Still the One Page 3

  On the outside, anyway. Dan nodded. He’d never understood what all the fuss was about Christmas. One day of pointless presents and tolerating people he’d chosen not to spend the last three hundred and sixty four days with. Latterly, he’d spent the days on his boat, on his own. “It won’t be pretty so you’re probably better off staying well clear. Anyway, thanks to everyone for coming and joining in. Enjoy the rest of the evening, see you tomorrow for a kayak if not before.”

  He was just about to wander off home when he felt a warm hand on his arm. The spiking hairs on the back of his neck told him exactly who it was. The unexpected thud of his heart reminded him he wasn’t finished feeling things for her no matter how much he’d tried.

  “You delivered a baby? And you’re on the police float? Dancing?” Emma’s eyes narrowed, but some of the wariness had gone, there was laughter there now. “Who are you? And what have you done with Danny Wade?”

  He let the nickname go—she’d chosen it after all. “It’s my job, you have to put yourself out there. No-one else was there to catch the baby when it arrived, so it was up to me. Just one of those timing things, no big deal. And yes, I’m on the float. Community initiative…giving a friendly face to the guys on the beat. You know how it goes.”

  “The Danny Wade of old would rather have worked a double shift doing paperwork than do that.”

  “That guy has gone, Emma.”

  She looked at him for a few moments, eyebrows peaking. “And this is the new and improved version?”

  “I like to think so.” He wasn’t ready for this; an analysis of who he was. Or the hot streak of need that was still running through him from the briefest touch of her skin on his, and the sharp sting of want at the smell of her light flowery perfume. It felt as if some maniac had set off fireworks in his gut. The way he used to feel when she smiled at him, when she kissed him. Somehow he’d have to get used to that over the next few days.

  And take a few cold showers.

  Chapter 3

  “Good to see the Santa Parade’s as cheesy and full of nostalgia as always.” Emma laughed as she waved to the grinning children dressed up as sheep and cows and goats and who baa-ed and moo-ed at her from a slow moving truck. “What’s that one meant to be? Ah…a petting farm. Okay. And relevant to Christmas, why?”

  “Maybe they’re the animals from the nativity, don’t ask me. There doesn’t have to be a reason. You love it all and don’t deny it. I remember you being unbearable when you were Parade Princess in year six.” Megan pulled a face as they slowly meandered down the main street. “And I wasn’t.”

  “Yes, well, that’s because my mum organized the whole thing.”

  “Yeah, it’s who you know, right?”

  “Believe me, I would have preferred to have been the angel, or the moose—you all seemed to be having such fun while I had to sit still and wave, royally. Oh, look, there’s Santa in the distance.” Mum had a habit of pushing her daughter into situations she didn’t want to be in as Emma grew up. Right now, though, she was in a whole new situation of her own making. And it didn’t feel so great.

  They’d arrived late, trying to organize a group of nineteen out-of-towners had worn Emma’s edges just a little thin, and missed half the floats. As Santa’s was the last, and it was just about to crawl past, she assumed the police one had already gone by. For some reason that bothered her more than it should have.

  All around her excited kids aged anywhere between one year and ninety clapped and waved as floats depicting scenes such as the beach, trash to treasure, and even a traditional frozen landscape with fake snow rolled along the main road towards the central township of Oneroa. Local businesses had come out in support, providing the requisite Christmas music, sausage sizzle, and cold drinks. Next, a brass band marched by tooting a cheerful carol, then surf lifesavers rolled along in a dinghy on wheels throwing candy out to the spectators. The smell of diesel mingled with salty sea-spray air and eucalyptus. It was exactly as Emma remembered.

  Although, miraculously for this side of Christmas, the sun had come out to play too. And with every step they got nearer and nearer to Danny’s house. Their house.

  “How are you feeling?” As if she sensed Emma’s unease Megan wrapped an arm around her. “You’ll be fine. Honestly.”

  “I know. It just seems so sad to be drawing a line under it all and collecting my last few things. When I left I was happy to let him have everything apart from my clothes and a few knick-knacks, but the longer I’ve been away, the more I want to have a couple of things to cherish from this part of my life. Before I walk away for good.”

