‘You mean the night when…’
‘Yeah. That night.’
‘You don’t remember any of it?’ Lizzie drew her legs in close, hugged her arms around her knees.
He shook his head, and a lock of his dark hair, half dry now, flopped onto his brow. He flicked it off his face with a frustrated shake of his head. ‘I remember the first time we met, that night we had dinner at the pub. Me, Ry, Barbra, Julia and you. You’d just got your promotion and we’d won approval from the board to go ahead with Windswept. I thought you were kinda cute.’
‘Cute?’
‘Yeah cute, with your baby blues and that hair. That is, until you told me you thought we were fucking up the place by building Windswept.’
Lizzie turned her head to him, her chin held high. ‘So you remember calling me a naïve hippie when I objected to your plan to build five hundred new homes down here?’
‘I remember that. You clearly didn’t want anything to change in your beloved Middle Point.’
Her beloved Middle Point.
It had been changing all around her, she realised. Under her very nose and she’d been blind to it until recently. The waves washed in new people, like Ry and Dan. Others like Julia and Joe came back, like messages in bottles, finding their way back to the beach eventually.
‘That probably means you don’t remember that I apologised when I found out the truth. About how beautiful it’s going to be, and all the things you’re doing to make them homes for real people, not bazillionaires.’
‘Did you?’ He shook his head, pursed his lips. ‘I’m buggered if I know why, but all I remember about that night at the pub…’ He reached out for Lizzie’s hand and she let him hold it in his strong grasp. ‘…is your face.’
Lizzie held on to his words, squeezed her eyes closed to keep them in her memory.
‘Your blue eyes. That golden blonde hair and that sassy mouth with red lipstick. That’s all I remember.’ He stopped, thought about something. ‘You need to tell me, Lizzie, because I’ve been trying to figure it out. Did I do something stupid, something to piss you off? Was I a total arsehole to you? Is that why you never came to see me?’
‘God, no,’ she sighed, entwining her fingers in his. ‘You didn’t do anything stupid. As a matter of fact, you…’
Where to start in the story of that night? Every little detail of it was embedded in her memory. When Dan had swaggered into the pub, she’d been drawn to him immediately. She felt it again, how fast her heart had thumped when he’d caught her checking him out, and when he’d flashed her a sexy smile in return. Even then, there was something about the way he’d gazed into her eyes that made her tense, edgy, on high alert. She still felt that way, especially right now, this close, talking this way.
‘…you didn’t do anything to piss me off. I was still working behind the bar and you walked in. We ended up playing matchmaker to the two lovebirds next door. Things were looking hopeless for those two, so I’d made sure Julia was there, sitting by the fire, all cosy with a glass of red wine.’
Dan had only ordered a soft drink that night, as he’d been about to jump in his car for the hour-and-a-bit drive back to Adelaide. It wasn’t very far, but the roads weren’t lit by city streetlights, and they twisted and turned darkly through the hills like a slithering snake.
Lizzie bit her lip. ‘When it looked like he wasn’t going to show, you called Ry, told him the pub was about to run out of beer. So, he drove over, shitty as hell, and you basically pushed him in Jools’ direction. They wouldn’t be as loved up as they are – and about to get married – if it wasn’t for us.’
Dan sat for a long moment, clearly thinking about what she’d said.
‘There’s more, isn’t there.’
Lizzie remained silent. What good would it do to tell him the truth? That the last thing he’d done that night was kiss the back of her hand, softly, slowly, pin her an intense and meaningful stare, and then walk out the door with a sexy look over his shoulder that said later?
‘C’mon Lizzie, I’ve seen you naked.’ He bumped her shoulder. ‘Surely you can tell me the rest.’
She’d been trying so hard to forget the whole naked thing. Great idea, but to date, extremely poorly executed. She’d defy anyone to forget the sight of him, bare and beautiful, to put out of her mind how it had felt to be kissed by him, to have his hands all over her body, to stop thinking about how skilfully those fingers had made her come.
Lizzie swallowed at the memory. ‘We talked a while, did the matchmaker thing. And then you drove off.’
