He opened the window a little to take in the woody scented air. The temperature grew cooler and thinner in his lungs as they climbed a distance upwards along the winding, highly sloped road.
The Ovens River followed their ascent.
On a curve, the road petered out to the side with a gravel parking area. He pulled in there behind a few other cars.
‘We’re not the only ones with this idea,’ Matilda said.
‘Looks like it.’
When they had their backpacks secured, they headed off together along trails that curled through the thick forest. Damp soil and humus were soft under their feet as they marched deeper inward.
Soon enough, they came to a small clearing marked out by the river they had followed getting here. The trail led them downward, parallel to the river. The only sounds were their crunching footsteps, the trickle of moving water, birdsong and a rustle of thick grass every now and then.
‘Oh, I remember this trail,’ Matilda said. ‘It’s the most beautiful. Isn’t there a waterfall further up?’
Mitch nodded. ‘I’m not sure if it is this trail or not.’
Matilda led the way ahead and Mitch didn’t mind the view from behind. He was working up a sweat, despite the cooler clime. His breaths were a little ragged as they trekked up a series of steep banks.
‘That’s right, this one is the hardest trail too,’ he said with a chuckle.
Panting heavily, Matilda laughed. ‘Could have warned me.’
After an hour and a half, they made it to a high-positioned clearing. Mitch’s legs were tired, but he was also buzzing with feel-good exercise chemicals.
In the clearing was a small freshwater lake, filled from the mountain face above them with water cascading down in a long stream. The spray from the waterfall as it hit the water below misted the air and coated their skin.
‘Oh my god, this is so beautiful,’ Matilda said walking around the lake towards a small lookout located on a protruding rock face. Mitch followed, his gaze already finding the view.
They both stood before the fenced barricade, holding the rail, and stared out before them. Mitch breathed in the fresh mountainous air deeply as he beheld the unending space filled with blue sky, green tree-smothered mountains, steep, craggy ridges, and way down below, the continuation of the winding river they had followed here.
For a long while, they didn’t speak—couldn’t—too mesmerised by the dwarfing effect this enormous outlook provided. He was but a small inclusion in this broad, aesthetic landscape.
What perspective this gave. He remembered then how beautiful the natural world was outside of his narrow little home in Alpine Ridge, and how vast it was when he got outside of his own head. He remembered that beyond his own problems, pain and loss, the world was still here.
‘I missed this view so much,’ Matilda said, her words a series of whispered breaths.
Mitch had missed the easiness they had always shared when in each other’s company. He had never needed to pretend to be anyone but himself when he was with Matilda. They hadn’t spoken much during the trek here, but they hadn’t needed to.
Without thinking, Mitch slipped in behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. She stepped back into him, her head resting against his chest, and he kissed the top of her head. Her hair smelled sweet and flowery.
To have his arms wrapped around Matilda, the curves of her body arching against his own, her heat becoming his heat, didn’t feel wrong. It was different to what he had with Rachel. But it wasn’t wrong.
They stayed like that for a long moment until other hikers joined them on the lookout. They all shared a smile and a few words about the amazing view then Mitch led Matilda back towards the waterfall where they rested side by side on a long flat rock.
His weary legs were grateful to be sitting. He took out his flask and had a long drink of cold water. Matilda did the same.
‘I’ll need to do this more often so I can rebuild my fitness,’ he said.
She arched a brow as her gaze conspicuously ran over his body. ‘You look pretty fit to me.’
‘Gym fit,’ he said. ‘Not hiking-up-hills fit.’
‘We’ll have to come again then.’
He nodded, unable to hide his growing smile. ‘We will. You working up an appetite?’
She dragged her top teeth over her bottom lip, and he realised the double entendre in that question. ‘Yes, I am.’
‘Good. We can go grab some lunch after if you like?’
‘I like,’ she said.
They trekked further along the pathway that curled around the lake, circled behind the waterfall, and led them back to the car. Eleven kilometres in total.
