Mr. Unforgettable (6 page)

“Beth…Beth Sloane.” Doubt entered the woman's voice. “It is you, isn't it?”

Her childhood name…Liz opened her mouth to agree. “No,” she said instead. “If I look familiar it's probably because you've seen me on election billboards. I'm Elizabeth Light, the mayor.”

“That could be it.” Liz tried not to flinch as the woman's curious gaze lingered on her face. “The likeness is amazing.”

“Really?” Liz turned back to her car and replaced the petrol cap. She'd been expecting this day for years; now it had come, she couldn't deal with it. “I get that all the time. Apparently I have doubles in Bluff, Christchurch, Hamilton….” She rattled off a few more towns and cities, nowhere near Auckland. “Does nothing for the ego I can tell you.” Shock made her ramble; she'd finally recognized this woman. “You're passing through?” she asked as casually as she could.
Please God, be passing through
.

“No, my husband and I just moved here. I'm Rosie Cormack, by the way.”

Reluctantly, Liz took the woman's outstretched hand, hoping her childhood acquaintance wouldn't notice her cold fingers. “Welcome to Beacon Bay, Rosie. So what brings you to our neck of the woods?”
Tell me you're isolated on a dairy farm somewhere
.

“I'm a counselor at Camp Chance. Though today I'm a de facto decorator.” Ruefully, Rosie scraped at a paint spot on her T-shirt. “I've been picking up extra paintbrushes in town.”

“Camp Chance,” Liz repeated. It was the last thing she expected.

Wariness came into Rosie's eyes. Obviously she'd already met a few detractors. “That's right…well, I should be getting back. Luke's waiting on these.”

It was the perfect moment to say, “I'm heading there myself, so see you soon.” Or take a deep breath and admit, “Rosie, I am Beth Sloane…Light is my married name.” But Liz didn't. Couldn't.

Instead she said goodbye, paid for her petrol, got back into her car and fastened her seat belt. And sat. Deeply ashamed…and relieved she'd gotten away with it.

A horn tooted behind her, reminding her to move. Starting up the engine she pulled forward into the car park and picked up her cell phone. The incident had proved one thing. She wasn't ready for the camp. With trembling hands, Liz sent Luke a text message.

 

Sorry, can't make it. But the cavalry is coming.

 

At home, she dropped her keys on the polished mahogany hall table, then hesitated. From the lounge the mantle clock chimed the hour with silvery bells, the sound trembling through the house.

Coward
.

Liz climbed the stairs to her bedroom, dominated by the dark, intricately carved four-poster. She'd lightened its solemnity with white silk-and-satin bolsters, crisp Egyptian-cotton sheets, the bed overhung with billows of snowy chiffon.

Her princess bed, Harry had called it, completely at odds with the rest of their furniture, which was classic comfortable.

When he'd died she'd forced herself to clear his books, his clothes, his golf clubs…determined not to make a shrine to him. But she'd kept one thing. Opening her closet, Liz pushed aside her power suits.

Her fingers closed on merino wool and she pulled out Harry's favorite sweater, the faded, misshapen garment he used to haul on for winter gardening, the one she'd always nagged him to throw out.

I just need a little more time
.

Her grip tightened as she buried her face in it and breathed deeply.

Sometimes if she tried really, really hard she could still evoke the faint smell of wood smoke, the light astringency of his aftershave, perhaps even a whisper of warmth.

She stood there a long time but today, it didn't happen.

 

“D
AMMIT
, I'm driving down.”

“In your Ferrari, I suppose?” Mobile phone pressed between ear and shoulder, Luke picked up his spanner and tightened the bolts on the bunk he was assembling in one of the new dorms. “Yep, that'll make the locals feel like helping out the poor little rich boys.”

“Fine,” Christian said grudgingly. “I'll borrow Kezia's car.” Despite his predicament, Luke grinned. His partner's wife insisted on driving a station wagon, a newer model than the one she'd once pursued Christian in, but still affectionately derided by her husband as an H.O.S…heap of shit.

“We've been over this. I'm the ex-foster kid who got us into this. You're the guy in the black hat.” Christian Kelly had spearheaded the original hotel proposal that had generated such heated opposition.

“Then I'll ask Jord to fly back from Sydney to—”

“What? Come be diplomatic and unobtrusive?” Months earlier, the
Beacon Bay Chronicle
had raised concerns about Jordan King's fitness to be a camp trustee after a respected columnist questioned his ethics. Though the disparaging story had been disproved—and Jordan was shortly to marry the journalist—they'd decided it was politic for him to stay away until the camp opened. “Besides, you two need to keep earning the big bucks to pay for this.”

