Our Kind of Love (2 page)

‘Well? Is the coast clear?’ She looked furious and it was tantalising. Her arms were pulled tight under her breasts, anger all over that gorgeous face. Her hair spilled wildly all over her shoulders in a glossy trail and her eyes, like a black cat’s, were trained on him. Suspiciously.

‘Don’t worry. Lizzie’s in the shower. And if I know my sister, we’ve got at least half an hour. More if she’s washing her hair.’

‘That’s good. That’s very good.’ Anna turned, grabbed her huge handbag from the floor and slung it over her shoulder. He noticed it was almost as big as she was. ‘I’ve gotta get out of here.’

‘Anna, wait.’ Joe took a step to the left to block her path. She craned her neck to look into his eyes.

‘For what? I can’t let her see me here. Like this. With you.’ She eyed him up and down and swallowed. ‘Every time I’ve seen your sister I’ve humiliated myself. Last night she found me in the toilets crying and as if that wasn’t enough mortification for one weekend, if she finds me here now? With you?’ Anna threw her hands up in the air. ‘I’m outta here.’

Joe reached out to grab Anna’s wrist and held it, gently. It was so small that his fingers met around it and then some. ‘Hey, hold on.’ He moved closer, just a little. She didn’t look at him.

‘Anna.’ Joe couldn’t let her go like this, angry and embarrassed. ‘What happened to you yesterday? Why were you crying in the ladies’ last night?’

A flash of something terrible passed across her face and she shook her head. Her hair moved independently in waves with the motion. He fought back the weirdest urge to bury his fingers in it.

‘C’mon.’ He didn’t want her to go. Where was the rule that said a one-night stand had to end before breakfast? And anyway, he wanted her back in that bed and kind of urgently.

‘What?’

‘You don’t want to tell me what happened?’ His grip on her arm became a caress and he inched his fingers up from her wrist, past her elbow, to her bare shoulder.

She pulled her lips together and shook him off. ‘It’s a long story, Joe.’

‘I love long stories. Made a living out of writing them. C’mon Anna, we haven’t even had a cup of coffee. Give me a minute to get dressed and we can go and grab one. Or, if you want, we can go back to bed …’

She held up a hand to stop him. ‘Once was more than enough.’

He gave her a sly grin. ‘Think it might have been more than once.’

‘Stop it.’ Anna stepped around him, opened the door slowly and stepped into the hallway. From two doors along, they could both make out the sound of the shower and Lizzie’s off-key singing,
Dancing Queen
.

‘Anna, wait.’ Joe stopped, suddenly confused about what to do next. He didn’t want to be a bastard about it, but he wasn’t sure anymore what to do after a one-night stand. Man, he’d been out of circulation too long. Should he get her number in case he felt like hooking up later? Should he say he’d friend her on Facebook? ‘Where can I reach you?’

Anna closed her eyes and seemed to shiver. ‘You can’t, Joe. Ever.’ Her stilettos clickety-clicked on the wooden floor of the hallway and she fished around in her handbag before pulling out car keys attached to a giant red plastic heart, almost as big as her hand.

‘Well, I don’t know about you but I thought last night was pretty damn good. Maybe we could do it again sometime.’

‘Joe, it was … well, it was what it was. Listen to me. What happens in Middle Point has to stay in Middle Point.
Comprende
?’

Joe scratched his chin. ‘Let me assure you. I can keep secrets.’

Anna shot him a sad look over her shoulder. ‘It had better stay secret. This was a big mistake. I’m married, Joe.’

And then she was gone.

Joe flopped back onto Lizzie’s bed, threaded his fingers behind his head and kicked his long legs out until his feet dangled over the end of the mattress. The faint sound of the shower, and more of Lizzie’s singing, echoed through the house. He was feeling frustrated as fuck and horny as hell. The most unpredictable, surprising night of his life was over.

And he had no idea how he’d got here. He wasn’t looking to hook up with anyone. Hadn’t even been on his radar since he’d got back to Middle Point. A fucked-up marriage tends to do that to a bloke. While some men saw it as a new-found freedom and chased everything in a skirt, Joe felt burnt by it and had vowed to stay away from women for a while. For a long while. Truth be told, he hadn’t even wanted to go to the wedding, but being back in his hometown came with certain obligations, including being present at the wedding of his little sister’s best friend. He’d watched Julia grow up, had probably tormented her over the years as much as he had Lizzie. The evil twins, as he liked to call them, had been inseparable then and still were. And since his family now only consisted of him and his sister, he couldn’t say no to a wedding in which she was the bridesmaid.