  “No going back, then? No romantic reunion?”

  “I’m not sure splitting our worldly goods is classed as romantic, Megan. Nor are divorce papers.” Emma patted her bag and checked she still had them. Then remembered she wasn’t going to tell Megan about this until later. A lot later. Especially since she’d confessed to pre-wedding jitters.

  “Oh.” Megan slowed her pace, hanging back from their visitors who, thankfully, were far more interested in catching candy and slurping gelato than eavesdropping. “Is that what you want? Like, really?”

  Was it? The pain in Emma’s heart made her think not. But her head told her otherwise. “Yes,” she answered, adding as much determination as she could muster. ‘It’s the right thing to do. I’ve got the papers in my bag for him to sign. Legally we’ve been separated for two years, we can now officially split and sort this out once and for all. We have to let go otherwise it’ll get awkward if either of us want to marry someone else.” Emma realized, with a pang in her heart, that Megan looked traumatized. “Not that I have anyone in mind. And now I’ve ruined your day. I’m sorry. Danny and I were all about the sex and the fun, really. We just couldn’t sustain a long term thing especially once things got difficult.”

  And she’d thought she’d made peace with it, but judging by the ache in her heart she suspected she hadn’t, fully. Would she ever be able to completely let go of him?

  “You were together for years, of course you could sustain long term. You just had some obstacles that were too big for you to get over at the time. You were going in different directions for a start then there was that accident and…well, anyone would have struggled in your shoes. But can I ask you a question? Did you ever…oh, never mind.” Megan frowned, opened and closed her mouth as if she was going to say something more.

  “Are you okay, Meg?”

  “Sure.”

  But Emma sensed her friend wasn’t okay at all. “Were you serious about what you said yesterday? About pre-wedding nerves?”

  Megan shrugged. “No, not really. Oh, to be honest, I don’t know… It’s just such a big step.”

  “You adore him.”

  “Yes. Yes, I do. But you adored Daniel. I keep wondering if we’re grown-up enough to make it work? You know what happened to my Mum and Dad. And…well, you and Dan…and Thomas and Pip. People split, it’s a fact of life.”

  Emma drew her friend in for a hug, hanging on just a little longer than usual as she vowed to be more positive about everything from this moment onwards. She couldn’t bring her friend down, not at this important moment of her life. And she felt sure that Megan’s fears were normal and natural. “Yes. Yes. But you and Bas will be able to get through anything. You’re made for each other. You will be living the fairytale and well, I didn’t. I could have dealt with it better. And so could Danny. I shouldn’t have mentioned d.i.v.o.r.c.e. I’m sorry, my timing’s lousy.”

  “Don’t be silly. It’s hardly a surprise. And don’t worry about me, I’m fine. Really I am. Once I actually said the words out loud I realized how stupid I was being. I do love Bas one hundred percent.” The bride-to-be dragged on a reassuring smile, although Emma wasn’t sure who Megan was trying to convince. “Okay well, we’re almost there. Good luck with Dan, honey. You know where I am if you need me. Be gentle with yourself and don’t do anything you might regret.”

  Like falling straight
into his arms again? Or signing on the dotted line?

  Yesterday option one hadn’t even entered her head. But Megan was right, he was different, even in the short time she’d spent with him she could see that. Not back to the crazy, carefree old Dan she’d fallen in love with, but he seemed somehow more confident, more at ease with himself, more whole than he’d been before. Maybe he’d finally forgiven himself?

  Then there it was; their little two bedroom house, a step back from the main road but an easy stride for a take-out coffee. She inhaled deeply as her heart pounded. Crunch time.

  Emma didn’t know what she’d been expecting, but it was exactly as she’d left it. She knew the upkeep of a house was something you did with pride and effort and time. Their house had been well-kept. The cedar slats were still oiled and shiny. The front door was still letterbox red, although the odd dints and scratches she remembered from before had been painted over, and the smart window boxes were full of gerberas in a rainbow of acid colors. That was a surprise—always on her list and never quite managed.