They'd been naive about the level of sponsorship the camp would attract and were way over their original budget.

Luke hesitated before he added, “If the camp doesn't get new sponsors soon—”

“I'll tell the tobacco companies we'll put a cigar in every kid's welcome pack,” Christian finished for him. “One problem at a time, buddy. Right now, I'll organize a crew of friends and relatives to come down and help.”

“Uh-uh. Not until we've exhausted local options,” Luke insisted. “I don't want to perpetuate the ‘them and us' mentality.”

His friend gave an exasperated sigh. “I don't like this, Luke. You're taking on too much alone. We're all in this together, remember?”

“Yeah, mate, this is temporary.”

“How many months have you been saying that?”

“I'll keep you posted,” Luke promised and hung up.

Christian switched off his mobile and, frowning, looked across his wide veranda toward the blue sky over the flat, golden fields. If the Ferrari was out, then Luke definitely wouldn't approve of the helicopter.

He heard his wife's footsteps on the wooden deck, then she wrapped her arms around his waist and leaned her cheek against his back.

“You're worried about him, aren't you?”

Feeling her warmth, some of Christian's tension dissipated. “Maybe it's the sensible thing to stay away, but it's almost as if he doesn't want us there.”

One hundred meters down to his left, a duck came to land in the pond, webbed feet skidding across the surface of the water. The golden willows he and Kez had planted around it last autumn barely lent shade to the waterfowl hunkered under it.

“His reasons are sound, aren't they?”

“Yeah, but…” Staring over their land, Christian tried to articulate his growing sense of disquiet. “He's working too hard and he's alone too much. His Auckland visits are getting fewer and they're all about Triton business or the camp trust. When was the last time he came to stay here? Or the last time he, Jordan and I played pool and talked shit in a bar?” Kezia said nothing, a sure sign she had a theory.

Christian turned and cupped her face. “Okay, out with it.”

Her golden-brown eyes widened. “It's a busy time with the camp, things will settle down.”

“I'm waiting.”

“Isn't his divorce final this month?”

“My God, has it been two years already? But what's that got to do with anything? After what Amanda did to him, he'll be painting the town red.”

She pushed a strand of long hair behind her ear. “You and I are playing happy families, Jordan's about to get married…”

“Which is exactly why we've been trying to fix Luke up lately.”

“I don't know if you and Jord are the best—Hey!”

Christian, relieved, had dropped his hands to her sweet ass and squeezed. “It's not easy,” he admitted. “Luke has some cockeyed notion he's better off alone.”

Kez gave him her old schoolteacher look but didn't remove his hands from her butt. “Huh. Where have I heard that cockeyed notion before?”

He pulled her closer, nuzzled her soft, dark hair. She smelled of rosemary and redemption. “The most fervent saint is always a reformed sinner.”

“I didn't reform you,” she protested. “You corrupted me.”

His hold tightened. “So how about showing me what you learned before Maddie wakes up from her afternoon nap?”

He expected her to say no, they were in the middle of revising a new business plan for their other baby, the Waterview Hotel, and papers were spread across the dining room.

Instead she whispered huskily in his ear, “Clear the table.”

L
IZ'S CANCELLATION
annoyed Luke. But his disappointment annoyed him more.

He hadn't anticipated her offer of help, but he'd been ridiculously pleased and—okay—relieved when she'd made it. He didn't like the niggle of doubt he felt every time Liz made an excuse not to visit camp. Luke liked her; he wanted that to be uncomplicated. Because if it was uncomplicated he might reconsider acting on their attraction.

He looked at her text message again. The cavalry? What the hell did that mean?

Shoving the cell phone back in his tool belt, he positioned the new bunk and hauled over another assembly kit, trying not to think about the twenty-five bunks still boxed in the other dorm.

Rosie stuck her head around the door. “I picked up the extra brushes…any more recruits arrive?”

“Delores Jackson.” He knew she was there to snoop, but he'd decided beggars couldn't be choosers. She was supposed to be cleaning windows, but last time he'd checked he'd found her inspecting one of the storerooms. Unrepentant, she'd commented, “Four-ply toilet paper—no wonder you're over budget.”

He'd probably kill her before the day was over.

“And unfortunately,” he added, “we also lost another couple of staff to the bad steak pie.” Thank God he hadn't been here for lunch or he'd be sick as well. Now it was all down to him and the vegetarians.

Rosie's face fell. “Rats, that cancels out the two I recruited in town.”

One step forward, three steps back
. Luke feigned cheerfulness. “More will show up.”

Her expression told him she didn't buy the Little Miss Sunshine act, either. “I'd better get back to painting.” At the door, she paused. “Do you know Mayor Light very well?”

