Long-Lost Son Read online

  ‘It won’t be a problem,’ Janey said firmly.

  And it wasn’t. Luke’s eyes stayed glued to the road as if he’d never driven before, and he seemed a little relieved when he announced, ‘Here we are!’

  He climbed out, looking strong and well groomed in his pale grey trousers and a white polo shirt which made his dark good looks even darker. It occurred to Janey that she’d be the envy of any woman who saw her, with a man like this beside her, and it gave her an odd feeling. Satisfaction mixed with a desire to run for her life.

  Which made no sense at all.

  ‘Mmm, smells good,’ she said to distract herself as he opened the restaurant door.

  She’d been out for Chinese food with him before, she recalled, on one of those awful double dates Alice used to push her into with Luke’s male friends. She knew he liked spicy food, and trying new dishes. She also knew what he looked like when he was glowering at her because she didn’t share his taste.

  In men, not in Chinese food.

  ‘I’m glad it’s just the two of us,’ she blurted out as they were shown to their table, then realised he wouldn’t understand her thought track—he’d misinterpret completely—so made it worse by explaining, ‘Those awful men you introduced me to on all those double dates, with Alice madly trying to demonstrate my intellect or what’s-his-name’s muscles.’

  ‘They weren’t awful.’

  ‘Yes, they were! They were horrible occasions, every one of them!’

  ‘I mean the men. You’re right, the dates were bloody terrible, but Jack and Sean and Stephen are all really nice guys.’

  ‘Well…’

  ‘They’re still friends of mine, Janey, so be careful.’

  A chilly blast from the overactive restaurant air-conditioning hit her on her way past, matching the sudden chill of hostility in the air between herself and Luke. She bit her lip and swallowed her instinct to keep arguing. They couldn’t afford to be at odds any more.

  It felt familiar, though, arguing with him. Safe and satisfying, in a strange kind of way. She had a real struggle, letting it go.

  ‘Do you see them often?’ she asked politely instead. They’d been seated at a tiny table for two beside the ornately papered wall, facing each other.

  ‘Not often enough, as they’re down south.’ He added quickly, ‘Look, I appreciate that they probably didn’t come across at their best on those evenings but, trust me, you weren’t exactly the bachelorette of the year, yourself. You drove me nuts, Janey. I was so angry with you.’

  ‘Oh, I’m telling you, that was so-o-o mutual! The way you—’

  ‘Looking so prim when they told bad jokes. They were nervous, just trying to ease the atmosphere with some humour!’

  ‘Showed off with them, all blokey and hearty and big-headed and full of yourselves. You were so immature!’

  ‘And you acted like you were a middle-aged woman!’

  ‘I was nervous, too, for heaven’s sake! Alice used to give me these bright little pep talks about believing in myself, which made me feel as if there was nothing good to believe in. And you were so condescending, it was so obvious—to them, too, no wonder they wanted to run a mile!—that you felt sorry for me.’

  ‘I never felt sorry for you! Just angry with you!’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you were so much better and funnier and more interesting than you ever let anyone see, especially my friends.’ He slammed the palms of his hands on the table for emphasis. His fingers were so long and brown. ‘I sometimes used to think I’d only imagined that there was more to you than met the eye. You were bloody boring!’

  ‘And you were an arrogant show-off, who thought you could wrap everyone you met, male or female, around your little finger with one sleazy smile!’

  ‘Sleazy?’

  ‘OK, charming, then, but it’s the same thing. It was, in your case!’

  ‘Gee, thanks!’

  They glared at each other, and couldn’t look away. Janey’s skin tingled. A rather nervous-looking waiter brought them two menus and a wine list then scuttled off again, as if not wanting to risk getting caught in the crossfire. The couple at the next table—stubborn tourists who’d refused to evacuate, from the look of them—gave them an uneasy glance.

  ‘What was the plan?’ Luke murmured, still holding her gaze. He had the most gorgeous mouth, not too thin or too full, and it was almost smiling, but not quite. ‘A quiet night? Some serious talking?’

  Suddenly they both laughed and the tension broke.

