by Nicola Marsh
‘Unless you still feel something?’
‘I’m many things. A masochist isn’t one of them.’
She stood so quickly her chair slid backward on its castors and slammed into the wall. The noise didn’t deter her as she stalked towards him, defiant in high heels.
With her eyes flashing warning signals he chose to ignore, he stepped back into the office, meeting her halfway.
Before he could speak she held up her hand. ‘I’m not a fool, Archer. We were attracted in Capri, we’re both single, and we’re going to be spending time together on this campaign. Stands to reason a few residual sparks may fly.’ Her hand snagged in her hair again and she almost wrenched it out in exasperation. ‘It won’t mean anything. I have a job to do, and there’s no way I’ll jeopardise that by making another mistake.’
He reached for her before he could second-guess, gripping her upper arms, giving her no room to move. ‘We weren’t a mistake.’
‘Yeah? Then why did you run?’
He couldn’t respond—not without telling her the truth. And that wasn’t an option.
So he did the next best thing.
He released her, turned his back, and walked away.
‘And you’re still running,’ she murmured.
Her barb registered, and served to make him stride away that little bit faster.
CHAPTER THREE
CALLIE strode towards Johnston Street and her favourite Spanish bar.
Some girls headed home to a chick-flick and tub of ice-cream when they needed comfort. She headed for Rivera’s.
‘Hola, querida.’ Arturo Rivera blew her a kiss from behind the bar and she smiled in return, some of her tension instantly easing.
Artie knew about her situation: the necessity for her business to thrive in order to buy the best care for her mum. He knew her fears, her insecurities. He’d been there from the start, this reserved gentleman in a porkpie hat who’d lost his wife to the disease that would eventually claim her mum.
She hadn’t wanted to attend a support group, but her mum’s doc had insisted it would help in the disease’s management and ultimately help her mum.
So she’d gone along, increasingly frustrated and helpless and angry, so damn angry, that her vibrant, fun-loving mother had been diagnosed with motor neurone disease.
She’d known nothing about her mum’s symptoms until it had been too late. Nora had hidden them well: the stumbling due to weakness in her leg muscles, her difficulty holding objects due to weak hands, her swallowing difficulties and the occasional speech slur.
The first Callie had learned of it was when her mum had invited her to accompany her to see a neurologist. Nora hated needles, and apparently having an electromyograph, where they stuck needles in her muscles to measure electrical activity, was worse to bear than the actual symptoms.
The diagnosis had floored them both—especially the lack of a cure and mortality rates. Though in typical determined Nora fashion her mum had continued living independently until her symptoms had made it impossible to do so.
Nora had refused to be a burden on her only daughter, so Callie had found the best care facility around—one with top neurologists, speech, occupational and physiotherapists, psychologists, nurses and palliative care, while trying not to acknowledge her mum’s steady deterioration.
It was as if she could see the nerve cells failing, resulting in the progressive muscle weakness that would eventually kill her mum.
So she focussed on the good news: Nora’s sight, smell, taste, sensation, intellect and memory wouldn’t be affected. Nora would always know her, even at the end, and that thought sustained her through many a crying jag late at night, when the pain of impending loss crowded in and strangled her forced bravery.
To compound her stress she’d had to reluctantly face the fact she had a fifty-fifty chance of inheriting it too. She hadn’t breathed all through the genetic testing consultation, when the doctors had explained that Nora’s motor neurone disease was caused by mutations in the SOD1 gene. That tiny superoxide dismutase one gene, located on chromosome twenty-one, controlled her fate.
Insomnia had plagued her in the lead-up to her testing, and the doctor’s clinical facts had been terrifying as they echoed through her head: people with the faulty gene had a high chance of developing MND in later life, or could develop symptoms in their twenties.
Like her.
She’d worried herself sick for days after the test, and even though it had come back clear—she didn’t carry the mutated gene—she’d never fully shaken the feeling that she had a swinging axe grazing the back of her neck, despite the doc’s convincing argument that many people with the faulty gene didn’t go on to develop MND.
