The Honeymoon Arrangement (21 page)

Finn took his time answering. ‘I’d tell you what I’ve been telling myself: that we’re blinded by the passion between us, that we stepped out of the reality of daily life and the romantic settings and the warm weather and the luxury changed the way we behaved. That we can’t trust out judgement.’

Callie nodded. She’d thought about all of that, but none of it had changed her mind or her knowledge of what
was
. She loved him. Simply. Crazily. For ever.

He didn’t love her. Oh, she knew that he loved her body, loved sex with her, but it wasn’t the same thing. Callie rubbed her forehead with her fingers as her mind operated at warp speed, trying to decide what to do.

Then Finn took the decision out of her hands by walking over to her and kissing her gently on the lips before folding her into his strong arms.

‘We agreed to walk away, Cal.’

Callie looked up at him, feeling so safe in the circle of his arms. Arms that would soon be gone. ‘Guess it’s time
to rip off those rose-coloured glasses and get back to real life, huh?’

‘In a couple of days … weeks … we’ll settle down into that real life and this will feel like a dream.’

Callie buried her face in his neck. ‘So I’ll always be your dream girl?’

‘You bet.’ Finn stroked her hair. His long sigh blew into her curls. ‘This wasn’t supposed to get this tangled, this complicated.’

Still no
I love you
.

Callie tried to swallow the golf ball that was lodged in her throat. ‘I’ll miss you. Thanks for a brilliant time.’

‘I’ll miss you too. Thanks for being a brilliant fake wife.’ Finn kissed the top of her head—the brush-off kiss for any man—and stepped away from her. ‘Take care, Callie. And think about what I said about your mother.’

‘Yeah.’

In her eagerness to avoid the first person who’d broken her heart she’d run away with a second person who’d just rebroken it. She had the intelligence of a pot plant, Callie thought, watching him walk across her lounge to the front door.

‘Bye, angel.’

It took every iota of willpower she had, and then some, not to throw her arms around his knees and beg him not to go.

‘Bye.’

Then the door snicked closed behind him and she felt her heart cleave in two. Overwhelmed, she sank to the floor and wrapped her arms around her head, trying to shield herself from the burning miasma of pain that engulfed her.

It didn’t help, she realised. Nothing would—not for a while. She knew this. She’d been here before.

C
ALLIE MADE HERSELF
get up the next morning, forced herself to put on a pretty dress, curl her hair and do her make-up. Her world might be falling apart but there was no reason for people to know that she was too. Besides, if she pretended hard enough and long enough that everything was fine then maybe it would be. Eventually.

She was making herself a smoothie, in an effort to start losing the pounds she’d picked up drinking cocktails on the beach with he-whose-name-could-not-be-mentioned, when her doorbell rang. She considered ignoring it and had just decided to do that when it pealed again.

Dammit!
Thinking that she wasn’t in the mood to see anyone, to explain anything, she stomped through to the front door and looked through the peephole at the distorted image of a tall blonde woman. It took her a minute to recognise the blue, blue eyes of Laura, the tall frame, the long face.

She looked older, Callie thought, her heart accelerating. An older, harder, tougher
me
. Even through the peephole she could see that she looked as if she’d lived a hard life—too much sun, booze, too many cigarettes. Callie wanted to tell her to go away, that she didn’t want to see her, but she couldn’t push any words past her thick tongue.

‘Cal-belle? Honey?’

Callie could hear her voice clearly through the wooden door.

‘I know that you’re there. I heard your footsteps.’

Cal-Belle
. God, she hadn’t heard that in over twenty years. Her mum’s pet name for her—Laura’s pet name for her.

‘Callie, I know that you don’t want to see me, and I understand why. I do—I really do. But I just couldn’t leave, fly back to Sao Paulo, without trying at least once.’

Callie kept silent but let Laura speak. She wanted to be strong enough to walk away but she couldn’t—not yet.

‘There’s so much I want to say to you, so much I want to explain.’

