Christy McKellen - Mills & Boon Showcase

‘Those hellish things,’ he said. ‘There’s always someone on the progress association who wants to rip them out, but they’re always shouted down.’

‘Thank heaven for that,’ she said. ‘It wouldn’t be Dolphin Bay without them.’

‘People have even started a rumour that if the dolphins are removed it will be the end of Dolphin Bay.’

She giggled. ‘Seriously?’

‘Seriously,’ he said, straight-faced. ‘The rubbish bins go and as punishment we’ll be struck by a tsunami. Or some other calamity.’

He rolled his eyes. Just like he’d used to do. That hidden part of her heart marked ‘first love’ reacted with a painful lurch. She averted her gaze from his mouth and that intriguing, sexy little scar.

She remembered the hours of surfing with him, playing tennis on that old court out at the back of the guesthouse. The fun. The laughter. Those passionate, heartfelt kisses. Oh, those kisses—his mouth hard and warm and exciting on hers, his tongue exploring, teasing. Her body straining to his...

The memories gave her the courage to ask the question. It was now or never. ‘Ben. It was a long time ago. But...but why didn’t you write like you said you would?’

For a long moment he didn’t answer and she tensed. Then he shrugged. ‘I never was much for letters. After you didn’t answer the first two I didn’t bother again.’

An edge to his voice hinted that his words weren’t as carefree as they seemed. She shook her head in disbelief. ‘You wrote me two letters?’

‘The day after you went home. Then the week after that. Like I promised to.’

Her mouth went suddenly dry. ‘I never got a letter. Never. Or a phone call. I always wondered why...’

No way would she admit how, day after day, she’d hung around the letterbox, hoping against hope that he’d write. Her strict upbringing had meant she was very short on dating experience and vulnerable to doubt.

‘Don’t chase after boys,’ her mother had told her, over and over again. ‘Men are hunters. If he’s interested he’ll come after you. If he doesn’t you’ll only make a fool of yourself by throwing yourself at him.’

But in spite of her mother’s advice she’d tried to phone Ben. Three times she’d braved a phone call to the guesthouse but had hung up without identifying herself when his father had answered. On the third time his father had told her not to ring again. Had he thought she was a nuisance caller? Or realised it was her and didn’t want her bothering his son? Her eighteen-year-old self had assumed the latter.

It had been humiliating. Too humiliating to admit it even now to Ben.

‘Your dad probably got to my letters before you could,’ said Ben. ‘He never approved of me.’

‘That’s not true,’ Sandy stated half-heartedly, knowing she wouldn’t put it past her controlling, righteous father to have intercepted any communication from Ben. In fact she and Ben had decided it was best he not phone her because of her father’s disapproval of the relationship.

‘He’s just a small-town Lothario, Alexandra.’ Her father’s long-ago words echoed in her head. Hardly. Ben had treated her with the utmost respect. Unlike the private school sons of his friends her father had tried to foist on her.

‘Your dad wanted more for you than a small-town fisherman.’ Ben’s blue eyes were shrewd and piercing. ‘And you probably came to agree with him.’

Sandy dropped her gaze and shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Over and over her father had told her to forget about Ben. He wasn’t suitable. They came from different worlds. Where was the future for a girl who had academic talents like hers with a boy who’d finished high school but had no intention of going any further?

Underneath it all had been the unspoken message: He’s not good enough for you.

She’d never believed that—not for a second. But she had come to believe there was no future for them.

Inconsolable after their summer together, she’d sobbed into her pillow at night when Ben hadn’t written. Scribbled endless notes to him she’d never had the courage to send.

But he hadn’t got in touch and she’d forced herself to forget him. To get over something that obviously hadn’t meant anything to him.

‘Men make promises they never intend to keep, Alexandra.’ How many times had her mother told her that?

Then, once she’d started university in Sydney, Dolphin Bay and Ben Morgan had seemed far away and less and less important. Her father was right—a surfer boyfriend wouldn’t have fitted in with her new crowd anyway, she’d told herself. Then there’d been other boys. Other kisses. And she’d been too grown up for family holidays at Dolphin Bay or anywhere else.

Still, there remained a place in her heart that had always stayed a little raw, that hurt if she pulled out her memories and prodded at them.

But Ben had written to her.

She swirled the ice cubes round and round in her glass, still unable to meet his eyes, not wanting him to guess how disconcerted she felt. How the knowledge he hadn’t abandoned her teenage self took the sting from her memories.

‘It was a long time ago...’ she repeated, her voice tapering away. ‘Things change.’

‘Yep. Twelve years tends to do that.’

She wasn’t sure if he was talking about her, him, or the town. She seized on the more neutral option.

‘Yes.’ She looked around her, waved a hand to encompass the stark fashionable furnishings. ‘Like this hotel.’

‘What about this hotel?’

‘It’s very smart, but not very sympathetic, is it?’

‘I kinda like it myself,’ he said, and took a drink from his beer.

‘You’re not upset at what the developers did on the site of your family’s beautiful guesthouse?’

‘Like you said. Things change. The guesthouse has...has gone forever.’

He paused and she got the impression he had to control his voice.

‘But this hotel and all the new developments around it have brought jobs for a lot of people. Some say it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to the place.’

‘Do you?’

Sandy willed him to say no, wanting Ben to be the same carefree boy who’d lived for the next good wave, the next catch from the fishing boats he’d shared with his father, but knew somehow from the expression on his face that he wouldn’t.

But still his reply came as a surprise. ‘I own this hotel, Sandy.’

‘You...you do?’

‘Yep. Unsympathetic design and all.’

She clapped her hand to her mouth but she couldn’t take back the words. ‘I’m...I’m so sorry I insulted it.’

‘No offence taken on behalf of the award-winning architect.’

‘Really? It’s won awards?’

‘A stack of ’em.’

She noted the convivial atmosphere at the bar, the rapidly filling tables. ‘It’s very smart, of course. And I’m sure it’s very successful. It’s just...the old place was so charming. Your mother was so proud of it.’

‘My parents left the guesthouse long ago. Glad to say goodbye to the erratic plumbing and the creaking floorboards. They built themselves a comfortable new house up on the headland when I took over.’

Whoa. Surprise on surprise. She knew lots must have changed in twelve years, but this? ‘You took over the running of the guesthouse?’ Somehow, she couldn’t see Ben in that role. She thought of him always as outdoors, an action man—not indoors, pandering to the whims of guests.

‘My wife did.’

His wife.

The words stabbed into Sandy’s heart.

His wife.

If she hadn’t already been sitting down she would have had to. Stupidly, she hadn’t considered—not for one minute—that Ben would be married.

She shot a quick glance at his left hand. He didn’t wear a wedding ring, but then plenty of married men didn’t. She’d learned that lesson since she’d been single again.