Dreaming Of... Australia. Annie West

down on the sofa in the corner of his room, folded his arms behind his head and stared at the ceiling.

      It couldn’t be a good thing that he was still struggling to clear his head of an image of Aimee, all pink and soft from a hot bath, curled up in her complimentary bathrobe with papers spread all around her, working diligently on her transcription. Lifting her head as he walked into her room. Smiling and stretching up for the kiss he would place on her hairline before going back to her work and losing focus on everything but her stories. Leaving him to just … watch her.

      Okay, now he was just plain fantasising.

      It had been bad enough spending all day together—listening to her soft voice talking to the school kids, vicariously experiencing her fear and anxiety about the accident through the memories she recounted for them, sitting with his body pressed against hers in the compact car that his department had sent to move them around Melbourne. Working so well together as a team.

      He really didn’t need to add inappropriate fantasies to the many different ways he was not helping the situation. Yeah—fantasies in the plural. This wasn’t the first that had broken through since she’d walked so cautiously back into his life across that stage all those weeks ago. Since she’d exited the café with such dignity after he’d been a jerk. Since her cheeks had flushed so hot this morning when he’d mentioned the kiss.

      The harder he tried to keep Aimee out of his mind, the more often he caught her in there. It was never lewd, never disrespectful. Just flashes of her smile, the smell of her hair, the memory of a touch …

      But she wasn’t here for his amusement. She was here to help out his department. It wasn’t her fault she was also the sweetest, freshest, most distracting person he’d met in …

      He sighed.

      … a really long time.

      His mind made the immediate shift to Melissa. The only other woman that he’d ever obsessed about in quite this way. All the more because he couldn’t have her at the time. Four long years of teenage angst and hormone-driven focus until his planets had aligned and he’d had a chance with the girl he’d been secretly admiring for what felt like for ever.

      By then he’d built her up to goddess status. The sun had risen and set with her. She was perfection.

      How could she ever have lived up to that?

      The contrast between the intense attraction he’d felt then, for the girl he couldn’t have and the beige, comfortable nothing he felt now, just a few years later for the girl he’d eventually married … Had he learned nothing since he was nineteen?

      He should know all about heady infatuations.

      Was that what he was doing with Aimee? Turning her into some kind of new ideal of the perfect woman for him? Since Melissa had failed to achieve it? Since they’d so miserably failed to achieve perfect couple status together?

      Back then, his list of non-negotiables had been a heck of a lot shorter. These days it had become more sophisticated: intelligence, compassion, warmth, someone looking to be stronger in a pair than they were on their own.

      His needs had grown beyond the shallow.

      They’d certainly outgrown his marriage.

      Sam’s eyes drifted shut. He should call Mel. Not that she’d asked him to, or would even expect it; she wasn’t exactly what you’d call needy. She’d probably be at the lab, working on her ice, not even conscious of the time, enjoying a concentrated opportunity to work without having to worry about getting home to him. She wouldn’t appreciate the interruption.

      He’d gone to do it earlier—picked up the phone and dialled. But Aimee had answered instead, like some kind of cosmic mistake. He glanced at the last call on the phone still in his hand. Yep. He’d dialled her number without realising.

      He’d had to come up with something fast to justify his stuff-up. Mel’s birthday was the perfect excuse. Totally real—he’d failed abysmally in getting something for her—but he hadn’t started the day planning on asking Aimee for her help finding a gift.

      He wasn’t that much of a masochist.

      He let his head roll to one side on the sofa-back and stared at the wall dividing Aimee’s room and his. He pictured her sitting there, all languid and relaxed and sleepy, and his body responded immediately with a torturous tingle. It would take just moments to throw on some clothes, heartbeats to be out in the hall knocking on her door, and fantasy seconds more to get those clothes off again.

      As if that was ever going to happen.

      He was married.

      She was Aimee.

      Ne’er the twain shall meet.

      He pushed to his feet and dialled Mel’s number. It started to ring immediately. Aimee reminded him of the best part of his relationship with his wife. The early golden years when the two of them had still been caught up in a spiral of mutual appreciation and new romance. Back before life had got busy, before they’d both found their feet as adults. Did that place even exist any more? And if it did could he possibly find his way back there? Could they?

      He shuddered in a sigh.

      He’d made Mel some promises that day they’d stood before a priest and committed to each other for ever, and she’d taken him in good faith.

      He owed her as much, too.

      The call went to voicemail. His wife’s impatient, confident tone suggested even a voice message was an interruption.

      His eyes dropped shut and he concentrated on the woman he’d pledged his life and allegiance to, pushing out the one who flirted enticingly at the edges of his mind even when she didn’t mean to.

      The phone beeped.

      ‘Hey, Mel …’ he started.

      Hey, Mel … what? Hey Mel, I’m miserable and so are you. Hey, Mel, is it possible we got married for the wrong reasons? Hey, Mel, I’m sorry that I’m not better at loving you.

      ‘I … uh … just wanted to let you know we arrived okay—’ your husband and the woman he can’t stop thinking about ‘—and that …’

      He opened his eyes and stared at the blank wall again. Imagined Aimee there. Wanted to be with her so badly he burned with it. But his loyalty—his life—belonged to someone else.

      He had to try harder.

      ‘… just that I’m thinking about you.’

      He rang off and dropped the phone onto his bed, then followed it in a defeated kind of body-flop.

      He was honouring his wife.

      Why did that feel like such a betrayal of himself?

       CHAPTER NINE

      ‘NO! Definitely no.’

      Aimee stood with Sam, deep at the heart of the beachside markets, the historic architecture in pronounced contrast to the modern, brightly coloured pop-up canopies littering the busy square.

      Around them, buried beneath a surging crowd of tourists and locals, rows of stalls sold fine oils, organic produce, delicately hewn crafts, original artworks, timber knick-knacks and bright hand-woven beanies. They offered just about every gift imaginable.

      But still Sam had found this.

      He held up a twisted oddity made from forlorn-looking recycled cutlery. ‘It’s a spoondelabra. You put candles in it.’ He blinked at her lack of enthusiasm. ‘It’s clever.’

      Aimeee smiled at the tragedy of his expression and prised it carefully from his fingers. ‘No, Sam.’

      He frowned and picked it up again as soon as she’d