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Then he messaged Dan back.
Shanti, dude.Shanti.
A bit of yoga speak would surely get up Dan’s nose.
Not wanting to be early, he slowed his pace and regretted leaving his briefcase at work, because now he didn’t know what to do with his hands.He shoved them nonchalantly into his pants pockets and sauntered towards the river.He’d organised a fantastic restaurant on Elizabeth Quay.Spent a couple of lunch breaks this week checking the options out before booking, ensuring he found one with the right ambient lighting and seating arrangements, not to mention polite service.The woman who took his reservation had been delightful.These things mattered when you were courting.
Courting.Jeesh, that sounded like a line out of one of the old-fashioned novels Alice used to read.And then he realised something.He wasn’t sad, he wasn’t envious.
About Alice choosing Aaron over him.
Because if she hadn’t, he would never have met Judith.
She saw him first.You couldn’t miss the dark head bobbing several inches above the crowds on the busy Friday night precinct.
She had the opportunity to study him before he spotted her.Sharp cheekbones, an expressive mouth, currently a little tight-lipped, his angular jaw made more rugged by a shadow of a beard.She liked the way he wore his hair almost touching his collar, how it hung rakishly over his eyes.It offset the fact that those eyes were officially the gentlest she’d ever seen.And a touch sad.If his hair was shorter, he’d look almost too vulnerable, like a lost boy out of Peter Pan.
Suddenly he spotted her, quickly sweeping back his fringe with the back of his hand, and a little zing of heat swirled into her belly as those eyes lit up and his mouth shaped into a heart-stopping smile.
When he got up close, she could really admire how much effort he’d made.
“I love your tie.”She stared hard at the shell pattern as shyness threatened to overwhelm her.
When her eyes flicked back to his face, the smile had turned gorgeously goofy and his cheeks were flushed.“Thanks.If I may say so, that’s a very pretty dress.”
“Oh, you like it?”
“I do.Give me a twirl.Er, if you like twirling, of course.”
Judith laughed.“I’ll twirl for you if you twirl for me.”
“Done.”
He tucked his chin with a smirk and did a 360-degree turn, hands dug deep in his pockets.His shoulders looked fantastic in that jacket, she thought.When he turned to face her again his eyebrows lifted into his hairline in a way that made her giggle.
“Score out of ten?”he asked.
“Definitely a ten.”
“Your turn now.”
She shimmied her hips awkwardly, then twizzled on the spot, slightly lost her footing, and faced him again, feeling utterly stupid.
But Carts was gazing at her so warmly that the feeling vanished, leaving nothing but the thud of her heart and a honeyed warmth thrumming in a place so long forgotten she’d thought it had grown over with briars and moss.“That’s a twelve,” he said.
“Twelve!”
“Yep.Twelve out of ten.”
She laughed and Carts added, “The thing about being an accountant is you can break the rules.”
“Well, I’ll happily take a twelve from the expert.It’s new,” she said, brushing nervous hands down the folds of her skirt.“I bought it yesterday.”
“Me too.The suit.And the tie.To be honest, the tie was a gift.From Baz.”
“Baz?”
“The guy I bought the suit off.He threw in the tie.”His sharp bark of a laugh told her he was as nervous as she was.“Not that I was buying a new suit for anyparticularreason, of course.”
