Her Aussie Holiday

by Stefanie London

  “It’s not strange, it’s smart…so long as you don’t get stuck in the thinking and never get around to the doing.”

  He pushed the door open to get out of the car, and Cora followed. “You sound like Nick,” he said. “He would have bought that land, fixed it up, and sold it for a profit before I even finished working through all the pros and cons.”

  “You struck me as the spontaneous type,” she said, walking up the driveway beside him.

  “Commitment should not be spontaneous. Learned that one the hard way.”

  Cora pressed her lips together, trying to keep the barrage of questions inside. Trent hadn’t been too forthcoming with information about his relationship past, but then again, neither had she.

  “Bad breakup?” she asked, almost immediately cursing herself.

  “You could say that.”

  She wrinkled her nose. She really, really shouldn’t pry. It wasn’t polite to intrude on someone’s personal affairs… “How bad?”

  Dammit.

  Trent let out a sound that was half laugh and half something a whole lot more derisive. “Bad, bad. Like, a whole lot of Jägerbombs and getting hauled out of the pub by security bad.”

  “Yikes.”

  “It’s a good thing I’ve got friends who wouldn’t let me take it too far.” A strange expression crossed over his face, like he was remembering something important. “Anyway, I don’t make the same mistake twice.”

  Cora fingered the fabric of her maxi skirt, knowing she should shut her mouth and leave the topic alone…but being way too curious to actually let it go. “What was the lesson?”

  He jangled his keys in his hand before finding the right one and sticking it into the front door. “That relationships aren’t for everyone, and I’m not interested in trying to be someone I’m not just to make another person happy.”

  For some reason, the words settled like a stone in Cora’s stomach. She was still playing that eternal tug-of-war between wanting to be her own person and wanting to belong. A string of breakups hadn’t changed her desire to find love.

  And last night, she’d really felt something.

  You went into this knowing it would be a fling. Stop trying to turn everything into forever.

  “If it’s the right person, then you shouldn’t have to be someone you’re not,” she said.

  “I think people are wired to fix things, especially other people, and I don’t need fixing.” His charming, cavalier smile was back in place—the darker expression blown away like clouds on a windy day. “Anyway, let’s get this show on the road. I don’t want Mum and Dad arriving home early and catching us in the act.”

  Cora gulped. She knew what he meant, of course, but that didn’t stop her mind sliding right into the gutter. Ignoring the insistent pulse of her blood and the little voice telling her to act on her sexual impulses, she followed Trent into the house.

  The place was homey and sweet. Family photos littered the walls and surfaces, and it was all too easy to imagine the five fair-haired Walters siblings racing through the rooms as kids, laughing and teasing and being a strong, cohesive unit. They headed into Trent’s father’s office, where all the albums were stored in neat, chronological rows on a big bookshelf. Thanks to his mother’s meticulous system, it would be easy to find what they needed. They sat on the floor, legs crossed like school kids, and worked quietly.

  Cora found herself distracted, but she leafed through the albums, forcing herself to concentrate and failing miserably. One night with Trent and suddenly she wanted to unravel him. To peel back the layers and figure out what made him tick. Alex had hated when she went into “investigator” mode like that, but Cora had always been curious about people. Maybe it was the stifled writer in her; she tried to satiate that need with real people instead of characters.

  She flipped over another page, blinking at a photo of Trent that appeared to be from a few years ago. Five max. This was totally the wrong album. Annoyed at her mistake, she went to close the album when a picture caught her eye. Trent had his arm around a girl with blondish-brown hair and blue eyes and high cheekbones and a slightly pointed chin.

  Was her brain glitching? The woman in the photo looked so much like Cora, it was like staring into the past. Even down to the little black dress and strand of pearls around her neck, which were in stark contrast to Trent’s white T-shirt and loose-fitting jeans and leather cuff on his wrist.

  What the…?

  “Who’s this?” She held the album up and pointed to the picture.

