Jess almost flinched under the blast of heat as she walked down the gangway, tired from traveling for a full day and night and a little nauseated from the bumpy landing.
She had boarded her flight in the sleet and wind typical of November in Chicago, and it felt surreal to alight in the warmth and sun of Sydney.
There was more than a taste of summer in the hot air, and she got light-headed for a moment with the heat and the excitement she was feeling.
She allowed herself the luxury of a taxi and felt quite decadent. She had raided her bank account, which fortunately had still held some of the money Grandpa Cleaver had left to her, to pay for this trip and decided it was okay to splurge some more on a comfortable car to take her into town, considering the state she was in. She certainly had no wish to mark her arrival in her brother's adopted homeland by keeling over on the bus.
When the driver dropped her off at a small B&B not too far from where Mick lived, she checked into her room and started to unpack her bag, but fatigue overcame her quickly, and she flopped onto the bed and was asleep within seconds.
Bright daylight flooded the room when she awoke.
She consulted her alarm clock, which she had wisely set to Sydney time before she left, afraid she had overslept the time she and Mick had agreed on.
With a funny feeling, she realized that it was five o'clock and still Friday and she wasn't due to see her brother until noon the next day.
Such a long time to go.
Unbearably long all of a sudden.
A bold idea popped into her mind.
It wasn't too late yet to visit today, was it?
She jumped up, went to the washstand in the corner to splash her face with cold water and wash a bit, changed into a clean set of clothes and brushed her hair, surprised that it wasn't looking a whole lot worse after the long journey and several hours of sleep.
Asking the friendly landlord for directions, she set out on foot, the sun still blazing in the sky, the sweet scent of blooming trees along the pretty residential streets heady and exotic and beautiful.
As she turned a corner, she could see an azure hint of the sea in the distance.
She compared the name of the street on the crumpled slip of paper she'd kept safe in her purse with the name on the plaque she had just passed.
Yes, this was it.
Just a little farther down the road.
A low-slung, well-kept bungalow-style house, nice but not showy, flowerpots on the windowsill, the front door painted white, a small car in the driveway, a tall tree towering over it all.
She swallowed nervously, but her mouth was dry.
Was it a bad idea to show up early and unannounced? Impolite, intrusive even?
Should she have waited after all?
She half resolved to leave without drawing any attention, but what if he, or his wife, had accidentally glimpsed her from a window and she made a real fool of herself if she walked away now?
Her pulse pounding so wildly that she believed it must be visible from yards away, she squared her shoulders, stepped up to the door and pressed the bell push.
Don't faint don't faint don't faint! she repeated silently when black spots began to dance before her eyes, and she managed to get back to normal before the door was opened by a pretty, petite redhead, a little shorter than herself, dressed all in white.
Recognition struck her like lightning.
Evelyn!
She looked exactly the same as in the photos in her book and greeted her with a friendly but somewhat reserved smile.
"I … I … uh … I'm Jess. I … I'm sorry I'm … sort of … early … but …"
She felt like a gabbling idiot, but the other woman simply embraced her and said, "I'm glad that I finally get to meet you, Jess. Welcome to Australia. Come with me, we're all out in the garden."
All?
"Oh … I … I hope I'm not intruding … if you're having … guests …"
"Don't you worry. It's just us. Mick and Annie and myself." She caught Jess's questioning look and explained, "Annie's our little daughter."
A tiny squawk escaped Jess's throat upon hearing that he had a child, a little girl. He must be a wonderful father, if the way he'd had with her and Janie was anything to go by.
She followed Evelyn through a narrow corridor and a spacious, light-filled living-room from which a pair of open French doors led on to a flagstone terrace and a garden that overlooked the sea.
"What a little paradise you've got here", she murmured, then stopped abruptly when her gaze fell on the bench at the far end of the small garden and the man that occupied it. His black hair was much shorter than she remembered it but long enough for his curls to show, his shoulders a lot broader than they used to be underneath a navy blue shirt.
