Then There Was You Read online

  She shoved her chair back and grabbed her coat. She’d go get it and bring it back here. Josh had meetings most Thursday mornings, so she could be in and out without him even knowing.

  At least she didn’t have to put her neck out looking for drop bears anymore. A quick search on Wikipedia this morning confirmed what Josh said: she’d been had.

  Paige crossed the campus and soon reached Josh’s office. The door was open, but the office was empty. Excellent. She grabbed the blue tabbed folder and was one foot away from being out the door when the phone on her desk started its shrill song.

  Leaning over, she peered at the screen. A US number. Probably one of the hotels she’d been waiting to lock down. She picked up the receiver before the diversion she had in place to reroute calls to her office kicked in. “Paige speaking.”

  Her guess was right. She shrugged her coat off and sat down, then glanced up at the clock. After twelve. Surely after his meeting, Josh would go grab some lunch.

  She leaned forward and turned on her computer. After dealing with that call, she handled a couple more and input the new details into the spreadsheet. More money saved. Shame she wasn’t getting commission.

  Digging in her drawer for a snack, she opened a packet of bagel chips and extracted a handful before opening her web browser to do some personal research. She’d retrieved Ethan’s bucket list from her violin case after the bridge climb. Most of the things on the Australia list were way out of her budget, but she could manage to hold a koala for him.

  She was doing a search for the Sydney Zoo as Josh walked in. He paused when he saw her.

  “You always that feisty in the morning?”

  She looked up at him, trying to ignore the way his T-shirt clung to his athletic torso. “You always that grumpy?”

  He opened his mouth, then closed it. Smiling, he shook his head and proceeded to his own desk.

  Paige tried to return her focus to her search, pushing her mind toward anything other than seeing Josh Tyler first thing in the morning.

  She reached the zoo’s website, clicked on directions and found herself lost trying to navigate the world of Sydney public transport. Taking her car wasn’t an option. She doubted her blood pressure would be able to withstand left-hand driving in the city proper—driving around the suburbs was stressful enough. Well, when all else failed, ask a local.

  She spun her chair. “Can I ask you a question?”

  Josh swung around. “Sure.”

  “What would be the best way to take public transport to get to the zoo?”

  “Taronga Zoo?”

  She glanced back at her screen to confirm. “Yep.”

  “Probably take a bus into the central city which would take about an hour, then I’m pretty sure you can catch a ferry from Circular Quay to the zoo. That takes about fifteen minutes.”

  She nodded. “Okay. Thanks.” Or not. He’d clearly used public transport about as much as she had. Catch a bus from where? Get off it where?

  “When are you going?”

  “Probably when you guys head off on your tour.”

  “Why?”

  “I need to hug a koala.”

  He blinked. “Come again?”

  She clicked her pen. “I need to hug a koala for someone.”

  The look on his face said he’d rather eat his own feet. “You really don’t want to hold a koala. I know they’re our national icon but I’m going to be honest. They’re stinky and grumpy.”

  Huh. Wonder if her brother knew that. “Well, your tourism board has done a masterful job of convincing the world otherwise.”

  “Is that your main reason for going to the zoo?”

  She nodded. “Pretty much.”

  “Well, I have a better idea. It would take you hours and a decent chunk of change to do it at the zoo, or you could just go to the sanctuary that’s fifteen minutes from here and cheaper.”

  She blinked. “And they let you near koalas?”

  “Yup.” He checked his watch. “In fact, if we left now, we could get there for the one o’clock feeding. Assuming they’re still on the same schedule as when I took my nephews last year.”

  She glanced back at her desk with the perfectly aligned, tabbed papers lined up like a battalion. She’d already wasted half a day.

  “We could be back in, like, an hour and a half. That would give us plenty of time to make the planning meeting.”

  Paige nibbled her bottom lip. If his estimate was right, she could work late, finish up things once she got back.

  “Or you and Kat could go together.”

  Her cousin was leaving for South America in the morning. Paige threw down her pen. “You know what? Let’s do it.”

  He looked a little startled at her decision. “You sure?”

  She smiled. “No time like the present.” She turned around to log out of her computer before sanity struck. What was she doing? In her eagerness to fulfill Ethan’s wish, she hadn’t thought this through. The two of them would be alone. On something that could be said to resemble a date. She could barely get the guy out of her mind as it was.

  He was already gathering up his keys and jacket. Too late now.

  Josh hadn’t been able to think with her sitting so close. She hadn’t even been talking. Or humming. Or clicking her pen. Or doing anything else that could be deemed distracting. Just breathing, and occasionally muttering something to herself.

  He, meanwhile, might as well have stayed in bed. He’d been next to useless at his morning meetings, fighting his conscience insisting that he needed to ’fess up. Tell her what he’d seen on the plane. Apologize for making assumptions and being a world-class moron.

  But apparently, for his penance, his conscience had decided that he should take her to go see koalas instead.

  He hated koalas.

  Ten minutes after his brain explosion, they were in his car, cruising familiar suburban streets on their way to Pennant Hills. Hints of spring hung in the air, green buds appearing on stripped back trees, warmth tinting the breeze.

