Life Support: Escape to the Country by Nicki Edwards

Author:Nicki Edwards [Nicki Edwards]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781760302344
Publisher: Momentum
Published: 2016-08-23T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

Five minutes later Tom returned, showered, dressed and smelling of the same fruity fragrance she’d lathered over her own body less than half an hour earlier. He wore a matching flannel shirt to the one he’d given her, and a pair of denim jeans. His feet were bare.

While she washed her porridge bowl, tidied the small kitchen and made them both cups of tea, Tom stoked the little potbelly stove. When he was satisfied with his efforts, he sprawled on the couch and patted the cushions next to him.

“Come and join me.”

Despite the cozy warmth that infused the room, Emma’s skin tingled and she shivered.

“Are you still cold? I can get you some socks.”

She shook her head. No. She wasn’t cold. She was just acutely aware of his presence.

He pulled a thick blanket from the back of the couch and handed it to her as she sat beside him. “Here, put this around you. Your clothes won’t take much longer in the machine then I’ll throw them in the dryer.” He checked his watch. “We’ve got at least an hour. Hope you didn’t have to be anywhere today.”

She shook her head. “It’s my day off. No plans.”

No plans other than the immediate one which was to snuggle closer to him on the couch.

He softly blew on his hot tea while his blue eyes bored into hers. “Good, because I have something special planned for later.”

She grabbed a throw cushion and hugged it to her chest. Images of them together swirled and she shook her head. She had one thing on her mind and it had to stop. He might not be planning the same things she was. He sat so close she was having trouble keeping her thoughts straight and her hands off him. If he didn’t make his move soon, she would, because her entire body ached for him.

He checked his watch. “While we wait for your clothes, why don’t you fill me in on what you’ve been doing for the last ten years since school?”

Like the screeching of a needle across an old vinyl record, Emma’s good mood was instantly broken. She stiffened, but Tom didn’t seem to notice. She drew a deep breath. Should I see if he remembers that night? No, not yet. She’d stick to the basic facts.

“After you left Birrangulla at the end of year twelve to go to Sydney with your mum, I finished school. I had no idea what to do next so I bummed around for a few years, mostly working at the Bean Counter with Joel. Kate encouraged me to do nursing and that’s where I met Lleyton. He’d failed first year medicine at Melbourne University – badly – and they kicked him out of the course. He didn’t tell anyone, because his father would have killed him. Instead, he transferred to Bathurst to do an undergraduate degree. We met in a bar during orientation week at the start of my final year.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh,” she replied, recalling how drunk Lleyton had been that night when they got together.

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