Amy Andrews - Australian Escape

Choofed off? Maybe that was Aussie for retired. Crazy or not, when Avery had first called Claude to say she was coming, Claude had sounded giddy that the management of the resort her family had owned for the past twenty years was finally up to her. She had ideas! Brilliant ones! People were going to flock as they hadn’t flocked in years!

Glancing back at the still-empty lobby, Avery figured the flocking was still in the planning. “Shall I wait?”

“No ho ho,” said Isis, back to tapping at the keyboard, “you’ll be waiting till next millennium. Get thee to thy room. Goodies await. I’ll get one of the crew to show you the way.”

Avery glanced over her shoulder, her mind going instantly to the stream of messages her friends had sent when they’d heard she was heading to Australia, most of which were vividly imagined snippets of advice on how best to lure a hot, musclebound young porter “down under.”

The kid ambling her way was young—couldn’t have been a day over seventeen. But with his bright red hair and galaxy of freckles, hunching over his lurid yellow and blue shirt and wearing a floppy black pirate hat that had seen better days, he probably wasn’t what they’d had in mind.

“Cyrus,” Isis said, an impressive warning note creeping into her voice.

Cyrus looked up, his flapping sandshoes coming to a slow halt. Then he grinned, the overlapping teeth putting it beyond doubt that he and Isis were related.

“This is Miss Shaw,” warned Isis. “Claudia’s friend.”

“Thanks, Cyrus,” Avery said, heaving her luggage onto the golden trolley by the desk since Cyrus was too busy staring to seem to remember how.

“Impshi,” Isis growled. “Kindly escort Miss Shaw to the Tiki Suite.”

Avery’s bags wobbled precariously as Cyrus finally grabbed the high bar of the trolley and began loping off towards the rear of the lobby.

“You’re the New Yorker,” he said.

Jogging to catch up, Avery said, “I’m the New Yorker.”

“So how do you know Claude anyway? She never goes anywhere,” said Cyrus, stopping short and throwing out an arm that nearly got her around the neck. She realised belatedly he was letting a couple of women with matching silver hair and eye-popping orange sarongs squeeze past.

Avery ducked under Cyrus’s arm. “Claude has been all over the place, and I know because I went with her. The best trips were Italy...Morocco... One particular night in the Maldives was particularly memorable. We first met when my family holidayed here about ten years back.”

Not about ten years. Exactly. Nearly to the day. There’d be no forgetting that these next few weeks. No matter how far from home she was.

“Now, come on Cyrus,” Avery said, shaking off the sudden weight upon her chest. She looped a hand through the crook of Cyrus’s bony elbow and dragged him in the direction of her suite. “Take me to my room.”

Kid nearly tripped over his size thirteens.

One wrong turn and a generous tip later the Tiki Suite was all hers, and Avery was alone in the blissful cool of the soft, worn, white-on-white decor where indeed goodies did await: a basket of warm-skinned peaches, plums and nectarines, a box of divine chocolate, and a huge bottle of pink bubbly.

But first Avery kicked off her shoes and moved to the French doors, where the scent of sea air and the lemon trees that bordered the wall of her private courtyard filled her senses. She lifted her face to the sun to find it hotter than back home, crisper somehow.

It was the same suite in which her family had stayed a decade before. Her mother had kicked up a fuss when they’d discovered the place was less glamorous than she’d envisaged, but by that stage Avery had already met Claude and begged to stay. For once her dear dad had put his foot down, and Avery had gone on to have a magical, memorable, lazy, hazy summer.

The last simple, wonderful, innocent summer of her life.

The last before her parents’ divorce.

The divorce her mother was about to celebrate with a Divorced a Decade party, in fact; capitals intended.

Avery glanced over her shoulder at the tote she’d left on the bed, and tickles of perspiration burst over her skin.

She had to call home, let her mother know she’d arrived. Even though she knew she’d barely get in a hello before she was force fed every new detail of the big bash colour theme—blood-red—guest lists—exclusive yet extensive—and all-male live entertainment—no, no, NO!

Avery sent a text.

I’m here! Sun is shining. Beach looks splendiferous. I’ll call once jet lag wears off. Prepare yourself for stories of backyard tattoos, pub crawls, killer spiders the size of a studio apartment, and naked midnight beach sprints. Happy to hear the same from you. Ave xXx

Then, switching off her phone, she threw it to the bed. Then shoved a pillow over the top.

Knowing she couldn’t be trusted to sit in the room and wait for Claude without turning her phone back on, Avery changed into a swimsuit, lathered suncreen over every exposed inch, grabbed a beach towel, and headed out to marvel at the Pacific.

As she padded through the resort, smiling at each and every one of Claude’s—yes, Claude’s!—pink-faced guests, Avery thought about how her decision to come back had been purely reactive, a panic-driven emotional hiccup when her mother had broached the idea of the Divorced a Decade party for the very first time.

But now she was here, the swirl of warm memories seeping under her skin, she wondered why it had never occurred to her sooner to come back. To come full circle.

Because that’s how it felt. Like over the next few weeks she’d not only hang with her bestie—or nab herself a willing cabana boy to help get the kinks out—but maybe even be able to work her way back to how things had been here before her family had flown back to Manhattan and everything had fallen apart. To find the hopeful girl she’d once been before her life had become an endless series of gymnastic spins from one parent to the other and back again. Cartwheels to get her absent father’s attention. Cheerleading her way through her mother’s wild moods.

She’d never felt quite as safe, as secure, as content since that summer.

The summer of her first beer.

Her first beach bonfire.

Her first crush...

Avery’s feet came to a squeaking halt.

In fact, wasn’t he—the object of said crush—in Crescent Cove, right now?

Claude had mentioned him. Okay, so she’d bitched and moaned; that he was only in the cove till he and Claudia sorted out what they were going to do with the resort now that their respective parents had retired and left the two of them in charge. But that was about Claude’s history with the guy, not Avery’s.

Her history was nice. And at that moment he was there. And she was there. It would be nice to look him up. And compared to the supercharged emotional tornado that was her family life in New York, this summer Avery could really do with some nice.

* * *

Jonah North pushed his arms through the rippling water, the ocean cool sliding over the heat-baked skin of his back and shoulders, his feet trailing lazily through the water behind him.

Once he hit a sweet spot—calm, warm, a good distance from the sand—he pressed himself to sitting, legs either side of his board. He ran two hands over his face, shook the water from his hair, and took in the view.

The town of Crescent Cove was nestled behind a double row of palm trees that fringed the curved beach that gave the place its name. Through the gaps were flashes of pastel—huge resorts, holiday accommodation, locally run shops, as well as scattered homes of locals yet to sell out. Above him only sky, behind and below the endless blue of the Pacific. Paradise.