Page 73 of Muddy Messy Love

“Ridiculously.” I grin, and his dimple flashes.

Cole runs a hand down my thigh, giving it a quick squeeze. “Thanks for coming.”

“Thanks for inviting me.” Memories of that invite rush back in. Beth’s painting thudding against the wall. His splayed hands pinning mine. The feel of him inside me. I shiver.

Cole hits a blinker, then slows down to turn. Stacked bluestone walls sentry his driveway, holding open a rusty cast-iron gate. Gravel crunches under the tyres, and emerald trees canopy the trail with a glow of feathery leaves until we curve further up the grassy hill.

A sleek timber cabin comes into view, sitting at the crest. Glass spans its entire front wall, and a butterfly-winged roof sits lightly on top as if ready to fly. An elevated deck juts out the front. A pointy oversize eave shades a rattan suite, so I turn in my seat to admire its view. Misty, lush green hills. Endless trees. Tiny houses dotted across paddocks. I gawk up at Cole. “Thisis your house?” Only architects live in places like this.

Cole shrugs. “It’s peaceful up here. The opposite of Benedict’s.”

The garage stands off to the right and lights up when the panel door shudders down behind us. Cole kills the engine and unlatches my seatbelt with a shy smile. “The stairs are right over there. Follow me.”

We climb twelve reeded steps up to the jutting deck, and the view expands. Beyond the rolling pastures, in a faraway blue haze, the rugged Yarra Valley Ranges swallow the horizon, looking too glorious to be real.

Cole ushers me through the glass front door into a warm open room with polished concrete floors. A black elliptical fireplace hovers above the ground in the middle, diffusing a rich, smoky scent, and rumpled tan leather sofas—worn in like a beloved old book—slouch around it. A matte black kitchen runs across thefar end wall, oozing masculinity, and cedar panels clad a soaring ceiling that Beth would simply adore. “Wow,” I whisper.

The corner of Cole’s mouth twitches with a smile. “I’m going to lose the suit. Make yourself at home.” He heads towards a door that presumably leads to his bedroom, but rather than follow him, I amble to the fireplace and hover my hands over the top. Framed photographs hang on a narrow section of nearby wall. Black-and-white portraits of Hannah chuckling with ponytailed hair. Ella with a cheeky cookie-thief grin. A man I recognise as Cole’s Uncle Gerard. And another lady—an older version of Hannah—with wavy dark hair and pale eyes that shine with wit. Their mother. She has to be. Hannah’s resemblance is uncanny.

A low bookshelf stands near the sofas below three canvas paintings, so I mosey on over. Antique scales sit on top, balanced with brass weights, next to a world globe that I gently spin. Non-fiction books line the shelves. Law. History. Philosophy and art. Some old, some new, but all ordered by height and shelved by topic. The man is fastidious.

Cole returns dressed similar to me—dark jeans, knitted jumper, hardy boots, and a puffy black jacket. Not the sloppy home attire I typically choose, but he looks so fine my chest flutters. I nod towards the middle canvas. “That’s a beautiful painting of Ella. Who did it?”

Cole’s smile falters. “My mum.”

My heart hiccups, and I look back to the painting. Ella isn’t much younger than she is now. I shake my head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know it happened so recently.” His mother and uncle—all in the space of what—a year? The poor guy.

Cole drops his gaze to the floor and buries his hands in his jacket pockets. He shakes his head. “It wasn’t. Mum passed away twelve years ago. Ovarian cancer.” The information spins around my head but fails to make sense, and a sad smile tugs at Cole’s mouth. “When she was really ill, towards the end, a littlegirl kept visiting her dreams. Mum wanted to paint her, so I set up an easel across her bed, and this is what she painted. Hannah has two more.”

My lips part, and I stare at him, speechless, then study the painting again. A lump balls in my throat. “That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard,” I say, glancing back to him.

He smiles at the ground, then meets my eyes. “While we have daylight, I’d love to show you the property. We’ll need to scrounge up kindling too.”

Rolling with the change of subject, I arch a brow. “Kindling?”

“For the bonfire.”

My eyes widen. “We’re having a bonfire?”

“Tonight.” He shrugs. “If you want. Best way to stargaze. And safe,” he adds with a wink.

I smile. I’ve never been to a bonfire. School camps always happened in summer amid bushfire restrictions and brown snake warnings. “Do you have marshmallows?”

He steps closer and squeezes my shoulders, quirking a brow. “Of course I have marshmallows.”

I climb to my tiptoes and press my lips to his. “Let’s go, then.”

So far as anyone can own nature, Cole owns a forest. Or more aptly, hectares of bushland, sporting gum trees and other Australian natives of all shapes and sizes. The tall and sturdy. The twisted and wrangled. Smaller ones more twig than tree.

Sticks crack under our boots as we hike over bumpy roots and fallen branches. The scent of eucalyptus and damp winter soil soaks the fresh air, and I fill up my lungs, hoping to take some home. There’s something magical about this place. A quiet peace and conscious presence. It’s like the earth absorbs all worries and emits calm through the soles of your feet.

Cole stops to gather some thin branches and bundles them into a giant blue Ikea bag that could easily fit Alex and Ella. I pass him several more, then dust off my hands on the back of myjeans. In the distance, a black rope dangling from a tree catches my eye, so I squint to better see. “Is that a…zip line?”

“Um, yeah,” Cole says with zero excitement. Counter to it, in fact.

“Does it work?”

His steps veer left, away from the contraption. “I presume so.”

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