  “I thought you were supposed to be looking at 1990,” he said, frowning.

  “I picked up the wrong one.” She shook her head. “Is this…your girlfriend?”

  “Was.” His tone was flatter than a pancake. “I have no idea why Mum kept that photo.”

  Maybe because Trent looked blissfully happy in it—his eyes were shining and he was mid laugh, his handsome face beaming with youth and joy, and it was warmer and more delicious than freshly baked bread. The woman beside him smiled prettily, but she didn’t have the same energy about her.

  But no matter how good Trent looked in that photo, Cora could only stare at the woman. The resemblance was uncanny. Eerie.

  Was it possible he’d been attracted to her only because she reminded him of…?

  “What’s her name?” Cora’s voice was barely a croak.

  “Rochelle.”

  For some reason, Cora’s throat suddenly felt tight, her stomach twisted and turned like a violent, storming sea. Had he imagined Cora was Rochelle while they were making love? Was he still in love with her and Cora merely a substitute? A way to get closure?

  “No,” Trent said, though she hadn’t even asked a question. He was perceptive like that, she’d noticed, understanding what people needed and what they were thinking. “Whatever that little voice is telling you, it’s no.”

  “There’s no voice,” she lied.

  “Bullshit.”

  Cora flipped the page and found another photo with a different angle. It was blurry, which made it even easier to see herself in Rochelle’s image. To see the similarities and add even more with her imagination.

  “Cora.” His voice was rough, demanding. It shouldn’t have sent a shiver down her spine, but it did. When he said her name, it was like the world wrapped her in a fuzzy blanket. Like she was safe from the shitstorm back home. From her own insecurities.

  From everything.

  “She looks so much like me…or, I guess I look so much like her.” She snapped the album shut, suddenly needing distance from her discovery. For someone who’d felt second best her whole life, always shivering in her mother’s shadow, to feel like she was a carbon copy now…

  It made her want to be sick.

  “Yes, you look alike. But it doesn’t mean anything.” He watched her closely. “Not to me, anyway.”

  “But you noticed it when I first arrived?”

  “Well…yeah.”

  Oh God. He’d said it last night—that he’d wanted her the second he saw her. Before he knew who she was. Last night those words had meant everything; they’d felt serendipitous and fate-filled and lovely. But now with this new information, with this new lens, it made her feel used.

  Now it was a reminder that she was, as always, a means to an end.

  Curiosity swirled viciously in her mind. She wanted to know everything—why they broke up. Whether it was her who called it off or him. Whether he still missed her. Still loved her. Whether any of that had come into his head when he decided to kiss her. Was he comparing them while he touched her, putting traits in columns and ranking them?

  He’s not an asshole, and you know that.

  She sucked in a long breath, trying to quell the sick feeling in her gut. This was nothing more than her own issues latching onto something in order to convince her that she was a failure. It w
as hard to see herself as anything else, given that’s what she’d been told her whole life.

  It wasn’t fair to pile that on Trent’s shoulders.

  “Don’t you find it a bit…weird?” she asked.

  He closed the album in his lap and scooted closer to her, shoving things out of the way to create a path. When his hand came to her arm, it was like all her worries suddenly had their volume turned down. “Can I be honest?”

  “I’d prefer it if you were.”

  “I noticed it and…yeah, it was a little weird at first. But here’s the thing I’ve learned: looks don’t count for much.” He brushed his thumb over the side of her jaw. “And while I like the way you look very much because you’re smokin’ hot, the thing I like most about you is the whole caterpillar versus butterfly thing.”

  “Metamorphosis,” she breathed.

  “Yeah.” He smiled. “People…just go about their lives, you know. But you think about things. You care about things. You’ve got so much good stuff inside you that…shit, how could I not be attracted to that? You want to change and be better and I think that’s beautiful.”

