entrapped in a working schedule that would leave her no time to pursue her gallery dream. It might just recede into the distance, never to resurface. And she didn’t want to risk that happening.

  Frustrating as it was, she almost welcomed this new challenge. It kept her mind off other things.

  She would have to raise the money somehow. The shortfall wasn’t massive. There must be something she could do, something she could sell.

  Roaming mentally through her home, she concluded the answer to the latter was zilch. There was nothing to raise anyone’s eyebrows or bring in the money she needed. The only original things were her paintings.

  Harold Woodman had said he liked original paintings. Maybe, she thought with a faint, self-deprecating grin, she should try to persuade the CEO to buy some of hers for the hotel’s board room.

  Even if he did, of course, it probably wouldn’t give her all the money she needed.

  But she could, she mused, letting the thoughts slow down and float through her mind, offer to do more paintings that could be used in the hotel’s suites.

  Then there were the group’s other hotels throughout Australia.

  There were their hotels all around the world–

  Ongoing income. Work she could actually do while running the gallery. Work she loved.

  For one wild moment, Dimity dreamed.

  What a shame the dream was impossible.

  Or was it?

  They’re very special.

  Did she dare try it?

  If you want something that feels right for you, I reckon it’s a signal it’s yours and you should go after it.

  She wanted Josh. He felt right for her. She had dared to dream she might be right for him too.

  With a sudden, fierce awareness, she knew that under any other circumstances she would have gone after him.

  Getting out of the car, she thrust her hands deep into the pockets of her coat and began walking along the foreshore path, away from the hotel, forcing her mind back to the problem of money.

  Was there any substance to her fleeting idea? She had never thought of her paintings as having serious commercial value. They were something to put on the wall and enjoy having near her.

  But if she could put them to work for her, they could decorate other walls and, at the same time, enable her to continue producing more paintings.

  Deep in her pocket her right hand encountered something. She drew it out and found herself staring at Harold Woodman’s business card that she had forgotten to give Shane after the reception.

  Here it was, handed to her on a platter. She could ring Harold right now, put the idea to him.

  The worst-case scenario was that he would reject her offer. If he did, so what? She would have lost nothing.

  It wasn’t as if she hadn’t already experienced rejection. In spades.

  She could cope.

  ****

  “Brilliant!”

  Sandra’s voice on the car’s speaker phone echoed Dimity’s delight.

  “It’s not set in stone,” Dimity warned, trying to curb her own excitement. “But he seemed really interested.”

  “It’s a miracle you hadn’t lost his card!”

  “It’s another miracle he’s still in Australia and will be at the Newcastle hotel tomorrow. He wants me to take a couple of recent paintings in so he can show them to the board. The two from the living room are the best. I’m going home to put them in the car now.”

  “Make sure you lock it up tonight,” Sandra told her. “I’ll bet those paintings aren’t insured.”

  “Never thought of it.”

  “Well, you’d better start thinking. My psychic powers tell me that this, Ms Forbes, could be the start of something big.”

  Arriving home, Dimity parked in the driveway behind Shane’s car. The sight of it reminded her that she would have to take it into town, ready for him to use when he had his licence again. That would be soon, but for now it could wait. She had more important things to do.

  She hurried into the house. Despite the desperate longing and unhappiness that now seemed a permanent part of her being, her spirits had lifted slightly.

  It was the memory of Josh’s words that had given her the impetus to phone Harold Woodman. If the phone call resulted in the gallery becoming a reality, Josh would be a permanent part of her dream come true.

  Not in the way she had hoped, of course. But why not try to foster and cherish happy thoughts of him, rather than living in a constant state of sadness?

  It sounded so easy.

  If only!
>
  She went down the hallway, turned into the living room, then stopped.

  The wall where the paintings should have been hanging was bare.

  For one crazy instant she thought Sandra’s alleged psychic prediction had come true. Then as if in slow motion, she thought back.

  She recalled sliding the paintings under the passenger seat of Josh’s car before the first workshop and later telling him she didn’t need them for that day’s class after all.