And as parties go, it hadn’t been too bad. Ry had opened the pub’s wine cellar, so the drinking had been excellent. The wedding ceremony had been low-key and casual, and the food was pretty good, too.

And the company? Unexpected. Unbelievable. Unstoppable.

But unavailable.

I’m married, Joe
.

Anna’s parting words went round and round in his head. There was another thing they had in common. So was he, technically. Legally. In name only. His wife Jasmine has said goodbye to their marriage when she’d taken off with his best friend and walked out on him months before. As crushing blows went that had been like a wrecking ball. So he’d said goodbye to that part of his life when he’d driven out of Sydney last December and crossed the dry and dusty Hay Plain on his way back to South Australia.

There were footsteps in the hallway. The door opened and Lizzie peeked around, all little-sister curious. She was draped in a dressing gown and had a blue towel wound around her head. She looked scarily like Marge Simpson.

‘What are you doing in my room, Stinkface?’

Joe rubbed his hands over his eyes, trying to scrub away the memory. He’d dragged Anna there the night before, knowing it was a bit of a passion killer to bring a hot woman home to the bunk bed in the spare room. He’d seen Lizzie leave the wedding with Dan and knew she wouldn’t be needing her more accommodating queen-size bed.

And since Anna had stormed off, he barely had the energy to get up, thoughts about his own disaster of a marriage lying like last night’s dinner in the pit of his stomach. He found just enough enthusiasm to lie.

‘Give me a break, Mosquito. You weren’t here, so I decided to get a decent night’s sleep. For once.’

Strangely, Lizzie didn’t bite his head off. And unless he was imagining things, she was checking out her room, glancing from floor to pillow to window and back to his face. Like a detective inspecting a crime scene.

‘Good night last night?’ She twisted her lips in an attempt not to grin.

‘Yeah,’ he answered, trying to not make it sound like it actually had been.

‘I saw you getting into some no-strings-attached dancing with Anna.’

‘You did, huh?’

‘She’s a good dancer. Unlike you, you klutz.’

Joe scoffed. He’d been protecting his sources for years. Lizzie was dreaming if she thought she could get information out of him that easily.

‘Yeah.’ That was all he was going to give up. ‘But Mosquito,’ Joe sat up, swung his legs over the side of the bed and planted them on the floor. ‘I’m surprised you could see anything but the sun shining from Dan McSwaine’s eyes. Or was that his arse?’

She didn’t bite. ‘You all alone, then?’

‘As you can see.’

‘Mmm.’

‘Mmm what?’

‘Did you come home alone last night?’

‘Last time I looked I was the journalist around here which means I get to ask the questions, remember?’

‘Just wondering.’

‘And where the hell were you all night?’

‘No comment,’ Lizzie replied with an enigmatic smile. Hell, he didn’t need her to answer. He knew she’d spent the night with Dan McSwaine, who’d been working with her on the Middle Point pub reno. The guy who was Ry’s best man and one who, no doubt at some time in the future, would be his brother-in-law. He was sure of it and he was happy for Lizzie that she was going to get her happy ending. She’d waited long enough for it.

As for him, he didn’t believe in happy endings anymore.

Not since his own had crashed and burned.

So, Anna was married.

She’d obviously been after exactly what he’d been after. Great sex. Simple. Uncomplicated. No strings attached and no phone numbers.

Good. He wasn’t looking for anything else. Not anymore.

CHAPTER
3

‘What’s the week looking like, Gracie?’

Anna closed the back door of her suburban GP practice with a heavy thud, double-checked to make sure it was locked, and dropped her keys into her handbag. Her practice had begun its life in the 1960s as a three-bedroom cream brick house, but had been converted into a GP surgery by the previous owners. That was what she’d liked about it the first time she’d seen it; it still felt like a home. The back door and laundry led to a hallway, her consulting room, the reception area and the waiting room.

At the sound of her stilettos, Anna’s little sister popped her head into the hallway from the reception area and executed a simultaneous tongue cluck and eye roll.

