Burning Love Page 5

  She didn’t owe anyone an explanation. “Look, Caleb, I’m sorry our evening got cut short, but, right now, I think it’s better that you go.”

  “I’m not going anywhere, not while you’re like this.”

  She tossed up her chin. “What am I like?”

  “I don’t know. Hurting. Angry. Grieving. Confused. Probably all of the above. It’s normal. It’s the shock.”

  She snorted, because of course the news of the loss of a parent or even two must be accompanied by earth shattering grief. But she would admit to the anger. She was angry that her father had lived so many years when she had wished him dead. She was angry that her mother had as good as fed her to the lions. “You don’t know the first thing about how I feel. Now, will you go?”

  “Is that what you really want?”

  “Do I really need to say it again?”

  He sighed, like she was a problem child who was refusing to eat her vegetables rather than a grown woman who knew her own feelings and what she needed, but he got up from the sofa.

  “All right, I’ll go. But I want you to know, you don’t have to face this all yourself. When’s the funeral? I’ve got leave owing. I’ll come with you.”

  “You’ll what?” She snorted. “What on earth are you talking about?”

  “I’m assuming it’s going to be held in Singapore, so I’ll come too. And not as a lover. But as a friend, to support you.”

  She shook her head, not making sense of any of it. “Why would you even suggest that? I didn’t go to your grandfather’s service.”

  “It’s hardly the same thing. That was only Brisbane and I had my whole family there. You knew that. But this time, you’ll be going alone. And I want to come with you—”

  She shook her head. “You don’t understand. I don’t need anyone to hold my hand.”

  “Ava—”

  “Because I’m not going.” She read the shock on his startled features.

  The disbelief. The incredulity. And the satisfaction of all those things was worth another swig of her wine.

  He shook his head. “Don’t be too hasty and decide something you might regret. Whatever happened, they were still your parents.”

  She snorted and just pulled the bottle closer so she could top up her glass. “Do not talk to me about what I should or should not do. My father died to me a long time ago. My mother with him. I’m over mourning their loss.”

  “But, there must be other family? Won’t they need you there?”

  “No.” She stared blankly ahead, feeling the cold sweep of history hollow her out inside. It was always there, the barren hole lurking below the papered surface of her existence. Only now she could feel its yawning presence like the aching legacy that it was. “There’s nobody.”

  “Oh, Ava.”

  She looked up at him, and the compassion in his eyes nearly brought her undone. Compassion she neither wanted nor needed, and making her want to lash out.

  She didn’t want anyone’s pity. “I’m happy your family has given you more reason to mourn their loss than embrace it, but don’t expect my family to be the same. Now, please go.”

  He stood and she felt a tide of relief flow over her. “I’ll go,” he said. “Can I call you tomorrow?”

  “Why? You’ll see me at the show.”

  “You’re not seriously thinking of going?”

  “I made a commitment. I’ll be there. And now, do I really have to ask you again to leave?”

  She heard the slide of the glass door and the crunch of his footsteps heading towards the driveway. She waited until she’d heard his car start, the roar of the engine, and then the sound of him disappearing out the driveway. And only then, when she could hear nothing but the rustle of gum leaves in the sleeping bush around her, did she open her eyes. Her empty glass stood before her and she reached for the bottle once again, and then stopped, and got to her feet.

  It wasn’t wine she needed right now. It was her work, and the time to think.

  Time to revisit the past and nail that fucker shut.

  And time to think about Caleb, and what she was going to do.

  He hated leaving her that way. He drove down the windy road through the hills towards his flat in the suburbs feeling frustrated and impotent, all the while hating that once again she’d shut him out, excluding him from what it was that mattered in her life, as if he meant nothing. As if he couldn’t be a friend when she was hurting.

  And that was what he was. Maybe he didn’t know when it quite happened, but he was damned sure that somewhere along the line they’d gone from being more than just casual fuckbuddies, to friends.

  So why did she push him away?

  Because of this damned arrangement of theirs? This casual hookup thing they had going? This no obligation, no commitment sex whenever it suited arrangement, based on mutual need and mutual convenience and nothing more, and the judges’ decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into?

  Well, that had been fine and dandy once before. That had suited them both. But twelve months on, he wasn’t sure that was how he saw it anymore. He wasn’t sure that was how he wanted it. Damn it, she meant something to him. He cared about her.

  And, hell, maybe, just maybe, it was time to tell her that. Without freaking her out and without making her think he wanted more. He didn’t want to risk what they had when what they had was amazing.

  But now he knew she was hurting, and he wanted to help.

  He was worried about her, that was all.

  That was all.

  Ava never worked if she’d been drinking. The level of realism in her art demanded her one hundred percent attention, a keen eye, and a skilful, sober hand. But tonight wasn’t about realism.

  Tonight was about emotion.

  Unleashed, it poured in surround sound from the speakers, just as it poured pure and potent from her brush onto the canvas in broad slashes of paint until the canvas was a sea of darkness, an ominous, cave like room in a palace turned prison.

  And there, in the centre, lay the princess, huddled on her side, her legs pulled up, her head curled into the arms crossed at chest, her fairy tale life in tatters.