As well as she wants me to
. Luke laid out the frame of another bunk. “Yeah, she's one of us.”
I think
.

He meant a camp supporter but realized they were talking at cross-purposes when Rosie frowned. “That's surprising. I got the impression she'd been keeping her past a secret.”

Intrigued, Luke put down the pieces of wood. “You know her?”

“Yeah. She almost talked me out of it but Beth always had this gesture when she was nervous and trying not to show it—”

“Beth?”

“Elizabeth. We called her Beth.”

Beth…Elizabeth…Liz. “Go on.”

“She grips one hand at the wrist with the other. Like this.” Rose showed him and Luke recognized the gesture. Liz had used it a lot since she'd realized she was attracted to him. “What do you mean, ‘she nearly talked you out of it'?”

“She pretended she didn't know me.”

“Okay, now I'm really confused.
How
do you know her?”

Her brow wrinkled in puzzlement. “You said you knew she was one of us?”

Understanding finally dawned. “You mean…”

“Yes. She and I were in a foster home together.”

Councillor Bray stuck his head in the door. “Where do you want us?” As Luke stared at him, he added impatiently, “Come on, man, we haven't got all day.”

 

A
T NINE
the next evening, Liz sat in her car in Luke's driveway, engine idling, and considered her options. There weren't any.

She had to learn to swim—Kirsty had snowballed the event into a major fund-raiser for schools. All the kids were getting sponsors and a local radio station was putting up ten dollars for every meter Liz swam. Reluctantly she turned off the ignition and got her kit from the trunk.

But did Luke still want to teach her?

Or was he another in a long line of people she'd disappointed by not showing up yesterday.

That morning Snowy had beamed benevolently from the front page of the
Chronicle
, his white hair haloed by the sun streaming in the window behind him as he made the camp beds. Snowy and the Seventy Duvets was the headline.

Kirsty was furious. “‘Altruistic mayoral candidate, Snowy Patterson'…bullshit! Where the hell were you?”

“I wasn't feeling well, I had to go home.”

Kirsty had immediately apologized. “Sorry, but it's not fair. You did all the organizing and Snowy takes all the credit.”

Others weren't so understanding.

“You looked well enough when you were asking for volunteers,” Maxwell had said acidly. He'd been photographed with a toilet brush and wasn't happy.

Liz's allies on council had also felt let down. “Even if you'd taken a couple of painkillers, showed your face for half an hour and
then
gone home,” Susan Blackmore had confided in the cafeteria. “Snowy won some serious brownie points by default.”

It had been a hard day, bracketed by two sleepless nights, but the worst was still ahead. Steeling herself, Liz knocked on the door.

“It's open,” Luke called. She found him in the pool, a splashing shape in the deep twilight. A wash of lazy jazz spilled out of the speakers. “Mind putting the pool lights on?”

Liz flicked the switch and the water shimmered into viridescent relief. Cast into shadow, his expression was impossible to read. “Thought I'd get some training in while I waited. Come on in.”

“Oh. Sure.” Self-consciously, Liz slipped off the tracksuit covering her lime bathing suit. Should she mention yesterday first? As she hesitated, her left foot caught in the pants and she grabbed the back of a deck chair.

“Are you too tired for this, Liz?”

God, yes, to the bone
. “No, I'm fine…you?”

“I've always been a night owl. It's the early mornings that kill me.”

She stepped down into the bright water, barely cooler than the sultry summer night. In one corner of the courtyard, a shrub bloomed among the tropical plants.
Cestrum nocturnum
, Queen of the Night, its small, trumpet-shaped white flowers only released their heady perfume after dark.

Luke picked up the flutter board at the pool's edge and green light stippled the broken surface of the water and dappled his pectorals.

“Today's lesson is about trust.”

Liz sank a little lower in the water. Mentally, morally and politically she supported the camp but emotionally she was a traitor.

Luke tossed the flutter board aside. “Trusting yourself. I want you to do torpedoes—arms stretched out in front, kicking and holding your breath—without using a board.”

“But that's going backward.” Using the flutter board, she'd already advanced to turning her head to the side and taking big breaths. The next stage was adding the arm movements she'd been practicing independently. The book said so. “Losing the flutter board comes last, surely?”

“Think of this as a confidence check.”

“My confidence is fine.”

“You always look confident,” he agreed. “But we won't know for sure until we take away the buoyancy aid. And I'd rather test that now while we still have time to make adjustments.”

“I'm…sorry I didn't make it yesterday by the way.” There, she'd said it.