‘What do you think? You ask me the same question every Monday and every Monday the answer is exactly the same. Chock-a-block. And,’ Grace checked her watch, ‘at nine o’clock that phone will go crazy. The whole world gets sick over the weekend apparently and can’t possibly see anyone else but Dr Morelli,
pronto
.’

Grace turned to the window overlooking the suburban street and adjusted the white venetian blinds, directing the bright morning light to the ceiling. Outside, cars already lined the street, filled with patients who were always fifteen minutes early. Grace knew to keep the front door locked until precisely 9 a.m., or she’d have to start serving breakfast.

Grace smiled and started her familiar sing-song refrain. ‘You’re so popular. Everyone wants you. Dr Morelli this. Dr Morelli that.’

‘What can I say, Gracie? I can’t help it if my patients love me.’ Anna stood in the doorway, surveying her sister’s domain. The consulting room was hers. But this space, where Grace met and greeted patients, organised accounts, answered the phone, and basically ran the show, was like the helm of a ship and Grace was it’s captain. Anna had hired her five years before when she’d bought the practice and it had been a brilliant move. Grace was organised, fastidious, loved patients and spoke fluent Italian. In other words, she was just like her big sister.

‘Did you get to Luca’s birthday lunch at Mum and Dad’s yesterday?’ Anna asked.

Grace rolled her eyes. ‘You think I could get away with a no-show as well as you? Of course I was there. Five courses. Mum went crazy.’

‘What did Nonna say about me not being there?’ Nonna Alessio, her Mum’s mother, was a hearty eighty-four years old and possessed the uncanny skill of spotting an unmarried man at fifty paces.

Grace began counting on her fingers. ‘Let me recap. Nonna’s worried you’re working too hard, that it means you and Alex won’t have time to make babies. Mum wants you to eat more ’cos you’re fading away. Dad says you need to buy another house. And Luca has a weird rash he wants you to look at.’

Luca. The baby of the family. The six-foot-two baby. And that made her think of babies. Anna shivered, despite the early warmth of the summer day. She would never have babies with Alex. And suddenly it hit her.
Thank God I’m not pregnant
. They were words she’d never imagined she would think, not after everything she’d been through.

Four weeks ago, she’d discovered Alex had been unfaithful to her numerous times with too many women to count.

Three and a half weeks ago, she’d kicked his guilty arse out of the house.

And two days ago, she’d done the most irresponsible, irrational and illogical thing of her entire life. Something so utterly unlike her that she still had trouble believing it had actually happened. For a fleeting half second, she played with the idea that someone at the wedding might have spiked her drink.
Yeah, right
.

‘Anna? You okay?’ Grace was staring at her suspiciously.

‘Just a busy weekend, that’s all. Didn’t get much sleep.’ Anna swallowed and forced a smile.

‘So how was the wedding down in the middle of nowhere?’ Grace sat down, crossed her arms and began her familiar chair swivel. Back and forth, back and forth. It was Grace’s thing. It seemed to rev her up to cope with the onslaught of patients about to descend.

‘Middle Point.’ Anna cleared her throat. ‘It was at Middle Point.’ Anna rearranged her handbag on her shoulder, checked her watch, anything to avoid looking into her sister’s eyes. ‘It was beautiful. The bride was stunning. The groom was gorgeous. It was a lovely, summery night.’

‘Many people?’ Grace twisted and turned on her chair.

‘Forty, maybe.’

‘Only forty?’ Grace’s red lipsticked mouth dropped open in disbelief. ‘Don’t they have any friends?’ In the Morelli family, forty was a Sunday lunch, not a party to celebrate the beginning of a life with the one you love. In the Italian community, a wedding was hundreds of people and relatives you barely knew and eight courses and six bridesmaids and pouffy meringue wedding dresses and dry ice on the dance floor and bomboniere on every plate.

Anna remembered her own wedding with wistful agony.

She wasn’t ready to come right out and tell Grace about her visit to Slutsville. Not yet. That would be like putting it on Facebook – and promoting the post. For God’s sake, she hadn’t even told her sister about Alex and the divorce. It had been so hard to turn up every day to work and hide the truth from Grace. Anna’s little sister was her go-to girl for everything, from which shoes to buy to which magazines they should stock in the waiting room. But this? It was too big. Anna still wasn’t sure she’d be able to talk about it without raging and sobbing, without admitting how stupidly foolish she’d been for so long. How blind she’d been to the truth.