  Was she being the caterpillar, though? Coming to Australia had been running away, avoidance. Getting entangled with Trent was a rebound. A distraction.

  Last night didn’t feel like a distraction.

  “I know you’ve got some shit to work through,” he said. “We all do. No one’s perfect. But a lot of people do blame the bad things in their lives on others instead of taking the bull by the horns. Hell, you could have walked right out of Liv’s place that day and left me to fix the carpet and the scrapbook. But you stayed.”

  “I stayed and turned you into a glitter bomb.”

  “I’m not saying your approach was great,” he added with a laugh. “But you’re trying, and that’s more than most people can say.”

  “Thanks.” Cora’s insides were doing a battle—the warm, fuzzy feelings taking up arms against the hard-shelled insecurities and worries. There was something about Trent that drew her in, like he was a warm fire on a cold night.

  But to what end? She’d be gone in less than three weeks, and he’d said himself that he didn’t want a relationship. That was a dead end if she’d ever seen one.

  “Any doubts about whether I was trying to fix the past by being with you?” he asked with a pointed look.

  “Maybe a little,” she admitted. “But that’s on me, not on you.”

  “I wasn’t thinking about her.” He pulled her closer, touching his forehead to hers in a way that was so tender and sweet, and yet it jacked her pulse up as though he’d slipped a hand under her skirt. “Last night, it was only you. The day we kissed, it was only you. I’ve got Cora Cabot on the brain 24-7.”

  “And I’ve got Trent Walters on the brain 24-7.” She tilted her face, kissing him hard and using her lips to coax him open. The kiss was deep, a little emotional. Passion-charged and white-hot. “It’s lucky there are no more hours in the day, because you’d be stealing those, too.”

  He let out a dark and dirty laugh, his hand slipping behind her head and his fingers sliding into her hair. “Good. I want you thinking about me all day, thinking about all the things I want to do to you when I get home from work.”

  “You’re all dirty when you get home from work,” she said softly, her pulse fluttering as he kissed the side of her neck.

  “And you’ll enjoy getting me clean again, don’t deny it.” The sound of a car door slamming split them apart, and Trent’s eyes widened. “Shit.”

  He jumped up and jogged into the front room, muttering a curse underneath his breath. A second later, he popped his head into the study.

  “It’s them. They’re not supposed to be home until tonight…” He raked a hand through his hair. “I can’t let them find this—Liv would kill me. I’ll distract them if you can finish up quickly.”

  Cora nodded. “Sure, I need maybe five minutes. We’re only missing two pictures.”

  Trent shut the door, sealing her inside. She quickly located the album with the year of his birth and flipped through the pages, looking for the photo of him in his mother’s arms. Melanie Walters had a tradition with her baby photos—when each one was born, she’d have a photo of them in the hospital bed, the same blue teddy bear tucked in beside her. Apparently, the bear was an heirloom and had been part of her “birth bag” for each baby’s arrival.

  But, for some reason, there was no picture of baby Trent with Melanie and the bear. Cora flicked through the album, which documented his earliest days, but the photo wasn’t there. Oh God, what if they’d accidentally thrown it out?

  Shaking her head, she went back to the start of the album. It was marked with the year of Trent’s birth, so it was definitely the right album, but there were no pictures of him at the hospital. The photo had to be there.

  Frustrated, Cora shelved the album and searched for the other picture they were still missing—one of Liv on her first birthday, her hands full of chocolate cake—and easily located it. The voices sounded as though they were outside, so she slipped the photo into her pocket so they could copy it at home before returning the original to the album.

  She needed to get out, now. But she really didn’t want to leave without everything they needed to finish the project. Growling under her breath, she scanned the office. This was hopeless—they’d have to leave the scrapbook unfinished.

  As Cora slipped her bag over her shoulder, she turned, accidentally clipping a box that was sticking out of the bookshelves that housed all the albums. It fell, the lid flying off and scattering papers and mementos across the floor.

