Mark couldn’t believe he was sitting in The Palace with Gabriela after all these years, her soft brown eyes wide and bright. He lifted his beer to make a toast but found he didn’t know what to say.
To us would sound ridiculous. To old friends , not quite true.
She seemed to swing between skittish and flirty around him, but now that they were here, she looked nervous, and he desperately wanted to put her at ease. So instead of a toast or launching straight into the question of why she’d vanished from his bed all those years ago, he took a sip then put the glass down. ‘Are you ready?’
She blinked her thick, long lashes. ‘For what?’
‘Our arm wrestle, of course.’
Her lips quirked and he saw her shoulders relax a little. ‘You weren’t serious?’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘You’re not chicken, are you?’
In reply, she took a large gulp of wine, put the glass off to the side out of harm’s way, made a show of pushing up her sleeves even though her dress didn’t have any, and then planted her elbow onto the table, holding out her palm to his. ‘No, but you should be.’
‘Is that right?’ Her confidence only enhanced her attractiveness, and as he positioned his arm opposite hers, Mark laughed. It would be chivalrous to let her win, but he didn’t want the locals pitying him any more than they already did. ‘Let’s see about that.’
He took Gabriela’s hand firmly in his and even though it was the most innocent of touches, the feel of her skin against his sent a spark of desire right to his core. Her palms weren’t silky smooth like most women he knew but callused like his. He liked it, because he knew her hands reflected the way she could move up and down those silks and—
‘On your marks, get set, go!’
The words had barely left her mouth when he felt the pressure against his arm and realised this wasn’t going to be quite as easy as he’d imagined. Although he’d known she was strong due to her job, he’d underestimated just how much strength she had.
Not to mention the fact that it was hard to concentrate when all his blood had rushed to his groin.
Focus, Mark.
Closing his eyes so her cleavage wasn’t right in his face, and pretending his opponent was some arrogant dude on the footy field—Alex, the guy Tahlia had chosen over him, for instance—he put his all into the contest. His jaw clenched, his arm muscles burned, and he let out an unappealing grunt, but it was working; he was regaining some control.
And then he made the fatal mistake of opening his eyes to find her staring right at him. There’d been something almost primal between them all those years ago and he could still feel it now. The air crackling between them, she licked her lips and her chest heaved with exertion. His pulse grew faster, and the breath was sucked from his lungs as his mind went right back to that night and the way she’d looked down at him when his hands were possessively caressing her breasts as she rode him like a cowgirl.
It was suddenly all he could do not to come right there in his jeans.
‘Yes!’ Gabriela shrieked in victory as she slammed his fist into the table.
‘Dammit.’ He couldn’t believe it. Having a cock could be such a disadvantage sometimes. He might have succeeded in setting her at ease, but he was even more riled up than ever. Even so, he couldn’t bring himself to let go of her hand. ‘Congratulations.’
Mark heard a cackle from over at the bar and turned to glare at Henrietta Forward. Just his luck that the only person in town who’d ever managed to beat him in a running race—granted he was recovering from pneumonia that day—had witnessed his embarrassing loss.
‘Girl power!’ she shrieked, pretending to give Gabriela a high five across the room.
Gabriela laughed. ‘I really like her.’
‘You do realise I’m never going to live this down,’ he whispered. ‘It’ll be all around town tomorrow morning that Mark Morgan, ex pro-footballer, lost an arm wrestle to a girl.’
She had the good grace to look sheepish. ‘Do you want a rematch?’
‘Hell no! Are you insane? I’m not as stupid as I look. I lose to you once, everyone will think I was just being chivalrous; I lose to you twice and my reputation will truly be in tatters.’
Gabriela extracted her hand from his and picked up her wine again. ‘We wouldn’t want that.’
He took a much-needed gulp of his beer, then said, ‘Despite you making me question my masculinity, I’m glad you agreed to meet me, especially when you must be exhausted after performing all night.’
‘I think your masculinity’s just fine,’ she said, smiling at him in a way that sent his thoughts whirling wickedly.
He hadn’t met with her tonight expecting anything to happen between them. He’d just wanted to talk to her and hear an explanation for her disappearing act years ago, but now he’d touched her again, he wondered if that was going to be nearly enough.
It felt like a betrayal to Tahlia even thinking such things, but then he reminded himself that she’d already rejected him. Whether he liked it or not, he was a free agent.
‘And sometimes it’s nice to get away from the circus.’
Mark blinked. He had no idea what Gabriela had just said. ‘I’m sorry, what was that?’
‘I said I’m glad you asked me to come here. Sometimes it’s nice to get away from the circus, although this place is not exactly what I imagined a country pub looking like.’