  ‘I guess we just needed to say it, or something,’ Janey tried. Her cheeks were hot.

  ‘Get it out of our systems.’

  ‘Something like that…’

  They looked at each other again. There was still an electric sizzle in the air that Janey could almost hear. The tiny hairs on her arms stood on end. Just the air-conditioning? Why did Luke’s amber eyes look so dark, and his mouth so soft? Why had she never noticed before what a beautiful shape it was, even when he wasn’t smiling?

  ‘Can we get this clear?’ he said. ‘Do you still think I’m an arrogant, immature show-off, with the little-finger thing and the sleazy smile?’

  ‘Charming,’ she corrected.

  ‘Pedantic, as usual. You said sleazy first. You said it was the same thing.’

  ‘I don’t still think it.’

  ‘Any of it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘How about you?’

  ‘Do I think I’m an arrogant—?’

  ‘About me. The bloody boring bit. And prim. Have to confess, I’m pretty miffed about prim.’ She couldn’t drag her eyes from his face, and he didn’t even seem to be trying to. They’d leaned a little closer. And it was a small table. She’d be able to touch her forehead to his, two inches from now.

  Oh, she couldn’t keep looking at him like this!

  She dropped her gaze, and so did he.

  ‘Well, you could be prim,’ he said. He spoke down to the tablecloth, low and husky, as if planning to seduce it later tonight. ‘You never were prim, Janey, you just acted that way, and it was so damned annoying. If you’d really been prim through and through, it would have been easier because I could have thought, Oh, yeah, Alice’s prim sister, and had as little to do with you as possible. But it’s frustrating when you sense the diamond under the dirt and can’t get to it.’ He picked up his chopsticks and ran his fingers down the paper wrapper.

  ‘Diamond. That’s a lot better.’

  ‘Listen, you’re a diamond, I’ve always known that.’ What beautiful hands he had…

  ‘You have?’ I’m sounding breathless.

  ‘Underneath.’

  ‘I guess that’s why I never knew what you really thought, because the existence of any kind of underneath was never very apparent in you back then. You gave the impression there was just the one thin layer.’

  ‘Well, there wasn’t,’ he growled. ‘And there isn’t now. We were both pretty young.’

  ‘And pretty exhausted that year, working those long shifts at the hospital. I’m not sure that anyone shows their best self in those conditions. We were all snappy and short-tempered, living in each other’s pockets, getting on each other’s nerves.’

  ‘Reading each other all wrong. Making so many mistakes in our personal lives because we couldn’t afford to make them at work.’

  ‘Yes. I think that’s right.’

  They were leaning way, way too close now, watching each other’s hands way too intently. And neither of them was talking. The moment broke in a flash of awkwardness. He put down the chopsticks and picked up the wine list. ‘Going to have wine?’

  ‘Just a glass.’

  ‘Red or white?’

  ‘Shall we order first? See what goes best with what we choose?’ She looked at the menu. ‘I’m thinking a nice cool dry white, because I’m going to have chilli prawns.’

  ‘Want to share? I thought I’d go for Szechuan chicken.’

  �
��Sounds good.’

  ‘And Charles recommended the Peking-style vegetarian dumplings to start.’

  ‘Yum!’

  ‘So we agree about the food, at least.’

  ‘I—I think we agree about a few things, Luke, we just come at them from a different angle, or something. Or we used to.’

  ‘Maybe that’s it.’

  Luke looked at Janey across the table once again, wondering about the heated words that had frightened their waiter away just now. Not such a bad development, perhaps, to have argued that way. Like a shower of rain on a hot, dusty day, it had cleared the air and left something fresh and new. ‘You’re not married, Janey?’ he asked suddenly.

  She gave him a crooked smile. ‘Have I mentioned a husband?’

  ‘We haven’t talked much yet.’

  ‘Think I might have mentioned a husband.’

  ‘OK, I guess I mean why aren’t you married?’ He knew she was more than perceptive enough to figure out his subtext—that he was actively glad she was single, so that Rowdy didn’t have the complication of a stepfather figure who might not want Janey taking on a major commitment to her sister’s child.