  Ava stood back then, letting her pumping heart slow, and finally gave way to the tears. But not for her dead father. Nor for her dead mother. But for the girl on the bed who could make no sense of it.

  The girl who felt betrayed.

  Abandoned.

  Alone.

  And no longer a princess, but an empty shell.

  She blinked away the icy cold tears that streamed down her cheeks and turned to stand in the doorway, looking out over the black of the sleeping gorge to the perversely cheerful twinkling lights of the city beyond, and breathed deeply of the warm night air.

  Was it any wonder she felt at home here, with the gorge and its deep, secret folds?

  She took one last look at the canvas and sighed, knowing she needed to sleep if she was going to front up for a day painting faces at the show. Now she could.

  Naked, she slipped into her bed with its ruffled sheets that still smelled of Caleb and sex. God, she would miss the sex.

  He’d blown into her life on a blistering summer day and promised her nothing more than what she needed, hot sex and lots of it, and he’d delivered.

  But lately lines seemed to be blurring.

  And he was a good man. A strong man. A man who should have children one day and who would have by now, but for the mess of a failed marriage. This thing with her couldn’t be long-term. He needed a woman without a past who could give him long-term.

  She turned her face into the pillow, drinking in his scent.

  Yes, she would miss the sex.

  The weather forecasters had got it right and they couldn’t have had a better day for the annual Ashton Show. It had been forty degrees in the shade last year and every CFA and MFS guy there along with every local had one eye scanning the surrounding hills, and at least one nostril primed for smoke. Last year it had been so damned h
ot, it wasn’t just the snags on the barbie that had been sizzling.

  But today promised to max out at a near perfect twenty-eight degrees Celcius under a cloudless sky and that promised to bring the show’s biggest crowds ever. Already before lunchtime they were doing brisk business with the barbeque. There was something about the smell of sizzling snags on a barbie that sure pulled the punters in.

  Richo was wrangling the bacon and eggs on the next barbeque while Caleb tackled the sausages and onions. A couple of the junior members of the CFS crew were busy handling the orders and the cash before sending the customers Richo and Caleb’s way to pick up their food. And just across the wide driveway that circled the football oval, across the groups of people wandering between the stalls and attractions around the perimeter, sat Ava at her small table stacked with face paints and a couple of chairs for her patrons, under a shady fold up umbrella.

  She was busy today. Pretty much flat chat, and a lot busier than last year when they’d met, making Caleb wonder when he was ever going to get a chance to get a word with her. He couldn’t leave things the way they were when they’d parted last night. He’d spent sleepless hours last night worrying about her and thinking about how wrong it was, the way they’d parted, and he couldn’t bear to let it go any longer.

  “Caleb!” Richo called.

  “What?” Caleb came to, to find three teenaged boys waiting in front of his barbeque.

  “Two sanger sandwiches with onion,” Richo spelt out beside him. “And one without.”

  “Oh, sure,” he said, and quickly loaded up three slices of bread with sausages. “Help yourself to sauce or mustard,” he said, as he handed the plain one over before piling the other two with onions.

  “Awesome!” said one of them, clearly an onion fan, before reaching for the sauce. “Thanks.” The three moved off, munching on their sausage sangers, but a sudden rush of orders meant it was a good ten minutes before Caleb had a chance to check out what Ava was doing again. She’d finished on the little girl she’d been painting and was handing her the mirror so she could study her new face.

  He couldn’t make out what she said, but he could read her delight on her brightly painted face when she turned to her mother alongside. Another happy customer, he thought, as the recently painted butterfly took off excitedly for the next attraction, the vacated chair already taken by the next customer in line.

  Damn but she was busy. But maybe if he could catch her eye, she might spare him five minutes? She had to have a break some time.

  “Earth calling Caleb.”

  “What is it now?” he growled, because he checked and there were no waiting customers this time.

  Richo chuckled, flipping eggs. “Boy, have you got it bad. Is she your girlfriend then?”

  “What?”

  “Come on! The one you were whistling about the other week. Is that her? Only you’ve been staring at her with puppy dog eyes all morning, and so I figured...”

  “I have not been staring. I need to talk to her, that’s all.” And apologise for the dumb as shit way he’d tried to tell her how she should react to the news of the death of her parents.

  It still blew him away that she’d been so blasé about their deaths, but she’d been right. He’d been reacting from his own worldly experience and it had never occurred to him that hers might have been different. Very much different by the way she’d reacted.

  Meanwhile Richo just raised his eyebrows and flipped some bacon. “If you say so, buddy.”

  “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Well,” he said, adjusting the gas, “if I didn’t know better, I reckon the last thing you’ve got on your mind is talking. I’d say that’s a look of lurve you got going on there.”

  “Bullshit!” Caleb scoffed, topping up the sliced onions on the plate to prepare for the next rush. “She’s a friend, that’s all.” Nobody was supposed to know anything different and nobody would. They hadn’t gone public with their relationship because it wasn’t like it was a normal relationship. It was convenient for them both, that was all. Not to mention that it was nobody else’s damn business. “I’m just worried about her.”