  The native tea tree bush they’d planted when they’d moved in stood strong in their front garden, wearing fresh bright pink flowers and smelling like summer. The sun was still shining. People were still laughing. Nothing had changed. Except the thud of her heart. The sweat on her palms.

  Clearly he’d worked hard on the place.

  Too late.

  I’m doing the right thing. For both of us.

  She pushed open the door and stepped inside, walked down the little corridor towards the lounge and was immediately assailed by his scent of leather and fresh laundry and man. She breathed it in deeply. Then again, holding on to the banister to steady herself as shivers of something she didn’t want to admit ran through her gut. And then deeper. The man smelt good. So damned good. That much was a given. But having a decent smell was hardly reason to make her change her plans.

  Focus. “Hello-o? Anyone home?”

  At the responding silence she laughed. He was at work. It would be fine. The clock on the lounge wall told her there was at least an hour before he was even close to finishing his shift. Two hours before there was a chance he’d be home. She could get this over with and be gone before he put his key in the lock.

  She glanced around the room. Not a Christmas decoration in sight. Typical Danny. He always hated a fuss, she’d had to fight to get a single bauble through the front door. “What’s the point in such sentimentality?” he’d ask her. “It’s just an excuse to waste money with empty gestures.”

  But he’d finished building the brick fireplace. Sanded the wooden floors and varnished them to a smooth shine. Painted the walls a soft white. Shifted some furniture. More things on their growing to-do list that had never got any attention as they’d filled their days with other things. Sex, at first. Dreaming. Working. Planning. Then more sex. Griping. Fighting. Drinking. Fighting. Nagging. Make-up sex. Then, for a long time, no sex at all.

  And no, things hadn’t always been so bad.

  “Now, where the heck would he have put my things? Spare room, maybe?” she spoke to the air, to the walls, to the shadows of a happier time. Threw her bag onto the plump charcoal-grey sofa, which was definitely new, and wandered upstairs. Ignored the master bedroom…Because memories.

  She shoved open the door to the spare room. Also known as—she took a deep breath and walked in—Danny’s home gym, it would appear. Years ago it had been her study, the storage room, and the place where she’d kept her hobby stuff; all colorful fabrics and swatches and half-finished soft furnishings discarded after she’d given up trying to recover antiquated chairs and allowed her job to fill any spare hours. Anything rather than come home.

  Now it was all sleek masculine lines and steel and black equipment. The balding grey carpet had been replaced with hardwood boards. Everything of hers had been removed and replaced with his things. Just his. He might have still worn his ring, but he’d clearly wanted to erase her from their home.

  And so he should have. But it didn’t stop the sudden swell of tears burning her eyes or the tightening in her chest.

  In the large built-in robe she found a stack of storage boxes with her name on in Danny’s looping handwriting. Her heart had another case of arrhythmia as she pulled off the lid on the first one. Then she breathed easily. Just med school papers, books, nothing too important. Ballet certs and sports day medals. Everything pre-Danny.

  The second box gave her pause. And a sharp sting in her throat. Photo albums. Their photo albums—he’d laughed at her as she’d made them up, carefully writing a caption beneath each photo as she’d catalogued the things they did. Teasing her gently that she didn’t need to make a shrine to their relationship—the digital age meant everything would be preserved in an internet Cloud for ever. And ever.

  But there’d been something soothing and meaningful about making hard copy books about their life together. A tangible memento, something real, like their love. The first date (embarrassed smiles). The morning after their first night together (spectacular smiles). Their holiday in Wanaka (insane grins).

  He’d proposed there. On the top of a mountain, bended knee deep in snow as she’d laughed and he’d hollered so joyfully at her response and they’d both cried. There’d been snow angels and ice kisses and, as they’d taken the photo scanning across the tips of snow-covered peaks, her heart had been as full as it had ever been. Later that evening he’d stood on a chair and announced to the whole bar that they were engaged and he’d looked so damned proud it had been like a sucker punch to her heart. She wondered now if she’d ever feel so free, so loved, so cherished—so whole—ever again.

  She ran a finger down the photograph. Swallowed back the lump in her throat and fought back the tears pricking her eyes again. She was doing the right thing.