  He could do this. This time next week, he’d be winging his way to New Zealand. She’d be back to working solely on Grace. They wouldn’t see each other for at least a month. He just had to stay on the emotional tightrope for another seven days. He refused to allow himself to tumble off. Something told him there would be no safety net if he fell for Paige McAllister.

  “I saw you on the plane.” His words just splattered out, bursting open in the silence like a ripe melon hitting the pavement.

  Paige turned toward him, her brow furrowed. “What?”

  No turning back now. “I was a jerk to you at the beginning because I saw you on the flight from Chicago to LA. You were stumbling up the aisle, you smelled like liquor, and then you . . .” He trailed off, unable to finish the sentence.

  She’d closed her eyes. “Puked. All over my own shoes.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you thought I was just another classless girl who got drunk on planes.”

  “I’m really sorry.”

  He could feel her looking across at him. “No wonder you didn’t think I was of fit character to work at Harvest.” She was silent for a few seconds. “Oh, wow. That crack at me the day of Emily’s morning tea. You thought I had a drinking problem, didn’t you? All your rudeness was because some guy spilled his bourbon on me?”

  Josh chanced a glance at her. Her mouth was in a thin line, brows pinched. He returned his gaze to the road. There was no way he could admit the truth—that even when he thought the worst of her, there was still something that wedged her into his heart and his mind that he couldn’t shake. The last time that had happened, he’d found himself in places he’d said he’d never go.

  He turned into the sanctuary car park and scored a parking space close to the entrance.

  “I’m sorry. I’ve been a real jerk to you. I’ve just . . . With Mum and Dad, the church, the band, everything, I’ve learned that trusting the wrong people gets you burned. So I’m a bit pa
ranoid.”

  “A bit paranoid? That’s the understatement of the decade.” Paige pulled the latch on her door as she unclicked her seatbelt. She slipped out her door, her feet crunching on the gravel.

  They strode to the bright yellow signposted entrance and paid their entrance fee. It was a quiet day, and there were no lines, which was good since they only had ten minutes until feeding time. Paige didn’t so much as look his way the entire time, let alone speak to him.

  The easy camaraderie they’d just established was gone. And he had only himself to blame.

  Josh led the way to the main koala enclosure where they joined the small crowd that had gathered—mainly tourists, cameras slung around their necks, guide books and maps held close.

  He looked to his side to see if they needed to try to get closer, but Paige was tall enough to see over most of the crowd. She had her gaze on the trees, where four koalas sat eating gum leaves and looking entirely unbothered at being the center of attention.

  In an hour, they’d be back at work. Once the planning meeting was done, he’d find a reason to be out of the office for the rest of the afternoon. “I don’t want to ruin this for you. Would you rather I just go wait in the car?”

  Finally, she looked at him. “No. It’s okay. I’m mad at you but I’m not that mad.”

  He’d take that.

  A couple of keepers came to the front of the enclosure with a pair of koalas and started droning on about feeding and habitat. He focused on the talk with such ardent attention someone might mistakenly suspect he was a koala aficionado rather than a guy desperate to think about anything other than the girl standing beside him.

  After about fifteen minutes, a line formed and slowly moved forward as people had their turn getting up close and personal with the bears. But there was no chance he was touching the grubby little things. Not that he would ever say that to Paige who bounced on her feet in anticipation as the line moved forward, like a hyperactive five-year-old.

  When it was their turn, Paige reached for some gum leaves and said hello to the keeper before reaching a tentative hand out to touch the bear.

  “So who are you doing this for? Someone back home?” Maybe if he made small talk it would distract her from how ticked off she was with him.

  Paige stilled, only moving her hand, running it along the koala’s back. “My brother, Ethan.”

  They’d shared an office for weeks and he didn’t even know how many siblings she had. He only recalled references to a sister, but that was it.

  He held up his phone. “Want me to take a photo?”

  “Sure.” She managed a strained smile as he snapped a couple of shots. So much for small talk distracting her.

  “Is he back in Chicago? Is this your way of tormenting him, by ticking off his bucket list?”

  She pulled in a breath. Her hand slid off the bear as she turned to face him. “He died. Six years ago.”

  Oh. “I’m sorry.” And this was why he was never going to be a real pastor. In moments like this, he struggled to come up with the right thing to say.

  She turned back to the bear. “I found a list of things he wanted to do in life in his stuff. I’d forgotten about it. Then Kat took me climbing the Harbour Bridge for my birthday. That was on his list for Australia. So was holding a koala. Figured since I was here, I should do a couple for him.” She swallowed, attempted a shaky smile. “Though when I see him next, I’m going to tell him how bad they stink. No one tells you that in all the promo material.”

  “And do ourselves out of millions of tourist dollars?”

  She looked around. “So what else is there to see here?”

  “Honestly? Not a lot. Mostly birds, a few kangaroos, some wombats. Maybe a dingo or two.”

  She managed a half smile. “Not quite the zoo then.”

  “No, but not quite zoo prices either.”

  “Fair enough.”

  They walked away from the koala pen, wandering around a few other exhibits in silence. What should he do now? He felt bad that he’d made the trip even worse by asking about her brother, and didn’t want to put his foot in it again. Which left him in no-man’s-land since everything he’d done today had made things worse.

