The rumble of curiosity and interest in Middle Point’s newest citizen, however, had faded in the past couple of months. Dan hadn’t been seen at the pub. He was never spotted walking along the beach, just a few dozen steps from his front door. No one had seen him at the local supermarket or newsagent. It was as if he’d moved in and disappeared.
Lizzie climbed the fifty stairs from the sand to the top of the Point, where the pub lights had already begun to glisten like stars in the twilight, and tried to figure out where to start. She pushed open the heavy front door of the pub and was relieved at the rush of cool air that hit her. Surveying the crowd, she did a quick estimate of bums on seats. She saw a few regulars, some people she didn’t recognise.
‘Lizzie!’
She turned at the urgent whisper of her name and walked over to the dining area to the table where Julia sat with Ry. They both stared at her with wide-eyed anticipation.
‘How’d it go?’ Julia asked. Her hands were tightly clasped together, resting in front of her on the white linen tablecloth. Ry leaned in to Julia, an arm around the back of her chair.
‘Well,’ Lizzie pulled out a chair and joined them. ‘That was mission not accomplished.’
‘What happened?’ Ry demanded.
‘Do you mean before or after he slammed the door in my face?’
‘You’re joking.’
Lizzie shook her head. ‘It was totally uncalled for. I was perfectly polite. Oh and, Ry, you’ll be getting a phone call if you haven’t had one already.’
‘Hell.’ Ry pulled his phone from the pocket of his tan-coloured shorts. After a tap on the screen, he shook his head. ‘No missed calls. I’ll get us a drink.’
When he was out of earshot, Julia leaned over to Lizzie. ‘How did he look?’
Lizzie took a moment to get the description exactly right. ‘Like the wild man of Borneo. And distinctly like someone who doesn’t want visitors.’
Julia exhaled a frustrated breath. ‘We just want him back, you know? Especially Ry. It’s killing him to see Dan go through this. It’s been months now and we haven’t seen any change. And there’s no way we can think about getting married when we can’t be sure Dan will want to be there. There’s only one person Ry wants to be his best man.’
Ry returned to the table with a chilled bottle of white wine.
‘I don’t know about you two, but I definitely need one of these.’ Ry poured the pale liquid into their glasses. They sipped while they pondered what to do.
‘I warned you it was a terrible idea to send me,’ Lizzie said.
There was a none-too-subtle exchange of glances between Julia and Ry.
‘I still don’t agree with you on that,’ Ry said.
‘I told you this morning. He’s your friend, not mine. You’re his best mate Ry, and Julia, you spent all that time with him when he was in hospital. I don’t know why you think he’d want an almost complete stranger turning up on his doorstep.’
‘A complete stranger?’ Julia asked with raised eyebrows.
‘Well, a distant acquaintance. I barely know the bloke.’
‘We’ve tried everything else, Lizzie,’ Julia said softly.
‘Well, thanks,’ Lizzie replied. ‘You’re saying I’m your only hope?’
‘Yeah,’ Ry grinned. ‘You’re like our Obi-Wan Kenobi.’
‘I think that makes me Princess Leia,’ Julia grinned. They laughed. They needed to. The three of them sat in silence, each wondering how to help a friend who didn’t seem to want any help.
‘So, what did you do with the food?’ Julia asked.
‘I left it on the front door mat. I was under strict instructions from my boss.’ Lizzie winked at Julia. ‘He’s such a tyrant.’
Ry gave her the smallest hint of a smile. ‘Lizzie, you know why we sent you.’
‘What, my charming bedside manner?’ Behind the flippancy, there was a strange tightening in her chest. She tried to keep her face a blank. She didn’t want to understand what Ry was talking about, didn’t want to remember flirting with Dan, just twenty steps from where she was now sitting, on the night of his accident. Whatever had been flickering in the air between them had been extinguished in the car wreck. She hadn’t seen him since that night.
Julia reached for the bottle and refilled their glasses. ‘You know why. When he regained consciousness, his first words were “pub” and “Elizabeth”. You’re the one he asked after. Not me or Ry.’
