The One Winter Collection. Rebecca Winters

the organisation I worked for. I wanted nothing to do with her.’

      Something about the tone of his voice made her ask, ‘But she wanted you?’

      ‘To take up where we left off. Another fling. She was married by then and prepared to betray her husband.’

      Under her breath, Lizzie uttered some choice swear words in French.

      ‘I don’t dare ask what that meant,’ Jesse said with a shadow of his grin.

      ‘Don’t,’ said Lizzie.

      ‘Probably nothing I wouldn’t have said myself,’ he said. ‘I told her what I thought of her and got transferred to another site.’

      Lizzie put her hand on his arm. ‘I hate her on your behalf,’ she said vehemently. ‘How dare she do that to you? And what an idiot to...to have let you go. I would have...’ Her voice tapered off as she realised what she had said. What she had revealed. ‘I...I mean—’

      Jesse cradled her face in his hands, dropped a kiss on her mouth. ‘That’s sweet of you,’ he said.

      She managed a weak smile. ‘I...I think you’re kinda wonderful. I can’t imagine every other woman wouldn’t think so too.’

      ‘I’m glad you think I’m wonderful.’ He rolled his eyes in self-mockery.

      ‘You...you must know I do. I don’t mean that as a joke.’

      Her breath hitched with awareness of how attractive she found him but it was so much more than the way he looked. ‘I missed you terribly while you were away in Sydney. It...it scared me. The thought of what it would be like when you leave for your job.’

      ‘I missed you too. I thought about you every minute of that four-hour trip to Sydney and all the way back.’

      He took her hand in his, twined his fingers through hers. ‘So what are we going to do about it?’

      * * *

      Jesse tightened his grip on Lizzie’s hand. ‘What’s to stop us being more than friends? From seeing what else we could be to each other if we gave it a chance. What are the real issues—issues that can’t easily be resolved? Can we discuss that?’ They could beat about the bush for weeks over this—and he didn’t have weeks.

      She answered the pressure of his hand with hers. ‘There’s the fact we don’t live in the same country for a start. You seem to be in a different place every few months.’

      ‘That’s the nature of my current job.’

      ‘Current? There’s something else in the offing?’

      ‘A job that would still involve travel. But I’d be based in Houston, Texas. That is if I choose to take the job.’

      She released her hand from his, smoothed her hair away from her forehead in a nervous gesture that was becoming familiar. ‘Texas is a long way from here. Even further than the Asian countries you seem to work in now. That’s a real issue.’

      ‘In the short-term. Long-term, Houston is a good city to live in. With plenty of good restaurants.’

      She found her favourite errant lock of hair and twisted it around her finger. ‘But there’s not just me to consider. There’s Amy. She needs stability in her life. She’s already been uprooted from France, then from Sydney. And her father still wants her with him every long school vacation. I don’t want to disrupt her again.’

      ‘Does it make a huge difference where she lives when she’s only five years old?’

      Lizzie threw up her hands in an exaggerated shrug. ‘I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not. I’m still learning to be Amy’s mum. Trying to do my best for her when at times it’s been quite difficult. I can’t tell you how much I miss her when she’s away, like now. But, for her sake, I do everything I can to keep up the relationship with her papa. She loves him and she loves her French grandparents.’

      ‘I can understand that,’ he said. That didn’t mean he had to like the guy.

      Lizzie shifted on the sofa; the movement took her further from him. ‘I guess we’ve already segued into the next issue that might stop us being together—my daughter. Bringing a man into our lives would have ramifications I haven’t really thought through. All I know is Amy has to come first.’

      ‘It’s not an issue for me,’ Jesse said. ‘You and Amy come as a package deal and I’m okay with that. We’d have to play it by ear what my role would be with Amy.’

      ‘You know I’m not looking for a father for Amy?’

      ‘I get that.’

      ‘She has a father. Philippe has his faults but he loves his daughter.’

      ‘You said he wants custody?’

      ‘He and his parents want her brought up French. His parents love her too. And she loves her grand-maman and grand-père. They’re wealthy. They think they can give her a good life.’

      ‘Not as good as with her mother.’ He felt a fierce surge of protectiveness towards both Lizzie and Amy.

      ‘That’s another point I have to consider. Amy is the reason I’m in Dolphin Bay. Thanks to Sandy I’ve got a job and a home and family nearby. Your mother has said she’ll help me with Amy. The local school seems good. I wouldn’t give all that up easily.’

      ‘You’d have to weigh up the pros and the cons of another possible change.’

      ‘Yes. That’s exactly what I’d have to do.’

      He spoke slowly. ‘And I have to think about what a possible commitment would mean for me.’

      Her quick intake of air told him he’d hit the mark with that one. He knew about the wagers laid on his ongoing bachelor ways. He knew even Sandy called him a ‘commitment-phobe’. He wouldn’t be surprised if she’d warned her sister off him.

      ‘Did what happened with Camilla make you...make you back away from relationships?’ Lizzie asked.

      ‘Yeah. It did. Just when I’d...I’d got over the fire.’ Lizzie was the first person he had confided in about Camilla and now this. If he wanted to take their attraction further he owed it to her to be honest.

      ‘The fire that burned down the guest house? When...when you lost Ben’s first wife and little boy.’

      ‘It affected us all. We probably should have had trauma counselling. But Morgans don’t go in for that. You know what happened to Ben. He was so deep in despair no one could reach him. Until Sandy came back.’

      ‘Thank heaven,’ she said.

      ‘Mum doted on her little grandson. Dad as well. She went extra dotty over dogs after we lost Liam and Jodi.’

      ‘And you?’ Lizzie’s eyes were warm with compassion.

      ‘I was gutted.’

      ‘But everyone was probably so concerned for Ben they didn’t think about the effect on you.’

      ‘And rightly so. But seeing what happened to him made me decide it was never going to happen to me.’

      ‘If you didn’t love, you couldn’t lose.’

      ‘Something like that. By the time I met Camilla my defences were cracking. I’d realised I had to take my own risks. Make my own way.’

      ‘And then you got hit with Camilla’s betrayal.’

      ‘And went backwards.’

      Lizzie’s smile was shaky at the edges. ‘We’re quite a pair, aren’t we? Both scared of what happened to us in the past happening to us again. Me with Philippe. You with Camilla.’

      ‘I don’t know that I’d use the word “scared”,’ he said.