Chapter Three
Daylight streamed into the sitting room rudely awakening me to the awareness of my post truth serum headache. A glass of water and paracetamol sat on the floor beside me. I looked around. Emma and Tim were still asleep, tangled together on the sofa, but Nic was gone.
I sat up, took the medication for my self-inflicted pain, stood and headed out the front door. I walked down to the pathway and stopped in the golden rays of morning light and stretched, arching my back to relieve the stiffness from the night spent on the hard floor. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and listened to the serenading birds in the neighbors’ gardens before I turned around to walk back into the house.
‘Beautiful morning isn’t it?’ Nic’s voice startled me. I didn’t notice him when I headed to the pathway.
‘Yes it is, Nic. Thanks for the headache eradicator, by the way,’ I said.
He didn’t look at me. His head was down as he wrote or sketched or something in a book. He had gorgeous dark brown hair.
‘I thought you would need it after last night,’ he finally said, and then looked at me with a smirk on his face. His eyes were blue—dark blue.
My heart became an opened orange rose and skipped a beat, then added a hint of passionfruit scent to the spicy aroma to infuse to my life force. I was suddenly aware he had awakened something inside of me he shouldn’t have—not when I had Ben.
Guilt entered me like a judgmental friend and I worked hard to turn my orange rose heart of fascination into a freesia of sweetness, trust and friendship, with a fragrance of strawberries and summer fruit.
He moved to the top of the stairs and sat, then continued to write or sketch or something. I sat beside him, with care not to touch him, to see what he was doing. He was sketching. He had drawn a bird’s eye view of the house and was doing a landscape design of the garden.
‘Do you normally draw gardens of houses?’ I asked, shocked by his creative side.
‘Only when the garden is dead—oh, and I do like to colour in,’ he said. He looked up at me and smiled, laughing at his own joke before he became serious. ‘What’s in the drawing room, Cate?’ His voice was quiet.
‘I have already told you … a grand piano, sofas, bookshelves … fireplace…’ My voice faltered.
‘And there is something else. I feel it, and I know that you feel it, even though you won’t admit it.’
I looked down at my hands. ‘I … I can’t tell you, because I am not sure of what it is myself.’ I stood and walked inside the house. I hated him confronting me like that. It was none of his business. I headed past the drawing room, past the still sleeping Emma and Tim, to the kitchen and out into the dead backyard and wiped away a tear.
I felt him behind me. ‘I’m sorry, Cate … forgive me.’ His voice was gentle.
I could feel his warm breath on my neck. I turned to face him. ‘You are forgiven.’
He looked into my eyes and nodded his head once. ‘What is that tree there? I have never seen one of those, not even in my botanical studies.’ He looked from the tree and into my eyes for longer than he should have.
A wave of heightened life flowed through me. My orange rose heart swayed in an imagined breeze that caressed my being. I swallowed hard before I answered. ‘Gran called it, “The Magnificent Tree”. I am not sure why. I have never seen it with leaves, flowers or fruit. Just another oddity here I guess,’ I answered.
Nic raised his eyebrows.
‘You know, I have my own detailed plan of the garden that I want to bring to life.’
‘You do?’ he asked with a slight smile on his face.
‘Yeah—you wanna see it?’
‘Absolutely.’ Nic frowned then lowered his head.
I grabbed his hand and hauled him back into the house, found my leather work-bag and pulled out my garden design—coloured in. I placed it on the kitchen table.
Nic moved towards it, slowly, his eyes wide in wonder. He leaned over and ran his hand over my drawing and studied it in detail. ‘Wow. The similarity to my ideas is uncanny.’ He looked up at me and searched my eyes with his.
‘Yeah … it is, right?’ I said to break the intensity that flowed from him.
‘Who is going to do the landscaping for you?’ he asked, looking back at my work. When I didn’t answer right away he looked up at me.
‘Me,’ I finally said.
‘Really?’ he asked. He raised his eyebrows.
‘Yes—really!’ I answered, a little angered by his unspoken disbelief of my ability to work in the garden.
He straightened up and walked over to the doors and looked out over the yard. ‘By yourself?’ he asked without looking at me. His voice was incredulous.
‘Yes.’ I held the venom on my tongue.
He turned and walked toward me then, took my hands in his and looked at them, turning them this way and that. ‘You know you will get dirt under your fingernails, blisters, sore muscles—’
‘—And long relaxing baths to soothe the pain. I know what I am in for, Nic. I am not a weak incapable woman who has to rely on the physical strength of a man to get by,’ I interrupted him with anger in my words. I pulled my hands away from his scrutiny and stared into his eyes, challenging his power play.
He took a deep breath and tilted his head to the side a little. ‘I wasn’t implying that, Cate, and I am sorry if you felt insulted. That wasn’t my intention.’ He turned away from me and ran a hand through his hair.
A knock at the front door broke the tension that surrounded us. I brushed past Nic, bumping into him intentionally before I answered the door to the electrician. It took a lot to annoy me, but Nic had managed to do it with precision.
‘Hi,’ I said, shaking the electrician’s hand.
I felt Nic behind me. He reached in front of me and held out his hand to the electrician. ‘Morning. I’m Nic. I called you last night.’
‘Thanks, Nic—I got this,’ I said to him and frowned. I put my hands on Nic’s chest and pushed him. He was overstepping my boundary of independence.
He took a step back and raised both of his hands in the air in resignation.
I led the electrician to the power box and left him to his work before I stormed back into the house and grabbed my car keys.
I ran through the front door towards my car, about to erupt into a deluge of tears. But before I could make it to the car, a hand grabbed my arm and spun me around.
Nic.
Please … go away! ‘I’m going to pick up some breakfast for us,’ I said, moving from foot to foot without looking at him. I didn’t want him to see my sadness. ‘Please, let go of me,’ I whispered. My bottom lip quivered.
But he didn’t let go. He pulled me close and wrapped his arms around me.
At first I struggled to get out of his warmth, his protection, his strength, but then I relaxed into him and let my tears fall. He didn’t say anything. He just held me for as long as I needed. My orange rose heart blossomed and released a spicy scent into my life force, this time with a hint of sweet fruit.
He stepped away from me, took the car keys from my hand, unlocked the car and opened the passenger side door for me to get in. He walked around the car and jumped in the driver’s seat and drove my car to the café where we ordered coffee and croissants to go for breakfast.
Nic didn’t talk to me when we returned to Gran’s house. He kept a distance between us but I felt his eyes on me, and whenever I looked at him he avoided my gaze.
Had I insulted him?
Had I hurt him in some way? Probably. But it didn’t matter. Once he walked out the front door with Emma and Tim, I would never see him again.