  Paige saved him from his predicament. “Okay, don’t take this as a get out of jail free pass, but there is an upside to you being a total jerk.”

  An upside? “How?”

  “After Ethan died, I kind of sleepwalked through life. Stayed with the wrong guy, in the wrong job, lost. Coming here, having to stand on my own feet where people didn’t know me, it’s forced me to work out who I am. Not Paige, Ethan’s sister. Or Paige, Alex’s girlfriend. Just me, on my own.”

  She shoved her hands in the pockets of her jeans and focused her gaze on the path in front of them as she continued.

  “Everyone at home had tiptoed around me, worried that if they said or did the wrong thing, I might break. It was refreshing to have someone to spar with. Be mad at.” She looked up at him. The sight of an unexpected grin turned his heart inside out. “It’s been awhile since anyone made me as angry as you did.”

  “And have you worked out what you want?” The wind blew unrestrained pieces of hair around her face and he fought the urge to capture it and tuck if behind her ear.

  “I think so.”

  He couldn’t stop from hoping it was him.

  Twenty-Four

  Paige reached under her bed, slipped out the familiar black case, and placed it on the top of her comforter. She ran her fingers across the rough surface, then flipped the three clasps and lifted the lid.

  The red velvet lining peered up at her, as if saying “finally.” Positioned in the top of the lid were four bows. All in perfect condition. She may not play much anymore, but she still made sure her most treasured possession stayed tuned and well cared for.

  At the bottom, nestled in its plush home, sat her baby. Paige ran her fingers along the polished maple, lingering over its mahogany hue. Even though she’d given up on playing again, she hadn’t been able to bear leaving it behind.

  She shuddered out a breath. Ever since her conversation with Josh in the studio, she hadn’t been able to get the melody she’d composed out of her head. It appeared on her lips, in her head, in her dreams—a symphony of violins, violas, and cellos forming a perfect complement to the rest of the score.

  Visiting the sanctuary that afternoon had strengthened her resolve. Ethan would be furious if he knew she was busy checking items off his bucket list while leaving her own great passion to molder away under a bed.

  After two years of multiple surgeries and endless rehab, she would never forget the day she sat in the plush office of America’s foremost hand and wrist specialist. The sixteenth specialist she’d seen. He’d confirmed what the others had all said: that her recovery was remarkable, almost miraculous, but this was good as it was going to get. Her arm and hand were never going to be capable of playing the way she once had. Too much had been broken, damaged, or crushed.

  She’d gone home and put her violin in its case, storing it in the attic with everything else that no longer had a use. If she wasn’t ever going to be a concert violinist again, what was the point of playing at all? Of being reminded with every pull of the bow of what she would never have?

  “You can still play better than ninety-nine percent of the population,” people had said, trying to comfort her. Or worse, “You can still teach.”

  She hadn’t trained for twenty years to teach. She’d trained to earn a place in one of the world’s best symphony orchestras, to play the most incredible pieces—Pag’s Caprices 5 and 11, Locatelli’s Labyrinth, the Beethoven Concerti, the Bartok Solo Sonata. Works of genius that brought people to their feet and required greater hand-brain synchronization than a neurosurgeon.

  A sigh escaped Paige’s lips. She hadn’t played for a year and the ache never went away. She’d thought not playing would make her loss easier to bear, but she’d been wrong. While she would never be as good as she o
nce was, maybe it was time to find out if she could find joy in playing again. In what she could do, rather than what she couldn’t.

  Reaching with both hands, Paige curled her fingers around the chin rest and the neck, lifting the instrument out of its home. “I’m sorry.” She whispered the words to her old friend, whom she’d once spent hours with every day. She knew her Cavalli better than she knew her own family.

  Resting it on her left shoulder, she reached down and selected a bow. Her fingers rested on the fingerboard and her body smoothly shifted into the straight spine, straight neck, relaxed shoulders posture that was as natural as breathing.

  Closing her eyes, she sought to banish everything except the song, the simple notes, from her head. She pushed away thoughts of how or where she used to play, of fingers flying across the fingerboard like they were dancing on hot coals, of an orchestra swelling, ebbing, flowing in perfect harmony, of stages and standing ovations, evening gowns and encores. She shoved back those memories, focusing on this one song, this one tune.

  She rolled the melody around in her head, her fingers moving over the strings, bow hovering just above, playing the air. Shifting, she moved the violin a fraction to the right and adjusted her hand position, seeking the perfect balance, where everything connected.

  She tried again, her bow soaring through the air, her fingers finding the right positions. Finally satisfied, she pulled the bow straight across, listening to the timbre, and turned a couple of pegs before trying again.

  Much better.

  She pulled the bow back across the strings, testing the first few notes. Good. Closing her eyes, she let her hands take flight, giving sound to the music in her head. Repeating the notes over and over until they felt as much a part of her as breathing.

  The music soared around her, haunting and longing and wistful. Paige couldn’t hear anything else, couldn’t think of anything else beyond the singing of crystal pure notes. She tweaked a few notes, tested a few variations of the tune, searched for perfection.