Page 71 of Kiwi Gold
“What happened?” Lachlan asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t ask. But that photo, of the mum holding her—it’ll help, later. It’ll remind her of that moment when she felt her. How light she was in her arms, and how heavy, that one time she held her. The close-up I’ll do will help her remember her baby’s face, too, and she needs to remember that. I did the pose you saw on my wall as well. The baby in the dad’s cupped hands. That one might make him cry, later, and crying is healing.” At least I hoped it was, because I was doing it. Just a few tears, making their sneaky way out. “And I realize,” I said, wiping them away, “that this isn’t much of a way to start a date. You don’t even have to tell me.”
He said, “D’you want to know what I think right now?”
“Yes. No.” I laughed, a watery sound. “Yes.”
“I think,” he said, “that you’re extraordinary. And I’d like to hold you.”
He didn’t say anything else. He waited. I took a breath, then said, “Yes.”
He didn’t grab me, all the same. He put a hand on my face. It was a big hand, and a hard one, but it was gentle on me, his thumb stroking over my cheek. I turned my face into his palm, and he muttered something, and then he had his other arm around me, and my arm was around him, too. My hand on his back, feeling the warmth of him through the T-shirt, my forehead against his shoulder.
It was like the wall, where he’d held me up, had shielded me, and it was nothing like that. His strength was comfort, and it was safety. The smell of clean cotton, and another scent, warm and salty-clean as the sea, that must be Lachlan. His hand was stroking over my hair now, his palm against my head, gentle still, and I could swear that I could feel his heart beating under my cheek.
Some men know how to talk. How to charm their audience, how to carry them along. Lachlan knew how to be still. How to be solid.
How to be there.
31
ICY HOT
Lachlan
It felt right, holding her, and I realized why I’d wanted to carry her that night in her nightdress, and that other night, when she’d hurt her ankle. In other words—any time I’d been alone with her. There was a way she felt in my arms that I couldn’t quite explain. Sexual, and sometimes not, because there was protectiveness there, too. Holding her was pure liquid temptation, and also a reminder of what a bad idea it would be to give in to it. Confusing, especially at this moment.
Of course, the moment didn’t last long. Within about sixty seconds, she was sitting up again, brushing her palms over her cheeks, and saying, “Right. I’m ready for the beach now, if you still want to go.”
“I want to go,” I said.
So we did. The day was still surprisingly warm when we stepped out of the car at St. Clair beach, and she said, “I may regret it. No, Iwillregret it, but I’m going in the water this time. I need some … some release. Hang on.”
She went into the toilets to change, and I waited with my duffel in my hand and didn’t take off my shirt. I wasn’t going to rush my fences.
I need some release.
She came out in her togs. And no T-shirt.
All that dark hair was in a thick plait now, reaching to below her waist. For swimming, that would be. As for her togs … they weren’t what I’d expected. Call it that. She looked at me, laughed, and said, “Why are you staring? I told you it wasn’t going to be a bikini.”
“Uh … yeh,” I said. “You did.” And smiled. “Nah. You look excellent.”
“It’s a one-piece,” she said.
“Yeh, but …”
“But what? Wrong? How?” And when I hesitated, “I need to know, Lachlan. Going to the beach is good, date-wise, right? In public, so it’s safe, and also cheap. Not as much pressure to talk, or to be romantic, or whatever it is that makes a man nervous. And if I don’t wear sexy togs, I don’t give the wrong impression, right? Or is it the full revelation that isn’t working? I’m not very curvy, obviously, and it’s a bit hard to hide that in togs. Should I wear a coverup, or something, until I actually get in the water? Disguise the fourteen-year-old figure a little longer?”
I said, “Could we at least get away from the toilet block before I get myself in trouble again?”
She looked startled, then laughed, seemed to lose some of her nervousness, hitched her bag onto her shoulder, and said, “Yes. That would probably be better.”
Down by the water, then, the beach curving away endlessly in that way beaches did. No surfers out here today, because the sea was too calm. Laila dropped her bag, then stretched, her arms over her head, one hand pulling at the other wrist, her back arching hard, and sighed.
I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. I watched. I also watched as she dropped her hands to the sand so she was bent double, then pedaled out her legs, an action that made the back of the togs ride up over the curves of her bum. She might be built on a smaller-than-usual scale, but everything curved in and out in exactly the way it should, and that tight little backside was …
She thought that thing made her look like a fourteen-year-old? How? The one-piece costume was cut high on the hips, had straps as skinny as any bra, and was constructed like a corset. Some sort of fabric-covered wire outlining her breasts, then swooping down on both sides of her waist in a graceful inward curve that was probably designed to make the body inside look thinner. In her case, perfectly unnecessarily, because there was fine-boned, and then there was Laila. The thing was black, as noted, but that wasn’t what was giving me so much trouble. It was that it was shiny, made to look like crocodile skin. That bad-girl texture, that corset look, that hair, those eyes, and that body? Thatbent-forwardbody?
