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Victoria Purman

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DID YOU PURCHASE THIS BOOK WITHOUT A COVER?
If you did, you should be aware it is stolen property as it was
reported ‘unsold and destroyed’ by a retailer.
Neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment
for this book.

First Published 2014


First Australian Paperback Edition 2014
ISBN 978 174356773 9

SOMEONE LIKE YOU


© 2014 by Victoria Purman
Philippine Copyright 2014
Australian Copyright 2014
New Zealand Copyright 2014

Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilisation of this work in whole
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This book is sold subject to the condition that shall not, by way of trade or
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imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any
form. This edition is published in arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A..

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the
product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance
to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is
entirely coincidental.

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Printed and bound in Australia by Griffin Press


CHAPTER

Lizzie Blake gripped her fingers into a tight fist and raised her
knuckles to the salt-scarred front door. She stole a quick glance over
her shoulder, looking across the esplanade to the sparkling water of
Middle Point behind her. She tried to imagine the hot sand sizzling
her feet, the cool of the waves washing over her limbs and the roar
of the Southern Ocean in her ears.
She straightened her back, lifted her chin and muttered to her-
self. ‘For God’s sake. Just get it over with. This is not brain surgery.
Man up. Or…should that be woman up?’
She halted, hearing a scraping noise from inside the house. He
was definitely in there. The man who’d moved in months before,
when the wind off the water had blown cold and the skies started
out grey in the mornings, hanging low until sunset. Time had
passed. The weather had turned; summer was only a few weeks
away.
But the mystery man of Middle Point remained a recluse.
Lizzie felt a trickle of sweat slip down between her shoulder
blades. The sooner she got this over with, the sooner she could be
12 VICTORIA PURMAN

back at work in the air-conditioned cool of the Middle Point pub.


She wasn’t even sure what she was doing here. Here being the not-
so-welcome mat of a modest, mint-green painted beach shack. It
was weathered and worn, its windows opaque with gritty streaks
of sand, the yellowed grass in the front yard resembling strewn hay
instead of lush green.
It was a good question and she wasn’t entirely sure she had an
answer that made any sense. In a moment of sentimental weak-
ness that morning, she’d promised Ry Blackburn she would make
a delivery to his best friend, Dan McSwaine. Ry was Lizzie’s boss
at the pub. And her best friend Julia’s fiancé. And Dan’s next-door
neighbour. Yes. Middle Point was a small town.
She felt the weight of the calico bag in her hand, heavy with
food: kangaroo rendang, a crisp Asian salad and still-warm naan
bread from the specials menu. The spicy aromas teased her and she
had half a mind to tiptoe away and take it home for herself instead.
But no, she was on a promise to a friend and she wouldn’t go
back on it. After three firm knocks, she planted her hand on her
head to stop her straw hat from blowing away in the north wind
and waited. There was another scrape of noise from inside, then
footsteps and the door jerked open in a whoosh.
Lizzie blinked.
What the hell’s happened to Dan McSwaine?
Dan stared back at her. His lips were pinched into a tight line
and his jet-black hair hung over his forehead, pushed aside just
enough so she could see one washed-out green eye fixed directly
on her.
Four months before, when she’d met Dan for the first time, he’d
worn a shit-eating grin, a cocky-as-hell attitude and a black leather
jacket. She did a quick stocktake of the man who was standing
there, half-hidden behind the door, glowering at her. He looked
like he’d been dragged eight ways through a blender. A faded blue
T-shirt hung from his shoulders and he appeared to be wearing –
Lizzie glanced down to confirm her suspicions – track pants.
Could this be the same man?
SOMEONE LIKE YOU 13

‘What do you want, Elizabeth?’


