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By the timethe Porsche drew up outside Alice’s house, Oliver wasn’t sure whether he was amused or totally bemused. Quite possibly both.
Felicity had kept up a lively patter, about the passing scenery, about her travel plans—how she’d toured through Europe with her friend Evie in a kombi van and Australia couldn’t be harder than that, could it? Then she’d proceeded to inform him that she’d grown up on a pig farm and if a girl could survive tramping through mud to help her dad with the sows in heat, meeting Australian wildlife would not faze her one iota.
He’d been tempted to point out that crossing Australia meant she had two choices: driving on a long straight road with knee-high scrub on one side and an ocean full of sharks on the other, or heading along an even rougher long straight road into the centre, with nothing but desert and spinifex grass and the odd hungry dingo. And being February, the heat there would be intolerable.
There was no getting around it: Perth was the second most isolated city in the world, after Honolulu. Getting to the next city was best done in something that had wings, not wheels.
But he decided it wasn’t his job to burst her bubble. He’d leave that to Alice and Aaron.
“I’ll get your bags,” he clipped out instead. He needed to get home, change and go for a run to get the antsy feeling out of his veins. If he was honest, it wasn’t anything to do with Felicity. Listening to her had made him laugh several times, but… Jesus Christ, he was like the Christmas Grinch at the moment. Or maybe, more aptly, the wedding grinch.
A squeal of, “Hooray!” and Oliver’s head shot out of the boot of the car to see Alice hurtling down the garden path, glasses crooked on her upturned nose, ponytail bobbing down her back. “I can’t believe you’re actually here!”
He watched the two women hugging, for all the world as if they’d known each other all their lives, not just found each other for the first time a year ago.
He needed to remind himself of the good stories in the world. Just look at Alice now; radiant, confident, happy. Gone was the anxious girl who worked in her mum’s bookshop and was so shy she’d blush when customers spoke to her, the girl who never quite seemed like she knew who she was. And then out of the blue, Alice had found her father and everything in her life had changed for the better.
He managed a genuine smile as Alice turned to him now and hugged him tight. Ever since Aaron and Alice had become friends nearly seven years ago, Oliver had been sure she was the perfect woman for his brother, and a few timely interventions—well, more aptly, socking Aaron between the eyes with a metaphorical baseball bat—had finally proved it.
Alice and Aaron were a match made in heaven.
And Leonie and he, clearly, were not.
“Where shall I put this?” he asked, bumping the pink suitcase up the steps into the house.
Alice showed him to the front bedroom while Felicity exclaimed how pretty it all was. He arranged the case neatly in a corner of the guest room, where it fitted well with the fuchsia pink walls and bedspread splashed with purple and yellow flowers. The fact that the colour scheme made him feel nauseous was not his problem, he reminded himself.
Next thing a loud “Yoo-hoo” echoed through the house and Alice’s mum, Rowena, bounded in, a mass of salt and pepper hair and silver bangles, wearing an oddly incongruous apron emblazoned with a full-frontal image of a bikinied woman.
More hugs and exclamations. Meanwhile, Oliver wondered if a vault through the bedroom window was do-able.
Until Rowena unlocked her arms from Felicity and beelined straight for him.
“Nice apron.” He managed a swift sidestep.
Rowena batted her eyelashes. “Just call me Nigella,” she tinkled. “Dear boy, it wassokind of you to pick up Felicity, the seamstress just couldn’t get the lace to sit right over Alice’s boobies. Now,you reallymuststay for dinner.”
He shook his head and glanced past her to see Felicity wearing the slightly stunned smile you got after flying for thirty-six hours across six continents—not to mention being hugged half-unconscious. “Thank you for the lovely offer, but I’ll let Felicity settle in and see you—”
Rowena placed her hands on her hips. “When exactly, Oliver? I’ve barely set eyes on you since you got back. You’ve been a complete hermit.”
Oliver heard himself making weak excuses.
“Okay, but after the wedding you are having lunch with me. No—wait, I’ve got something for you. Alice, where’s that book I said was a must-read for Oliver?”
“Not right now, Mum,” Alice said with a fierce little frown. But Rowena was on a roll. “You know, the Elisabeth Kübler-Ross one, I put it somewhere safe… oh, damn my menopausal memory. Let me go find it.”
As she dashed out of the room Alice grimaced and mouthed “sorry” at him. Next to her, Felicity looked like she’d suddenly woken up. For the briefest second his gaze connected with hers and it felt like an understanding zapped between them, a connection that sizzled along his nerves like electricity.
She knew all about it, didn’t she? The break-up.
Of course, Alice would have told her. He’d kind of suspected on the drive, after her flustered cover-up. Who was he trying to kid here that he’d got through this shit, when all he’d done was slap a bandaid over a festering wound? One glimmer of sympathy from a pair of bright blue eyes and he was at risk of bleeding out. Stomach churning, Oliver muttered a lie about having somewhere to be and headed for the door, just as Rowena reappeared waving a slim volume. “Here it is.”
She sandwiched his hands around it and squeezed. “It’s about the five stages of grief. It helped me when…” She glanced at Alice, “When Henry and I… Well, anyway, I’ve been thinking it might do the same for you.” She stretched up and whispered close to his ear, “This too shall pass.”
Oliver swallowed hard. It was well-intentioned, but right now all he wanted was to get the hell out of here. Fast.
“Very… thoughtful of you.” He bared his teeth in an attempt at a smile, forced a farewell through rigid lips and practically sprinted out the door.
Knuckles tight around the book, he couldn’t help feeling that two bright blue eyes were beaming into his back. Nor, as he drove away, could he shake the sense that this bubbly, slightly kooky English girl understood all about pain.
That, or maybe he was going mad.
