Temporary Intrigue (30 page)

“I was going to get in touch about them. Shane told me you were back in Sydney. Maybe you could leave them at your hotel there, at reception? I could drive down and get them.”

“You don’t need to do that.” His voice was suddenly flat. “I’ve had them delivered to you.”

“But they haven’t–”

“They’re on your back veranda now.”

“On the veranda?”

But he had disconnected the call. He couldn’t wait to cut himself off from her.

Well, she’d known as much. But having it confirmed didn’t make her feel any better.

The paintings hadn’t been there when she left for town. How could he be so sure they were there now?

She walked towards the back door, unlocked it and opened it.

The paintings were there, propped against Bert’s kennel. Bert was sitting beside them, his tail thumping on the veranda floor when he saw her.

And Josh was there, replacing his phone in the pocket of his black jacket and looking at her with those warm brown eyes filled with more love than she could ever have imagined possible for one second before his jaw tensed and his expression became neutral.

It was impossible. He couldn’t be there. But he was.

“I’ve had so much trouble contacting you that I thought I’d try the personal touch,” he said.

Her heart wanted her to throw herself into his arms. Her head told her to step back inside and shut the door. While her emotions warred, he took a quick breath and raised both hands, palms facing her.

“Before you say a word – I’m divorced.”

The muscles of her throat seemed paralysed. Slowly, deliberately, she put the phone on the counter near the door and folded her arms.

“Less than a week ago you said you were married. What did you do? Fly to Reno?”

At her derisive tone, his mouth tightened.

“That’s probably a bit old hat. I think you can do it online now, can’t you? But I don’t remember telling you I was married.”

“You said that woman, Maddison –” she almost choked over the name “was your wife.”

“She’s
not
my goddamn wife!” His voice was rough with the same emotion she remembered from their previous conversation. “She
was
. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. We
were
married. Past tense. We’ve been well and truly divorced for two years and we were finished long before that. It only lasted six months.”

Dimity was silent, trying to take it in.

“Did you really think I’d try to lead you on that way?” The strain in his voice was unmistakable.

“I didn’t want to.” She was weak with relief and leftover anger. “But whether she’s ex or current, why didn’t you tell me?”

“Like I just said, I tried.”

“Well, you should have tried harder.”

“It’s not something you just drop into the conversation –‘Oh, by the way, I’m divorced.’ If you’d asked me, of course I would have told you, but I was waiting for the right time.”

“Until it suited you?”

“Until it suited
us
. When we were having lunch by the harbour, I was about to tell you.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“We were talking about Kate’s problems. You seemed to think she had a point, not wanting to take on her boyfriend’s baggage. Suddenly it didn’t seem the moment to tell you I had an ex-wife. I didn’t want to ruin things.”

She gave him an expressive look. He grimaced.

“Then I was planning to tell you when we got back to your place after the reception, but by the time we got there I thought it might be a bit of an overload when you’d just had a near-death experience. So I was going to tell you at dinner after the workshop, but I loused things up by deciding Shane was the one who was out to get you.”

He rubbed the back of his neck.

“Hell – and I tried to lecture Shane about the advantages of getting things out in the open.”

Despite herself, Dimity couldn’t prevent the faintest of gurgles.

“Maybe you should have written me a letter.”

“I’ve got this thing about the personal touch.” She thought she heard a slight easing of tension in his voice. “But yeah, I admit I goofed. So nobody’s perfect.”

Leaning against the doorway, Dimity watched a beam of sunlight sparkle through the new window she had cleaned yesterday.

“I’m waiting for you to add ‘As you should well understand in view of your recent secretarial performance, Dimity’," she said.

She heard the ghost of a chuckle from Josh’s direction.

“Would you like me to bring the paintings in?” he asked.

When she nodded he picked them up in an easy movement that reminded her of the night he had hoisted her backpack and carried it along the foreshore. Stepping back to let him into the kitchen, she felt her heart give a massive lurch when their eyes met as he passed.

He walked towards the door that led to the hallway, then stopped.

“Do you want me to put them up for you?”

“Thanks, but I have to take them into the hotel tomorrow. Harold Woodman’s going to be there. He’s interested in buying them for the board room. It looks as if my gallery is going to happen at long last.”

“Hey, that’s great!” Propping the paintings against the wall, he smiled with genuine delight. “How did that happen?”

She shrugged.

“Long story.”

He nodded, stopped smiling, swallowed, rubbed the back of his neck again, then looked at her with an expression that tore at her heart.