  But he admitted to himself that there was something else, too. He was interested in what her unmarried status implied.

  ‘Because for a long time I knew I wasn’t ready,’ she answered. ‘I didn’t have a lot of confidence. Then about six years ago I thought I was. Had this horrible, needy relationship with a man—another doctor, wouldn’t you know?—for three years where I did all the wrong things, and he was the wrong person anyway, and he was right to break it off in the end, but it hurt, and thank goodness I didn’t slash any tyres or post diatribes on any of those don’t-date-him-honey websites—’

  ‘That’s the last thing I can imagine you doing!’

  ‘Me, too, now. But the brain had to exert firm control over the typing fingers for a couple of months there.’

  ‘You’re laughing at yourself.’

  ‘Very healthy reaction.’ She gave a dazzling grin. ‘Absolute disaster to take your own broken heart too seriously. Even more of a disaster to go public about it. My advice to any woman is to make sure you surround yourself with merciless female friends who just won’t let you cry and moan and rehash it over and over. Especially with white wine spritzers or margaritas anywhere in the picture. Ooh, yuck, no!’ She wrinkled her nose, and he couldn’t help laughing, which was what she wanted.

  ‘Anyhow,’ she went on, ‘it was screamingly obvious that I needed some time alone, and a change of scene, so I moved to Darwin and that’s been great. Just great. I learned a heck of a lot from the whole sorry episode.’

  She laughed again, and Luke had this absurd flash of thought. Then I should thank the man. He asked instead, ‘So you’re settled there permanently?’

  She was right on the ball. She went still and watchful at once. ‘You don’t want Rowdy going to Darwin, do you? So far from here, or from anywhere else you might settle?’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘You want me to leave him here, with you.’ She instantly hated the thought, he could see it.

  ‘Not that either. Not necessarily. I want to…work something out.’ It sounded inadequate. One of them would have to move, if they both wanted to take an active part in his son’s future. ‘Something that’s best for everyone,’ he finished, and this sounded more inadequate still.

  ‘I’ve never said to myself that I’m permanently settled in Darwin,’ she said slowly. ‘I haven’t bought a house. I’m renting. But I like the tropical climate there. Don’t have the skin for it, but like it anyway. I love the lushness, and cool fans, and air-conditioning, and spicy food eaten outdoors, the whole complex ethnic mix of Darwin I like. And I like crocs and bird life and red desert just an hour or two away, and swimming pools and ocean, and those sudden sunsets, and the blasts of damp heat.’

  ‘You want me to settle in Darwin.’

  She laughed. ‘No!’

  ‘Because you’re sure selling the place! Although I could point out that most of coastal north Queensland has the features you’ve mentioned.’

  Their waiter dared a timid return, asking if they were ready to order, and by the time they’d chosen a wine and quibbled over whether the vegetarian dumplings should be steamed or fried, the subject of a compromise between Darwin and Queensland had somehow…

  Well, he wasn’t sure what else either of them could say at this point.

  Start suggesting random cities?

  Melbourne?

  Both sets of grandparents were still there, but he wasn’t convinced that would be a good thing for Rowdy. Don and Pat Stafford had always treated Alice far too obviously as the favoured child, which hadn’t been good for her, or for Janey. His own parents had done the opposite. They’d been incredibly suspicious of Alice. The Stafford and Bresciano in-laws had not meshed remotely well at family gatherings, and if they fought over their grandson…

  No, Rowdy needed the qualities that Luke kept coming back to in Janey.

  Her groundedness. Her good sense.

  And she liked the tropical climate.

  For some reason he couldn’t get that idea out of his mind. As they waited for their meal, he kept getting pictures in his head. Janey sitting on her shady Darwin veranda at the end of a long day…

  Did she even have a veranda? He didn’t care about that detail.

  She’d pour herself a long, cool drink and have her fans going. There’d be a slight mist of sweat across her collarbone, and she’d roll the side of the cold-drink glass across her forehead and lift her dark hair from the back of her neck. She’d blow out her cheeks, letting her tired breath drop from her lungs, and her limbs would flop all loose and relaxed as she sat on her…what? Veranda swing.