“Hey, you more than did your part. Councillor Maxwell told me you were the recruiting officer. Of course, he was complaining about you not showing up, but later I heard you weren't feeling well.” His voice was very gentle. “Sure you're okay now?”

She hadn't been sick and didn't deserve his sympathy. “I'm fine,” she said abruptly. “Let's do this.”

The water rippled as Luke moved closer. In the luminous green half light his irises were a shifting, shimmering gray.

“When you're ready.”

She took a deep breath and launched herself forward, her fingers automatically grappling for the board and not finding it. In a panic she stopped kicking and stood up. “I'm sinking.”

“You're not.”

Liz tried again. Again the fear sent her stumbling to the surface after a few kicks. Breathing hard, she faced him. “This is ridiculous. I still need the flutter board.”

“Not for this, you don't.”

What did he want from her, this man? Didn't he know how hard she tried? Didn't everybody know how hard she bloody tried? “This isn't building my confidence, it's undermining it,” she snapped. “We only have five lessons and two weeks of daily swimming practice to get this right.”

“And you're doing really well,” he soothed. “All credit to you, Liz, I didn't think you could do it. You're a gutsy woman.”

“Damn right I am. You think this is easy?”

She was near tears and didn't know why. He was being so kind. And then suddenly she did know why. Liz got out of the pool, wrapped herself in a towel.

“Rosie told you, didn't she? Who I was.”

Who I
was
? That bothered Luke. Why was this woman disowning a past that only made her achievements more impressive? “Yes.”

She looked down at him, her expression cool. Her pale hair, darkened to the color of wet sand, dripped water over her tense bare shoulders and made splotches on the burgundy towel.

“If you want details, you're going to be disappointed,” she said crisply. “I don't discuss my childhood.”

Yesterday he might have called her withdrawal coldness. “Did Harry know?”

The temperature plummeted below zero. “He respected my decision not to talk about it.”

A mistake, Luke thought, but kept that opinion to himself. “You know we have a similar background?” He'd shared a sanitized version with Jo Swann of the
Beacon Bay Chronicle
yesterday and the article had appeared next to the picture of Saint Snowy.

“Yes, I read it.” Her lip curled. “Maybe I should do the same, it might win me a few pity votes.”

“That was my motivation,” he said evenly. “Might as well screw some benefit from a shitty childhood.”

Liz stumbled to a chair and sat down. “I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me.”

“What have you been telling people all these years?”

“Only child, both parents dead…Adopt a tragic expression and they back off pretty quickly.”

Now he understood her ambivalence about the camp—it was a skeleton on her doorstep. “No wonder you never accepted an invitation to visit.”

But she wasn't listening. “Who else has Rosie told?”

“No one.”

She lifted her chin. “I'm a private person and I want to stay that way. No pity votes.”

“Rosie won't tell anyone else.” He lifted himself to sit at the side of the pool, feet dangling in the water. “You know, Camp Chance is very different from the institutions we grew up in. Let me show you, Liz.”

But she was already shaking her head. “You deal with the past your way,” she said. “I'll deal with it in mine. And I choose to forget.”

“But you don't forget,” he said softly. “Do you?”

She clasped her wrist. “Can we get back to the swimming lesson now?”

“Of course.” Luke let the subject drop.

Liz got into the pool and started practicing with a terrified determination that was painful to watch. Knowing better than to interfere, he made comments where necessary, occasionally jumping in to correct her body position, mostly sitting on the side, watching her.

Beth had kept to herself, Rosie had said. One of those kids who got noticed by being quiet, being good. Luke had been a troublemaker himself—it had certainly got him attention, too. The wrong kind. His thoughts became bleak, so he refocused on Liz, who was readying herself for another torpedo.

Already too slim, she'd lost another couple of pounds, due more, he suspected, to a punishing schedule than daily swim practice. He made a mental note to buy some energy bars…get some food into her.

She got to the other end and stood up, turned to him relieved. “I did it.”

“I think we should increase the lessons to three times a week.” Making the deadline would be touch-and-go, but if anyone could do it, Liz could.

When he hauled her out of the water, she kept hold of his hand. “Are we back on track?” she said. Luke knew what she was really asking.

Her breasts were still heaving from her recent exertion, the nipples clearly outlined under the wet Lycra. Luke picked up her towel and wrapped her in it. She needed a friend more than she needed a lover. “Yeah, Liz, we're back on track.”

She stiffened. “I don't want your pity, either.”

“That's good because this chess game is a decider and I have no intention of going easy on you.”

“You want to play
now
?”

They needed to normalize their relationship, so he ignored the dark circles under her eyes, the sway of exhaustion. “That's our deal, isn't it?”