Dan couldn’t believe what he was hearing. ‘That’s it? I drove off and left you there in the bar?’
‘Yep.’
‘Man, that was stupid. You sure I didn’t even try to sleep with you?’
Lizzie dropped her head into her arms. ‘God, I wish you had.’
‘So…you wanted to sleep with me but then you avoided me for months? You’re screwing with me now.’
Lizzie lifted her eyes to his. ‘Don’t you get it? If I’d only kept you there, offered you a cup of coffee. Something.’
‘Lizzie, I can guarantee you one thing. I might have said no to coffee but I would never have said no to having sex with you.’
‘If I’d got you to stay one more minute, maybe even thirty seconds more.’
‘What’s thirty seconds got to do with anything?’
‘Maybe it was all you needed, don’t you see? Thirty seconds later and you wouldn’t have been hit by the truck that night.’
‘You think what happened to me was your fault?’ His words came out ragged, torn at the edges.
What was she saying? Lizzie, who looked out for everyone, thought she’d failed him that night? The realisation hit him like a punch to the gut. The accident had happened to her, too. He’d wished a thousand times that it hadn’t happened to him. Or to other guy driving the truck. He’d wished it every night for months, when he’d tossed and turned, in pain and in panic. But right there and then, for the first time since that night, he realised he wished that for everyone who cared about him. He wished that for Lizzie.
‘Don’t you get it? I could have stopped it, if I hadn’t been so stubborn. Playing with you the way I did.’
‘Weren’t you the one who told me that shit happens because it happens? That you can drive yourself crazy by asking why?’ Dan gritted his teeth, remembered her words: the perfect son, the perfect best friend. They swirled around in his head like sand in the wind. Maybe it was something in the tone of her voice when she’d said them. They’d felt like an accusation rather than an observation, that he thought himself to be some kind of golden boy.
That nothing could touch him or break him.
Something clearly had. And he wasn’t sure he’d ever get over it.
‘Tell me something, Lizzie. Why aren’t you taking your own advice?’
Had she become as transparent as cellophane? Everyone was seeing right through her. More than a month ago, Joe had picked something going on between her and Dan. Harri had been prodding her with meaningful questions about him and now Dan was doing it too.
Tears clouded her vision. ‘Because no matter how hard I try, Dan, how much I twist myself into knots, I’ve never been able to help anyone. Especially myself.’
‘But haven’t you spent most of your life helping other people?’ Dan’s voice was full of emotion. ‘Your grandmother, your mum. Harri. Julia and Ry. Joe. This town.’
Lizzie shook her head. No, no, no. What had she done for any of them that had made a difference? Cancer had taken her grandmother, claimed her mother too. The same emotion had driven Joe away from his family when Lizzie was still so young. She hadn’t been able to help herself in London, nor in the years after. And she hadn’t been able to stop Dan from almost losing his life. That’s why she hadn’t wanted to get roped into Operation Dan in the first place. Despite her better judgment, she’d allowed herself to be pushed into it. Ry and Julia had believed she was the only one who could help him. And wha
t had she done?
Accidentally shagged him. Fallen in love with him.
What use had she been to anybody?
‘I…I’ve got to go,’ Lizzie stammered. She stood on shaky legs, grabbed her bodyboard and held it in front of her like a big red shield, guarding herself from him, and turned to run up the soft sand to the stairs.
‘Lizzie, where are you going?’ Dan called. As he watched her jog up the sand, over the dunes and away, he planted his hands on his head, hoping the move would stop the top of it blowing off.
All the stress relief the surf had provided was gone. As Lizzie pounded the hot bitumen road back to her house, the sound of her thongs slapping against her heels echoing around her, she swore good and proper. The tension was back in her shoulders, she felt herself grinding her teeth, and the beginnings of a headache were pounding at her temples. And most embarrassingly, her eyes were swimming with tears.
Why did Dan want to probe so much? What did it matter why she didn’t visit him in hospital? From what she’d heard, it had been like Grand Central Station in there, anyway. What possible difference could she have made?