‘It used to be exactly what you probably imagined,’ he said, leaning back in his seat. ‘Stained walls, ratty old carpets from the seventies, bad smells and terrible music. Dad used to bring us here for my mum’s birthday and Mother’s Day, because aside from the bowling club, it was the only place to get dinner in town.’
‘That must have been nice,’ Gabriela said, twirling her wine glass between her fingers.
‘Don’t think Mum would agree. Eventually she told him if he forced her to eat here one more time, she’d file for divorce.’
‘Oh no. Are they still together?’
‘Yep—he’d be lost without her,’ he said. ‘After that we drove the half-hour to the Chinese restaurant in Geraldton whenever we had something to celebrate.’
She smiled. ‘Does your mum still take care of injured wildlife?’
He nodded. ‘You have a pretty good memory too.’
She blushed to the roots of her hair, and her gaze dropped into her glass.
‘Mum and Dad are down south at the moment looking for a place they can retire to in a few years, so I’m in charge of her current guests. There’s only two right now. Roo, who as you can probably guess is a joey, and Maggie, a magpie who Mum has tried to release back into the wild but who refuses to go.’
Gabriela chuckled. ‘So, what changed?’
Mark blinked. ‘What do you mean?’
‘This pub. Why isn’t it like it was when you were little?’
‘Ah, right. Well, that’s all down to Liam. He was surfing his way around Australia ten or so years ago. He arrived in Bunyip Bay just as the grumpy old publican put it up for sale. I guess Liam liked it here, so he just decided to buy it and stay.’
Gabriela smiled again. ‘I don’t blame him. Who wouldn’t love this town? It’s gorgeous.’
Even though this wasn’t a compliment to him, Mark couldn’t help taking it as such. He may have been away for a decade, but his heart had never been far from here. However, since coming home, instead of appreciating how special Bunyip Bay was, he’d been consumed with what he’d lost. Gabriela’s words felt like a wake-up call, or maybe it was more the fact that it was impossible to feel disappointed about anything—betrayal, loss of his football career, where he lived—when the sexiest woman he’d ever met was sitting across from him.
In that moment he almost felt glad that Tahlia had ended things, because how could he be married to her when he felt this strongly attracted to someone else?
‘It’s not a bad place,’ he admitted.
‘Are you just home for the holidays?’
‘No. I’m back for good, earlier than planned thanks to a career-ending injury.’
Her smile faltered. ‘Oh, no. I’m so sorry.’
‘Thanks.’ He took a swig from his beer.
‘Do you mind me asking what happened?’
His injury was his least favourite topic of conversation and he usually shut it down whenever someone asked, but tonight he found himself answering honestly.
‘About eighteen months ago, I tore my ACL for the second time. I was just about to sign a contract for four years, which would have seen me close to retirement, but when I stuffed my knee, that contract was taken off the table.’
‘They dropped you just like that?’ She sounded outraged.
‘Well, they signed me on a one-year deal instead, during which they supported my recovery. It was looking promising. I was feeling fitter than I had in years. I even had some interest from other clubs, but then first game back I collided with another player and...’ His chest tightened. ‘That was it. Game over for me.’
Gabriela reached across the table and took his hand. ‘I’m so sorry. I can only imagine how hard that must have been.’
Her gentle squeeze was very nearly his undoing. A lump formed in his throat, and he felt stupid tears rushing to his eyes. Not wanting to cry in front of her, he focused on the feel of her hand in his instead of her pity.
‘Thanks. Guess I’m lucky I had the farm to come back to.’
‘You don’t sound too thrilled by that,’ she said, slowly extracting her hand and looking at him as if she could see right inside him. ‘Was it a bit of a shock to the system moving home from the big smoke?’
That was one way to put it.
‘Yeah, I guess.’ Gabriela was the first person he’d admitted this to, but then again, no one else had asked. His parents assumed he was just down about his early retirement and the end of his marriage, but if he was truly honest it was more than that. ‘It’s hard to explain. When I was in Melbourne, whenever I came back to Bunyip Bay for a holiday, I’d tell my teammates and city friends I was going home, yet now I’m home for good, I don’t feel like I fit in anymore. Some of the people I grew up with have moved on, left town, but those who stayed got closer to each other, they’ve got new shared memories I’m not a part of, and I feel like the new kid at school trying to fit in.’
‘I never went to school, so I don’t exactly know what that feels like but—’
‘You never went to school?!’ His disquiet was immediately forgotten.
Gabriela smiled at his shock and shook her head. ‘Pretty hard to attend school when you rarely stay in one place longer than a few weeks.’
‘When you put it that way. But... I... How did you learn?’