  Dammit! If she got them caught, she’d never forgive herself.

  “Shit, shit, shit.” Cora dropped down to her knees and started hastily shoving everything back inside, her heart thundering as she heard the telltale jangle of keys outside and the sound of voices getting closer.

  As she quickly tried to tidy up yet another mess she’d made, her hands coasted over a photo featuring a hospital bed, a baby, and blue bear. Yes! She’d found the missing photo. It was like fate had tipped the missing puzzle piece into her hands. Only…

  When she looked closer, something was amiss. Instead of Trent’s father standing beside the bed like in all the other photos where his handsome face had beamed, mouth capped by various styles of facial hair over the years, there was no man. This photo had the two sisters in it. One in the bed and one standing beside it.

  Maybe Trent’s father hadn’t made it to his birth and so Melanie’s twin sister had been there instead?

  Only…there was another problem. The woman in the bed, holding the baby, had a distinctive tattoo wrapped around her wrist that wasn’t present in any of the other photos. Cora would have noticed it, because she was fascinated by other people’s tattoos. The woman standing next to the bed had no ink showing.

  Cora blinked, a sinking feeling filtering through her system. The twin faces of the women stared back at her, matching grins and wide, happy eyes. Melanie wasn’t the woman in the bed; she was the woman standing to one side. The sister.

  Which meant that she wasn’t Trent’s mother.

  Chapter Fifteen

  That Thursday, after Trent had finished work, he walked up the path to his brother’s house, sucking in a huge lungful of the floral-scented air. The yard had two big wattle trees, adorned with thousands of fluffy yellow blossoms, and they’d been here ever since the house belonged to their grandparents. These days, Jace lived with his wife, Angie, and their brood of adorable puppies.

  And yes, brood was the right word. Anyone masochistic enough to adopt four puppies at once deserved a medal.

  When Trent jabbed at the doorbell, the house erupted in tiny, high-pitched yaps. A second later, the front door swung open and Jace stood there, surrounded by black furballs.

  “Hey, come in.” He held the door open. Today
Jace was wearing a T-shirt with a drawing from one of his comics—Big Adventures, Little Dogs—on the front. “Don’t mind the furry army.”

  One of the little black cockapoo puppies slapped her paws up onto Trent’s legs. He bent down to scoop up the little thing, which was a mistake. Because the rest of them descended, yipping and licking and begging for attention. They were all females, named after the romantic leads in the nineties rom-coms that Jace’s wife loved—Drew, Meg, Alicia, and Sandra, Sandy for short.

  “Four dogs, bro. Really?”

  Jace laughed. “Are you going to say that every time you come to visit? We’ve had them more than six months now.”

  “And I still cannot believe my brother, Mr. Routine, adopted four bloody dogs.” Trent stood and followed his brother farther into the house, the pups trailing behind them like ducklings.

  Jace’s house was neat as a pin, as usual. He was the kind of guy who had a place for everything and hated to see things out of order. Even with the furry army.

  “Hey, Trent.” Angie came out from the kitchen and pulled him in for a hug. She was still in her uniform from the Patterson’s Bluff nursing home where she worked as a day manager and event planner. “So nice to see you. Are you staying for dinner?”

  “No, I just came to drop off my laptop. Jace said he’d take a look at it again for me.”

  Jace rolled his eyes. “What I said was you need to replace this hunk of crap because it’s old and I can’t do much for it now.”

  “Ah, but not being able to do much implies you can do something.” Trent stuck his finger into the air. “Right?”

  “I’ll take a look at it.” Jace grumbled as he took the silver beast from Trent’s hands and stashed it on the coffee table. “But no promises.”

  “How’s work?” Trent asked Angie.

  “Good, busy.” She planted a hand on her hip. “I swear the residents there keep me on my toes. We’re getting ready to run our second phase of the learning program, and I’ve been getting suggestions left, right, and center for what type of classes they want to see.”