‘Well.’ Lizzie blew out a sigh. ‘Take note of the order. “Pub” came first because I was the last person he talked to that night. Right over there.’ Lizzie pointed to the wooden bar. ‘It’s a trick of memory, Jools, that’s all. You’re making something out of nothing.’
Lizzie would never tell them that she remembered every word of the last conversation she’d had with Dan before he drove off that terrible night and was almost killed. It had been her last week pulling beers before Ry had promoted her to manager and Dan McSwaine had walked in, all sexy swagger and confident charm. They’d met before that, as the best friends of lovers invariably do, but something about him had been different that particular night. Yes, they’d shared a moment, a flirting, promising moment. And then, for the thousandth time since, she asked herself the same relentless questions. Why hadn’t she made him stay for one more minute? Why hadn’t she cracked one more joke, teased him one more time, so that he left one minute later, so he would have been driving up Flagstaff Hill Road one minute too late for the truck that careened out of control and smashed into him?
She turned to face her friends, and a cold shiver moved across her shoulders. ‘Dan would rather slam the door in my face than open it and invite me in. I’m sure I’m the last thing on his mind. And frankly,’ she added, straightening her back, ‘he’s the last thing on mine.’ Lizzie hoped that if she said it enough times, it might turn out to be true.
‘What can we do to help him?’ Ry asked, looking from Julia to Lizzie and back.
Lizzie patted Ry’s shoulder. ‘He’s your best friend. Don’t give up on him, no matter how much of a pain in the arse he is.’
‘Of course I’m not bloody well giving up on him.’ Dan said, his blue eyes flaming.
‘Pushing him won’t help, you know that,’ Lizzie said.
‘You think I’ve been pushing him?’ Ry’s eyebrows shot up. ‘I’ve just been trying to get him to man up and snap out of it.’
The two women turned to him in disbelief.
‘You told him to man up?’ Julia’s voice was a shocked whisper.
‘Not in those exact words.’
‘You can’t force him to do anything he doesn’t want to do,’ Lizzie added. ‘Like take free food, for instance. He clearly wants to be alone. So leave him in his man cave.’
And then Ry and Julia did that thing where they looked at each other and had a conversation without saying anything out loud. Lizzie bit the inside of her lip.
‘We need you, Obi-Wan,’ Julia said.
Lizzie replied with an adamant shake of her head and crossed her arms. There were plenty of reasons to stay out of Dan’s life. Millions. Trillions. ‘I don’t have time. It’s nearly summer holidays. It’s crazy busy here until February.’
‘What else can we do?’ Ry said. ‘We can’t just let him hole up in that crappy old house.’
‘Hey, watch your mouth. That was my mother’s house!’ Julia smacked Ry’s arm playfully.
‘Yeah and it’s still a crappy old house, JJ. But Dan seems to love it.’
‘You’re crazy if you think I’m going to go over there and have the door slammed in my face again. No freakin’ way, Jose. And,’ Lizzie added, pointing her finger in the air to add dramatic effect, ‘he keeps calling me Elizabeth, which I hate.’
Julia leaned over the table. ‘Will you just promise me one thing, Lizzie? We have to head up to Adelaide for a few days. Ry has a board meeting and I’m lunching with a potential client for my new business. Will you take Dan something to eat?’
&nb
sp; That was a low blow. How could Lizzie say no to her best friend?
‘Oh, for God’s sake.’
‘Just food,’ Ry added.
Lizzie set her lips in a tight line. ‘Food. That’s it. No therapy. No hugs. No pushing.’
‘Great.’ Julia squeezed her hand. Ry shot her a satisfied smile. Lizzie hoped they weren’t expecting miracles. Because in her experience miracles didn’t happen. They were like mirages on a hot bitumen road. Illusory and fleeting. When you reached out for them, they vanished.