Afterward, Mitch drove them to a great little café in a nearby town. The café served quaint-country meets city-trendy food. It used to be his favourite, but he hadn’t been here for a while.
They found a table inside among a packed house of chatting, buzzing customers. A good sign the food was still great.
After a quick perusal of the menu, a waiter stopped by. They ordered drinks and various combinations of tapas-like dishes.
‘This has quite young clientele, doesn’t it?’ Matilda asked.
Mitch looked around noting the men and women clumped in groups around tables, drinking beer and wine. The music that flowed from the speakers was definitely Top Twenty contemporary pop.
‘I guess it’s been a while since I’ve been here, but you’re right.’
‘It’s fun. Has a good vibe.’
‘It does.’ He didn’t miss the smooth baby faces of the customers. ‘Even if we are probably the oldest in the room.’
She laughed. ‘Oh come on. In my mind, I’m still eighteen.’
He studied her expression, wondering why she chose that age specifically. Then he tossed that thought aside—he was doing his stupid overthinking again. ‘Some days, I feel like I’m fifty already.’
Her brow wrinkled. ‘Really?’
‘When I’m tired and in the gym and trying to crank out a weights session, but end up giving up and going up to bed.’
A touch of sympathy assisted the upward curl of her lips. ‘What’s it like being a single dad? Apart from being tired,’ she added with a giggle.
He pulled on his earlobe. ‘Where do I start? Think of every emotion conceivable, amplify it by twenty and run through them quickly within the space of a day. That’s fatherhood.’
‘I can’t even imagine.’
‘Maybe I’m being a little facetious. It’s actually the most rewarding thing I’ve ever experienced. It’s opened my heart to a capacity I never knew existed. So many times, I just laugh with Sophie, especially as her own unique character is starting to shine through. I can’t wait to see her after a work day. I love hanging out with her. But it’s also the hardest thing I’ve done too because all my decisions affect her and sometimes that creates a lot of guilt. And some weeks are the same thing over and over again. And some nights I want to go to sleep and not wake up until seven, but like clockwork, as soon as that sun is up, she is too.’
‘Must have been really tiring when she was a newborn and needing feeds during the night.’
‘Exhausting. I look back and can see that sleep deprivation was a big reason why I almost lost the plot. But, Sam, Tom and Amy helped me heaps. And Rachel’s parents sometimes take Sophie for the night to give me a chance to catch up on sleep.’
‘That’s good of them.’
‘I’m not sure where I would be right now if it weren’t for family support. I’m sure I would have made it through somehow, I’m just not sure I would be in any great shape.’ He shook his head, smiled apologetically. ‘That’s not really date conversation.’
She waved his apology away. ‘Please. Talk about whatever you like.’
He was wise enough not to do that. If he and Matilda were to ever work, they had to develop a relationship outside of his gloom. And besides that, he didn’t want to place her there among all that. Nearly every part of his life was somehow
intertwined with his grief, he didn’t want to taint this too.
‘So you sound like you’ve travelled a bit over the last decade. Peru, did you mention?’
She smiled. ‘Yeah. Oscar and I went somewhere new every year. One year was Japan during winter so we could ski. It was unbelievable. We went to Italy, Spain, France, Germany. The usual suspects’
‘Wow.’ Mitch hadn’t had the opportunity to travel as much as he had liked since Dad died and the vineyard responsibilities took priority.
He did manage to make it to the UK not long after he and Matilda broke up, followed by a few quick runs to Bali, Fiji and New Zealand. But he’d not been outside of Australia for many years. He’d not been on a holiday since Rachel opened her cupcake shop.
‘I’m planning on going to Prague next.’ She leant her elbows on the table and grinned. ‘I probably should discuss that with my boss, shouldn’t I? To see when the best time of the season is to take annual leave.’
‘Winter is best. But that’s mainly something my brothers and I need to worry about. Maybe just not during or leading up to product launches.’
