Two and a half hours was time to sweat. Time for my body to work, work, work as I pushed load after load of dirt from the front to the back of the house.

Two and a half hours was time to think. Time for my mind to tick, tick, tick over every little detail, every moment from my past I’d tried so hard not to forget. Long, red hair. The smell of honeysuckle.

Two and a half hours was time to notice. Notice the soft sway of a woman’s body as she leaned down to smooth over a section of dirt. Notice the way her voice husked over the words in Carol King’s “You’ve Got A Friend” in time with a soundtrack no one else could hear. Notice the delicate freckles peppering her nose in the summer sun when she straightened, stepping closer to help unload the barrow in the area she wanted it most.

I noticed.

I noticed, and I hated myself for it.

“That does it.” She pulled off her gloves one by one, tossing them in the corner of the garden.

I frowned, picking them up and dusting them off until I felt the burn from her accusatory glare. “So they’re clean for next time,” I explained.

She raised her eyebrows. “Okay.” She looked toward the house. “Come on. I’ll put some lunch on.”

I glanced at Piper, for once, willing the small child to wake up. I shouldn’t stay. I should go. I couldn’t betray the woman I loved by going inside for lunch with this girl who—

Didn’t you already betray Bella when you slept with Giselle?

I pushed the voice down, but it lingered, echoing like the sound of the ocean once you left the shore. One night, one night I hated myself for almost as much as I hated myself for surviving.

It was just lunch. Just a short meal in the middle of the day to say thanks for my hard work.

This was nothing like what happened with Giselle. Everly looked nothing like Bella, acted nothing like Bella.

“Piper is still sleeping, I guess …” I trailed off, but Everly had already disappeared inside the house.

I pushed Piper through to the living room again and joined Everly in the kitchen. The noise of water gushing from the tap filled the silence as I washed my hands before pulling out a bench stool from under the kitchen island and taking a seat. Was this weird? Was me being here weird? And why wasn’t she saying anything?

“Tell me more about yourself,” I said, more to make conversation than anything else.

“What do you want to know?” She glanced over her shoulder, pulling two glasses from the cabinet next to the stove. “Water okay?”

“Thanks.” I watched her lithe frame as she opened the fridge. “I guess just … just you. Where you grew up. What you like doing in your free time. What you don’t.”

Everly placed a glass of water in front of me. “Here.” She flicked a tea towel over her shoulder, opening the oven door a crack and checking on the contents. The scent of garlic and tomato hit me, and my mouth watered. Whatever she was cooking smelled great. “I was born in Melbourne. Grew up there with my mother and my sister, Joanna. Jo and I were pretty close growing up, but when I left school, I went to Europe for a few weeks, which turned into a few years.”

“You met a guy there?” I guessed.

She twisted her lips. “I think I met me there. Just discovered who I was, what I wanted, you know?” She shrugged one shoulder as she poured herself a water. “Anyway, the day I was due to leave I met a man at the airport. He was handsome, tall, blond, and oh-so charming.”

“Sounds like a real catch.” The words caught in my throat.

“I thought so too. That’s why, six months later, I agreed to marry him.” She shrugged. “We came back to Australia, but he was from Sydney, so I moved there, studied midwifery.”

“You’ve always been big on kids, huh?”

“Always.” She nodded. “Ever since I was a little girl. My sister used to get annoyed at me—I’d try to swaddle her, even when she was a toddler and far too old for that kind of thing. I guess in some ways, I was more of a parent to her than our mother ever was.”

“Huh.” I could just imagine this powerhouse of a little girl, trying to care for her baby sister. Protecting her. Looking after her.

Everly moved to the stove and pulled it open, checking on the contents.

My eyes widened. “Is that … pizza?”

“Yeah. Leftover Dominos from last night. I thought I’d share my Tony Pepperoni with you.”

I shook my head. “I haven’t had pizza since …” I couldn’t remember when.

Everly dropped the oven door. It crashed to the end of its hinges. Her tone turned accusatory. “Since when?”

“Since … maybe five years ago, at a party for a friend?” Yeah, that seemed right. Sitting around a campfire, my arm draped over Bella’s shoulders. The smell of smoke lingering in the air. Someone forgot to bring the meat for our barbecue, so I’d ordered a dozen pizzas for the fifteen hungry hikers. Bella and I met the delivery driver in the parking lot.

After five years of friendship, I finally told her how I felt …

“Well you, my friend, are about to be welcomed back to the land of the living,” Everly continued, as if she wasn’t privy to the barrage of memories assaulting my mind. “Truly, your lack of commitment to carbs is astounding.”

“I don’t eat a lot of carbs.”

She gasped, clutching at her chest. “Blasphemy.”

I chuckled. “That’s a bit much. I just … I eat clean.”

“Why?”

I shook my head. “This isn’t a story about me, remember? You were telling me about you. The man you met at the airport and shacked up with in Sydney.”

“Fine, but we are so revisiting this.” Everly waggled her finger at me and closed the oven door. “Five minutes until you and pizza have a blissful reunion. So, our marriage started off like every normal marriage. We loved each other very much. But we both wanted to be parents, more than anything, and no matter how hard we tried …”

Her body, naked. That gorgeous, hot-as-sin—

No. I couldn’t think like that.