  Richo glanced through the strolling families and groups. “So what’s wrong? She looks fine from where I’m standing. Real fine. One good-looking woman all right.”

  Caleb bristled, not sure he liked the idea of somebody else openly admiring Ava. But Richo was right. Her Eurasian good looks and her smile and the way she engaged with her small clients made her magnetic to children and adults alike. She came across as if she didn’t have a care in the world. That was part of the problem. He looked over at his mate, wondering how much information was too much. And then he figured he’d had a gutful of keeping quiet and if it distracted Richo from all this ridiculous lurve talk... “Look, this is just between you and me right? But Ava just got word yesterday that her parents died in a car crash.”

  “Sheesh. Both of them? That’s rough. Pretty amazing of her to even turn up today in that case.”

  “I know.”

  They both studied the smiling Ava a few seconds longer, Richo tugging on his ear lobe before he got back to work with his slide. “You sure wouldn’t know she’s just been dropped a bombshell like that. Nothing worse than a death in the family and having a funeral or two to look forward to.”

  “Yeah. Only she’s not going.”

  “No? Her own parents, too.”

  “You see what I mean? Who doesn’t go to their own mother and father’s funeral?”

  Richo shrugged, momentarily distracted as he filled an order for two bacon and egg sandwiches. “Bit weird, though. Most people go to catch up with the rest of the family.”

  “There’s nobody else, she says. No family. No friends. No nothing.”

  Richo shook his head as he cracked a couple of eggs into rings on the sizzling plate. “Must have been a hell of a family bust up, in that case.”

  “Yeah,” he said, chewing his bottom lip, “that’s what I was thinking.” But only after he’d gotten home and played it over in his mind a few times and realised was an ass hat he’d made of himself, telling her what to do like he knew all about it.

  “Maybe you should try talking to her about it?”

  “She won’t and now she’s pissed off with me and I really need to talk to her, but she’s so busy painting faces.”

  “Well,” said Richo, pointing with his tongs in Ava’s direction, “there’s your answer. Get in the queue.”

  Caleb blinked and looked at his mate for all of two seconds. “Here,” he said, handing over his own tongs and pulling off his apron. “Cover for me.”

  Thirty seconds later he’d bought his ticket and was duly queued up in Ava’s lineup. He didn’t care he was the oldest one in the queue by a quarter century at least, not if it gave him an opportunity to talk to Ava.

  She glanced up at the line as she finished off her current customer, her brows knitting when she saw him, before turning her attentions to the young boy at the head of the queue. “What would you like to be today?” she asked with a smile, as he sat down.

  “A pirate,” the boy said.

  “Good choice,” he heard Ava say, as she set to work.

  One pirate, a tiger, and a rainbow princess later and it was Caleb’s turn. He sat down on the kiddie-sized chair, praying it would take his weight.

  “What are you doing, Caleb?” she asked, keeping her voice low as she washed her brushes.

  “Getting my face painted, like everyone else in this lineup.”

  “You’re not really here to have your face painted, though, are you?”

  “Hey, I paid five bucks over the odds for this. I’m getting my face painted, just like everyone else in this queue.”

  She sighed, looked at the kids lined up behind him. “Some kids just never grow up,” she told them, as she reached for her paints. “Okay, so what do you want to be?”

  “Oh.” He hadn’t figured that far ahead.

  One year
ago he’d similarly had no idea and she’d chosen to paint his face so full of dark shadows, he’d come out looking uncannily like Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine. He’d liked the look, but that was then and it would be a waste not to rock a different look this time.

  “I’m not sure,” he said. “I’ve seen a few superheroes wandering around today though.” And that was the truth. A fair few Batmans and a Spiderman or three. He could live with being any other kind of superhero. “How about you choose something appropriate.”

  She raised her eyebrows at that and gave him his first smile, which he took as a win. Richo had been so right.

  “Okay. Close your eyes for me.”

  A few seconds later he felt the damp of the sponge against his skin, and he knew she’d be applying a base colour. “So what are you going to paint me as?”

  “Wait and see.”

  He could wait. Especially if it gave him the opportunity to talk to her. “How are you feeling today?”

  “Fine,” she said, without telling him anything at all, the sponge patting at his eyelids and over his eyebrows.

  “I was worried about you last night.”

  “There was no need to be worried. Sit still.”

  It was no hardship sitting still. It allowed him to concentrate on the feel of the stroke of her sponge and then the brush against his skin, the long sweeping lines, the short stab of dots. He had no idea what superhero she was painting him up as, but he had Ava sitting before him and right now that was all he cared about. He didn’t have to crack open an eyelid to know she was right there, intently staring at his face as she worked. So close he could smell the verbena scent of the soap and shampoo she favoured. And after a couple of hours with nothing but the smell of frying bacon, onion, and sausages in his nostrils, that was enough right there to give him a hard-on, even without the sensual stroking of her brush. And coupled with the brushstrokes... His whole body hummed... “You know what that brush of yours does to me, don’t you?”

  Her hand stalled, mid-stroke. Yeah, she knew, because he’d told her the first time they’d spent the night together.