Page 97 of Tempting as Sin
Lily had a sudden, horrifying image of Willow driving them both over a cliff.If I can’t have him, nobody can.Ridiculous, except Willowhadsaid that. “He…is?” she asked faintly.
Willow laughed. “Nah. Not like you’re thinking. No worries. He’s my cousin. I may have had a bit of a crush when I was a teenager, but that got weird pretty fast, and I got over it. It’s just that it’s hard for an ordinary bloke to measure up, isn’t it? Always there to listen, and he doesn’t just listen. He guesses, or he knows. He’s a freak. An empath, probably, whatever that actually is. Looking at you the way he does, too, like you’re what he cares about most. And looking athimisn’t exactly horrible.” She sighed, shot a laughing look at Lily, and said, “All right, I could still have a bit of a crush. It’s still weird, though. We’ll suppress.”
“Oh,” Lily said. “Good. I probably shouldn’t have watchedFatal Attractionon the plane. I was trying to toughen up. Always a bad idea. I’m not tough.”
Willow laughed again. Shewaslike Rafe, Lily guessed. They both laughed more easily than they frowned, loved more easily than they hated, and swam through life like they were happy to be here and the water was fine. “No worries,” she told Lily. “I promise not to boil your bunny.”
When they left the motorway and turned towards the coast, things started to get Australian. Wattle and frangipani and palms, tree ferns and figs, climbing vines and staghorn ferns. All of it lush and green even in winter, nothing missing but the flowers.
“Beautiful,” Lily said. It was absolutely inadequate, and it was absolutely true.
“Wait,” Willow said. A couple more miles, a few more turns, and she was driving to the end of a road lush with palm and fern, only some high wooden fencing and a few discreet rooftops betraying the houses behind, then hitting a garage-door opener and pulling the car into a two-vehicle garage, all you could see of the house that, Lily calculated, must face east, towards the sea, if this was—afternoon?
It was definitely afternoon. The sun set in the west, and the sun was behind her. The house faced east.
She still felt lightheaded from the trip, the change. When she stepped out of the car, she felt more so. Warmth and light and gentle currents of air. The call of birds, so many of them, she couldn’t pick out just one. Trills and sharper notes, and a peeping underneath.
“Tree frogs,” Willow said. “Not tropical here, not like north Queensland, where we were before, but the subtropics are beaut, aren’t they?” Lily had pulled out her bag herself this time, and Willow used a keypad in a stone wall to open a gate, then headed up a winding path of crushed stone.
It was nothing that Lily had expected. None of it. If she’d thought about Rafe’s house at all, she’d assumed it would be Malibu-style beach. All glass walls, shaded balconies, soaring ceilings, and too-large white spaces overlooking the ocean. Perfect, cold, and jammed up against its monstrous neighbor.
“This is…what?” she asked Willow as she bumped her suitcase up the three wide steps to the wraparound veranda. Every single room opened onto it, because the house was only one story, and every single opening was an archway made of carved wood. Decorous and comfortable and elegant, and absolutely…pleasing. It was about materials and proportions and livability, and it worked.
Willow opened the door with a keypad. “Seven-nine-six-four-one,” she told Lily. “Same as the gates. I wrote it down for you inside. Maps in there as well, and so forth. Do everything or do nothing, whatever suits. And the house? It’s a Queenslander. Built near Brisbane originally in the late 1800s, fell into some disrepair, and was moved down onto this lot maybe twenty years ago by somebody with more money than sense, although it’s lovely, of course. Rafe bought it four years ago. It had been done up, and he did more. He loves this house. He says he can breathe here.”
It was airy, not stark. Warm and bright, not cold. Andactuallyperfect. The floors were tropical hardwood restored to shining perfection, and the ceilings boasted arched details at every interior doorway, too, carved by an expert hand. A tropical cottage, a luxury villa, and an escape better than any spa.
