Page 106 of A Home Among the Snow Gums
‘Um … Tom?’
‘Hannah.’
Oh, god. She’d misjudged this, again. What was wrong with her? Why did she keep thinking she was seeing more in Tom’s eyes when he looked at her than was truly there?
She pushed the glass of merlot—her glass, the one that hadn’t spilled because she wasn’t the one who’d been horrified by some pesky declaration of love—and the ridiculousness of her sleeves distracted her for a moment. Were they her arms, wrapped in hot pink velour, the hands at the end of them shaking?
They were. And she realised it had been a long time since they’d shaken that way. A long time since she’d opened her heart up and let herself really feel stuff.
And Tom wasn’t taking that away from her.
He pulled the shard from his hand and wrapped a serviette around the gash. If she’d been a better person she’d have offered to stitch it.
‘Hannah, I haven’t changed my mind. I can’t be what you want me to be.’ His voice was remote, his face even more so.
‘Tell me straight: do you think I’m trying to get you to help me have a baby? Because, yes, sure, there was a time when that was all I was thinking. That’s not what this is about now. I want more. I want you now.’ Should she be on her knees? A pink marshmallow begging on the Krauss front room floor? Was that what it would take for him to believe her?
‘Even so.’ He hesitated. ‘Perhaps I need to explain something to you, why you may have felt I’ve been sending’—he shrugged—‘mixed messages your way.’
‘Please. Explain away.’
‘Do you remember, ages ago, you asked me who I took to my school formal?’
‘Mary Frankton.’
‘Uh-huh. You remember why I said I took her?’
She frowned at him. ‘You were—how did you describe it?—too chicken to ask the person you really wanted to go to prom with.’
He nodded. ‘The person I wanted to ask was you.’
‘You wanted to ask me, Hannah Cody, to your school formal?’
‘You were a high school crush of mine but, you know, I was—am—Josh’s mate. You don’t go out with your mate’s sister. At least, not in high school you don’t. That’s why I kissed you that day in the stables—for old times’ sake. I haven’t felt that way about you for years. I’m sorry if I misled you. I’m a guy. Guys are jerks; you of all people should know that.’
The rush in her heart flashed from wonder to hurt. She pushed back from the table. ‘Me of all people … I cannot believe you could be so cruel.’
‘Hannah.’
‘Yes?’
The silence stretched long enough for her heart to crack.
‘Goodnight,’ he said at last. ‘And thank you for the oxygen. My father’s life is safe because of you.’
Yeah. It was. Too bad her own life was only just being held together by one hideously pink fluffy bathrobe.
Four hours later, Hannah still wasn’t asleep. Her brain was the first problem. It kept swirling thoughts up at her, waiting to file them away in piles labelledTo Do, orRegret Forever, orOK, You Can Keep This One.
Thoughts like: she no longer cared about that dumb photo. It was a memory from childhood that had no bearing on her current life. Her adult life.
Thoughts like: she’d forgiven herself for falling apart afterwards.
But what was still swirling about unresolved and misunderstood was why was she getting it so wrong, trying to interpret what Tom was thinking.
She had always had a theory—and maybe this was because she was addicted to that show about the dog whisperer with the warm, trusting, brown eyes—that being in tune with animals gave her an advantage about being in tune with humans.
Well, her theory sucked.
