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The crowd leapt to his feet to cheer.
‘I missed you,’ she whispered into his ear, as though she’d been waiting a year to tell him that. The warmth of her breath against his skin made it pucker. ‘It’s so good to see you.’
As he held onto a woman who wasn’t his wife in front of two hundred people who weren’t his friends, Sam realised what those dreams and memories he’d been suppressing had tried to tell him.
He’d missed her, too.
Even though he’d only known her a few hours he’d missed Aimee for a year, and kept her close in his sub-conscious. Never quite on the surface—just out of it. As she’d stood in the shadows of the spotlight just now.
Waiting.
His arms tightened further, swinging her just slightly off her feet and forcing her curves more firmly up against him. His commendation dangled forgotten from his fingers.
After all, this was all the reward he needed.
Aimee’s heart had still not settled twenty minutes later as the two of them stood talking in a quiet corner backstage. She’d dreaded this for so long—but one look from those baffled, wounded blue eyes had totally washed away her resolve, rewound the past eleven-months-nine-days-and-sixteen-hours and thrown them straight back into the place where two complete strangers could feel so instantly connected.
So … It hadn’t gone away.
Had she really believed it would?
‘You must have people waiting for you?’ Aimee hinted at last, giving him a graceful exit point if he wanted one. Just in case she was wrong about the connection.
He shook his head and let the exit slide. ‘Nope. I came up to Canberra alone.’
She only noticed she’d suspended her breath when her chest forced her to exhale. ‘Your … family didn’t come with you?’ God, she was such a coward. But she didn’t want to ask. She wanted him to volunteer it openly. Honestly.
To prove he wasn’t like her father.
‘They’re all at home. They wanted to fly up but I refused. Too expensive for all of them. I’ll go see them before I head back to Tassie. Take the medal.’
‘Oh.’ What else could she say? There was only one thing she wanted to know, and she couldn’t ask it.
Why wasn’t she here?
He filled the silence where she should have spoken. ‘And the Parks Service couldn’t spare anyone because they’re covering for me being here.’ His eyes shadowed briefly. ‘And Mel couldn’t get away from work.’
Her heart thumped at both the hollow tone in his voice and the unexpected opening. ‘Mel?’ she asked, all innocence.
‘Melissa. My wife.’
It was barely a pause, but it was there. Aimee glanced down at his left hand. Still bare.
He read her expression and his fingers slid in between the buttons of his dress shirt, fished out a gold wedding band on a chain. ‘I wear it around my neck. It’s too exposed at work.’
Another one of a dozen deluded scenarios crumbled to dust. Like the one in which Sam and his wife were actually divorced but still good friends. Or the one where the orange-clad volunteer had simply made a mistake all those months ago, confused Sam with someone else. Or the one in which they all changed religion and Sam found himself in need of an additional wife.
Anything that meant he wasn’t some kind of sleazoid, disguising his married status.
Aimee sighed. The truth was Sam wasn’t hiding his wedding ring, he was protecting it. That good-guy gene at work again. ‘I’m sure she was really disappointed not to be able to get here today.’
His eyes shadowed. ‘Yes.’
The audience burst into applause for the ninth and final recipient on stage and Aimee felt her opportunity slipping away. The ceremony would be over in minutes and he’d go back to his life. Where she wasn’t invited.
‘Why didn’t you mention you were married?’ she blurted, and then winced at her own lack of art.
His leonine brow folded. ‘Rescue is a—’
Someone rushed past, calling all the recipients together for a newspaper photograph. Sam’s lips pressed together to contain his irritation. Then he flicked his eyes back to hers. They glittered with intensity even in the shadows. ‘Aimee, are you in Canberra for the day? Would you like to grab a coffee?’
That couldn’t be a good idea. Could it? She glanced at her watch and pretended to consider it.
‘I’d just like to talk. To find out how everything went after the rescue.’
The rescue. The reason she was here. Surely it wouldn’t be civil to throw his medal at him and then run. The man who’d saved her life. She nodded. ‘Sure. I have time.’
His broad smile was ridiculously rewarding. Those white, even teeth. That hint of a dimple on the right. And it was all too easy to imagine that it was relief lingering at its corners.
‘Ten minutes!’ he said, and then dashed off for his media call.
He’s married, a stern voice whispered.
‘It’s only coffee,’ she muttered under the thrum of the ceremony’s closing music out front.
But he’s married.
Aimee took a deep, mournful breath. She’d been kidding herself if she’d thought she’d put Sam out of her heart as well as her mind. He was always there somewhere, lingering. Popping up at the most inconvenient times. Just waiting to claw his way back into prominence at the first available opportunity.
Reminding her of the kind of man she still hadn’t found.
But married was more than a deal-breaker for her. Her family had been torn apart when she was a child, thanks to her father applying a rather too flexible interpretation to his vows. She was not about to start messing with someone else’s marriage.
No matter how tempting.
Just coffee, though. To say thank you properly, to apologise for the embarrassing kiss, and to wish Sam well with his life … Coffee was public and harmless and agenda-free. Coffee wasn’t like a drink at a bar. Or in a hotel room. Or over breakfast. Coffee was just coffee and a little bit of conversation. And then that would be that.
They could part as friends, instead of strangers.
Life would go back to normal.
‘SO you were only in for a few days? Amazing.’
Aimee lowered her skirt down her leg, back over the pin-scars high on her calf that she’d just been showing Sam. The only physical reminder she had of her night on the side of a mountain.
‘It’s good to be able to talk to you about this,’ she said, sipping her latte. ‘No one else gets it. They look at my little scars and think that somehow reflects the scale of the accident.’
‘You haven’t talked about it to anyone?’
‘The counsellor at the hospital.’ Though mostly