  Then there had been the confrontation about Shane, resulting in Sandra taking her to the Sunday workshop.

  With so much happening, she hadn’t thought of the paintings again until today, hadn’t noticed their absence.

  They were still in his car!

  If she wanted to show them to Harold Woodman tomorrow, she would have to get them back. She had other paintings but nothing as good, nothing that would demonstrate so well the type of work she could do.

  There was time to go to Sydney and back – but how was she going to contact Josh? Email might not reach him in time if he happened to be out of the office. A phone call would be the obvious way, but she quailed at the prospect of speaking to him.

  Maybe she should take the coward’s way out and ask Sandy or Shane to call him on her behalf. But she would probably still have to see him when she collected the paintings.

  She didn’t know if she could bear that. Whether they were polite or hostile to each other, either way would be intolerable.

  Still carrying her bag, she went through to the kitchen to put the jug on. Anything to postpone the decision.

  As she filled the jug, she heard a friendly woof from Bert out on the veranda, apparently glad to hear she was home again. If only her life could be as simple as his!

  She dialled Sandra’s number. It went through to voicemail. She left a message and stood tapping her fingers on the counter, waiting for the jug to boil.

  The mobile rang in her bag. Thinking it was Sandra, she fished the phone out and answered without checking the caller.

  “That was quick,” she said, switching the jug off.

  “Hi.”

  It was Josh.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  One hand remained poised in mid-air. With the other she pressed the phone to her ear, unable to speak.

  “Please don’t hang up.” He spoke quickly. “Did you – I don’t know if you remembered I still have your paintings?”

  Were their minds working in tandem? And was that the only reason he had wanted to contact her?

  He kept talking as if afraid she would cut him off.

  “I wasn’t sure if you knew I’d gone back to Sydney. The paintings were in the car, but I didn’t notice them until yesterday.”

  She wished she could somehow trap his voice, keep it forever, listen to it whenever she wanted.

  But she had to remember he wasn’t for her. She forced herself to sound detached.

  “I was going to get in touch about them. Shane told me you were back in Sydney. Maybe you could leave them at your hotel there, at reception? I could drive down and get them.”

  “You don’t need to do that.” His voice was suddenly flat. “I’ve had them delivered to you.”

  “But they haven’t–”

  “They’re on your back veranda now.”

  “On the veranda?”

  But he had disconnected the call. He couldn’t wait to cut himself off from her.

  Well, she’d known as much. But having it confirmed didn’t make her feel any better.

  The paintings hadn’t been there when she left for town. How could he be so sure they were there now?

  She walked towards the back door, unlocked it and opened it.

  The paintings were there, propped against Bert’s kennel. Bert was sitting beside them, his tail thumping on the veranda floor when he saw her.

  And Josh was there, replacing his phone in the pocket of his black jacket and looking at her with those warm brown eyes filled with more love than she could ever have imagined possible for one second before his jaw tensed and his expression became neutral.

  It was impossible. He couldn’t be there. But he was.

  “I’ve had so much trouble contacting you that I thought I’d try the personal touch,” he said.

  Her heart wanted her to throw herself into his arms. Her head told her to step back inside and shut the door. While her emotions warred, he took a quick breath and raised both hands, palms facing her.

  “Before you say a word – I’m divorced.”

  The muscles of her throat seemed paralysed. Slowly, deliberately, she put the phone on the counter near the door and folded her arms.

  “Less than a week ago you said you were married. What did you do? Fly to Reno?”

  At her derisive tone, his mouth tightened.

  “That’s probably a bit old hat. I think you can do it online now, can’t you? But I don’t remember telling you I was married.”

  “You said that woman, Maddison –” she almost choked over the name “was your wife.”

  “She’s not my goddamn wife!” His voice was rough with the same emotion she remembered from their previous conversation. “She was. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. We were married. Past tense. We’ve been well and truly divorced for two years and we were finished long before that. It only lasted six months.”

  Dimity was silent, trying to take it in.

  “Did you really think I’d try to lead you on that way?” The strain in his voice was unmistakable.

