how does it feel to be free of it?’
He looked out over the ocean and thought of the days he’d just experienced. The stirrings of a new beginning in them … and a woman he’d never forget.
‘Feels good.’
Lena’s smile was blinding and her hug was fierce, and then she fell back and let him find his footing when it came to all the pesky emotions running through him.
‘Lunch? I need to investigate the mustard colour further. And the fittings. Bring the Esky.’
She disappeared down the hatch completely this time, and all he heard then was her voice—no visual to go with it—but it made him laugh regardless.
‘Seriously?’ Her voice had risen an octave. ‘You bought a yacht with purple floral curtains?’
‘Told you the owners weren’t sailors.’
‘Yes, but you’ve been sailing this poor wee boat for how long? And you haven’t yet taken them down yet?’
‘I’ve been preoccupied.’
He hadn’t actually registered them as offensive—just unnecessary—and with the absence of anywhere to toss them … He started down the steps and found half the curtains and their strings already on the ground.
‘You’d better not be touching my half. I like them.’
‘You do not.’
The rest of them were down before he even had the food on the bench and his sister stood, hands on her hips, surveying the interior of the yacht—which admittedly seemed much brighter now.
‘Much better. I’m even warming to the mustard leather. At least the walls are white.’
Not everywhere. ‘Bedrooms are that way,’ he said with a tilt of his head—and waited for her reaction.
She looked. ‘Oh, for the love of— Someone skinned a spotted cow and draped it all over your bedroom.’
‘You mean your bedroom. I took the other one.’
‘Oh, no. No way. She who paid her half first gets first choice of the bedrooms.’
She opened the door to the other bedroom and Jared didn’t have to wait long at all for her screech.
That bedroom had purple and mustard walls with black and white hatbox trim. And a lime-green shag pile carpet. The second bedroom was awesome.
‘This isn’t a yacht—it’s a sideshow palace,’ she said, turning to flick him a quick grin. ‘I can’t believe you bought it.’
‘It had been on the market for a while. Do you love it? I love it.’
‘We’re getting Ruby in. This is beyond me. I know my limits.’
There were a lot of limits in place these days. Many of them learned the hard way.
‘She sails well,’ he said of the yacht. ‘Like an angel.’
‘What a good girl. Does she sail now?’
And that was how they ended up moored off Green Island, swimming from boat to beach, later that afternoon.
Lena lay in the shallows, content to be buffeted by gentle waves. Jared sat next to her and wondered at the inner peace that he’d somehow found between one day and the next. Walking away from his job. Sleeping with a woman he’d connected with on a level that had left him wrung out and craving more.
‘What do you think of Rowan Farringdon?’
Lena lifted her head to look at him. ‘In what capacity?’
‘For me.’
Long black lashes swept down over her sister’s eyes. ‘Well, she’s not dumb.’
‘But?’
‘Is it even possible for someone in her position to have a decent relationship? A sharing and caring one, with someone who’s not involved in that world any more?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Is that the kind of relationship you even want?’
He shrugged and she splashed him with water—a great swathe of it, driven by her outstretched arm.
‘You need to get in touch with your feelings,’ his sister told him.
‘Says the woman who spent ten years ignoring her own feelings, when it came to who she loved.’
‘So I’m slow? Not exactly a newsflash.’
‘You’re not slow.’
It was an old scold that went way back to when schoolwork had come so easily to him and his younger siblings but Lena had had to work hard for every mark she received. She’d despaired of her inadequacies, and sometimes she still did.
‘Wash your mouth out.’
She grinned at him, more mermaid in that moment than human soul. ‘I missed you,’ she murmured. ‘I’m glad you’re back, and I’m selfish enough to like the fact that you’ve quit a job that would have swallowed you whole. I like it that you’re finally showing more than a passing interest in a woman, even if I’m not entirely sure she’s going to be able to give you what you need.’
‘What do I need?’
‘Someone who can be there for you the way you’d be there for them. It’s a big ask. Because I know full well the lengths you’ll go to for the people you love.’
Jared stared out over the blue sky and the darker blue of the ocean. ‘I like her. There’s something about her.’
‘So keep me posted?’
‘That’d be telling.’
‘Yes.’
He didn’t have to turn to see the smirk on her face.
‘Yes, it would.’
ROWAN TOOK THE weekend off. She’d worked the last three weekends in a row and she was entitled to some down time. She headed for the airport, got on a plane, and three hours later touched down at a little regional airport in northern New South Wales.
And found Jared waiting for her.
Oh, she could get used to this.
He was good at making a woman feel special.
Offer her a crooked smile and a searching glance and the job was done.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked, and it was good to know that she hadn’t had to organise anything about this weekend beyond turning up to it.
‘Beach house tonight. Sailing tomorrow. Lena’s for late-afternoon drinks when we get back, and then beach house again on Saturday night. How does that work for you?’
“Beautifully.’ It sounded a whole lot like heaven.
‘Do you have to be anywhere on Sunday?’ he asked.
‘I did have an invite to Sunday dinner with my parents, but I cancelled on them.’
‘Is that going to cause a problem?’
‘I get the feeling they were expecting it. My parents recently retired and they’re feeling invisible. They’re searching for meaning within their new life, people to fill it, but I can’t be there for them the way they want me to be. Except for my grandfather, I don’t really do family.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because there isn’t any.’
He