Then the worry had given way to guilt. Guilt that she was the lucky one in her family.
During this time the support group had been invaluable. Artie had been there, just as frustrated, just as angry. He’d lost his wife of forty years.
They’d bonded over espresso and biscotti, gradually revealing their bone-deep resentment and helpless fury at a disease that had no cure. Those weekly meetings had led to an invitation to Rivera’s, a place that had instantly become home.
She loved the worn, pockmarked wooden floor, the rich mahogany bar that ran the breadth of the back wall, the maroon velvet embossed wallpaper that created a cosy ambience beckoning patrons to linger over delicious tapas and decadent sangria.
This was where she’d started to thaw, where the deliberate numbness enclosing her aching heart at the injustice of what her mum faced had melted.
This was where she’d come to eat, to chat and to dance.
She lived for the nights when Artie cleared the tables and chairs, cranked up the music, and taught Spanish dances to anyone eager to learn.
Those nights were the best—when she could forget how her life had changed that momentous day when she’d learned of her mum’s diagnosis.
She nodded at familiar faces as she weaved through tables towards the bar, her heart lightening with every step as Artie waved his hands in the air, gesturing at her usual spot.
‘You hungry, querida?’
Considering the knot of nerves in her stomach, the last thing she felt like doing was eating, but if she didn’t Artie would know something was wrong.
And she didn’t feel like talking about the cause of her angst. Not when she’d spent the fifteen-minute walk to the bar trying to obliterate Archer from her mind.
‘Maybe the daily special?’
Artie winked. ‘Coming right up.’
As he spooned marinated octopus, garlic olives, banderillas, calamares fritos and huevos relleños de gambas onto a terracotta platter, she mentally rummaged for a safe topic of conversation—one that wouldn’t involve blurting about the blackmailing guy who had once stolen her heart.
He slid the plate in front of her, along with her usual espresso. ‘So, are you going to tell me what’s wrong before your coffee or after?’
She opened her mouth to brush off his astute observation, but one glance at the shrewd gleam in his eyes stalled her. She knew that look. The look of a father figure who wouldn’t quit till he’d dragged the truth out of her.
‘It’s nothing, really—’
He tut-tutted. ‘Querida, I’ve known you for more than seven years.’ He pointed to his bald pate and wrinkled forehead. ‘These may indicate the passage of time, but up here...?’ He tapped his temple. ‘As sharp as Banderas’s sword in Zorro.’
She chuckled. If Artie had his way Antonio Banderas would be Spain’s president.
He folded his arms and rested them on the bar. ‘You know I’m going to stay here until you tell me.’
‘What about your customers?’
‘That’s what I pay the staff for.’ He grinned. ‘Now, are you going to tell, or do I have to ply you with my finest sangria?’
She held up her hands. ‘I’m starting work early tomorrow, so no sangria.’
How tempting it sounded. What she
wouldn’t give to down a jug of Artie’s finest, get blotto, and forget the fact she had to accompany Archer to Torquay tomorrow.
‘Fine.’ She pushed a few olives around her plate before laying down her fork. ‘CJU Designs scored its biggest account ever today.’
Artie straightened and did a funny flamenco pirouette. ‘That’s brilliant. Well done, querida.’
‘Yeah, it’ll take care of mum’s bills for the next year at least, thank goodness.’
Artie’s exuberance faded. ‘How is Nora?’
‘The same. Happy, determined, putting on a brave face.’
Something she was finding increasingly hard to do when she visited and saw the signs that her mum’s condition was worsening. While Nora coped with her wheelchair, relaxed as if she was lounging in her favourite recliner, Callie watched for hand tremors or lapses in speech or drifting off.
She couldn’t relax around her mum any more. The effort of hiding her sadness clamped her throat in a stranglehold, taking its toll. She grew more exhausted after every visit, and while she never for one second regretted spending as much time as possible with her mum, she hated the inevitability of this horrid disease.
