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“Callum.”
He braced himself as he turned to look at her, but nothing could prepare him for the hit to the guts at the sight of her. “Leah.” God, she was just so lovely.
“I owe you an explanation.”
“No you don’t. Of course you don’t,” he said gently.
She stepped closer and he balled his hands into fists to stop from reaching out and dragging her into his arms. “Well, I’d like to give you one.” She took another step closer. “Will you come over tonight?”
“Yes.”
She smiled then and his heart turned over. “Okay. Great.”
Then she just stood there, within arm’s reach, gazing at him. Unable to help himself, he closed the distance between them. A man could drown in those eyes, he thought to himself as he cupped her face and pressed a soft kiss to her forehead. She surprised him by wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her head on his chest. She sighed when he put his arms around her. Sighed like a huge burden had been lifted. She stepped back after a long while. “I’ll see you tonight.”
“Seeya.” He watched as she walked away up the path, her head down and her arms folded across her middle.
CHAPTER TEN
The moon floated, fat and full, on the edge of the horizon. A long shimmering beam of moonshine traced a line along the waves to the shoreline. Stars dotted the sky, a frog croaked in the river. Leah sat on a blanket, just beyond the spill of light from her back porch. She’d put some tealight candles in glass jars and placed them around the edges of the blanket, then she’d added some cushions from her bench seat.
It was all perfectly calm, perfectly peaceful. But Leah was acutely aware that she stood on the edge of a precipice. If things went as she expected they would tonight, as she so keenly wanted them too, she knew she would never be the same again. She’d spent the last twenty-four hours feeling overwhelmed, confused, churned up. Like everything was out of place. The world had tilted slightly off its axis after the shattering truth Callum had taught her yesterday on her front veranda.
She heard his truck rolling up the dirt track and her breath hitched in anticipation. Quiet descended when he cut the engine. Leah could almost see him walking across her drive, onto her veranda, through her little house to the back deck. He paused there for a moment. Leah kept her eyes on the horizon as he stepped off the back deck and walked down the sandy pathway to where she sat. Without a word, he took his boots off and sat next to her on the blanket.
“I have some hard things to say. I thought it would be easier out here. In the dark.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll try not to cry.”
“You can cry.”
Leah smiled softly. That was so Callum. “You’re a good man. You know that?”
She heard the smile in his voice when he said, “You’re the second woman today to tell me that.”
“I assume Juniper was the other one?”
“Yeah.”
“Thank you for talking to her.”
“No worries.”
She flicked a glance at him. He was sitting with his legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles, leaning back on one hand, gazing out at the ocean. She wasn’t quite sure how to start so she just sat there for the longest time. Callum didn’t speak. She really liked that about him. He wasn’t one for endlessly having to fill the silence. Or to talk just to hear the sound of his own voice. Feeling like she needed to do something with her hands, Leah reached behind her and grabbed a cushion, hugging it to her chest. It was time to begin. “I told you how my parents are very conservative.”
“Yes.”
“And how I’m not sure they even like each other.”
“Yes.”
“So there wasn’t much affection in our house growing up. I don’t think I’ve ever seen my father even hold my mother’s hand. The only sex education I got in that house was one time, my mother told me that kissing was awful.” She toyed with the fringe of the cushion as she tried to gather her thoughts. “I went to an all-girls, Baptist school so sex education there was also non-existent. I think we had one class where one of the teachers ranted about fornication being a sin. I didn’t even know what fornication meant. I’d thought it was something to do with fauna and I just couldn’t understand what was sinful about that. So stupid.”
“No, Leah.”
She waved a hand, dismissing his objection. “After I left school, I got a job doing data entry at a law firm. I met a girl there who was everything. Beautiful, curvy, charming, vivacious, fun. All of it.” Georgie. She had to take a few calming breaths before going on. “All the guys loved her. And she loved them. She loved sex and wasn’t afraid to admit it. She seemed so miraculous to me. She was my first real friend. She was my best friend. And although I knew I could never be like her, I idolized her.” Leah took a moment to remember that friendship and what it meant to her. Remembered how she’d pushed Georgie away because her husband told her to. “She took me seriously. That was it. She believed I could do more. Be more. She charmed my parents, too, which made everything easier. Until I stopped going to church. They drew the line there. There was a lot of passive aggressive talking. Silent treatment. I found my mum crying in the kitchen because she was worried about my soul. I caved and started going to church again.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. It was about to get really hard. “That’s when I met Scott. He’d just moved down from Brisbane. He was a lot older than me and he seemed so charming and sophisticated. Everyone at church admired and respected him. He paid attention to me and my parents were over the moon. I enjoyed it too. I felt like I’d finally grown up. So I was excited and happy when he proposed. It was big news at church. Someone had snagged Scott Evert. And little Leah Kaplan, no less! He bought me a ring. Cheap and tacky. He told me he’d got it on the fly because he was so eager and that he’d replace it with a better one later. That’s Scott to a tee. Full of it. Anyway, we had a grand wedding. Everyone from church was invited. My dad had to get a loan to pay for it. But he said he didn’t mind. It’s not every day your daughter marries a man like Scott Evert, after all.” She sniffed derisively. “We had a brief honeymoon period. I’m talking a few hours. The wedding night was…”