At least she recognised the voice. It was deep with a rasp that she’d
thought sexy, once upon a time. Now he just sounded annoyed.
‘Ry wants you to have this.’ Lizzie lifted the calico bag between
them. ‘It’s a dinner delivery direct from the Middle Point pub. On
the house.’
Dan didn’t move. There was no sweep of his arm to invite her
inside, out of the still blazing early evening heat and the whipping
wind. No smile of welcome or acknowledgment. And he wasn’t
so much looking at her, as through her, barely any recognition in
his face that they were acquaintances. Distant acquaintances, she
­corrected herself.
Not a bad match, she realised. He didn’t want her there and she
didn’t want to be there. Perfect.
‘Here. Take it,’ she said. ‘It’s food. Really good food.’
He wasn’t to be tempted.
Lizzie pulled off her sunglasses and tipped her head back to take
a good look at him. Dark bags under his eyes were smudged like
fading bruises and his cheekbones anchored hollows where flesh
should have been. And, while beards were currently au courant in
European fashion magazines and on the skinny faces of alternative
musicians, Lizzie decided his grey-flecked version looked like he’d
been stranded on a desert island for three months.
Which was exactly how long it had been since his car accident.
Bloody hell. A wave of remorse at her rush to judge him rose up in
her throat and she swallowed it away.
And then she wasn’t quite sure what to do. Dan had been through
so much in the past few months that it felt selfish to be annoyed
with him. How should she handle this stranger? For that’s what he
seemed to her now. Her tongue tripped into jumpy overtime.
‘Just take the food, Dan. It’s really delicious. Or so the chef tells
me. It’s been our most popular dinner order, which is crazy consid-
ering it must still be thirty-five degrees out here. You’d better eat it
while it’s hot, so here you go.’ Lizzie looked down at the bag and
held it further towards him to indicate he should take it from her,
14 VICTORIA PURMAN

but still he didn’t react. His tall body slumped against the doorway
and his big hand gripped the doorknob as if it was the only thing
keeping him upright.
Lizzie noticed a passing glance at the food before his eyes trav-
elled slowly up her body in a lazy trawl. Well, there was something
about him she did recognise. He’d looked at her like that before.
And damn it if it didn’t have the same affect on her pulse.
‘Take it away. I don’t want it.’ Dan reached up to his chin and
rubbed his beard.
Lizzie clenched her teeth. Keeping her promise to Ry wasn’t
going to be quite as straightforward as she’d imagined. How many
kinds of stubborn was Dan McSwaine anyway, she wondered. God
forbid. What man in his right mind would knock back a free meal?
She bit back her frustration and tried another approach. ‘Well,
now I’ve got a problem. My boss – and your very stubborn best
friend – wants me to leave this with you since all you can cook is
toast, apparently.’
Dan’s eyes flashed and, for the first time, met hers.
‘Ry thinks I’ve been living off toast?’
She didn’t blink. ‘Ry seems to think you’re fading away.’ Lizzie
checked for evidence. She hadn’t quite noticed before that the faded
blue T-shirt was stretched tight over his broad shoulders and strong
arms, clinging to the muscles of his chest – and lower – as if the
shirt was wet. Fading away may have been a slight exaggeration.
‘Tell Ry to back off.’ Dan’s voice was tight in his throat, as if it
hurt to share it with anyone else. ‘No, fuck it, I’ll tell him myself.’
And then he took a step in retreat and slammed the wooden door
in Lizzie’s face. The force of it rattled the windows all along the
front of the little house.
Lizzie stared in disbelief. Asked herself if what had just happened
had actually just happened. Her first instinct was to push the door
open and unload every curse word she knew in response to his
rudeness. She’d worked in pubs a long time and had a ready supply
of true-blue Aussie expressions to choose from. Each of them quite
satisfying.
SOMEONE LIKE YOU 15

But when that rush of blood to the head faded, and it only took
a few seconds, she decided to trust her second instinct, which was
to leave him alone.
She left the food on the front door mat and walked away, back
along the esplanade to the pub.

Dan pushed aside the sheer curtain from the sea-sprayed front
windows, just enough to watch Elizabeth Blake’s arse as she walked
down his driveway and onto the street. Her swaying curves were
covered with a simple white T-shirt and sand-coloured skirt and he
knew the hat was hiding hair cut short like a pixie’s. It was blonde,
he remembered, but not the kind you got from a bottle. It was a
kind of a golden blonde. Maybe it was the southern sun that had
given it that shiny glow.
And then he pulled himself up. Why are you thinking about the
colour of her goddamn hair, McSwaine? Hell, he might be a sorry-
arse excuse for a man at the moment, but he wasn’t dead.
She was walking off into the distance with a spring in her step,
her arms swinging by her sides, the late spring sunshine all around
her like a spotlight. She looked like she didn’t have a worry in the
world and part of him envied her. Dan tried to remember how
long it had been since he’d felt like that. Too long. So long that he’d
begun to distrust the memories of his other life, figuring they were
coming back to him through a distorted lens.
There would always, from now on, be the time before the
accident. And everything after. And the stuff that came after, the
reality he was living now was, for the most part, shit. The only
bright spots in the past three months, besides getting out of hos-
pital, had been leaving his old life behind and buying the beach
house. Just as he’d hoped, it had given him a place to escape. A
place to hide.
When he took a final glance at Elizabeth and realised she was
empty-handed, he shook his head. She’d left the damn food. His
spine stiffened and he scratched his jaw. Since when did Ry and
Julia – or Elizabeth for that matter – think of him as a charity case?
16 VICTORIA PURMAN