Artie patted her hand. ‘Give her my best next time you see her.’
‘Shall do.’
That was another thing that bugged her about this Torquay trip. She’d have to give all her attention to the account in the early set-up—and to the account’s aggravating owner—which meant missing out on seeing her mum for the week before Christmas or long drives to and from the beachside town. Which would lead to Archer poking his nose into her business, asking why she had to visit her mum so often, and she didn’t want to divulge her private life to him.
Not now, when things were strictly business.
‘If this account has alleviated some of your financial worries, why do you look like this?’ Artie’s exaggerated frown made her smile.
‘Because simple solutions often mask convoluted complications.’
‘Cryptic.’
‘Not really.’ She huffed out a long breath. ‘The owner of the company behind this new account is an old friend.’
‘Ah...so that’s it.’
She didn’t like the crafty glint in Artie’s eyes much—his knowing smile less.
‘This...friend...is he a past amor?’
Had she loved Archer? After the awful break-up, and in the following months when she’d returned to Melbourne and preferred reading to dating, she’d wondered if the hollowness in her heart, the constant gripe in her belly and the annoying wanderlust to jump back on a plane and follow him around the world’s surfing hotspots was love.
She’d almost done it once, after seeing a snippet of him at the Pipeline in Hawaii three months after she’d returned from Europe. She’d gone as far as logging on, choosing flights, but when it had come to paying the arrow had hovered over ‘confirm’ for an agonising minute before the memory of their parting had resurfaced and she’d shut the whole thing down.
That moment had been her wake-up call, and she’d deliberately worked like a maniac so she could fall into bed at the end of a day exhausted and hopefully dream-free.
Her mum had been diagnosed four weeks later, and as a distraction from Archer it had been a doozy.
Now here he was, strutting into her life, as confident and charming and gorgeous as ever. And as dangerously seductive as all those years ago. For, no matter how many times she rationalised that their week together would be strictly business, the fact remained that they’d once shared a helluva spark. She’d better pack her fire extinguisher just in case.
Artie held up his hands. ‘You don’t have to answer. I can see your feelings for this old amor written all over your face.’
‘I don’t love him.’
Artie merely smiled and moved down the bar towards an edgy customer brandishing an empty sangria jug, leaving her to ponder the conviction behind her words.
* * *
While Callie would have loved to linger over a sangria or two when the Spanish Flamenco band fired up, she had more important things to do.
Like visiting her mum.
Nora hated it when she fussed, so these days she kept her visits to twice weekly—an arrangement they were both happy with.
The doctors had given her three years. The doctors didn’t know what a fighter Nora Umberto was. She’d lasted seven, and while her tremors seemed to increase every time Callie visited the spark of determination in her mum’s eyes hadn’t waned.
After the life she’d led, no way would Nora go out without a bang. She continued to read to the other residents and direct the kitchen hands to prepare exotic dishes—dishes she’d tried first-hand during her travels around the world, during which she’d met Bruno Umberto.
Callie’s dad might not have stuck around long in his first marriage—or any of his subsequent three marriages, for that matter—but thankfully Nora’s love of cosmopolitan cuisine had stuck. Callie had grown up on fajitas, ratatouille, korma and Szechuan—a melting pot of tastes to accompany her mum’s adventurous stories.
She’d never really known her dad, but Nora had been enough parent and then some. Dedicated to raising her daughter, Nora hadn’t dated until after she’d graduated high school and moved out. Even then her relationships had lasted only a scant few months. Callie had always wondered if her mum’s exuberance had been too much for middle-aged guys who’d expected Martha Stewart and ended up with Lara Croft.
As she entered the shaded forecourt of Colldon Special Accommodation Home she knew that made it all the harder to accept—the fact her go-get-’em mother had been cut down in her prime by a devastating illness no amount of fighting could conquer.