She laughed. ‘I wouldn’t dare.’
He’d love to visit Prague himself. The millennia of history was what had attracted him to the United Kingdom when he was younger. Prague was full of that too—Old Town, the Jewish Quarter, the Prague Castle.
He sat back and blinked. It was foreign to him to be considering travelling. He ached for the day, if it ever came, where thoughts about the future were normal again.
‘Prague would be fantastic. Just give us a little advance warning and you can take off when you want.’ He grinned, ‘After December, though.’
She parted her lips to speak, but lowered her gaze instead and remained silent. A red flush crept over her cheeks.
‘What?’ he asked.
She shook her head. ‘Nothing.’
He studied her face, trying to drag an answer out of her by remaining silent, but she didn’t offer one. ‘You always said you wanted to travel. I’m glad you’ve got to do it.’ And maybe if she had have stayed, she might never have fulfilled that dream.
She nodded. ‘Me too. I’ve fulfilled many goals, but now I’m ready to settle down,’ her voice trailed off at the end and she winced. ‘Oh, that’s like dating no-no number one, isn’t it?’
He chuckled. ‘So-called dating rules do not apply to us. Mostly because I don’t know them. So if you hadn’t have said anything, I would be none the wiser. In fact, let’s just pretend I didn’t hear you.’
‘Agreed.’
‘I understand how you can reach a certain time in your life where you want things to be stable and comfortable, though.’
To be truthful, he couldn’t remember a time he didn’t want a stable, comfortable relationship. It seemed an eternity had passed between when Matilda had left him and he met Rachel seven years later. Seven years of relationships that didn’t last longer than twelve months a piece was much too tumultuous for him.
His friends had thought him mad when he asked Rachel to marry him so soon after meeting her—they had not yet been together a year—but he had believed it not soon enough.
After five relationships that could never quite get off the ground, he knew the moment he first met Rachel that what they shared was special. That she was who he had been dreaming about since he was a small boy.
How cruel fate was to shatter his dream as viciously as it had.
He didn’t want to admit it so soon, not yet, but he had felt something similar when Matilda walked back into his life. From the very moment he had looked into her eyes.
He had been given two chances to love in this lifetime. It started with Matilda. Then he met Rachel and all of his rough-relationship past became insignificant. But life determined to dish him up heartbreak to such a degree it nearly broke him apart.
Then Matilda crossed his path again.
Could fate have given him a second chance to get it right? His hormones and biology and even a fragment of his heart believed it might be a possibility. But his mind and that big portion of his heart that still belonged to Rachel was finding it hard to transition.
‘I definitely want that,’ she said, words soft but full of conviction. ‘And love,’ she whispered.
That word caused a thin thread of anxiety to uncurl in the pit of his stomach and shoot towards his chest. Love and loss had become synonymous of late. He feared love because of the potential consequences if that love were to leave.
She must have seen a change in his expression because she smiled and said, ‘But I know that love takes time. So no rush. I get that we’re just seeing where this attraction might lead.’
His shoulders lowered with his outbreath. Her calm tone and easy smile helped ease those strands of tension. Maybe what they were doing now together was defining the boundaries Mitch didn’t even know he had set.
From the way his body put up such resistance, love was one of those boundaries. It may not always be, but for now, it was.
The waiter stopped by the table with myriad little dishes of food—braised scallops, Jerusalem artichoke croquettes, slow cooked beef cheeks with cauliflower cream, tempura vegetables, grilled octopus, and antipasto—a fusion of authenticities.
‘Oh my god, how amazing does this smell,’ Matilda said sniffing the mouth-watering scent in the air.
‘I’m so hungry, I could eat all this.’
Matilda laughed. ‘We’ll have to get dessert then.’
‘Was that ever in question?’
She laughed again, louder this time and the sound was contagious. ‘Obviously not.’
They sat there together for hours exchanging travel stories, little anecdotes about Sophie, and they reminisced about school friends and their families.
