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“Aaron, wait.” She had to run to catch up with those long legs of his. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize. I thought you’d be happy with my surprise.” Happy that she’d remembered his birthday, but she didn’t add the last part.
“Well, I’m not,” he growled. “I don’t like surprises, and I don’t like remembering my birthday. It’s just one more day on the calendar. Nothing special.”
Whoa, where had that come from? It obviously had something to do with him leaving Dalgety on the day of his birthday. But what? Perhaps she should’ve checked with him, before embarrassing him—and her—in front of everyone like that. But how was she to know?
“Tell me why you hate your birthday so much? It has something to do with you leaving without saying goodbye, doesn’t it? I need to know what happened. Dammit, I deserve to know what happened.” They’d tiptoed around it long enough. It was time Julie extracted the truth, once and for all. She put her hands on her hips and glared up at him.
He cocked a scarred eyebrow in her direction. There were a multitude of emotions swimming through his eyes, she could almost see each one come to the front and then be replaced by the next one, but she waited, not going to be fobbed off this time. The last emotion to register in his eyes was hard to decipher. Was it resignation? Mixed with a dash of pain?
“Fine. But I don’t think we should do it here,” he said in a low voice, gaze drifting to the crew now re-taking their seats around the fire. One or two of them cast a questioning glance in their direction. “Shall we take this to the caravan, instead?”
“Sure,” she replied curtly, and followed his shadowy form to the outskirts of the camp. He stopped next to the large river gum where they normally set up their swags. It was dark out here, away from the fire and the battery-operated lamps they used in the mess tent. Now and then, she caught flashes of reflected firelight in Aaron’s eyes, but his face was full of shadows, and she could no longer read what was going on in his mind.
He leaned back against the large trunk and crossed his arms. Julie felt a nervous tickle of anticipation run down her spine. She was finally going to find out his secret. Discover why her whole world had been turned upside down.