The next evening, a cool breeze came in off the Southern Ocean and danced with the trees of Middle Point as Lizzie headed towards Dan’s house. The sun was almost gone for the day, but there were still crowds on the beach. The sand was dotted with sun shelters, retro green-and-white striped canvas awnings mixed in with new blue igloos. Families were gathered around eskies and the zinc-creamed noses of toddlers peeked out from under sun-safe hats. At least someone was still having fun today, Lizzie thought. She’d worked a full and exhausting day at the pub and had aching feet and tired eyes to prove it. Here she was on her way to Dan’s. Again.
The arrangement was simple and clear-cut. All she had to do was drop off the food. Knock on the door, hand over the booty and skedaddle as fast as possible. And if he slammed the door in her face again? That was about him, not her. If it made him feel better, good for him. She had a busy life and she wanted to get back to it.
Lizzie rapped three times on the door. Firm. Efficient. Businesslike. And waited.
Dan heard the knocking and rose slowly from his chair at the kitchen table. A quick glance through the curtain and all he could see was a vague shape through the opaque windows. It was already twilight; the sun had dipped below the cliffs of Middle Point and the curtain was closing on the day.
He scratched his beard. He hadn’t been expecting anyone and more importantly, didn’t want to see anyone. He found a scowl, an expression that was very useful at fending off whoever it was who had good-neighbourliness or conversation in mind.
As he opened the door, he wasn’t sure what hit him first: the cooling sea breeze that whistled in and teased the hair out of his eyes or the smell of clean hair and flowers.
Elizabeth. With a smile so dazzling it made him blink.
‘Hi Dan.’ Lizzie propped her sunglasses up on top of her head. The smile wasn’t just on her lips. It was in her eyes too. They were big and as blue as the ocean over her shoulder, bigger eyes than any he’d ever seen on any other woman. Her friendliness threw out his game plan. There was no sign on her face that she was pissed at him for his behaviour the day before, which he was relieved about, because she had every right to be.
‘Hi,’ he said gruffly, clearing his throat.
‘Thought you might like some salt and pepper squid.’ Lizzie held out the day’s delivery.
Dan looked at the bag in her hand. ‘More food?’
‘More food. Any problems with that and you’ll need to talk to the boss.’
‘I’m not hungry.’
Lizzie shrugged her shoulders. ‘You might be later.’ And damn her, she didn’t budge. The Dan he used to be would have come up with an easy flirt, a tease and a cocked eyebrow when he had a beautiful woman on his doorstep. And he wouldn’t have left her standing there for more than ten seconds.
The man he was now found himself flat-out speechless. And as they did the Mexican standoff on the front step, he realised the only way he was going to get her to leave was to take the damn food.
With a silent curse, Dan stepped out of his house and onto the front door mat. He reached down and slipped his fingers through the handles of the bag. As he did, the back of his hand brushed against hers, cool and soft, and he was so close to her that he could see individual strands of her golden hair falling in a fringe across her tanned forehead. And there it was again. Flowers. Her scent. Her hair. Her baby blues and that dazzling smile. Something shifted in him, only a degree, but there was a shift.
When she looked up at him, her smile was gone.
Before he could even manage a reluctant thank you, Lizzie had spun around and was walking with great purpose along the verandah and down the driveway towards the street. As she disappeared into the sunset, he felt a pang of something in his gut, something so weird that he held his hand there to quell it.
That look he’d seen in her eyes. It wasn’t what he’d seen in everyone else’s face as they’d stared at him in hospital and in the months since the accident, studying him like he was a science experiment, watching and waiting for him to fall apart. When she’d looked at him just then, her eyes bright and aware, he hadn’t seen pity or worry or sympathy. No, it was something else.
He peered inside the bag to check out the food she’d left. It smelled damn good. Maybe he was hungry after all.
CHAPTER
2
Worst. Idea. Ever.
Lizzie stomped through her house, tore off her clothes in a tangle of curse words that would raise the eyebrows of a shearer, and jumped into a cold shower. With the water cranked up as high as she could get it, she shoved her head under the spray and tried to drown out the jumble of what had just happened.
She simply couldn’t do it, she decided. No matter what promises she’d made to Ry and Julia, no matter how much she adored her best friend and was slowly growing to adore her best friend’s fiancé, there was absolutely no freaking way she could knock on Dan’s door every night and look into that man’s eyes.