Callie, feeling drained and very, very vulnerable, didn’t even realise that hot, thick tears were rolling down her face. All she could think was that she wanted Finn … needed Finn. She needed his strong arms to hold her up, his voice in her ear telling her that she was okay, that she would always be okay, that she could do this.

But he wasn’t here. Like her mother, when she needed him most he was AWOL. The people she loved most had the ability to let her down the hardest.

Hardening her heart, she finally managed to speak. ‘I’m not ready to talk to you, Laura. I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready.’

She didn’t think she could even open the door.

‘I’ve made a lot of mistakes, Callie, but the biggest one was walking out on you and your brother.’

You think?

‘I want to tell you that I’m sorry, and if this is the only way I get to do it—through a closed door—then this is how I’ll do it.’

Callie slipped off her shoes and quickly moved to the right, to the thin sliver of tinted glass that allowed her to see out but kept visitors from looking in. Laura was looking at her fingernails and her foot was tapping on the terracotta tiles. She looked bone-deep scared.

Callie remembered what she’d said to Finn about Liz, about how courageous her decision to end their relationship had been. Wasn’t it equally courageous of Laura to face her, to ask for forgiveness after so long? She had to know that it wouldn’t be easy, that she might not get it, but she was still willing to try.

Her mother was standing there offering an explanation—something that Finn desperately wanted from his own father. And she was alive. Finn’s parents weren’t. If she turned Laura away now, would she regret it for the rest of her life?

‘Callie?’

‘Can you hang on a sec? I just need a moment.’

Callie paced the small area of her hallway—the place where Finn had made love to her the night before.
Finn …
He’d made her better, she realised. Stronger. He’d left behind a little of his strength and a lot of his wisdom.

She could almost hear his deep voice in her ear. ‘You don’t have to accept or forgive her choices—just understand why she made them.’

Not now
,
she thought
.
I’m still reeling because you’re not here
.

‘You can move mountains. You don’t need her to be happy. And I’m still with you.’

He was, Callie realised. Oh, she missed him desperately, but he’d left a part of himself with her. His belief in her. She
could
move mountains, she
could
be happy—one day, maybe. She was stronger than she thought.

She could choose either to hang on to her bitterness towards her mother or she could set herself, and her mother free. She could listen to what she had to say and then decide whether she wanted Laura back in her life—
wanted
, not needed!

She might not be able to make a certain travel reporter
love her, but, by God, she could do this, she could face her mother.

Callie turned back to the door and wrenched it open. ‘Come in and talk, but I’m making no promises beyond this meeting.’

Laura bit her lip as she stepped into the hall. ‘I understand.’ She glanced down, transfixed by the rings on Callie’s hand. ‘Oh, my goodness. You’re wearing them! And on your wedding finger!’

‘I’m not married,’ Callie hastened to explain, lifting her hand. ‘You
know
these rings?’ she asked, confused.

‘Sure. Your father bought them for me from an antique store to celebrate your birth.’ Laura placed the tip of her finger on the raised stone. ‘They were the only rings I ever wore.’

Callie looked up at the ceiling and let out a deep breath. Of course they were. Because this was her life and nothing could be simple.

It wasn’t a surprise that Alaska in the dead of winter was cold, Finn thought, looking out from his hotel window into the weird light that was supposed to signal dusk—at two in the afternoon! In an hour or so it would be pitch-dark and the sun had only appeared four hours earlier. Crazy place, crazy life.

Fairbanks, Alaska, in the dead of winter and he was alone. Oh, the Northern Lights were amazing, awe inspiring, incredible—all the adjectives so many writers before him had used and the ones he intended to avoid when he finally got around to writing his article. But his was a strange life, and one he wasn’t sure he wanted any more.

He still hadn’t turned in his honeymoon article and he wasn’t sure when he would. Writing—always so easy—had become a task of herculean proportions.
Why?
His life, apart from no longer having a fiancée he seldom saw in it,
was pretty much back to normal. He was back on the road, he had an editor squawking at him, and he was alone. So what was the problem?

He
liked
being alone, he reminded himself. Apart from his three weeks with Callie he’d always travelled alone and he was used to it. He didn’t have to think of anyone, could jump into his work without distractions, didn’t have to worry that he was neglecting anyone.