  “Hey, I thought you were a break and enter. I was just about to call for back up—”

  “Shit, Danny!” Emma almost dropped the album as she slammed it closed, her heart all over the place with nerves.

  All tall and official-looking, he was wearing his uniform again. Damn it, but he knew that made her horny. Standing in the doorway as he’d done countless times before, although the smile didn’t reach all the way to those soul-deep dark brown eyes. But the familiar tug towards him damn near made her heart almost stop beating altogether. “God, you made me jump.”

  “Ha. Guilty conscience?” He laughed, as if there was nothing strange about his estranged wife sitting on the floor of his gym trying hard not to cry about something from too long ago.

  As if she didn’t have the papers there downstairs, waiting for his signature. So yeah, guilty as charged.

  She thought about standing up, but that would have made things weird, uncomfortable, trying to fit into a space where she didn’t belong. So she stayed where she was and looked up at him.

  Big mistake. From this angle she could see every nuance of muscle rippling under his shirt, the sinews in his arms. “Er…I hope it’s okay for me to be here? You said…well, I thought you wouldn’t be back yet. It’s not even four o’clock.”

  Tongue-tied? That was new too.

  His eyebrows rose at her stuttering and he paused, watching her, his smile slipping, then back in place. She wondered whether he was consciously choosing a mood.

  “No worries.” Seemed he’d chosen a conciliatory one. “I got in to work early to set up, so they let me finish as soon as we parked the truck. Didn’t see you out there? Mind you, there was a big crowd, I could easily have missed you.”

  He’d looked for her? He’d looked for her. Somewhere in the center of her chest a tiny seed of hope bloomed. She tried not to notice it, because that wasn’t why she was here. “We were late to the party, I’m afraid. Too many people to organize, it was like herding cats. Actually, it was worse than that. Megan’s cousins are…let’s just say, high maintenance, and Bas’s nana needs to take everything very slowly.”

  “That’s weddings for you, you cater to the slowest denom
inator. What are you looking at?” He strained his neck as she tried to hide it from him, then gave up and came and sat next to her on the floor. Taking the album from her hands he breathed out slowly, opened it to the first page. “Ah. This.”

  “Yes. A little walk down Memory Lane.” She couldn’t read what he was thinking. Usually she’d know just by the tone of voice, or the tightness of his jaw. She’d sense he was angry, or just plain miserable. But today he looked calm, his voice was softer, deeper. Maybe they could do this amicably. If only the large rock in her throat would budge a little so she could actually get words through. “I…I was just wondering what to leave and what to take.”

  “Take what you like.”

  “Thank you. Is there anything you particularly want to keep?”

  He shrugged, looking around at the boxes, shook his head. “Not really.”

  “Nothing special to remind—? No, I don’t suppose there would be…” Her stomach was a churning mess. Because why did she want these mementos? Because they’d had a good thing once upon a time. A damned good thing.

  “Emma? Really? Do you think all I have left is venom? And disappointment? And that lingering useless depression eating at my gut?” He twisted to face her then, dropping the book to the floor as something flared in his eyes. He gripped her hands. They were warm, worn. Big, strong hands. This was how she remembered him; loose-mouthed, passionate. She waited for the anger, the surge of righteous helplessness. I should have saved him. That kid died and I couldn’t do anything. Useless cop I am.

  But instead of all that he took a deep breath, blew it out. Surprisingly, he steadied himself. Anchored. His voice was deep and resonant as he fixed her with his gaze. “I have every photograph we ever took stored safely in the Cloud. I have every memory, good and bad, cramming my head; I remember every second we spent together, and the lost ones where I wished we had. I have…Okay… you know I’m no good at this, but I’m going to say it anyway because we need to get past it. What we had at the beginning was amazing. The best time of my life, so never, ever forget that. Our relationship was like a bloody miracle. You came along and breathed life into me, you were my everything, Emma, and I’ll never forget how lucky I was that you’d chosen me. Yes, we had a miracle. Don’t let the last few months of torture color that. We were doing great and the end was my fault. I messed it up, I know I did.”