LITMIR.BIZ

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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.

      ‘Of course. Of course you would have married,’ she babbled, forcing her mouth into the semblance of a smile.

      She clutched her glass so tightly she feared it would shatter. Frantically she tried to mould her expression into something normal, show a polite interest in an old friend’s new life.

      ‘Did you...did you marry someone from around here?’

      ‘Jodi Hart.’

      Immediately Sandy remembered her. Jodi, with her quiet manner and gentle heart-shaped face. ‘She was lovely,’ she said, meaning every word while trying not to let an unwarranted jealousy flame into life.

      ‘Yes,’ Ben said, and a muscle pulled at the side of his mouth, giving it a weary twist.

      His face seemed suddenly drawn under the bronze of his tan. She was aware of lines etched around his features. She hadn’t noticed them in the first flush of surprise at their meeting. Maybe their marriage wasn’t happy.

      Ben drummed his fingers on the surface of the table. Again her eyes were drawn to the scars on his hands. Horrible, angry ridges that made her wince at the sight of them.

      ‘What about you?’ he asked. ‘Did you marry?’

      Sandy shook her head. ‘Me? Marry? No. My partner...he...he didn’t believe in marriage.’

      Her voice sounded brittle to her own ears. How she’d always hated that ambiguous term partner.

      ‘“Just a piece of paper,” he used to say.’ She forced a laugh and hoped it concealed any trace of heartbreak. ‘Sure made it easy when we split up. No messy divorce or anything.’

      No way would she admit how distraught she’d been. How angry and hurt and humiliated.

      His jaw clenched. ‘I’m sorry. Did—?’

      She put her hand up to stop his words. ‘Thank you. But there’s no point in talking about it.’ She made herself smile. ‘Water under the bridge, you know.’

      It

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