The pink flamingos beckoned her home and as she got closer something seemed strange to her. There was a noise in the distance which raised the hairs on the back of her neck, sent a skitter of panic right through her. It was a faint cry, and a voice, calling out weakly. Lizzie’s footsteps quickened and when she made it to her driveway she gasped in shock at the sight of Harri, flat on her back in her own front yard, moaning and distressed.
‘Harri!’ Her bodyboard dropped with a dull thud on the garden bed and Lizzie scrambled to Harri’s side.
‘Harri, what’s happened?’
CHAPTER
25
Lizzie hovered over Harri, her own heart pounding like a drum in her ears. The older woman lay crumpled, her mouth twisted in distress and her face already pink from sunburn. She held an arm over her eyes in a feeble attempt to block out the blazing sun and the heat, and her bun had come loose, a grey curtain of hair on the footpath around her head.
‘Bugger, Lizzie,’ Harri moaned. ‘I tripped on the hose. I think it’s my hip. It hurts like the devil.’
Lizzie’s pulse throbbed in her head. She took a quick look up and down the street so see if anyone was outside, anyone who might hear her shouts for help. She found no one. She grabbed her board and propped it against Harri’s elbow, creating some shade on her face.
‘Hold that, Harri. I’ll get help.’ Lizzie dashed past Joe’s four-wheel drive in her driveway and shoved the back door open. She’d left her mobile on the kitchen bench and raced for it, pressing Joe’s name. She hoped like hell he was at Ry and Julia’s.
‘Hey—’
‘Your car keys,’ she demanded. ‘Where are they?’
‘In my pocket.’
‘Shit, Joe. Harri’s had a fall. Looks like she might have broken her hip. I don’t—’
‘Stop right there,’ Joe ordered. ‘I’m hanging up now and calling an ambulance. And I’m on my way.’
Lizzie raced back out to Harri with a wet flannel, knowing enough about first aid not to move her or give her anything to drink, in case she needed surgery later.
She knelt down on the cement footpath, taking care to mop the older woman’s brow gently. From somewhere, she summoned a calm, low voice. The last thing she wanted to do was upset Harri any more than she already was. ‘How long do you think you’ve been out here?’
Harri’s eyes flickered. ‘I’d just had a cuppa during the five o’clock news on the ABC and then I came out here to water the garden.’
Lizzie glanced at the face of her mobile, still gripped tight in her fingers, and noticed it was past six o’clock. ‘That’s more than an hour, you poor thing.’
‘I figured someone would eventually hear me.’ Harri began to tear up and she reached for Lizzie’s hand, clutching at her with weak fingers. ‘I knew you’d be back soon enough. Thank goodness for you, Lizzie.’
A screech of tires announced the arrival of Joe. In Dan’s car. With Dan driving. Car doors slammed and the two men were at Harri’s side in a few long strides.
Joe immediately knelt on the other side of Harri’s prone body, shooting a quick glance at his sister before speaking.
‘What the fuck, Harri? Don’t you know old women like you should be more careful?’ The affection and concern in his voice was evident. When Lizzie lifted her eyes from Harri’s face, she could see the worry in Joe’s eyes. He held Harri’s hand in his, gentle and caring. They’d obviously become closer than she’d realised over their morning crosswords.
And then she looked up to Dan. He was standing back from the huddle, a wrinkled black T-shirt on inside out. His hair was still wet and his feet were bare. What was he doing here with Joe?
He must have sensed her question because he answered it. ‘I was about to head out, saw Joe and he jumped in the car. I drove so he could call the ambulance. We figured it would be quicker that way.’
Lizzie couldn’t find any words, just nodded her thanks. Then they heard the sirens, becoming reassuringly louder as the ambulance approached. When it pulled up on the side of the street, two women wearing green uniforms climbed out calmly, one moving to the back of the van to retrieve a kit.
Lizzie and Joe moved out of the way while the paramedics checked Harri’s pulse and blood pressure and administered some pain relief. They spoke calmly to Harri, asked her a few questions and then gently loaded her up onto a stretcher for a trip to hospital.
‘Anyone coming?’ The taller of the two paramedics looked from Lizzie to Joe to Dan.