  Oh, hell!

  This is wrong.

  He didn’t understand it at all. The sensuality of the images, the tightening in his groin. He remembered the early chemistry between himself and Alice, which he hadn’t thought about in years. Their wine arrived and he took refuge in pouring and tasting it. ‘Nice,’ he said. ‘Um…’

  ‘Why doesn’t he speak, Luke?’ she burst out suddenly. ‘I’m not sure what we can work out about his future until he’ll talk to us. And what if that takes weeks? What if we can’t get him to talk until we understand why he doesn’t? Does he need professional help? How do we handle that? I doubt there’s a qualified child psychologist here in Crocodile Creek, and it can’t just be anyone, it has to be someone really good, whom he trusts and responds to. Meanwhile, we have no idea what he thinks or feels. Or even what he’d like to be called.’

  ‘He stopped speaking when Alice died?’

  ‘That’s what they told me at Mundarri. That he’d been very quiet while she was ill. Well, that’s one of their spiritual healing practices. Silence and peace. It’s not wrong exactly, is it? Premature babies really need it. Any ill person does. But as usual, at Mundarri they carried it to extremes. And then they said that after she died he stopped talking completely. And I don’t know if we should push him, or act as if it’s normal, or what.’

  ‘Charles thinks we should just spend time with him. He suggested we take him out to Charm Island on Friday for a picnic. They had a lot less damage than on Wallaby Island, so most of the place is open. Pushing him doesn’t sound right. You can tell he’s not staying silent out of defiance.’

  ‘He’s not trying to punish the whole world.’

  ‘No. It doesn’t feel that way. Do you think?’

  ‘No.’ They sipped their wine, and their meal arrived. ‘I like the Charm Island idea,’ she went on. ‘But it doesn’t feel like enough. We go out to dinner to talk about the future, and end up reaching the momentous decision to go on a picnic.’

  ‘I think it’s all we can do.’

  She flapped her hands. ‘I know, I know.’

  ‘On the plus side, we didn’t fight.’

  ‘Yes, we did!’

  ‘Not about Rowdy.’

&nb
sp; ‘No, not about him.’

  ‘And you have no idea how good that feels, Janey. That we stayed rational. And put his needs first. And didn’t use him like a weapon to hurt each other.’

  Alice’s ghost drifted over the table, but they looked at her, didn’t talk about her, let her go.

  ‘How long have you been in Crocodile Creek?’ Janey asked, after the silence, and Luke picked up the conversational ball and ran with it, just as she’d wanted him to. They kept to light subjects for the rest of the meal, and Janey’s one glass of wine began to create a pleasant softening around the edges of the atmosphere, and it was lovely.

  Too lovely.

  They sat over their meal for nearly two hours, and the glass of wine turned into a glass and a half. Alcohol was the worst excuse in the world. One and a half glasses of wine in two hours wouldn’t have taken her over the legal limit for driving, let alone over the more personal limit for letting her barriers down.

  But as they left to walk to his car, parked just around the corner, Luke linked his arm through hers and she laid her head on his shoulder for a moment, and that was all it took. She sighed. Why did he feel so good? Why did the contact feel so necessary? He heard the sigh and tipped his head to look at her. ‘Janey?’

  And then time stopped.

  ‘I’m OK,’ she murmured. ‘I just…’

  Have to cling to you, or my legs will give way.

  Apparently she didn’t need to actually say it. His arms came around her, and she burrowed her head into the curve of his neck, drinking in the way he smelt. Oh, she wanted to taste his skin. Taste someone’s skin.

  No.

  His. Just his.

  ‘Janey…’ he said again, differently this time.

  She felt his mouth pressing on her hair, finding her temple and her cheek. This was the moment when she could have turned away.

  Should have.

  But didn’t.

  Instead, she lifted her face to meet his, touching her lips clumsily to the corner of his mouth, wanting him so much she didn’t care if it wasn’t the best kiss in the world. She just wanted to stay here in his arms for hours, and touch and taste and feel.