When he’d moved down to Middle Point, he’d flat-out told his
best friend that all he wanted was time and space. He hadn’t wanted
Ry or his fiancée hovering around him waiting for some miracu-
lous recovery. He knew he would need time to get his head around
what had happened on that dark winter’s night. Or rather, what
had almost happened, when his car was slammed by a truck on the
winding road back to Adelaide.
In the days and weeks after the accident, Ry had done the best
friend thing and taken care of business. He’d said afterwards that
it was no biggie, that it was what best mates did for each other. Ry
had been at the hospital every day; he and Julia had taken charge,
flown Dan’s parents thousands of kilometres from Queensland and
fed and watered them while he recovered. He’d managed to con-
vince his mum and dad that he was okay. They had returned to
their caravan and were grey-nomading around the country, which
suited Dan just fine. Last time he heard from them they were in
Broome, in the far north of Western Australia. Which was about
the right distance away, he figured. Having his mother around fuss-
ing over him would drive him bat-shit crazy.
And now everyone else was starting to drive him bat-shit crazy.
Ry and Julia were still trying to take care of everything and that
included trying to run his life. Ry had refused to let Dan go back
to work as the Director of Special Projects at Ry’s company, Black-
burn and Son Developments, even though he was still paying him
his regular salary. That just didn’t sit right with Dan, considering
he’d been sitting around on his arse for the past three months. And
the happy couple had tried to pop around every chance they got
which, considering they lived in the glass palace next door, was way
too often. He hated seeing the worry in their eyes when he turned
them back at the front door, pleading whatever the hell lame excuse
he could come up with to be left alone. He didn’t want company.
Liked it better on his own, with music cranked up so loud that he
didn’t have to listen to what was flying around in his head. Ry and
Julia had persisted longer than he thought they would, but had
given up in the past month.
SOMEONE LIKE YOU 17

Funnily enough, the only person who hadn’t come knocking on


his door was Elizabeth. She hadn’t once visited him while he was in
hospital either. He hadn’t seen her in all the months he’d been back
in Middle Point. Until today. So why now?
And what did he care anyway?
Dan was simply going to have to tell Ry to fuck off and leave him
alone. Mates could say that to each another, he knew, and it would
be taken in the spirit with which it was intended. Which was, ‘fuck
off and leave me alone’.
Dan turned from the window and wondered where the hell his
phone was. He wanted to make sure Ry got the message, loud and
clear.

Lizzie squinted against the scorching wind and the burning hot
sun. It felt like a bushfire day, the air was tinder dry and ready
to snap, the low-lying hills behind the Point already transformed
from their winter patchwork of green fields to parched brown fire
hazards. It wasn’t unusual to see such a hot day in November, with
the northerlies blowing, gathering up every molecule of desert heat
from central Australia and dumping it in great gusty draughts on
Australia’s southern coast.
She looked both ways along the road for cars and then crossed
it, stepping onto the wooden path that cut through the shrubbed
dunes, covered with grey-green bushes, bright white seaside daisies
and coastal grasses. The tide was on its way in but there was still
enough beach for walkers, roaming dogs, beach cricket champions
and joggers. Out in the distance, committed surfers were waiting
for the final wave of the day.
Lizzie gazed out at the expanse of white beach that she loved
so much. The early evening sun shone so brightly on the water
that the waves looked like mirrors in the distance, too bright to
look at without squinting. Miles and miles of deep, sapphire blue
water before her and a brilliant shimmering southern Australian sky
above her. Home was very sweet, she thought with a satisfaction that
she felt all the way to her bones.
18 VICTORIA PURMAN

