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“Thanks, babe. Now, let me make the cappuccinos while you hustle the last stragglers out the door.”
Anna jerked her head in the direction of a table near the floor to ceiling glass windows overlooking the spectacular Melbourne city night skyline. “It isn’t as if they’re here waiting for Cupid to strike.”
Camryn laughed as she glanced over at the two guys, Dirk and Mike, the tradesmen who religiously frequented the café, pouring over house plans spread across the table.
“Hey, you never know. Maybe they’re planning on building their dream home?”
Anna quirked an eyebrow as both guys’ heads turned in sync as a blonde in a mini skirt walked past outside. “I don’t think so. Now go give them a delicate shove out the door so we can put our feet up and get a decent caffeine hit before we lock up.”
“Actually, the guys have organized a project manager to meet me here tonight to discuss the renovations on my apartment so I’ll have to wait around until he arrives. Why don’t we skip the coffee and you head home? I’ll lock up.”
“Sure thing, boss.” Anna grinned and mock saluted. “Want me to turn down the lights to discourage other customers from dropping in and flick the sign on the door?”
“I’ll do it,” Camryn said. “Thanks for all your hard work today, have a good night.”
As Camryn walked the length of the bar to the power box, she glanced at her watch, hoping the project manager would arrive soon. She needed the renovations done ASAP and all the other builders she’d tried had fobbed her off with ‘I’m too busy’ lines or tried to rip her off because she was a woman.
She hated that. She hadn’t got where she was today without being strong and independent and focussed on her goals, something chauvinistic guys didn’t understand.
Flicking two switches to dim the lights, she had her finger poised over a third when a guy pushed through the front door.
“Great. He’s finally here,” she thought as she flicked the last switch and picked up the set of hefty keys used to lock up, eager to get this meeting underway.
However, as she neared the door, the keys crashed to the floor along with her hopes for a productive consultation, her heart stopping when she got a closer look at the guy who’d just entered.
Scruffy, wind-tossed, ultra casual.
Faded denim, soft grey T-shirt, worn leather work boots.
Stubble shadows, laugh lines around grey eyes, slight dimples bracketing a mouth made for smiling.
A mouth that was smiling at her, a wide, genuine smile filled with warmth, a smile that packed a punch, a smile she could never forget no matter how hard she tried.
And she’d tried. She’d tried for six long, lonely years, yet the minute Blane Andrews strolled in and smiled that all-too-familiar smile, she was instantly transported back in time.
To the first time she’d seen that smile, on Valentine’s Day as fate would have it, to a time when that smile rarely left his face, when he’d lavished her with attention, when they’d been crazy for each other.
Seeing him again after all these years was like being sucked into a vortex of swirling love and laughter and sunshine on a hot summer’s day beside a lazy, meandering creek.
Of sharing hot dogs perched on the back of his rusty old Ute, watching the sun set, wiping ketchup off each other with smiles on their faces and love in their hearts.
Of taking long slow walks hand in hand in the shade of towering eucalypts, oblivious to the bush beauty, focussed solely on each other.
Of cuddling and kissing and floating on air, lost in the exquisite, heady perfection of first love.
Oh yeah, falling for Blane had been a whirlwind of exhilarating highs, before being spit out the other side, left with nothing but pain and loss and devastation.
He’d ripped her heart out and she never wanted to feel that way again.
Ever.
“Everything okay, Cam?”
Damn, even his deep voice evoked a visceral reaction and she swallowed twice before answering. “You mean right now or are you asking how I’ve been the last six years?”
Trying not to show how rattled she was by his reappearance and the abbreviated form of her name only he had ever called her, she bent to pick up the keys at the same time he did, their fingers brushing, hers tingling, his long and warm and heartrendingly familiar.
She jerked back, straightening too quickly, and his hand shot out to steady her elbow, the barest of touches enough to give her dormant hormones a jolt.