Evelyn gently touched her arm and walked on ahead of her to tell Mick about the premature arrival of their visitor.
He didn't rise but turned his head, and their eyes met for an electrifying second.
Jess stumbled on, wondering briefly why he wasn't getting up, remembering the mention of a grave injury with an unpleasant twinge, but as she approached, she saw he was holding a little girl of three or four, fast asleep in her father's arms, chestnut curls falling over soft round cheeks, her head nestled into the crook of his arm as his big hands cradled her protectively. An open book lay beside him, a children's book to judge from the colourful illustrations.
Mick was watching her, but he didn't say a word. He only smiled.
Jess herself couldn't speak for a moment, she just stood before him and looked, while he, too, studied her face.
Her brother had gone from a handsome youth to a downright striking man. What had been a very pretty boy - not just judging by her own adoring-little-sister standards - had grown into a man of remarkable charisma, attractive in a stunningly intense way.
There was a scar through his eyebrow that she did not recognize, a thin white line on suntanned skin, and little creases around his eyes, but they only added to his charm, as did the way the harsher lines around his mouth softened as he smiled and the silver sprinkles among the black hair.
Finally, he broke the silence. "Jessie … don't you want to sit down with your old brother?"
She laughed and sat next to him, very acutely aware of his warm body as he drew her close to his side with little Annie still slumbering in his lap, just the way he used to when they were little girls and Janie was in his other arm.
She wrapped her arms around him as best she could without disturbing the child and buried her face against his neck, kissing him softly, feeling a little frisson as he stroked her hair.
Through a mist of happy tears, she looked up as she noted Evelyn approaching, who gently lifted Annie off her father's lap and said, "I'll tuck her in tonight. She's sound asleep and won't miss you for once. You two go on and catch up with each other."
She walked away with the girl, and both Jess and Mick began to speak at the same time.
Chuckling, he said, "Ladies first. Tell me what you've been up to."
"Well, you know I've been to medical school and am about to finish my internship. Isn't it funny that it was me, in the end, who fulfilled Mom's dreams of her child going to university and follow in Dad's footsteps? She'd have been quite horrified about my choice, I guess. Aunt Dorothy certainly was."
They both laughed.
"She thinks me a total failure. Almost thirty and still not married. She'd probably die of a heart attack if she knew I have no intention of procreating once I do get wed. Sometimes I've a good mind to tell her, just to rub her nose in it, but then I guess it's a childish notion."
"That means the old crone is still around?"
"'Fraid so. I try to avoid her wherever I can, though, after what she did to us." Now that she was here with Mick, Dorothy's machinations seemed even more outrageous.
She gave her brother a short account of what had happened all those years ago, which made his eyes blaze with sudden anger.
"I suspected something like that, and Grandma did, too. She used to say 'I'm sure it's all that dreadful woman's doing'. I don't know how many times I've wished I had persuaded her and Grandpa to take the two of you to Maine with us. How different all our lives would have been."
He stared out at the sea with narrowed eyes and a pained expression.
"Don't blame yourself", she said and laid a hand on his back. "I certainly don't. You were just a kid yourself. Taking care of me and Janie would have been quite a lot to ask of a teenage boy."
He smiled a little sadly and asked, "How's Janie doing?"
Jess smirked unabashedly. "Janie's the good girl, the one who's done everything right. She worked as a typist for a while, got married, had two cute kids in quick succession and is a successful mother and housewife now."
He gave her a quizzical look, obviously surprised by the bitterness in her voice.
"We're … we're not very close any more." Jess sensed that he was disappointed to hear that and quickly changed the subject. "And now for you! I hear you found your little treasure island, complete with pearls and all. Just like the stories you used to write for us."
"Yes, I guess I did." He grinned his sweet crooked grin. "Only the princesses were missing, at least until Evelyn came along."
"How did you get there in the first place? I thought you'd become a sailor, or gone back to your fishing."