So, Einstein, if you like it so much then why are you feeling so damn miserable?
Okay, he got that it was okay to miss Callie. They’d spent practically every minute together for most of the past month, so that was to be expected, wasn’t it? He was allowed to miss her laugh, her piggy snores, waking up and realising that she was wrapped around him like a vine. And naturally he missed the sex. That was normal, right?

What
wasn’t
normal was the crater-sized hole he felt in his heart at not seeing her again, not hearing that laugh, that piggy snore, not waking up to the feeling that he was being smothered.

This was the way he should have felt when he and Liz broke up, he thought. Wretched—as if the world had no colour, as if he was just going through the motions. Everything he should have experienced after losing his fiancée he was now experiencing in this cold, cold place on the other side of the world.

Was it just delayed reaction? Was he transferring his feelings for Liz on to Callie? He wished he was—it would help this crazy situation make a whole lot more sense. Unfortunately it had nothing to do with Liz and everything to do with that commitment-phobic wild-child woman he’d left behind in Cape Town.

He missed her … he wanted her. In his bed and in his life. Now and for ever.

That complicated and that simple.

He’d thought he could just walk away with a casual goodbye, with heartfelt thanks for helping him out of a jam and giving him the best short-term fling of his life. God, he was such a moron.

‘
What would you say if I said I was in love with you?’

Her memory drifted across his mind and he frowned, looking out into the nearly dark afternoon. Had she been trying to tell him something? Something crucial? At the time he’d just dismissed her cocky question as Callie being Callie, trying to push his buttons, teasing him as she often did. Then he remembered her serious eyes, the trepidation on her face that he’d ignored. Had he, in his quest to leave, to get back to normal, missed that she was trying to tell him that she loved him? That she wanted more?

In the dark, Finn moved to his laptop and moved his finger across the mouse pad, pulling up the folder named ‘Angel’. Her face appeared on the screen and he stared at the images of her that changed every few seconds. Every photo he’d taken of her was filled with sunlight, with happiness, with joy. Everything his life didn’t have now.

Finn shook his head. She was anti-commitment—she readily admitted to it. She thought that commitment and long-term were the emotional equivalent of the rabies virus. But she was also the woman who had resisted falling into bed with him, had tried to keep her distance because she’d said that she had the potential to fall for him.
Had
she? Fallen for him as he had for her?

Finn thought back on their relationship—to the glossy, sophisticated woman he’d first met and how her walls had slowly started to crumble. She’d begun to open herself up to him, to let him see glimpses of the lost little girl behind the charming, flirty façade. Finn knew that she wouldn’t have done that for just any man, for just anyone. He’d got to her and she’d trusted him, let him look inside.

Trust was a very big deal for Callie …

Trust was a short degree of separation from love. For her and for him.

When Callie loved and trusted and decided to commit she’d do it with everything she had. He knew that without any hesitation. She’d toss her hat and every other of item of clothing she wore into the ring and go all out to make it work. She wouldn’t cheat, she wouldn’t run away, she wouldn’t play games. She’d been hurt by love and she wouldn’t want to hurt anyone
she
loved.

He remembered her question again
.
What would you say if I said I was in love with you?

I’d say I’m in love with you too, Cal, and call myself a million types of an idiot for not realising what you were trying to say earlier. I’d say my life without you isn’t a life—it’s just a random set of happenings that mean little
.

I’d say I’m in love with you too …

Callie cursed Finn’s lack of gardening skills as her shovel bounced off the hard soil in the corner of what had used to be a flowerbed. Didn’t the man know that a garden required water? Pushing her hair off her sweaty forehead with the back of her hand, she looked at the shallow dent she’d made and sighed despondently.

This wasn’t going to work. Oh, the bench looked stunning—a wooden three-seater, with a brass inscription screwed onto the back strut. Expensive, but worth the price—as was the case of beer she’d paid Finn’s youngest stepbrother Michael so he’d let her onto the property and help her lug the bench into its position in the corner of Finn’s yard overlooking the ocean.