She signed in, slipped a visitor’s lanyard over her neck and headed towards the rear of the sandstone building. As she strolled down the pastel-carpeted corridor she let the peace of the place infuse her: the piped rainforest sounds, the subtle scent of lemon and ginger essential oils being diffused from air vents, the colours on the walls transitioning from muted mauve to sunny daffodil.
Colldon felt more like an upmarket boutique hotel than a special home and Callie would do whatever it took to ensure her mum remained here.
Including shacking up with Archer Flett for a week to work on his precious campaign.
She shook her head, hoping that would dispel the image of her agreeing to his demands. It didn’t, and all she could see was his startling aquamarine eyes lighting with a fire she remembered all too well when she’d said yes.
She’d been a fool thinking she had the upper hand: she’d known his identity; he hadn’t known the woman behind CJU Designs. However, the element of surprise meant little when he’d been the one who ended up ousting her from her smug comfort zone.
Her neck muscle spasmed and she rubbed it as she entered Nora’s room. She didn’t knock. No one knocked. Her mum’s door was perpetually open to whoever wanted to pop in for a chat.
Vibrant, sassy, alive: three words that summed up Nora Umberto.
But as she caught sight of her mum struggling to zip up her cardigan that last word taunted her.
Alive. For how much longer?
She swallowed the lump of sadness welling in her throat, pasted a smile on her face and strode into the room.
‘Hey, Mum, how you doing?’
Nora’s brilliant blue eyes narrowed as she gestured at the zip with a shaky hand. ‘Great—until some bright spark dressed me in this today.’
Her defiant smile made Callie’s heart ache.
‘Buttons are a pain, but these plastic zips aren’t a whole lot better.’
Need a hand? The words hovered on Callie’s lips but she clamped them shut. Nora didn’t like being treated like an invalid. She liked accepting help less.
Instead, Callie perched on the armchair opposite and ignored the increasing signs that her mum was struggling.
‘I’ll be away next week.’
Nora instantly perked up. If Callie had to sit through one
more lecture about all work and no play she’d go nuts. Not that she could blame her mum. Nora loved hearing stories of Rivera’s and dancing and going out, living vicariously through her.
Callie embellished those tales, making her life sound more glamorous than it was. Her mum had enough to worry about without concern for a daughter who dated only occasionally, went Spanish dancing twice a week, and did little else but work. Work that paid the hefty Colldon bills.
‘Holiday?’
Callie shook her head. ‘Work. In Torquay.’
She said it casually, as if heading to the beachside town didn’t evoke visions of sun, surf and sexy guys in wetsuits.
Particularly one sexy guy. Who she’d been lucky enough to see without a wetsuit many years ago on another sun-drenched beach.
‘You sure it’s work?’
Nora leaned so far forward in her wheelchair she almost toppled forward, and Callie had to fold her arms to stop from reaching out.
‘You’ve got a glow.’
‘It’s an “I’m frazzled to be going away the week before Christmas” glow.’
Nora sagged, her cheekiness instantly dimming. ‘You’ll be away for Christmas?’
Callie leaned forward and squeezed her mum’s hand, careful not to scratch the tissue-thin skin. ‘I’ll be back in time for Christmas lunch. You think I’d miss Colldon’s cranberry stuffing?’
Nora chuckled. ‘You know, I wouldn’t mind if you missed Christmas with me if your trip involved a hot young man. But work? That’s no excuse.’
Ironic. Her trip involved a hot young man and work, and she had a feeling she’d need to escape both after a long week in Torquay.
She stood and bent to kiss her mum’s cheek. ‘Sorry it’s a flying visit, but I need to go home and pack. I’m leaving first thing in the morning.’
To her surprise, Nora snagged her hand as she straightened, holding on with what little strength she had.
‘Don’t forget to have a little fun amid all that work, Calista.’ She squeezed—the barest of pressure. ‘You know life’s too short.’
Blinking back the sudden sting of tears, Callie nodded. ‘Sure thing, Mum. And ring me if you need anything.’