Because…because she couldn’t. No matter how much of a hermit vibe he had going on, with the beard, the track pants with the stretchy waistband, the grumpy attitude and the non-existent smile, she realised something when he’d looked at her tonight. His eyes were the same. The same unbelievably mesmerising, emerald eyes that had sucker-punched her the first time she’d ever talked to him, months before at the pub. The same eyes that had looked her up and down like she was a long, cold drink on a hot day. The same eyes that had turned on her in a charm offensive so all-conquering that she’d actually wobbled at the knees and felt kind of sick.
And tonight, when she’d stood on his doorstep playing a very reluctant Florence Nightingale, and he’d looked down at her with those peepers, something happened. All it took was him to move close to her, to touch her hand. And it was there. The hint that he was still the man he used to be. She knew, she just knew, that if she were forced to stare at his unbelievably masculine handsomeness on a regular basis, she would collapse like a stomped-on sandcastle and talk herself into helping him. Or God forbid, saving him.
Worst. Idea. Ever.
The spray of water sluiced through her hair and over her neck, giving her tightly wound shoulders a much-needed massage. Lizzie was old enough and sensible enough to know herself. Stray animals or stray people, she’d never been able to say no. If she analysed this a bit more deeply, it was probably some pathological attempt to be liked by everyone. Analysed less deeply, it was simply a desire to be nice.
She stepped out of the shower, grabbed a towel and dried herself off. She pulled on a tank top and loose cotton pants before pouring herself a glass of chilled sauvignon blanc and headed out to her front deck for her nightly ritual. No matter if it was blowing a gale or scorching hot, she had to be out there. The familiarity of the outlook calmed her, took her out of herself at the end of each day. It needed regular and intense study. Rooftops and candy-coloured houses, mangroves in the distance in one direction and the Point at the other, the salty tang in the air, all reminded her that this was her little piece of the world.
Lizzie loved her house. It wasn’t the fanciest place in Middle Point, certainly not a gorgeous summer retreat like Ry and Julia’s place, but it wasn’t a quirky beach shack like Dan’s either. It was a solid brick home, on the rise behind the coastline, close enough to feel the breeze but not close enough to hear the waves. It had been her grandmother’s house and Lizzie had grown up here with her mother and her older brother Joe. It was no surprise that, with three generation
s of women driving him crazy, Joe had left home as soon as he’d finished high school. He’d headed off to Sydney to forge an award-winning career in journalism.
But there were still reminders of him here. Lizzie grinned. Right ahead of her in the garden. Three pink cement flamingos stood drunkenly in the front cactus garden, faded now. Her grandmother’s favourites and a constant reminder of her brother, who’d suffered years of torment from his schoolmates because he’d lived in the pink flamingo house.
The memory made her smile. Which was exactly why she loved sitting out there in her ratty old cane chair in the dark. The memories of those she loved always swirled around her with the sea breeze, comforting and calming her, anchoring her in this place of childhood and family.
As the stars began to flicker and the deep blues of the daytime sky faded to purple and black, Lizzie let the wine buzz settle and stretched her legs out in front of her, the cool breeze fluttering against her toes. And then, and only when she felt serene and calm, did she let herself think about the elephant in the room.
What was she going to do about Dan McSwaine? There was something wrong with him. She just knew it. Call it a career spent listening to people’s confessions across the front bar of the Middle Point pub. She could pick the problem by the first drink. Heartbreak. Divorce. A lost job. A death in the family. Each type of grief looked slightly different and required its own particular libation. That same instinct was sending her warning signals that there was something going on with Dan that was way more serious than a lack of appetite and a desperate need for some personal grooming.
Could anyone blame him after what he’d been through? Of course Lizzie had sympathy for what had happened to him. It was hard watching anyone suffer but there was something about him, in particular, that made her want to draw a line in the sand. Being a fixer was exhausting and maybe it was time to put herself first for a change. ‘Dan McSwaine is not your problem to fix,’ she told herself.
Someone Like You Page 2