“I can’t say how sorry I am about this, Dim. Do you think–”

He stopped and, to her frustration, went off uncharacteristically at a tangent. “I’ve never asked if you mind being called Dim.”

“No, that’s what most people call me.”

“I thought you looked upset when Leigh made that awful crack about it.”

Marvelling at his attention to detail, Dimity tried to remember the incident.

“It was a family joke. If I looked upset it was because Leigh had turned it into something spiteful and Shane seemed to be joining in. He apologised later.”

“So he should have.” He caught himself. “Sorry. Actually, I saw him a few days ago. He said he was moving out and that you’d gone to Queensland. How was it?”

“Not bad. How did you know I was back?”

“I didn’t. I drove by on the off chance and saw your car in the driveway.”

“Are you working in Newcastle again?”

Their exchanges were trivial, automatic. Watching him, unaware he hadn’t answered, she felt a surge of anguish imagining those hands caressing someone else, thinking of that voice whispering love words to another person.

“Dim–” his voice was very quiet. “I didn’t understand what love was, then.”

How had he sensed her thoughts?

Somehow, while she stared at him wordlessly, she must have taken a step forward. At the same time he moved. With no idea how it had happened, she found herself in his arms, held so tightly that for a few seconds she thought all her bones would break.

After those few seconds he relaxed his grip slightly but still held her close against him, and that was perfectly all right with her. With her own arms locked tightly around him she could feel her tension finally breaking, a warm flood of love and certainty rushing in to fill the cold void that had tormented her since they parted.

Tears streamed down her face. His lips followed them, catching, tasting, before his mouth found hers. With a deep groan she answered his urgency, pressing her body against his, savouring again the strength of those arms that almost lifted her off her feet in the intensity of his embrace.

“It was nothing like this,” he whispered against her ear. He cradled her chin in his hand and looked into her eyes. “There was always something missing. With you there’s nothing missing. Do you know what I mean?”

She nodded. He kissed her again, slowly and deeply this time, then rocked her against him. “This is so special. There’s only one you. I couldn’t bear to lose you.”

Drawing her towards the table he sat down on a chair and pulled her gently onto his lap, wrapping his arms around her as if he couldn’t bear to be separated from her. She rested her head on his shoulder, at peace in a way she had never thought she would be again.

“We were too young to know what we were doing.” Josh’s lips brushed her ear again. “I was younger than Shane, fresh out of university and busy getting established at Global. She was even younger, working in her father’s advertising agency and accustomed to getting everything she wanted.”

One of his hands stroked through her hair, his fingers following the curve around her ear.

“I guess we were too immature to distinguish between surface attraction and love. Two of my sisters were married by then. It probably seemed a natural progression to me.”

She stirred against him.

“Were you happy at first?”

“Not really. We had nothing in common. She spent her life partying and couldn’t understand why I didn’t want to join in. The fact that I had job commitments meant nothing to her.”

His grip tightened.

“Almost as soon as we were married she started pressuring me to join her father’s organisation. He had a branch in New York and she decided she wanted to live there. It was okay with her father. I don’t think it occurred to her it wouldn’t be okay with me too.”

Glancing up at him, Dimity could see the tension around his mouth.

“There was no way I was going to leave Global. It was nowhere near the size it is now, but I liked it. That was where I wanted to be. Then she pointed out that Global had an office in New York too. If I wouldn’t join her father’s set-up, I could relocate with my own group. But that didn’t appeal to me either.”

He met her eyes.

“It wasn’t a pleasant time. My family, especially Kate, were supportive, but they knew it was no good trying to tell me what to do. I had to work it out for myself.” He smiled faintly. “Although I had a hard time myself trying to put that principle into practice when I thought you were letting Shane take advantage of you.”

Dimity reached up and stroked the back of his neck gently.

“You were right,” she said. “I was too close to the situation to see I was spoon-feeding him more than looking after him.”

Josh kissed her forehead.

“So what happened?” she asked.

“Well, Maddison went off to New York, leaving me to think it over. When I did, I had to face the fact I’d been wrong, and we didn’t really have a future together. I couldn’t see any point in moving to New York just to be with her. She had no intention of staying in Toronto just to be with me. That really told me the whole story about us. So we very quickly agreed to part and settled things in quite a civilised way.”

Raising a hand, Dimity touched his cheek. He moved his head, pressed his lips to her palm, then let his face rest against her hand.