Slipping off her sandals, Lizzie jumped on tiptoes over the hot
white sand until she reached the water line, splashing her feet in the
deliciously cool waves. In the distance, the majestic stone pub she’d
worked in for years sat dramatically atop the rise of Middle Point,
its walls proud and determined, its windows casting their gaze over
the best view in the world. She was on her way back there to break
the news about Dan to Ry and Julia.
Although she’d actually laid eyes on the man that half of the Mid-
dle Point population was beginning to doubt actually existed, her
story would be pretty threadbare. When Dan moved to the Point,
locals were buzzing. The news that the hot guy helping Ry Black-
burn build the Windswept Development was moving into town
swept through town like a cool change on a hot day. The fact that he
was single and six foot, four inches tall made that news even more
interesting to a number of the women of the Fleurieu Peninsula.
The rumble of curiosity and interest in Middle Point’s newest
citizen, however, had faded in the past couple of months. Dan
hadn’t been seen at the pub. He was never spotted walking along
the beach, just a few dozen steps from his front door. No one had
seen him at the local supermarket or newsagent. It was as if he’d
moved in and disappeared.
Lizzie climbed the fifty stairs from the sand to the top of the
Point, where the pub lights had already begun to glisten like stars
in the twilight, and tried to figure out where to start. She pushed
open the heavy front door of the pub and was relieved at the rush of
cool air that hit her. Surveying the crowd, she did a quick estimate
of bums on seats. She saw a few regulars, some people she didn’t
recognise.
‘Lizzie!’
She turned at the urgent whisper of her name and walked over
to the dining area to the table where Julia sat with Ry. They both
stared at her with wide-eyed anticipation.
‘How’d it go?’ Julia asked. Her hands were tightly clasped
together, resting in front of her on the white linen tablecloth. Ry
leaned in to Julia, an arm around the back of her chair.
SOMEONE LIKE YOU 19

‘Well,’ Lizzie pulled out a chair and joined them. ‘That was mis-
sion not accomplished.’
‘What happened?’ Ry demanded.
‘Do you mean before or after he slammed the door in my face?’
‘You’re joking.’
Lizzie shook her head. ‘It was totally uncalled for. I was perfectly
polite. Oh and, Ry, you’ll be getting a phone call if you haven’t had
one already.’
‘Hell.’ Ry pulled his phone from the pocket of his tan-coloured
shorts. After a tap on the screen, he shook his head. ‘No missed
calls. I’ll get us a drink.’
When he was out of earshot, Julia leaned over to Lizzie. ‘How
did he look?’
Lizzie took a moment to get the description exactly right. ‘Like
the wild man of Borneo. And distinctly like someone who doesn’t
want visitors.’
Julia exhaled a frustrated breath. ‘We just want him back, you
know? Especially Ry. It’s killing him to see Dan go through this.
It’s been months now and we haven’t seen any change. And there’s
no way we can think about getting married when we can’t be sure
Dan will want to be there. There’s only one person Ry wants to be
his best man.’
Ry returned to the table with a chilled bottle of white wine.
‘I don’t know about you two, but I definitely need one of these.’
Ry poured the pale liquid into their glasses. They sipped while they
pondered what to do.
‘I warned you it was a terrible idea to send me,’ Lizzie said.
There was a none-too-subtle exchange of glances between Julia
and Ry.
‘I still don’t agree with you on that,’ Ry said.
‘I told you this morning. He’s your friend, not mine. You’re his
best mate Ry, and Julia, you spent all that time with him when he
was in hospital. I don’t know why you think he’d want an almost
complete stranger turning up on his doorstep.’
‘A complete stranger?’ Julia asked with raised eyebrows.
20 VICTORIA PURMAN

‘Well, a distant acquaintance. I barely know the bloke.’