‘We home-schooled. The circus has a teacher—the one we have now is married to our clown, Desmond. When I was growing up, the teacher was a retired trapeze artist. We did our schoolwork in the morning and then in the afternoon we did performance training, trying all the different acts, seeing what called to us, what we had promise in. You start working pretty early in the circus.’
‘We?’ he asked.
‘Me and the other circus kids. Acts generally don’t stay with one circus forever and so the kids come and go with their parents. It’s not all bad though. I can speak a tiny bit of six different languages thanks to children from various foreign countries who schooled with us while they were here.’
He smiled. ‘That’s cool. I learned Italian in primary school and Indonesian in high school but can’t remember anything of either.’
‘You’re probably better at other subjects than I am. To this day, I still don’t understand the role the alphabet plays in maths.’ She shook her head. ‘But anyway, I related to what you said, because it’s hard to make friends when you move about all the time, and it means I’ve never really felt like anywhere is home.’
He found it hard to imagine what that was like—no matter where he went around Australia, he’d always had the farm to come home to—but Liam chose that moment to interrupt, placing another glass of wine in front of Gabriela and another beer down in front of Mark, who hadn’t realised they’d almost finished their first drinks.
‘Courtesy of Henri,’ he said. ‘She wanted you to know the wine is for wiping Mark’s smug smile off his face in that arm wrestle—you’re her new hero—and the beer is her commiserations.’
Mark looked over at Henri and, at her wide smile of satisfaction, gave her the finger. She laughed and turned to a tourist waiting to be served.
‘Anyway.’ Liam cleared his throat. ‘Kitchen’s about to close. Can I get you any food to go with your drinks?’
Gabriela shook her head. ‘No, thank you, I shouldn’t even have another drink.’
‘You can’t refuse a free drink,’ Mark exclaimed, not wanting her to go yet. ‘And you can’t leave Bunyip Bay without trying a Bunyip Burger. They’re Australia famous.’
When she arched an eyebrow, he added, ‘Okay, maybe WA-famous but they should be world famous. You must be hungry after all that performing. My shout.’
For a second, she looked like she was about to refuse, but then she opened her mouth—‘How can I resist a recommendation like that? But I’m paying’—and he was too happy she’d decided to stay to argue the latter.
‘I’ll have one too, thanks, Liam.’ When the publican retreated, Mark said, ‘You won’t regret it.’
As she smiled and took a sip of her second glass of wine, Mark made a mental note to thank Henri later. If his embarrassing loss had resulted in a free drink, which meant he had longer to spend with Gabriela, it was worth it.
‘Who was that woman you were sitting next to last night?’ she asked, putting her glass back down on the table. ‘Is she your grandma or something?’
Mark was momentarily confused. ‘Oh, Mrs Brady?’ He snorted. ‘No, thank God. She used to teach Sunday School when I was a kid. Turned me off religion for life! We just happened to be sitting next to each other.’
Gabriela let out a little laugh. ‘She didn’t look to be enjoying herself very much.’
‘I think she was trying very hard not to. She’s got it in her head that you circus people are here to wreak havoc in town, but I saw her trying not to giggle when that old clown was in the ring.’
‘Desmond?’ Gabriela’s eyes lit up. ‘He’s a darling. Been with Lorenzo and Eve since before I was born. He used to be the elephant trainer.’
‘Wow. Now that’s what I call a job. What happened to the elephants?’
‘They went to a zoo. So,’ she said, semi-pointing her glass at him, ‘tell me, now you’ve seen our show twice, what did you think of it? Did you... enjoy it?’
It felt like a loaded question and the truth was he barely remembered any of the acts, aside from the ones she was in. ‘More than I thought I would. You were amazing.’
She tried to brush off his compliment, but he wasn’t having any of it.
‘Honestly, you blew me away up there on the tightrope.’
‘Highwire,’ she corrected with a smile.
He chuckled. ‘And your talents seem to be very diverse. Does everyone have to do more than one act?’
‘Pretty much. You can’t just do one thing in the circus, especially when you’re the family. Performers come and go, so you need to be able to fill the gaps if need be. Once upon a time the Grand Jimenez Family Circus had twenty full-timers plus the family, but now we only have thirteen full-timers, so everyone is working more jobs than ever. And, quite aside from performing, everyone needs to pitch in with all other aspects.’
‘Tell me about it.’
‘What do you want to know?’
‘Everything. You’re the only person I’ve ever known in a circus. It’s like meeting someone from another time or dimension.’
She laughed, but happily answered his questions about circus life, everything from what she called the travel and build days—apparently the biggest days of the week—to circus jargon that only made sense in their bubble. As they waited for their food, he learned about ‘midnight runners’, proper terms for all the equipment, and that if there was any trouble between circus folk, the family dealt with it themselves, never involving the cops unless absolutely necessary.
