LITMIR.BIZ

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guy was too much. Too nice, too amazing—for her. He’d be gone in a couple of weeks and she’d look back and wish she had made love with him. It was a gift to be here with him, right at this moment, and she was throwing it back because she was too scared of the moment—or was she too scared of the emptiness later?

      Simon was like the foster-home she knew she’d have to leave. It really was better not to suffer the separation. But it felt so good to be tucked into his side, his strong arm around her shoulder. Close to him.

      ‘You could still hold me, Simon.’

      He cuddled her into him, gave the impression he couldn’t get close enough, then lifted her onto his lap. ‘Can’t think of anything I’d rather do.’

      So they sat there. Tara was still on Simon’s lap as the sun set with a magnificent orange glow that turned to pink and purple in front of their eyes, reflecting off the lake, and she snuggled into his shoulder as peace seeped into her.

      Then she heard the strangest thing. It sounded almost like her motorbike but distant. The throbbing roar of her Harley-Davidson. For a horrible moment she thought Mick had found her then remembered she had the bike.

      Simon shifted her off his lap and stood up as she scrambled to her feet herself.

      But when they looked her bike was there. Less than ten feet away from them and definitely still and quiet. Then the noise came again. The louder roar of the engine then the sound of a bike idling. It came from the bushes across the car park and Simon started to laugh.

      ‘What was that?’

      ‘If I’m not mistaken, that, dear Tara, was our lyrebird.’

      ‘You’re kidding me. How could a bird make that noise?’

      ‘World’s greatest mimickers. They can sound like babies, chainsaws …’ he grinned ‘… and apparently Harley-Davidson motorbikes.’ Simon slipped his hand into hers and pulled her into his embrace. Kissed her gently. ‘I’ll have to apologise to my dad. Lyrebirds make amazing noises. That’s pretty special.’

      Still distracted, she kissed him back but not with her full attention. ‘Not possible.’

      But the sound came again and closer to them. To the side there was a rustle of bushes, the crack of tiny twigs, and she twisted her head to see past Simon’s shoulder and then she saw it. A small grey-brown bird the size of a chicken, his reddish-brown throat lifted as he gazed at her. But it was the two long feathers that hung each side of his tail that told her what it was.

      She whispered. ‘Simon. Turn slowly and look to your left.’

      Simon turned his head and saw it. A slow smile curved his mouth. ‘I told you!’ He squeezed her. ‘Our lyrebird.’

      He’d said ‘our’ again. She hugged that defiantly to herself and ignored her voice of caution. ‘Why doesn’t it run away?’

      He grinned cheekily. ‘Well, it knows I don’t want to move.’ He squeezed her gently. Looked down into her face. ‘I really don’t want to.’

      But the lyrebird could. He strutted across to a little mound of dirt about six feet from them and climbed to the top, where he spread his gorgeous tail. Swivelled his head to glance at them as if to tell them to pay attention, and the two long tail feathers spread like the outside edges of a fan and outlined the distinctive harp-shaped feathers in the centre that had given him his name. And then he began to prance.

      Tara could feel the rush of goose-bumps that covered her arms. A shivering perception of something magical and mystical, totally surreal, and Simon’s eyes never left the bird’s dance until he felt her glance at him.

      The lyrebird shook his tail at them once more in a grand finale and then sauntered off into the bushes.

      They stood silently, watching the bush where it had disappeared, but it had gone. Job done. Simon looked amused and then strangely thoughtful. ‘You know what this means?’ Simon said quietly.

      He watched her with an expression she didn’t understand and she searched his face. Then remembered what he’d said weeks ago when he’d first arrived. But she wasn’t saying that.

      Simon sounded more spooked than excited. ‘It’s a sign.’ He tilted his head. ‘Which I didn’t believe in before, I admit.’ Then he shrugged and said lightly, as if sharing a joke, ‘We must be meant for each other.’

      She stared at him—couldn’t believe that. More goose-bumps covered her arms at the thought. She and Simon? For ever? Nope. Couldn’t happen. ‘Or there’s a gorgeous female lyrebird behind us that we can’t see.’

      He smiled but she had the feeling he was glad she’d poo-pooed it too. ‘Could be that as well.’

      Then he pulled her closer in his arms until they squeezed together and with the magic of the moment and the dusk slowly dimming into night, he kissed her and she kissed him back, and the magic settled over them like a gossamer cloud, but it wasn’t quite the same, Simon wasn’t quite the same, and when it was the moment that balanced between losing themselves or pulling back it was Simon who pulled back.

      If she wasn’t mistaken, there was look of poorly disguised anxiety on his face.

       CHAPTER TEN

      IN THE LAST glow of the dimming evening the motorbike’s engine thrummed beneath them and Simon held onto Tara on the way back to the lake. A single beam of light swept the roadside and the rest was darkness, a bit like the bottom of the deepening hole of dread inside him. That had been too close. He wasn’t ready for that kind of commitment. Sharing a lyrebird was for those who knew what they were doing.

      Thank goodness she’d had the presence of mind to see his sudden distance because suddenly he hadn’t been sure he really wanted to step off the edge with Tara. When had it become more serious than he’d intended? Did she really feel the same and if she did could he trust himself to be everything she thought he was?

      On the mountain, at the end, it had been Tara who had agreed they should go, agreed when Simon had said he was worried about hitting wildlife in the dark. But, despite the peculiar visions of lyrebirds scattering in the headlights, the real reason had been that he wasn’t sure he was as heart-whole as he had been any more. In fact, he’d had a sudden onset of the heebie-jeebies about just how deep he was getting in here, and none of this was in his plans—or his belief system.

      And then Tara had agreed so easily that now, contrarily, he’d decided she didn’t feel secure either.

      But earlier, standing with her in his arms, losing himself in the generosity that was Tara, despite her fierce independence, he’d almost believed the sudden vision that he could hold this woman for the rest of his days.

      But what if he broke her heart for ever if he had to move on?

      Like his mum had moved on from his dad. Like Maeve’s man, and his ex-friend, had moved on from them. The problem was that since the lyrebird, just an hour ago, Simon felt connected to Tara by a terrifying concept he hadn’t expected but which was proving stronger than he had felt with anyone in his world. And he wasn’t sure he liked it.

      She made him feel larger than life, which he wasn’t, exuberant when he hadn’t thought he had an exuberant bone in his body. She made him want to experience the adventure of the world. And with Tara it would be an adventure. A quest towards the kind of life he had only dreamt of having for himself.

      Except it wasn’t him.

      He wasn’t quite sure who she was seeing in him but it wasn’t Simon Campbell. He needed to get a little distance back while he worked through this.

      Because he wasn’t the adventurous, fun guy Tara needed. She needed someone to jump out of planes with, fall head over heels in love with her, and be there for the next month, the next year, the next lifetime. He

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