‘We’ve tried everything else, Lizzie,’ Julia said softly.
‘Well, thanks,’ Lizzie replied. ‘You’re saying I’m your only hope?’
‘Yeah,’ Ry grinned. ‘You’re like our Obi-Wan Kenobi.’
‘I think that makes me Princess Leia,’ Julia grinned. They laughed.
They needed to. The three of them sat in silence, each wondering
how to help a friend who didn’t seem to want any help.
‘So, what did you do with the food?’ Julia asked.
‘I left it on the front door mat. I was under strict instructions
from my boss.’ Lizzie winked at Julia. ‘He’s such a tyrant.’
Ry gave her the smallest hint of a smile. ‘Lizzie, you know why
we sent you.’
‘What, my charming bedside manner?’ Behind the flippancy,
there was a strange tightening in her chest. She tried to keep her face
a blank. She didn’t want to understand what Ry was talking about,
didn’t want to remember flirting with Dan, just twenty steps from
where she was now sitting, on the night of his accident. Whatever
had been flickering in the air between them had been extinguished
in the car wreck. She hadn’t seen him since that night.
Julia reached for the bottle and refilled their glasses. ‘You know
why. When he regained consciousness, his first words were “pub”
and “Elizabeth”. You’re the one he asked after. Not me or Ry.’
‘Well.’ Lizzie blew out a sigh. ‘Take note of the order. “Pub”
came first because I was the last person he talked to that night.
Right over there.’ Lizzie pointed to the wooden bar. ‘It’s a trick
of memory, Jools, that’s all. You’re making something out of
nothing.’
Lizzie would never tell them that she remembered every word of
the last conversation she’d had with Dan before he drove off that ter-
rible night and was almost killed. It had been her last week pulling
beers before Ry had promoted her to manager and Dan McSwaine
had walked in, all sexy swagger and confident charm. They’d met
before that, as the best friends of lovers invariably do, but some-
thing about him had been different that particular night. Yes, they’d
shared a moment, a flirting, promising moment. And then, for the
SOMEONE LIKE YOU 21

thousandth time since, she asked herself the same relentless ques-
tions. Why hadn’t she made him stay for one more minute? Why
hadn’t she cracked one more joke, teased him one more time, so that
he left one minute later, so he would have been driving up Flagstaff
Hill Road one minute too late for the truck that careened out of
control and smashed into him?
She turned to face her friends, and a cold shiver moved across her
shoulders. ‘Dan would rather slam the door in my face than open
it and invite me in. I’m sure I’m the last thing on his mind. And
frankly,’ she added, straightening her back, ‘he’s the last thing on
mine.’ Lizzie hoped that if she said it enough times, it might turn
out to be true.
‘What can we do to help him?’ Ry asked, looking from Julia to
Lizzie and back.
Lizzie patted Ry’s shoulder. ‘He’s your best friend. Don’t give up
on him, no matter how much of a pain in the arse he is.’
‘Of course I’m not bloody well giving up on him.’ Dan said, his
blue eyes flaming.
‘Pushing him won’t help, you know that,’ Lizzie said.
‘You think I’ve been pushing him?’ Ry’s eyebrows shot up. ‘I’ve
just been trying to get him to man up and snap out of it.’
The two women turned to him in disbelief.
‘You told him to man up?’ Julia’s voice was a shocked whisper.
‘Not in those exact words.’
‘You can’t force him to do anything he doesn’t want to do,’ Lizzie
added. ‘Like take free food, for instance. He clearly wants to be
alone. So leave him in his man cave.’
And then Ry and Julia did that thing where they looked at each
other and had a conversation without saying anything out loud.
Lizzie bit the inside of her lip.
‘We need you, Obi-Wan,’ Julia said.
Lizzie replied with an adamant shake of her head and crossed her
arms. There were plenty of reasons to stay out of Dan’s life. Mil-
lions. Trillions. ‘I don’t have time. It’s nearly summer holidays. It’s
crazy busy here until February.’
22 VICTORIA PURMAN

‘What else can we do?’ Ry said. ‘We can’t just let him hole up in
that crappy old house.’
‘Hey, watch your mouth. That was my mother’s house!’ Julia
smacked Ry’s arm playfully.
‘Yeah and it’s still a crappy old house, JJ. But Dan seems to
love it.’
‘You’re crazy if you think I’m going to go over there and have the
door slammed in my face again. No freakin’ way, Jose. And,’ Lizzie
added, pointing her finger in the air to add dramatic effect, ‘he
keeps calling me Elizabeth, which I hate.’
Julia leaned over the table. ‘Will you just promise me one thing,
Lizzie? We have to head up to Adelaide for a few days. Ry has a
board meeting and I’m lunching with a potential client for my new
business. Will you take Dan something to eat?’
That was a low blow. How could Lizzie say no to her best friend?
‘Oh, for God’s sake.’
‘Just food,’ Ry added.
Lizzie set her lips in a tight line. ‘Food. That’s it. No therapy. No
hugs. No pushing.’
‘Great.’ Julia squeezed her hand. Ry shot her a satisfied smile.
Lizzie hoped they weren’t expecting miracles. Because in her experi-
ence miracles didn’t happen. They were like mirages on a hot bitu-
men road. Illusory and fleeting. When you reached out for them,
they vanished.

