One Baby Step at a Time. Meredith Webber

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      ‘If you call dumping a couple of suitcases in the bedroom and unpacking my wash bag as moving in, then yes,’ he responded, hoping the gap between the question and the answer hadn’t been too long. ‘It’s fully furnished so all I had to bring were clothes and personal stuff. I’d hardly begun to unpack when the hospital phoned to ask if I could work last night.’

      Bill didn’t respond, so disturbed was she by the sight of Nick’s lean, toned body that casual conversation was beyond her. He’d shrugged as he’d mentioned unpacking, an unfortunate movement as it had drawn her attention back to his chest, with its flat wedges of pectoral muscles and clearly defined six-pack.

      She wanted to ask if he’d been working out, but that would give away the fact she’d noticed and the way she was feeling it was better if the question went unasked.

      She climbed the first dune and raced down the other side then up the next, aware he was pacing himself to stay beside her—aware of him!

      It was bad enough that he was living in the same building, so now she’d have to avoid seeing him out of work hours as well as at work, without him suspecting she might see him as other than a friend.

      A passing fancy, surely?

      But her reactions to him were forgotten as she topped the last dune.

      ‘What is that?’

      The words burst from her lips as she saw the racing-green sports car, hood down, cream leather seats, sleek lines shouting speed and, yes, seduction.

      ‘My car?’ His voice was quiet but she heard the pride in it.

      ‘Well, that will get you noticed in Willowby,’ she muttered, aware of just who would notice it first—the constant stream of beautiful women who used Willowby as a jumping-off place for reef adventures. True, they worked, if you could call hostessing on luxury yachts or on the six-star island resorts working, but since the mining boom had led to the town becoming one of the wealthiest per capita in the country, the place had been swamped by women, and men if she was honest, looking to separate some of that money from those who had it.

      ‘Gets me noticed most places,’ Nick replied, and the smile on his face made her stomach clench.

      That’s why he’d bought it! She knew that much immediately, remembering the email he’d sent her many years ago when he’d returned from his first stint with the army reserve, serving overseas. He’d helped to put back together young men blown apart by bombs in wars that ordinary people didn’t understand.

      He’d come home, he’d said, with one aim—to live for the day. He’d promised himself a beautiful car, the best of clothes and as many beautiful women as cared to play with him. ‘I’m honest with them, Bill,’ he’d said in the email. ‘I tell them all it’s not for ever, that marriage isn’t in my long-term plans. You’d be surprised how many women are happy with that—even agreeing that it’s not for them either. Things are different now.’

      Were they? Bill hadn’t been able to answer that question then and couldn’t now. For herself, she knew she wanted marriage, and children too, but not without love and so far, apart from that one disastrous experience, love hadn’t come along.

      ‘Ride with me,’ Nick suggested. ‘I’ll drop you back at your old bomb after breakfast.’

      ‘Ride in that thing? The town might have grown, Nick, but at heart it’s still the same old Willowby. I only need to be spotted by one of the local gossips and my reputation would be ruined. Did you see the de Groote girl, they’d be saying, running around in a fast car with a fast man? You, of course, will be forgiven. About you they’ll say, hasn’t he done well for himself, that grandson of old Mrs Grant? And such a kind boy, coming home to be with his gran now she’s getting on.’

      Nick laughed and headed for his car.

      ‘Okay, but I won’t offer to race you to the surf club,’ he teased. ‘Too unfair.’

      Bill climbed into her battered old four-wheel drive, the vehicle her father had bought her new when she’d passed her driving test. She patted the dash to reassure the car she wasn’t put off by its shabby appearance, or influenced by the shining beauty of Nick’s vehicle, but it was she who needed reassurance as her folly in suggesting he breakfast with her finally struck home. Even with her sea-drenched curls, and the tatty old T-shirt, she’d always felt quite at home at the surf club, but these days many of the beautiful people breakfasted there as well—

      Whoa! Surely she wasn’t concerned that Nick would compare her to some of the other women and find her wanting?

      Of course she wasn’t!

      Then why was she wondering if there might not be a long shift somewhere in the mess of clothes, books and papers in the back seat of the car—wondering if there might be a slightly melted tube of lip gloss in the glove box?

      Hopeless, that’s what she was.

      He’d selected a table that looked out from a covered deck over the town’s main beach and the placid tropical waters. Bill slipped into a chair beside him, so she, too, could look out to sea. Far out on the horizon they could see the shapes of the islands that dotted the coastline—tourist havens on Australia’s biggest natural wonder, the Great Barrier Reef.

      ‘I’ve ordered the big breakfast for both of us,’ Nick informed her. ‘Anything you don’t want, I’ll eat. And coffee—double-shot latte still your drug of choice?’

      ‘It is, and thanks,’ Bill replied, telling herself at the same time that a nice normal breakfast with Nick should banish all the silly stuff that had been going on in her head.

      Especially as Nick was wasting no time checking out the talent, with his eyes on a group of three long-haired blondes, laughing and joking on the other side of the wide deck.

      ‘The town’s scenery’s improved,’ he joked.

      ‘It’s the money that’s being splashed around,’ Bill reminded him, deciding to take his comment seriously. ‘Money attracts money but it also attracts the kind of people who like to have it—like to spend it. The problem is that while the miners and the people who work in mining support services are all earning big money, the price of housing goes up, rents go up, and the ordinary people of the town, especially those who don’t own their own houses, are stuck with costs they can’t afford.’

      Nick smiled.

      ‘Still a worry-wart,’ he teased.

      ‘Well, someone has to worry about it. Nurses at the hospital don’t get paid more than their counterparts in other places in the state, yet accommodation costs in town are enormous. Fortunately the hospital has realised it has a problem and has built some small rental apartments in the grounds, but you spread that problem out across the town—the check-out staff at supermarkets, the workers in government offices, the council truck drivers—all the locals suffer.’

      She stopped, partly because she was aware she’d mounted her soap-box and really shouldn’t be boring Nick with the problem but also because the blondes appeared to have noticed him—new talent in town?—and were sending welcoming smiles his way.

      ‘Maybe they saw the car when you drove in,’ Bill muttered.

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