“No. It should be somewhere where I hang out. The café would be perfect, but they only want touristy pieces.”
“We—I mean, you’ll find somewhere. I know you will. Look, I have to go.”
“What could possibly be so important as to take you away from a sunny afternoon drinking coffee with me and my dad?”
“One word. Business. I have a lot going on at work. I’m making some big changes.”
“Okay. So when will I see you again?”
“How about tonight?”
She grinned. “Sounds good.”
Amber looked out her window.Everything was gray and streaked with a misty rain. The sky and sea were a metallic gray while the hills on the far side of the harbor were a forest green, the individual trees combined into one forbidding mass. A silent sheet of lightning sparked behind the hills, somewhere out in the Pacific Ocean, flickered for a few moments and then was extinguished, leaving the gray even more opaque, as if it were being sucked into a darkness from which it couldn’t escape.
Her skin prickled and she shivered. Something felt wrong, off, as if nature was trying to warn her. She gritted her teeth, determined not to be influenced by such things, forgetting that the last time she’d been so determined it had cost her dearly.
Whatever, it would rain. She hoped the road to Christchurch wouldn’t be blocked by slips, which it often was after heavy rain. At least not until David got here. She grinned as the familiar low shape of his car revved as it passed her. She waved and it disappeared around the corner to park. She closed the curtains and opened the door, waiting for him to appear.
Despite the ominous darkness and threat of heavy rain, the air smelled good—alive, somehow. She stepped out into the drizzle just as David clicked open the wooden gate and strode up the garden path and into her arms. She literally fell into them and he took hold of her and kissed her as if he’d been thinking of nothing else except that kiss for a long time.
She curled her arms around his neck and he ended up carrying her inside. She pushed the door closed with her foot, only catching a glimpse of curtains twitching either side. She just hoped that what they’d seen would keep her neighbors in their own homes.
“Hello,” she said, as they eventually parted and he set her down on her feet.
“Hello,” he replied.
A sudden clap of thunder made them both turn to the window which was illuminated as another bolt of lightning lit up the night sky, revealing a solid sheet of rain.
“You just missed the rain.”
“It’s been following me. I hope there’s not a slip tonight or else I won’t be able to get home.”
“You could stay at your sister’s, I guess,” she said, with a smile, moving her fingers over his closely cropped hair, more evidence of his need for control. She hoped that she’d break that famous control tonight.
“No room,” he said with an answering smile.
“Oh dear, then perhaps you should stay here with me.”
“But the road might be clear.”
“But you could stay here with me, anyway. I’ve plenty of room.”
He looked around. “This looks pretty much like a one-bedroomed house.”
“It is.” She gripped his hand. “I’ll take you to see it if you like?”
“I would like, as it happens.”
She took him through a door in the lounge directly into the bedroom which sat parallel to the kitchen with the small bathroom added at the rear of the bedroom. Fairy lights twinkled around the wrought-iron bed—painted pink—and the multi-colored glass chandelier which looked as big as the small double bed over which it hung.
She opened the door wide. “So, what do you think?”
“It’s exactly as I imagined.”
She turned and nestled into him. She wanted to breathe him in, devour him.
“Well, it’s not exactly as I imagined.”
