back to Dolphin Bay would also knock down the major barrier that remained between him and Lizzie—that they lived in different countries. It was a move that checked all the boxes. Importantly, it would give them time to really get to know each other.
He’d arranged to meet Lizzie after the café closed for the day. The young waitress Nikki had responded so well to his training and confidence-boosting, he’d done himself out of his job as a barista. His role at Bay Bites now comprised helping out for a few hours over lunchtime—and that was only an excuse to be with Lizzie. His two-hour time limit? Twenty hours of Lizzie’s company a day wouldn’t be enough.
She was already there when he got to the lookout, a block away from the café, with the best view in Dolphin Bay of the harbour. It was a perfect afternoon, the water sparkling aquamarine under a cloudless sky. Fishing boats and pleasure craft of all shapes and sizes bobbed on the water and the melodic chime of rigging against masts carried across to where he stood.
Lizzie wore a pink sundress that bared her shoulders and arms. Fine tendrils of her pale blonde hair had escaped from the band that held it back from her face and wafted in the slight breeze. There was no reason for her to be anything but happy and relaxed. But he could see straight away that something was bothering her—he’d learned to read the way anxiety tightened her face and dimmed the light in her eyes.
They greeted each other with a discreet kiss on the cheek—as friends, colleagues and family connections would. After a night of lovemaking, he’d left her warm and satisfied in her bed when he’d exited before dawn. It had been difficult to leave her but they both wanted to keep their new intimacy a secret.
‘What’s up?’ he asked.
‘How do you always know?’ she asked with the shadow of a smile.
‘Just observant,’ he said.
But it was more than that. The connection between them grew stronger with each minute they spent together. It was a bond he’d never had before. But it also brought fear of the inevitable pain if that connection was ever severed. Wussy versus brave, he reminded himself. He’d chosen to take the brave path, to let feeling grow rather than stifle it with fear. So, it seemed, had she.
Lizzie took his hand and gave it a surreptitious squeeze. He knew without further words being spoken that she valued the depth of their connection too.
She looked up at him ‘You know Amy is due back tomorrow?’
‘I know how much you’re looking forward to seeing her. Why the glum face?’
‘Philippe is escorting her on her flight from Lyon. I was going to drive up to Sydney to meet her plane. Now he’ll hire a car to bring her here.’
‘Your ex? Here in Dolphin Bay?’ He was hit by a blow of dismay. Lizzie’s ex-husband played an active role in Amy’s life. But having him here on home turf was not a move he welcomed.
‘It’s as much a surprise to me as it is to you,’ she said.
For her sake, he suppressed the stab of jealousy that knifed him. ‘That’s good for Amy.’
‘Yes. The airline does a wonderful job of escorting her. In fact she enjoys the fuss the attendants make of her so much she’s probably protesting having her papa with her. But I worry every second she’s on the plane by herself so in that way I’m glad he’ll be there.’
‘Of course you are.’
He admired Lizzie’s dedication to her daughter. Amy was a fantastic little kid, smart, funny, outgoing. If—and it was still a big if—he got to be a permanent part of Lizzie’s life he would welcome a role in Amy’s life too.
‘I’m worried about why Philippe wants to see me so much he’s flying all the way to Australia.’ That favourite stray piece of hair was getting another workout between her fingers.
‘Maybe because he’s missing you.’ Jesse spoke lightly but his gut roiled.
‘Nothing like that,’ she said, shaking her head with a vehemence Jesse should have found reassuring but didn’t. If he’d had Lizzie for his own, he would never have let her get away. Her ex-husband must have regretted it a million times. Maybe that was what he wanted to tell her. Perhaps he had a good story to spin about how he’d changed.
‘He says there’s something important that has to be said face to face,’ Lizzie continued.
The ex wanted her back. Jesse just knew it. ‘So what do you think your ex wants?’
‘I’m terrified he’s going for full custody of Amy. He’s used it as a threat before to try and keep me in France. I can’t think what else he would need to see me about.’
Jesse thought he knew only too well what her ex would want: Lizzie and Amy back with him. But he didn’t share his thoughts. Instead he reassured her. ‘You’re a wonderful mother. You can provide a secure home for Amy. No way would he have grounds to say you’re unfit for custody. Don’t the courts usually rule in favour of the mother?’
Lizzie snatched her hand to her mouth. ‘The courts? Please don’t let it get that far.’
‘You’ll know tomorrow what he wants. There’s nothing you can do in the meantime. Try to stop worrying.’ He didn’t want her to be preoccupied with her ex on the last night they had together alone before Amy came home. The dynamic between them would be changed when they had to fit their private time around the needs of a five-year-old.
‘If their flight is on time and all goes well, he and Amy should be here by midmorning.’
She banged the railing of the seafront wall with such force it surely must have hurt her hand. ‘Why is he doing this to me? After all he put me through before? I’ve done everything I can to be civilised about the divorce, to make it easier for Amy. Letting her go to France half of every school holidays. Video calls every week. Why?’ She muttered under her breath in what Jesse could only assume was a string of fluent French swear words.
It was the closest to anger he had seen her, though he’d heard a few explosions coming from the kitchen at Bay Bites. ‘You really don’t want to see him, do you?’
‘Of course I don’t. Why would I?’
Jesse’s spirits lifted at the thought. Sounded as if any possible reunion could be wishful thinking on the ex-husband’s part.
‘Do you want me to be there when you meet with him?’
‘No.’
Her answer came with such swiftness that Jesse felt as if he’d been hit with an unexpected punch between the eyes. ‘Whatever,’ he said.
Her face filled with contrition. She reached out and touched him fleetingly on the cheek with slender, cool fingers. ‘I didn’t mean to sound hurtful. Of course I would like you by my side when I confront Philippe. But if he’s after sole custody, I wouldn’t want him to know I was in a relationship with a man.’
‘I don’t want to jeopardise anything,’ Jesse said. ‘But I’ll be at hand. Just in case.’
‘No need for that,’ she said. ‘Philippe hasn’t got a violent bone in his body. I wouldn’t let Amy spend so much time with him if he had any tendencies that way. No. I can handle this by myself—like I did with the issues that ended the marriage.’
Jesse muttered assent. But no way would he let Lizzie go into this by herself. When she met with her ex he would be nearby.
But, to help her, he needed to know what had happened to end the marriage in such a drastic way she’d come back to Australia to raise her child on her own.
‘Lizzie, we’ve skirted around this. But what actually happened to end your marriage? To make you so wary of men like your ex.’
* * *
Lizzie hated reliving the past. She and her sister had handled what had happened