The Reunion Of A Lifetime. Fiona Lowe

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       CHAPTER TWO

      LAUREN TOUCHED THE hands-free green button on the car’s console and answered her mobile. ‘Hi, Mum. How was The Langham?’

      ‘Just gorgeous! But, darling, I’m so sorry about the red costume.’ Sue Fuller’s voice boomed around the car. ‘Apparently, school notes are going out of fashion and I need to download an app. Anyway, Shaylee refuses to take off her costume and Dad and I want to cook you dinner as a thank-you. Can you make it?’

      If anyone ever offered to cook for Lauren, she accepted in a heartbeat, because at the end of long and busy days, rustling up the energy to cook often failed her. ‘Dinner sounds fabulous. But fair warning, I missed lunch so I’m starving.’ She flicked on her indicator, slowed, turned left and immediately changed down into first gear as the car took on the extremely steep gravel road. ‘All things being equal, I should be there by six-thirty. I’ve only got one house call left.’

      ‘Have you seen Anna Ainsworth?’ Sue asked, suddenly sounding more like the district nurse she was than her mother. ‘I didn’t like the look of her leg on Tuesday.’

      ‘I’m driving to Bide-a-While now.’

      ‘You’re doing a home visit? Is she okay? She’s one of my naughtier diabetics and in typical Ainsworth style she won’t be told anything.’ Her mother warmed to one of Horseshoe Bay’s favourite themes—the locals’ opinions of the well heeled Melbourne-ites who owned holiday mansions in the town. ‘You’d think that as the mother of an eminent surgeon, she’d be better behaved. Then again, we all know how Randall Ainsworth likes to throw his weight around and how the rules don’t always apply...’

      ‘Mmm,’ Lauren hummed noncommittally as her mind drifted back to a summer a long time ago. Don’t go there, her subconscious commanded. Do. Not. Go. There.

      When Lauren had taken over the Horseshoe Bay practice, she’d been stunned to learn that Charlie’s grandmother had not only left her Toorak home and retired to the house on the cliff but she was now a clinic patient. Not that she’d met Charlie’s grandmother twelve years ago, or anyone else in his family for that matter, just like Charlie had never met her parents—some things were best kept secret.

      Horseshoe Bay had two populations—the small, permanent one, and the transient tourist population that swelled the seaside village by thirty-five to one each summer. The relationship between the locals and the tourists was a symbiotic one, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t without its tensions. Stories, some dating as far back as the First World War, cautioned local women about getting involved with tourists. For every positive outcome, there were more than fifty negative ones and most of those revolved around the pocket of big houses high on the hill—the enclave of real wealth.

      Growing up, Lauren had absorbed the lesson—have fun with the holidaymakers in the camping ground but don’t get involved with anyone on Shore Road unless you want to be used and then abandoned.

      As a teenager, she’d mostly avoided the bonfires at the far end of the beach where the rich kids played, although she had been to a couple, reluctantly dragged along by girlfriends who had dreamed wide and big and had inevitably got hurt deep and long.

      She hadn’t met Charlie at a bonfire or even at the Milk Bottle Café where she’d worked that summer—another favourite haunt of the rich kids. They’d met on a grey and humid afternoon when only the keen or stupid surfers braved the elements, pinning their hope on a fabled storm wave and the ride of their lives.

      As the two of them had lain on their boards with their eyes glued to the water, they’d chatted. He’d made her laugh and she’d had the same effect on him, and when the edge of the storm front had hit, it had gifted them five amazing waves. They’d ridden them competitively, trying to outdo each other, yet at the same time urging each other on to do their best. Then the rain hit, the wind driving each drop as sharp as the slice of a razor, and caution had kicked in. Once on the shore, Charlie had grabbed her hand and they’d run, taking shelter in a cave.

      Sitting at the entrance, they’d watched nature’s picture show of lightning jagging its yellow glow across the horizon, complete with the soundtrack of cracking thunder. After two hours together spent laughing and talking about all sorts of things except themselves, he’d leaned in and kissed her.

      She’d been kissed before but never like that. His warm and eager mouth had captured hers, making her body melt like chocolate and sizzle with so much heat she’d expected to combust in a shower of sparks. It had been a defining moment. Then and there, she’d chosen to ignore the little details she’d picked up on during the afternoon, like the fact his surfboard and wetsuit had come from the top end of the range. That his accent had been devoid of diphthongs and that his mention of visiting overseas countries had hinted that travel was such an ordinary part of his life that he didn’t even question it.

      Instead, she’d told herself he was just ‘Charlie’ and for the rest of that summer they had spent as much time together as her part-time job had allowed. She’d refused to examine the fact she was keeping him hidden from her family and friends and that he was doing the same to her. Nothing had mattered except the exclusive and private bubble-for-two that they’d inhabited, filled with joy and delight.

      And then the bubble had burst.

       Twelve years ago. You let it all go, remember? Focus on the here and now.

      Unfortunately, СКАЧАТЬ