  “I didn’t want to.” She was weak with relief and leftover anger. “But whether she’s ex or current, why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Like I just said, I tried.”

  “Well, you should have tried harder.”

  “It’s not something you just drop into the conversation –‘Oh, by the way, I’m divorced.’ If you’d asked me, of course I would have told you, but I was waiting for the right time.”

  “Until it suited you?”

  “Until it suited us. When we were having lunch by the harbour, I was about to tell you.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “We were talking about Kate’s problems. You seemed to think she had a point, not wanting to take on her boyfriend’s baggage. Suddenly it didn’t seem the moment to tell you I had an ex-wife. I didn’t want to ruin things.”

  She gave him an expressive look. He grimaced.

  “Then I was planning to tell you when we got back to your place after the reception, but by the time we got there I thought it might be a bit of an overload when you’d just had a near-death experience. So I was going to tell you at dinner after the workshop, but I loused things up by deciding Shane was the one who was out to get you.”

  He rubbed the back of his neck.

  “Hell – and I tried to lecture Shane about the advantages of getting things out in the open.”

  Despite herself, Dimity couldn’t prevent the faintest of gurgles.

  “Maybe you should have written me a letter.”

  “I’ve got this thing about the personal touch.” She thought she heard a slight easing of tension in his voice. “But yeah, I admit I goofed. So nobody’s perfect.”

  Leaning against the doorway, Dimity watched a beam of sunlight sparkle through the new window she had cleaned yesterday.

  “I’m waiting for you to add ‘As you should well understand in view of your recent secretarial performance, Dimity’," she said.

  She heard the ghost of a chuckle from Josh’s direction.

  “Would you like me to bring the paintings in?” he asked.

  When she nodded he picked them up in an easy movement that reminded her of the night he had hoisted her backpack and carried it along the foreshore. Stepping back to let him into the kitchen, she felt her heart give a massive lurch when their eyes met as he passed.

  He walked towards the door that led to the hallway, then stopped.

  “Do you want me to put them up for you?”

  “Thanks, but I h
ave to take them into the hotel tomorrow. Harold Woodman’s going to be there. He’s interested in buying them for the board room. It looks as if my gallery is going to happen at long last.”

  “Hey, that’s great!” Propping the paintings against the wall, he smiled with genuine delight. “How did that happen?”

  She shrugged.

  “Long story.”

  He nodded, stopped smiling, swallowed, rubbed the back of his neck again, then looked at her with an expression that tore at her heart.

  “I can’t say how sorry I am about this, Dim. Do you think–”

  He stopped and, to her frustration, went off uncharacteristically at a tangent. “I’ve never asked if you mind being called Dim.”

  “No, that’s what most people call me.”

  “I thought you looked upset when Leigh made that awful crack about it.”

  Marvelling at his attention to detail, Dimity tried to remember the incident.

  “It was a family joke. If I looked upset it was because Leigh had turned it into something spiteful and Shane seemed to be joining in. He apologised later.”

  “So he should have.” He caught himself. “Sorry. Actually, I saw him a few days ago. He said he was moving out and that you’d gone to Queensland. How was it?”

  “Not bad. How did you know I was back?”

  “I didn’t. I drove by on the off chance and saw your car in the driveway.”

  “Are you working in Newcastle again?”

  Their exchanges were trivial, automatic. Watching him, unaware he hadn’t answered, she felt a surge of anguish imagining those hands caressing someone else, thinking of that voice whispering love words to another person.

  “Dim–” his voice was very quiet. “I didn’t understand what love was, then.”

  How had he sensed her thoughts?

  Somehow, while she stared at him wordlessly, she must have taken a step forward. At the same time he moved. With no idea how it had happened, she found herself in his arms, held so tightly that for a few seconds she thought all her bones would break.

  After those few seconds he relaxed his grip slightly but still held her close against him, and that was perfectly all right with her. With her own arms locked tightly around him she could feel her tension finally breaking, a warm flood of love and certainty rushing in to fill the cold void that had tormented her since they parted.