Mitch laughed so much at times, his eyes watered. The emotion was a relief and a release, and he didn’t ever want to feel low again, not when laughing felt like this, not when happiness was a real force, possible.
Mitch pulled his car into Matilda’s drive and headed along the gravel track towards her house. The late afternoon sun was still a few hours away from setting, but a cool duskiness had settled in, making the scenery gritty.
He ached to kiss her again.
He hurt with the need to touch her soft skin.
A deep throb pulsed low in his belly with the desire to take her to bed.
But if he acted on that, it might destroy the progress he had made. And he didn’t want to do that. He had to go at a speed he could cope with no matter how much his hormones objected.
‘You’ve got to get home now?’ she asked once he had come to a halt.
He nodded. ‘Yeah. I need to pick up Sophie soon.’
Her smile was small. She nodded.
‘I had a really great time today, Mati.’
‘Me too.’
‘I want to see you again. Can I?’
That smile grew. ‘I’d like that.’
He leant across the space between their seats and held her face, his thumb caressing her cheek. ‘I never knew it was possible to feel this way again,’ he whispered, voice deep with emotion.
‘What way?’
‘Happy.’
The smile slowly faded from her face, replaced by something much more potent, more visceral in its force upon him—desire.
He slid his fingers into her hair and tilted her head as he lowered his face to hers and pressed a kiss to her lips. Just one, but he lingered there.
‘I’m afraid if I kiss you, I won’t want to stop kissing you,’ he whispered against her lips.
She drew away until her gaze met his. ‘I don’t want you to be afraid of wanting me.’
He didn’t know what to say to that.
‘But I understand why you are,’ she said. ‘And that’s okay. We’ll take this slow.’
To hear those words and the pulse of sincerity behind them, it gave him the confidence to feel the way he felt. His hand dipped under her chin, turning her mouth so that when h
e leaned in, her soft lips were there to meet his.
His fingers combed through her auburn hair, then his lips pressed to hers again, not softly, but more like a crush—mouth on mouth, his tongue caressing hers.
A hungry sigh escaped him, and it only worked to rouse himself and Matilda more. She gripped his waist, slid her hand under his shirt and pulled him closer. The pleasurable sensation of her warm palm and fingertips on his skin made his muscles twitch and a deep throb of need coarse through him.
Their kiss deepened, and he gave himself permission to touch, to slide his hand along her thigh, over her hip, then dip under her shirt. The warm skin of her stomach met his fingertips. He skirted higher over her ribs.
Matilda’s quiet mewl filled the silence that was otherwise only punctuated by their breaths and clicking sucks of their lips.
He wanted more, wanted to taste more than her tongue. He wanted to slide his hands over every slope and taste the salt on her skin. He wanted to reacquaint himself with the feel of that slick warm place between her thighs with his mouth, then…
He broke away, breathless and gazed into her eyes.
For a heartbeat, two, she watched him, obviously waiting to see if he was going to run, and it killed him that she had the sense to know that he might.
After a long moment, only their heavy breathing between them, she drew further away and a slow smile curled her lips. ‘I better let you go.’
He sat up straighter and inhaled deeply, trying to ease the blast of arousal racing through his bloodstream, making his heartrate rocket. ‘Yes, I probably should.’
She opened the door and let one leg hang over the edge. ‘Thank you again for a fantastic day.’
He turned to face her, meeting her beautiful eyes. ‘My pleasure.’
She slipped out the door. ‘See ya, Mitch.’ She waited for his reply before she quietly closed the door, gave a little wave and wandered to her front door. She didn’t look back as she slipped the key in and went inside.
For a moment, Mitch sat there in her driveway, torn between the physical need to stay and the mental and emotional pull to go. The latter won.
Chapter 17
Matilda waited at a table on the front sidewalk outside of the local café on Main Street. The shop possessed an indolent Sunday vibe. Every now and then a car would drive past or a pedestrian would stride by.
Sweet From the Vine Page 18