He told her about their grandparents' deaths within less than a year of each other, about his rocky relationship with Rosie and his doomed engagement to Nell, about the errant year he had spent travelling the oceans without a destination or purpose, about the island, the pearl trade, the natives, about the missionary and the Commissioner and Gerry, and about an arrogant professor and his perky young wife. He relayed shortly how he had joined the army, had stopped a Jap bullet just weeks before the war was over and thus ended up in Australia, where he had, miraculously, been reunited with Evelyn against all hope.
"A happy ending to the treasure-island fairy tale." His lip curled a little ironically. "I guess I need a drink now after all this talking. How about you? Do you want a beer?"
"Sure!"
Jess grinned when he raised his eyebrows in mock horror and tried to imagine what Aunt Dorothy would think of her sitting in Mick's garden, guzzling beer. Something about the world going to hell in a handcart, probably.
While Mick was getting their drinks, she got up and walked to the cliff top that made up the rear border of the garden. There was a path leading straight down to the beach, and she could hear the sea rushing steadily. What a beautiful, peaceful place. Her brother was a lucky man, she thought.
"Here's your beer, miss." He had reappeared behind her, handed her one cool brown bottle, raised his and said, "Let's drink to the happy old times. And to you, for not giving up on me."
"To you", she replied. "for having me. To us."
Jess drank thirstily, all the while watching her brother. He still moved with that easy grace and still appeared utterly unaware of his own beauty.
She remembered all the horrible visions she'd had after hearing he had taken a hit in the war and burst out, "I can't begin to tell you how glad I am that you're alive and well. When Patrick said you'd been wounded and didn't go back to combat, I was imagining all kinds of awful things that could have happened to you, that you'd been crippled or disfigured or that you'd died after all. I'm so happy that you've proved me wrong."
He looked at her with a puzzling expression, as if he was trying to find the right words to tell her that she had just made the biggest, stupidest blunder of her lifetime.
Which was exactly what he began to do in his gentle, big-brotherly manner as he took her hand and said softly, "You didn't see me walking when I went to get the beers, did you?"
She shook her head, perplexed. What was he getting at?
He might have been a little stiff in the knees when he rose from the bench, but …
"You know, it's not just figuratively speaking if I say that I didn't quite come back in one piece."
She stared at him, wide-eyed, disbelieving, studying his legs for visible traces of an injury, which was, of course, a daft thing to do as he was wearing a pair of long khaki pants that hid from view whatever there was to hide. She held her breath as she waited for him to continue, the spark of a terrible suspicion she didn't really want to pursue kindling at the back of her mind.
He tapped both his legs with the beer bottle and said calmly, "Only one of them survived."
Her hand came free and flew up to cover her mouth, and she closed her eyes, brimming with tears yet again.
"Oh no, Mick, no! Please say you didn't … they didn't …" Her voice trailed off.
"Yes, Princess, they did", he said softly. "They had to. I got shot in the thigh, and the wound went bad, so they had no other choice if they wanted to save my life."
"My God, Mick. Oh my God. I'm so sorry. I'm so stupid. How … how on earth did you manage to get through all that … how did you cope …?"
The bottle slipped from her hand, spilling beer on the grass, and he quickly deposited his and pulled her close, held her as she cried at his chest and told her, "At first, I didn't cope at all. I wished they'd just left me in that damned jungle to die. I thought my life was over, but then I found it wasn't. In fact, all kinds of amazing things happened after that. I found Evelyn. I found a new job I liked. We had Annie. And now you've found me. I know this must be quite a shock for you, but believe me, there's no need to feel sorry for me."
She nodded, but sobbed even harder.
"It's okay, Princess. Let it all out now, but promise me you won't pity me when you're done crying. I'm fine, really." He tilted up her chin to make her face him. "Who needs two legs when you can have your long-lost sister back instead?"
She smiled weakly through her tears. "You're not making sense, Mick. But I love you anyway."
Evelyn had just been about to call out to them that dinner was ready, but she stayed put by the French doors when she saw them standing by the cliff top in each other's arms.
It seemed like one of those moments upon which nobody should intrude.
Dinner could wait, she decided.