“We went through all the testing, but they couldn’t figure out what was wrong, why we couldn’t conceive. We went on diets, took holidays to try and avoid stress in case that was our blocker, but … but no matter what we did …” Her voice cracked over the words.

I stilled. She … she wanted a child.

The pain in her eyes—that connection I’d felt. It all made so much sense.

It all made so much sense, and yet it didn’t, because how could we live in a world that allowed that much pain? How could we continue to exist when so many others did not?

“Sorry,” Everly breathed. She ran one hand up and over her face, not meeting my gaze. “I just need a …”

I stood and moved to the window by her side, placing one hand on her back. “Hey.” I ran my fingers in a small circle. “Hey, it’s okay.”

My words were her undoing. A sob ripped from her mouth. Her body crumpled like a leaf.

I jolted my arms out, catching her around the middle and bringing her upright. I held her close to my chest as she cried, and cried, and cried, great big ugly tears that seemed to harbour so much pain. So much agony.

I pulled her to my chest, still running small circles over her back, and for the first time since I’d met her, she seemed frail, as if perhaps she was just this tiny human I had to look out for, just as I did Piper. As if she might need me.

Just like I seem to need her.

No.

I froze. I didn’t need her. Didn’t need anyone.

It was safer that way.

My circles slowed, and I shifted my weight, stepping back just the tiniest bit so her boobs weren’t pressed against my chest. The gap between us felt larger than just this whisper of space. It felt like my body ached from missing hers.

My action didn’t go unnoticed.

Everly’s sobs quietened. Her shoulders stopped shaking, and she stepped back farther again, swiping under her eyes with the side of her pointer finger. “Sorry,” she whispered.

“Don’t be.”

“No. I am. This …” She gestured at her face, down her body. She looked as if she’d just come out of the ocean—her eyes somehow more blue, her cheeks flushed pink. “This isn’t what anybody wants to see. You barely even know me—”

“Does anyone really know anyone these days?” I worked a small smile. “I live in an apartment in Newcastle. A sweet little old lady lived next door to me for months. One night, I came home late from work and found her making out with some young guy in a fireman’s uniform up against her door.”

Everly coughed out a laugh. “What?”

“I know,” I said. That had sure been weird. “I guess what I’m trying to say is we don’t ever really know everything.”

She nodded slowly. “I guess. I mean, look at my ex. I thought Bentley was so in love with me, with us, with our little family … then I found out he had an affair.” She looked up at me from under her eyelashes. “Cheating. With someone from work. The oldest cliché in the book.”

“He’s an idiot.” I clenched my jaw and shook my head. “That guy—he doesn’t know the first thing about life. About love.”

Bentley had had it all—and he’d thrown it all away. Why? Why would he do something like that? Why would he do something like that when I would do anything in my power to keep the things I’d once had?

Love.

Happiness.

A new life.

“Cam.” Everly’s chest heaved, and damn it, I didn’t want to, but I noticed. I noticed the swell of it, the way it rose and fell, the way I just wanted to touch those sweet, soft curves.

I closed my eyes.

Long. Red. Hair.

Fucking honeysuckle.

I blinked my eyes open again.

“Cam,” she repeated softly, slowly. “You’re hurting me.”

My eyes widened. I followed her gaze to my hands, wrapped around her arms, pulling her closer. Her skin had turned white around the edges of my touch.

I dropped her arms as if they were made of fire. My lids drooped closed, and I shook my head as I stepped back. What was I doing? When did I even grab her like that?

All I could think was that the anger that lurked in the back of my mind whenever I thought of that day had come back. Even though I’d sweated the worst of it out in the garden behind Everly’s house, in the garage late at night, it had returned.

I had to get out. I had to get out in case someone got hurt.

Again.

“I have to go,” I blurted, stepping backward. “I’m sorry. Fuck, I’m so sorry, I—”

“Cam.” She stepped forward, resting a hand on my arm.

“I can’t do this.” Tension wound inside me like a tight coil, itching for release. “I have to go. I have to—”

“Cam.” She squeezed my bicep, ever so gently, and I stopped.

Paused.

Breathed.

“It’s okay. You’re okay.” Steady blue eyes held my gaze. I focused on them, the never-ending blue that seemed just like the ocean, a startling depth that ended in a thin dark line. “You didn’t mean to hurt me. I know that. I just … did you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

Yes.

For the first time, that answer lurked in the back of my throat.

But I wouldn’t burden Everly with that. Not when she had so much on her plate already.

“Okay.” She let me go, nodding.

“Thanks for the drink.”

“It’s fine.”

“And the pizza.”

“You didn’t have any.”

“And the …” Words failed me. I studied her again, and God, my chest ached.

But at the same time, it felt the slightest bit good.

No one should have been treated like she was. Her ex was a jerk for doing that to her, and after they’d been through so much …

But I couldn’t put that into words.

If there was one thing my past had taught me, it was that talk was cheap. Actions counted.

“And for you,” I finally finished. “Just thanks for you.”