Willow took Lily down a hallway to the back and opened a door onto a bedroom. It wasn’t huge, and it wasn’t over the top. It was just…wonderful. A wood ceiling painted white in beach-cottage style, and those shining wood floors. A huge bed covered in spotless, crisp white linens and all the pillows you could ever want. Two enormous white towels rolled into cylinders and crossed over each other at its foot, with a pink orchid laid on top like a blessing. A window seat made for dreaming, upholstered in soft fawn, and windows covered only by natural linen shades, drawn up to the top. A couple oversized framed photos on the walls, one of a lighthouse and the sea, nearly night, the light still glowing, turning the water a blue you wanted to wrap yourself in. The other of a rainforest track, winding into the corner of the picture like it was inviting you to step in and explore.
The photos were signed, and she stepped closer and looked.
Willow.
“You’re not just a caterer,” she told Willow. “You’re a photographer.”
“Aw, well,” Willow said. “Everybody’s a photographer. Flattering that Rafe likes my stuff, though.”
Lily didn’t answer, because she’d gone to the glass doors and opened one. “Folds back,” Willow said, demonstrating. The doors did fold, accordion-style, onto themselves until the entire wall was open to the veranda outside. “Rafe screened the veranda out the back,” Willow went on, “which isn’t so usual, but it’s bloody nice at twilight when the mozzies come out, let me tell you.”
It was paradise out there, beyond the ultrafine mesh screens that cast the view beyond in a hazy light, like a soft-focus picture. A retreat of trees, plants, and birdsong that looked unplanned, plucked out of the rainforest, and was anything but. A long, rectangular pool sparkling with crystal-blue water. And beyond it, a path that led temptingly into the trees, much like in the photo. Surely, it led to the east. To the sea.
“Track to the beach,” Willow said, seeming to enjoy Lily’s speechlessness. “You need to use the same code to get back in through the gate, so it’s good to remember it. Go down there at sunset and you’ll be gobsmacked, and sunrise could be even better. Nowhere in the world, for my money, more beautiful than Byron Bay, but I could be a wee bit prejudiced. Swim in the pool, though, not the sea. The salt water’s the same, but the rips and jellies are conveniently missing. There are books in the library, food and wine in the fridge, and a steam shower in the ensuite bath that’ll take the travel aches away. Use the aromatherapy. It’s awesome. The cleaner’s stocked some bath products for you, too. Rafe told her you liked florals.” She smiled, then didn’t. “Did I say something wrong?”
Lily tried to laugh, but couldn’t. She’d choked up all the way, and the insistent tears had sprung to her eyes. “It’s just…” She waved a helpless hand. “Too beautiful. And things have been a bit…hard. Lately.”
Willow’s face softened. “Loser ex. I saw that. Never mind. He didn’t deserve you, but now you’ve got Rafe, and he’s the best.”
“He is,” Lily said. “I never knew there were men quite like that.”
Willow gave her a hug, and Lily let herself be wrapped up. Just for today. “There aren’t,” Willow said. “But there’s Rafe. Somehow. I may have to boil the bunny after all.”
Two hours later, and two in the morning in Montana, and Lily was standing on a gentle curve of white-sand beach. The wind had picked up, the clouds piling up on themselves over the sea, and she pulled her sweater around her and let the air wash her clean.
The sky was pink and azure blue, soft as a baby’s blanket, and even as she watched, it deepened. The pink grew bolder, the blue shaded into purple, and gold tinged the clouds. Changing every second, until the sky was a blaze of rich color. A painting, except that no painting and no photo could possibly capture this. The crash and hiss of foam-crested waves against a white-sand beach that curved out of sight, stretching for miles, like you could never walk it to the end. The salt of the sea kissing your skin and the wind taking your hair, playing with it like a lover. Gentle, and wild, too, just under the surface. Whatever you wanted it to be, because that was the kind of lover you had. Because you were so very lucky.
You could run, and she did. You could forget about your sweater and your problems and yourlife.You could stretch your arms out into the wind, let your feet take wing, and run like the wind could pick you right up off the sand until you were sailing in the sunset sky, part of the water and the sky and the approaching night. Until you were soaring under the pale white light of a fingernail moon, steering by the pinpricks of the Southern Cross, guided there by the twin blue and white beacons of Alpha Centauri and Beta Centauri. The horse-man, set in the sky by Zeus and free at last. Just like you.
You could ride, your hair mingling with the centaur’s, and let him take you away. You could set yourself free.
