Summer Beach Reads. Natalie Anderson

responded to his cue by bursting into loud fevered applause.

      ‘Shirley …’ Hayden said over the din.

      Her arm curled around his neck and held him close, her shudder half-swallowed. He gave her a moment, lent her shelter, lent her his strength.

      Surprised to discover he had any left at all these days.

      But eventually one of them had to move. He cleared his throat. ‘Shirley …’

      This time she withdrew—in body and in spirit—snaking her arms back into herself and pushing back in her seat. A furious flush stained her pale skin.

      ‘Are you okay—?’

      She pushed to her feet, swiping at her eyes. Enough of the audience were on their feet to celebrate the brilliant piano interpretation that their departure wasn’t too shocking.

      All anyone saw was an overwhelmed woman. They would have no idea what this evening meant to her.

      ‘Are you okay?’ he repeated the moment they were in the comparative silence of the empty foyer. A new piece began in the auditorium behind them.

      ‘I’m fine.’ She swiped at her eyes with a napkin she’d snatched from a foyer table and kept her eyes off his. ‘I just …’ She took a deep breath. ‘I wasn’t ready for it.’

      ‘It’s okay to miss her, Shirley.’

      Her laugh was harsh. ‘It’s been ten years. You’d think I’d have a handle on it by now.’

      What could he say? ‘Would that we could all be loved that much.’

      She shuddered in a deep breath and appeared to revive before his eyes. ‘Thank you.’

      ‘What for?’

      ‘For arranging this. For her.’ She smiled, watery but strengthening, and he realised for the first time how very many smiles she had. And how differently he felt about each one of them.

      ‘I didn’t do it for her, Shirley. Or for me.’ Her delicate brows flickered. ‘I wanted you to have this.’

      Not that he had a clue why. It wasn’t going to get him anything in return. Nothing she’d give him in a million years, anyway.

      Her expression turned awkward. ‘You don’t think I’d have made it to the symphony unassisted?

      ‘You would have been halfway up the back. You would have heard the music but not …’ His fingers grasped for the words he couldn’t find.

      She lifted her eyes. ‘Lived it?’

      ‘Breathed it. She was a wise woman, your mother.’

      Shirley sagged. ‘I wish I’d known her as an adult, the way you did. To me, she was just my mum. She nagged me about homework and told me to clean my room and what not to wear in public.’

      ‘You took that last one to heart, I see …’

      She threw him her fakest smile and he laughed. It felt odd to have run the full gamut of emotions with her in just a quarter of an hour. Exhilaration, devastation and now humour. An intimacy trifecta.

      ‘I would love to have just one adult conversation with her,’ she murmured.

      He plunged his hands into his pockets to stop himself from touching her. From stroking the sadness from that flawless brow. ‘I think she would have been proud of what you do,’ he said. ‘Of the way you speak for some parts of the community and challenge others. Of how fearless you are. How provocative.’

      She shrugged. ‘That’s Shiloh.’

      He stared at her. ‘I’d like to meet Shirley some day.’

      Shirley lifted her gaze to Hayden’s. ‘I don’t think she’d be a match for your sarcasm.’

      The tic of his eye was almost a wince. ‘But Shiloh is?’

      She lifted her chin. ‘Shiloh most definitely is.’

      They stared each other down as music thumped, muted, from behind them. Two equals, perfectly matched.

      ‘So the next one is yours,’ Hayden finally said.

      ‘Excuse me?’

      ‘Our next adventure. Your choice. Your challenge. See if you can top this.’

      ‘I didn’t realise we were taking turns.’ Or doing it again.

      ‘Seems equitable,’ he said. ‘You’re all for equity, I know.’

      ‘You picked a pretty easy one.’

      ‘How about you dress up in a loincloth and brave a house full of nine year olds, then tell me how easy this one was.’

      She stared at him. Thinking. ‘All right.’

      ‘All right, what?’

      ‘All right, I’ll be your warrior sidekick. For the party. Since I enjoyed half of the reward today, it seems only fair that I should pay half the price.’

      ‘You want to come to the kids’ party with me?’

      Yes. Inexplicably. Maybe it had something to do with seeing how he was with children? You could tell a lot about a man from how he interacted with animals and kids. Maybe she was just looking for the kiss of death to her lingering question marks about Hayden Tennant. To put them to the spear once and for all.

      ‘I’m willing to do my part. In the interests of equity,’ she said.

      ‘You’ll have to dress up. Or down in this case.’

      ‘Not a problem.’

      ‘You’re serious?’

      ‘Completely. Just tell me who you’re going as and I’ll match you.’

      ‘You even have to ask?’

      ‘Leonidas.’ Of course; the Spartan king who’d first uttered those defiant words. Come and take them.

      She could well imagine Hayden leading a dwindling army into certain death with defiance on their faces and blood-mingled sweat in their eyes. Barefoot, wild, determined.

      Half-naked.

      She shifted her eyes away from him as warmth suffused her. Perhaps the party wouldn’t be entirely without reward, then. And just like that, she’d decided. Even though saying yes to this was a de facto agreement to undertake more of the list with him.

      Her breath thinned. ‘When is it?’

      ‘Two weeks Saturday. I’ll text you the address.’

      She flicked her hair back over her shoulder. ‘Great. In the meantime I’ll get to work on our next tick off the list.’

      How subtly my had become our. Had she made the mental shift when she’d agreed to come to the symphony with him? Or he’d agreed to go to the dolphins with her? Or was it implicit in the moment she’d curled her fingers so tightly in his during the Moonlight Sonata and she’d not objected when he’d pressed his lips to her forehead?

      Maybe he’d branded them they with that one gentle action?

      Certainly he’d branded her. She could still feel the place his mouth had lingered.

      Shirley snorted inwardly. Or was she just a whole lot easier and a whole lot more female than she’d believed? One promise of a bit of gratuitous flesh on show and she totally caved in.

      But some concessions were more tingly than others, it seemed. She took a deep breath. Finishing the list was now a combined effort. She had a point to prove about the real meaning of her mother’s unfulfilled wish list and she suspected he had his own agenda, his own dark reasons for wanting to prove her wrong.

      Yet, somehow, tackling the list with someone else—even if it was a someone else