‘Can I ask you something?’ she said, turning the stem of her wine glass between her fingers.
He nodded. ‘Sure. Although I’m warning you, my life isn’t half as interesting as what you’re describing.’
She laughed but before she could ask her question, one of the backpackers arrived with their food. ‘Here you go.’ She put a plate down in front of each of them. ‘Enjoy.’
Gabriela’s eyes boggled at the burger on her plate as the woman retreated. ‘Oh, my goodness. It’s massive!’
‘Just wait until you taste it, you’ll wish it was twice the size,’ Mark said, plucking up a crispy, golden fry. ‘The chips are pretty good too. What did you want to ask me?’
‘Why is this town called Bunyip Bay? I thought bunyips were supposed to live in rivers or swamps, not the ocean.’
He spluttered out a laugh, almost choking on the chip.
‘What’s so funny?’
He swallowed and recovered. ‘That was just the last thing I expected you to ask. And firstly, bunyips don’t actually exist, you do know that, right?’
She smirked and rolled her eyes at his teasing tone. ‘You know what I mean.’
‘And secondly, disappointingly, our town is not named after the mythical creature—because that would be cool—but rather one of the men who settled the area in the late 1800s. Arthur Bunyip. He married but didn’t have kids, so there are no Bunyips left in the region.’
‘Oh, that’s sad,’ she said, eyeing the massive burger in front of her as if she wasn’t sure how to tackle it.
He handed her a knife. ‘It’s easier if you cut it in half. And all accounts say that Mr Bunyip wasn’t a very nice man—abused his wife and the Wattandee people—so when someone raised the idea of a commemorative statue for him, they were shot down. Instead, the Progress Association contracted a local artist to build a sculpture of an actual bunyip.’ He chuckled, remembering what his mum called ‘the hoo-ha’ that had gone on surrounding it when he was just a kid. ‘There was a lot of discussion about what it would look like, so that wasn’t straightforward either.’
‘Did the sculpture ever eventuate?’ she asked, slicing the burger down the middle.
He did the same with his. ‘Yeah. It’s in the park, although there’s a group trying to organise a larger statue. You know, like the big tourist icons Australia’s known for?’
Gabriela didn’t reply because she’d just clamped her mouth around her dinner and taken her first bite. Her eyes widened, then rolled back as she moaned in a way that made the muscles all over Mark’s body tighten.
Good lord. Had she any idea what she was doing to him?
‘What the hell do they put in this?’ she asked when she’d finally swallowed that first mouthful. ‘I’ve never tasted anything so good. Is it the sauce or the pattie? Or both?’
Somehow, he managed a chuckle. ‘Good luck ever finding out. Macca, the cook, reckons he’ll take his Bunyip Burger recipe to the grave.’
‘Oh my God,’ Gabriela said through another mouthful. A tiny drop of secret sauce dripped onto her chin. ‘Are you not eating yours?’
‘Not yet.’
He was about to wipe the sauce, already knowing it would taste even better after being on her skin, but she got there first, licking it off her finger in the most seductive manner. ‘Aren’t you hungry?’
Oh, Mark was hungry alright—he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt as ravenous as he did right now—but not for food. It was her he wanted to devour. ‘I’m having too much fun watching you.’
Again, pink spread across her cheeks, which, if possible, only made her more appealing. ‘Your loss,’ she said with a coy smile.
‘I don’t think so.’
But he started on his burger anyway, and eventually, once she’d stopped practically orgasming in front of him and he’d stopped practically orgasming just watching her eat, he attempted conversation again.
‘So, Gabriela Jimenez .’ The way she grinned at the way he said her name made him want to say it over and over again. ‘I’m impressed.’
Her smile turned to a bemused frown. ‘By what?’
‘You’re not only part of the Grand Jimenez Family Circus, you’re the family. Is the ringmaster your dad?’
‘Lorenzo is my father-in-law.’
It took a second for the ramifications of her words to sink in. He put his burger back down on the plate. ‘Your father-in-law ?’
She nodded.
But that meant... she was married! His grip tightened on his pint glass.
Holy fuck. That changed everything.
‘I thought you said you weren’t with anyone!’ He couldn’t help the accusation in his tone, but she quickly shook her head.
‘I’m not. Not anymore. My husband died six months ago.’
Oh hell. One moment Mark was having to get used to the fact that she was married, the next that she was a widow. He went from annoyed to sympathetic so fast it felt like whiplash.
Poor Gabriela . He could only imagine how she must be feeling.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said.
It didn’t sound like nearly enough, but he couldn’t think of anything better.