LITMIR.BIZ

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a man pushed through the front door.

      ‘Great. He’s finally here,’ she thought as she flicked the last switch and picked up the set of hefty keys to lock up, eager to get this meeting underway.

      However, as she neared the door, the keys crashed to the floor, along with her hopes for a productive consultation, her heart stopping when she got a closer look at the man who’d just entered.

      Scruffy, wind-tossed, ultra casual.

      Faded denim, soft grey T-shirt, worn leather work boots.

      Stubble shadows, laugh-lines around grey eyes, slight dimples bracketing a mouth made for smiling.

      A mouth that was smiling at her, a wide, genuine smile filled with warmth, a smile that packed a punch, a smile she could never forget no matter how hard she tried.

      And she’d tried. She’d tried for six long, lonely years, yet the minute Blane Andrews strolled in and smiled that all-too-familiar smile, she was instantly transported back in time.

      To the first time she’d seen that smile, on Valentine’s Day, as fate would have it, to a time when that smile rarely left his face, when he’d lavished her with attention, when they’d been crazy for each other.

      Seeing him again after all these years was like being sucked into a vortex of swirling memories of love and laughter and sunshine on a hot summer’s day beside a lazy, meandering creek.

      Of sharing hot dogs perched on the back of his rusty old Ford, watching the sun set, wiping ketchup off each other with smiles on their faces and love in their hearts.

      Of taking long slow walks hand in hand in the shade of towering eucalypts, oblivious to the bush beauty, focused solely on each other.

      Of cuddling and kissing and floating on air, lost in the exquisite, heady perfection of first love.

      Oh, yeah, falling for Blane had been a whirlwind of exhilarating highs, before being spit out the other side, left with nothing but pain and loss and devastation.

      He’d ripped her heart out, and she never wanted to feel that way again.

      Ever.

      ‘Everything okay, Cam?’

      ‘You mean right now or are you asking how I’ve been the last six years?’

      Trying not to show how rattled she was by his reappearance and the abbreviated form of her name only he had ever called her, she bent to pick up the keys at the same time he did, their fingers brushing, hers tingling, his long and warm and heartrendingly familiar.

      She jerked back, straightening too quickly, and his hand shot out to steady her elbow, the barest of touches enough to give her dormant hormones a jolt.

      ‘Both.’

      He scanned her face as if looking for answers, those slate-grey eyes as frank and warm as they’d always been, beautiful, honest eyes that said trust me.

      Foolishly, she’d once complied.

      ‘I’m fine.’

      A big, fat lie if ever she heard one. How could she be fine when the love of her life, the man who’d walked out on her without an explanation, came waltzing in here on the anniversary of the day she’d first handed him her heart? Only to have it carved up three months later.

      ‘What are you doing here?’ she blurted, sliding the key ring from index finger to index finger, the jangle as the keys clinked and clanked against one another deafening in the growing silence.

      ‘I came to see you.’

      Her heart thudded at the sincerity in his eyes.

      He was telling the truth.

      She may not have seen him for six years but she’d never forget the way she could always read his moods by the blue flecks in his eyes.

      Indigo indicated happiness—the kind of intense, spontaneous happiness they’d had for twelve all-too-brief weeks.

      Cobalt indicated honesty—she’d believed him when he’d said she was the only girl for him, that they’d always be together, that he’d love her for ever.

      Deep smoky-gentian meant passion—the mind-blowing, unforgettable, once-in-a-lifetime connection they’d shared.

      Oh, yeah, she could remember each and every shade of those flecks, had lost herself in those grey depths for three blissful months. Until he’d walked away.

      So what if those flecks glowed cobalt now? Did his honesty count for anything when he hadn’t been able to face her with the truth before leaving?

      Hating the surge of emotion making her tummy gripe, she stepped back, forcing him to release his hold on her elbow and instantly missing the contact.

      Irrational, stupid and crazy, but her body had softened under his touch, had leaned towards him, recognising on some subconscious level the one guy to ever know her intimately. And by the strange heat seeping through her muscles, her traitorous body was rejoicing despite the hard-learned lesson that he couldn’t be trusted.

      ‘You came to see me? Well, here I am. Now that you’ve seen me, why don’t you leave?’

      He smiled, and she struggled not to gasp at the impact, her pulse doing a familiar tango through her veins.

      ‘You can’t get rid of me that easily.’

      ‘Could’ve fooled me,’ she snapped, mentally clapping one hand over her mouth while slapping herself upside the head with the other.

      An emotional outburst like that would suggest she still cared—which she didn’t, she couldn’t—and the last thing she needed was him hanging around trying to rehash the past.

      To her chagrin he laughed, a rich, natural sound that warmed her better than any cappuccino she’d ever drunk. And she’d drunk the equivalent of a year’s supply of Brazil beans after he’d left, to recapture half the heat he used to make her feel.

      ‘Guess I deserved that.’

      ‘And the rest.’

      The laugh-lines around his eyes deepened. ‘Go ahead. Get it all out of your system.’

      ‘Don’t tempt me.’

      She toyed with the keys, torn between the urge to take him up on his offer and tell him how heartbroken she’d been, how she’d searched for him for a year, how she hadn’t let another guy close because of him and the emotional fallout from their intense relationship—and booting him out the door and never giving him another thought.

      ‘Cam, I know you don’t want to kick me out.’

      Great, he could still read her mind, could hone in on how she was feeling, and there was something about the way he looked at her, as if he could see right down to her soul and knew better than she did that the last thing she wanted to do was kick him out.

      For as much as she wanted him to walk right back out that door and never come back—he was good at that—a huge part of her clamoured to know where he’d been, what he’d been doing and why he’d ripped their perfect world apart.

      ‘You don’t know what I want anymore,’ she said, hating the flare of hurt in his eyes and how much her heart ached in response.

      ‘I’d like to.’

      His intent was clear, and she inhaled sharply, his poignantly familiar, fresh outdoorsy scent reminiscent of crushed cedar leaves in a spring shower, the tantalising trace filling her nose, her lungs, making her want to lean into the soft, sensitive spot under his jaw and nuzzle him as she used to.

      Ignoring the incredible yearning to do just that, she rattled the keys.

      ‘I’m closing up.’

      He raised an eyebrow and glanced at the lights she’d dimmed. ‘I can see that, but we really need to talk.’

      ‘Actually,

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