‘I’ll go with her,’ Lizzie said quickly. With a downwards glance and then an embarrassing realisation, she saw she was half-dressed in her wetsuit, her bikini top all that was covering the top half of her body. ‘Just give me a minute.’
But before she could turn to race back inside, a strong hand shot out to grip her forearm.
‘Mosquito,’ Joe said firmly. ‘You’re staying here. I’ll go.’
She tried to shake him off. ‘No, I can go. She’ll need someone with her.’
‘Which is why I’ll go with Harri.’ Joe dropped his hand, turned to the paramedic.
Lizzie followed the rolling stretcher to the rear of the ambulance. It slid in to the back of the vehicle and one of the paramedics hopped in the back alongside her.
‘You’re in good hands, Harri,’ Lizzie called. Seeing the inside of the ambulance sent a chill down Lizzie’s spine and she tried to control her breathing. She hated ambulances and hospitals. And Joe knew it. He’d remembered. She swallowed the tears at how wonderful her big brother was. She’d forgotten that about him since he’d been home.
Before he hopped into the back of the ambulance, she reached for him. Although hesitant at first, he finally hugged her right back with a comforting pat on her bare back.
‘Thanks, Stinkface,’ she murmured into his shirt. ‘Call me when you know something. Anything.’
‘It’s the least I could do, Mosquito.’
He stepped up into the back of the ambulance and the doors swung closed.
Lizzie and Dan stood side by side, watched it manoeuvre back out the driveway and drive off down the road. Lizzie had to remind herself that Harri was safely strapped in the back, the best care at her side, and that Joe was right there with her. She had to remember to breathe. She let out a slow exhale, hoping the tension she felt in every synapse in her body would disappear with it. It didn’t work. Rubbing her hands over her arms, she felt tense, distracted, slightly dizzy.
Two magpies, perched on the electricity wires above, called an evening song to the wind.
‘Mosquito?’ Dan asked, finally, the humour in his voice hard to hide.
She stole a quick glance at him, all she could bear to do. ‘I was always buzzing around him when I was a kid, desperate for the attention of my big brother. He, of course, wanted nothing to do with me.’
‘And he still gets away with it, all
these years later?’
‘Yeah, well.’ Lizzie shrugged. ‘Nicknames seem to stick in my family.’
Just saying the word family took her to the precipice of panic all over again. The adrenalin rush was still buzzing through her veins and she felt hyper-aware of everything and half-sick with it. The rush of cool breeze on her hair. The still warm sun making her squint in its glare. The goosebumps still prickled on her bare arms. The taste of salt on her lips.
And Dan. The sexy smell of salt on his skin.
And then she couldn’t hold it in any longer, needed to get it out, to dissect it, to understand it. ‘What if she’d knocked her head? What if I hadn’t come home when I did?’ Lizzie’s throat clenched and her bottom lip quivered. She turned to look at Dan, wanting answers from somebody, anybody.
‘You’ve had a big scare,’ he said, and reached over to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear.
It was enough contact for her to feel the jolt of heat from him, and when she watched his eyes taking a slow tour of her lips, her neck, her breasts and the exposed skin on her stomach, a tremble of awareness rocked her.
‘Yeah. What a day.’ She propped her hands at her bare waist, just above the rolled down wetsuit, and tried to breathe. Poor Harri. She covered her eyes with her hands and her shoulders shook.
‘Elizabeth?’ And then he was right there, reaching to her, his hands on hers, the tips of his fingers singeing her bare skin. ‘She’s exactly where she should be. In the best hands. She’ll get the best medical care where she’s going and believe me, I know what I’m talking about on that score.’
His words skimmed over Lizzie. ‘I should have come home earlier. She was right here, lying in the sun in agony, when I was having the time of my life…’ She shuddered, pulled her hands from his, wrapped her arms around herself. ‘…when I should have been here. Did you see how sunburnt she was? I should have gone with her to hospital.’
Dan was still looking into her eyes, too closely. ‘Joe is with her.’
‘But I’m not. She’s my neighbour and the closest thing to a mother I’ve got. And I let Stinkface go with her. What sort of a person am I?’
Someone Like You Page 25