Page 15 of Coming Home to Roseford Villas
Shaking her head, Rory took another sip of the red wine that Leo had served with dinner. ‘It’s not that simple. I need something to live on while I do that, and it’s difficult to walk away from a profession I’ve spent my working life in. But I’m not sure I can do both.’
Leo regarded her with his serious, brown-eyed gaze, and Rory felt her pulse quicken. ‘The Rory I knew would have followed her heart,’ he said.
‘It’s not so simple for me,’ Rory replied, mildly irritated that Leo saw things in such binary terms. ‘I can’t live on fresh air, and I don’t have the kind of funds, or options, that you do. I’m in a flat share that I’m more than likely going to have to leave in the next few months, and I don’t have a permanent job. I saved everything to come here for the summer, but once that’s over, I’ve got to go back to York and earn some money, or I can’t pay my rent.’
‘I get that, I really do,’ Leo said. ‘But there has to be some way you can work it out.’
‘You always were an idealist,’ Rory smiled, despite her irritation. ‘It’s nice to know that part of you still exists.’
Leo laughed, but it sounded rather brittle. ‘Sometimes it’s difficult to be an idealist when your ideals have come crashing down around your ears, but I do my best.’
Intrigued, Rory probed further. ‘So why aren’t you still in Australia running some hotshot law firm and living the, er, Australian dream?’
Leo’s face became serious, and Rory wondered if he was trying to avoid answering the question. But just as she was about to add a, ‘Sorry, it’s really none of my business,’ he replied.
‘If you’d suggested five years ago that would be my life, I’d have told you that you were probably right,’ he said. ‘But sometimes fate has a habit of smacking you on the side of the head just when you think you’ve got everything in nice, neat rows, and that’s exactly what happened to me.’ He winced, and suddenly got up from the table. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ve got some pretty hefty issues with my spine these days and I can’t sit still for too long.’ He went to grab her dinner plate to take back to the kitchen, and Rory stood too, to help him.
Having declined his offer of dessert, she nodded as he filled up both of their wine glasses. ‘So that was a pretty cryptic answer you just gave me,’ she said as they stood looking out over the darkening skies that surrounded the garden. ‘What exactly did fate do to mess up your perfect life?’
‘Oh, it wasn’t perfect.’ Leo gave that brittle laugh again. ‘Far from it, but I didn’t realise that at the time. I thought I’d achieved everything I needed to, but it turned out that wasn’t true. And it wasn’t until I lost it all that I realised none of it meant anything anyway.’
‘So that’s the second cryptic thing you’ve said to me in the space of five minutes,’ Rory observed. ‘The Rory Henderson who dated the Leo McKendrick of twenty years ago would never have stood for that!’
‘Is that so?’ Leo smiled at her. ‘What about the Rory Dean of two decades later?’
Rory paused before replying gently. ‘Rory Dean would like to know what you’re alluding to, Leo, but she wouldn’t want you to tell her anything that you didn’t feel comfortable sharing with her.’
‘Christ, and now we’re speaking in the third person!’ Leo laughed, and this time it was a heartier, more relaxed sound. ‘Tell you what,’ he said, ‘so long as you don’t mind possibly beingdive-bombed by the local horseshoe bats, let’s get some fresh air, and I’ll tell you all about it.’
‘Now there’s an offer I can’t refuse,’ Rory replied. And when Leo’s hand brushed hers on his way out of the patio doors and onto the terrace outside the dining room, it seemed the most natural thing in the world for her to take it.
19
Night was falling softly around them as they lingered on the terrace. The scent of honeysuckle, underpinned by the heavier, herbier aromas of lavender and the late-flowering clematis wafted and weaved, doing battle with the freshly cut grass. It had been another warm day, and the night promised the same for tomorrow.
Rory sipped her wine and looked over at her little chalet, which lay in darkness at the bottom of the garden. It had only been a few days, and she was already starting to regard it as hers. She hadn’t even thought that much about Honeysuckle Cottage.
‘You look miles away,’ Leo observed as he stood quietly by her side. She could feel the warmth of his hand in hers, and the slight heat of his body.
‘So, are you going to tell me why you’re really back here?’ she asked. ‘Or am I just going to get another round of verbal gymnastics?’
Leo let out a long sigh, and his breath brushed past her as he did.
‘It’s not a great story,’ he said, ‘and it doesn’t really have a happy ending, or any ending at all, I’m afraid.’
‘Life doesn’t tend to,’ Rory said. ‘And as I said, if you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine, but if you do, I’d like to hear it.’
‘You always were a good listener,’ Leo replied. ‘Weird as it is that you’re here, now that you are, I’d like to tell you.’
‘I’m all ears,’ Rory said softly. She turned away from the garden view to look Leo in the eye. She remembered just how much she’d loved his eyes and now she knew she was at serious risk of losing herself in them once more. Trying to bring herself back to shore, she gave him a smile. ‘You were saying…?’
Leo smiled back at her, but it was tinged with sadness. ‘I thought I had it all,’ he said as they turned back towards the garden. ‘On paper, and to the outside world, I had a great life. Brilliant career, partner in a top Melbourne law firm, a wonderful wife, a great house… the only thing missing, as my folks kept reminding me, was kids. They were constantly hinting that grandchildren would make their lives complete, and, to be honest, I was hoping that it would happen, too.’
Rory tried not to struggle with the most unexpected pang of jealousy. Having children and the perfect life with Leo was something she’d dreamed about when she was a teenager, and it seemed odd to hear him talking about it now. Which was, of course, ridiculous.
‘So I’m guessing it didn’t?’ Rory replied, trying to focus on Leo’s story, rather than the emotions she was feeling as he was telling it.
Leo shook his head. ‘Corinne, my wife, wasn’t wild about the idea of kids. She’d always been so fixated on her career, and she wasn’t too big on the whole family thing. She didn’t have the greatest relationship with her own parents: they’d never really wanted kids, and they’d often told her and her sister exactly that, during family rows. And there were a lot of them, believe me!’