The next evening, a cool breeze came in off the Southern Ocean
and danced with the trees of Middle Point as Lizzie headed towards
Dan’s house. The sun was almost gone for the day, but there were
still crowds on the beach. The sand was dotted with sun shelters,
retro green-and-white striped canvas awnings mixed in with new
blue igloos. Families were gathered around eskies and the zinc-
creamed noses of toddlers peeked out from under sun-safe hats.
At least someone was still having fun today, Lizzie thought. She’d
worked a full and exhausting day at the pub and had aching feet
and tired eyes to prove it. Here she was on her way to Dan’s. Again.
SOMEONE LIKE YOU 23

The arrangement was simple and clear-cut. All she had to do was
drop off the food. Knock on the door, hand over the booty and
skedaddle as fast as possible. And if he slammed the door in her
face again? That was about him, not her. If it made him feel better,
good for him. She had a busy life and she wanted to get back to it.
Lizzie rapped three times on the door. Firm. Efficient. Business-
like. And waited.

Dan heard the knocking and rose slowly from his chair at the
kitchen table. A quick glance through the curtain and all he could
see was a vague shape through the opaque windows. It was already
twilight; the sun had dipped below the cliffs of Middle Point and
the curtain was closing on the day.
He scratched his beard. He hadn’t been expecting anyone and
more importantly, didn’t want to see anyone. He found a scowl, an
expression that was very useful at fending off whoever it was who
had good-neighbourliness or conversation in mind.
As he opened the door, he wasn’t sure what hit him first: the
cooling sea breeze that whistled in and teased the hair out of his
eyes or the smell of clean hair and flowers.
Elizabeth. With a smile so dazzling it made him blink.
‘Hi Dan.’ Lizzie propped her sunglasses up on top of her head.
The smile wasn’t just on her lips. It was in her eyes too. They were
big and as blue as the ocean over her shoulder, bigger eyes than any
he’d ever seen on any other woman. Her friendliness threw out his
game plan. There was no sign on her face that she was pissed at
him for his behaviour the day before, which he was relieved about,
because she had every right to be.
‘Hi,’ he said gruffly, clearing his throat.
‘Thought you might like some salt and pepper squid.’ Lizzie held
out the day’s delivery.
Dan looked at the bag in her hand. ‘More food?’
‘More food. Any problems with that and you’ll need to talk to
the boss.’
‘I’m not hungry.’
24 VICTORIA PURMAN

Lizzie shrugged her shoulders. ‘You might be later.’ And damn


her, she didn’t budge. The Dan he used to be would have come
up with an easy flirt, a tease and a cocked eyebrow when he had
a beautiful woman on his doorstep. And he wouldn’t have left her
standing there for more than ten seconds.
The man he was now found himself flat-out speechless. And as
they did the Mexican standoff on the front step, he realised the only
way he was going to get her to leave was to take the damn food.
With a silent curse, Dan stepped out of his house and onto the
front door mat. He reached down and slipped his fingers through
the handles of the bag. As he did, the back of his hand brushed
against hers, cool and soft, and he was so close to her that he could
see individual strands of her golden hair falling in a fringe across her
tanned forehead. And there it was again. Flowers. Her scent. Her
hair. Her baby blues and that dazzling smile. Something shifted in
him, only a degree, but there was a shift.
When she looked up at him, her smile was gone.
Before he could even manage a reluctant thank you, Lizzie had
spun around and was walking with great purpose along the ­verandah
and down the driveway towards the street. As she disappeared into
the sunset, he felt a pang of something in his gut, something so
weird that he held his hand there to quell it.
That look he’d seen in her eyes. It wasn’t what he’d seen in every-
one else’s face as they’d stared at him in hospital and in the months
since the accident, studying him like he was a science experiment,
watching and waiting for him to fall apart. When she’d looked at
him just then, her eyes bright and aware, he hadn’t seen pity or
worry or sympathy. No, it was something else.
He peered inside the bag to check out the food she’d left. It
smelled damn good. Maybe he was hungry after all.
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