I look towards the view, uncertainty within me, and then pause.
Because she’s out there, wrapped in one of the mohair blankets from the lounge. I can see her bare calves and ankles, bare feet, hair loose and tangled, wild in the morning breeze. And there’s something else.
What’s she doing? I frown, moving closer, and then pause. A camera?
Curiosity propels me the rest of the distance. When I open the door she turns to face me, her lips lifting in that ready smile of hers, so I try to dredge one up in response.
‘Good morning,’ I say instead, moving towards her.
‘Hi.’ She looks towards the camera almost apologetically. ‘I hope you don’t mind. The sunrise was just too beautiful to miss.’
‘Mind?’ I lift my shoulders, conscious of the way her attention drops to the gesture. ‘It’s a free country.’
‘Yeah, but it’s your home.’
‘Not my home.’ The rejection is swift. I look away from her, acid burning the insides of my mouth. I don’t have a home. Not really. I’m not being melodramatic. A home is a place you feel comfortable, that you want to be. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt that, if ever.
‘Right. You know what I mean.’ She’s casual, as though the distinction doesn’t matter. And perhaps it doesn’t, to someone who knows their place, who doesn’t question it.
‘Where are you from?’
She turns back to her camera and I breathe in deeply before I realise what I’m doing—inhaling the sweetness of her hair as the wind breathes it my way.
‘Australia.’
‘Obviously.’ Her accent was one of the first things I noticed about her. ‘Here, in Sydney?’
‘I spent some time here.’
It’s a very vague response, the kind of answer that tells me more than she intends. ‘And before that?’
I can’t help myself. I move to stand behind her, wrapping my arms around her waist and drawing her back to me. She comes willingly, her body moulding perfectly to mine.
‘Before that,’ she says consideringly, her voice quiet in a way it hasn’t been before, ‘I lived a few hours north, in a place called Sundown Creek.’
I drop my head forward, nudging the blanket aside with my chin so my lips can press to the bare flesh of her neck, tasting the curve of skin there, my tongue running over it reverentially.
‘Why’d you leave?’
She stills. I feel it. I feel every part of her grow tense and, out of nowhere, something stirs within me. Anger. A protective instinct. Something foreign and impossible to translate into rational comprehension.
‘I wanted to do something else with my life.’
That’s not it. ‘Something else? As opposed to?’
She turns in my arms, her face serious, more serious than I’ve ever seen it. I can feel a war being waged within her and I sympathise because I’m almost constantly at loggerheads with myself.
But I don’t relent because I want to know, and I’m not good at subjugating my wishes.
‘Cora?’
She bites down on her lower lip, the act a little distracting, and shifts so the blanket moves and I see she’s wearing a shirt of mine. She’s mis-buttoned it so her neck is exposed, and I have to concentrate not to groan because if I really look I know I’ll see the generous swell of her breasts and all thought will evaporate from my brain.
‘It’s boring.’ She w
aves her hand through the air and flutters her eyes, smiles, but it’s not an open smile, it’s a smile designed to shut this conversation down. ‘Anyway, I lost track of time. I should go.’
Frustration is unmistakable. ‘Should you?’