'Tori, I was brought up believing my father didn't care,' he told her. 'My mother didn't care either-not emotionally-and that left me with nothing. Or maybe I had emotions, but I learned to lock them away. And then I found you, breaking your heart over a dead koala. And I found the community of Combadeen. I found people who'd loved my father and who he'd loved in turn. I discovered that I'd been raised on a lie.'
He tugged her hand then, just a little so she turned and was facing him.
'None of that matters,' he said, 'except in explaining why I was so long in seeing what was before my eyes. When you left I kept going to work, telling myself I was dumb, only you'd left me colour, all through my apartment.'
'I knew you'd like it,' she interrupted, absurdly pleased.
'I love it,' he said simply. 'I've had it all shipped here. And I love Ferdy and Freddy. They're already in quarantine. I'm hoping Itsy, Bitsy and Rusty take kindly to them. They're very bossy cats.'
She was almost beyond hearing. She was so confused she felt dizzy. He was shipping his life … here?
'You're coming here?'
'I'm here.'
'You can't.'
'Why can't I?'
'Your life's in Manhattan.'
'My life's with you.'
There was a heart stopper if ever she heard one. Her heart definitely stopped, and it took time before she got it going again. And when she did …
Caution, she thought. Don't get your hopes up. This can't be what it seems.
'Jake, we can organise access some other way,' she managed. 'I mean … I know you want a say in how our baby's raised.'
'I want more than that,'he said, strongly and surely. 'I want to see him wake up in the morning and I want to read him bedtime stories. I want to make sure he's taught baseball and not indoctrinated into that very curious game you call football. I want-'
'To change diapers?'
'That, too,' he said, and he didn't even smile. It seemed he was deadly serious. 'I want to share in getting up in the middle of the night. I want to cope with dramas. I want to go to school plays. Did you know my mother never went to a single one of my school plays? Not a one. I'm going to the lot.'
'Does this mean I don't have to?' she asked, trying to joke, but it didn't work. There was too much at stake here for laughter.
'I suspect it's a team effort,' he said softly, seriously. 'The mother and father need to sit together.'
'Jake … '
'I know it's too fast,' he said, quickly now, as if he was afraid she'd stop him before she'd heard him out. 'I know we've barely had more than our five-minute date. But I want to put a proposition before you.'
He rose, and tugged her to her feet, then led her through the cleared area where once her home had stood. To a spot at the northern end.
'This was the kitchen, right?' he said, and she nodded.
'So this view … it'll have been where you stood and looked out as a family, as you cooked, as you washed dishes, as you lived.'
'Yes.'
'Then there's a choice to be made,' he said softly. 'As I said at the beginning, there're three options.'
'Three.'
'Number one,' he said, moving right on. 'That you fall into my arms right this minute, and we go next door and we move into what was my father's home and we live happily ever after. It's only my preferred option because it's the quickest,' he said hurriedly. 'But no pressure. I came up before and opened the windows and made it smell great, and I think it looks great, but if you don't want-'
'Jake … '
'You need to listen to all three before you decide,' he told her, trying to sound severe. 'And you need to listen to the plans in full. If we did that-if lived next door-then I think we should build the world's best wildlife shelter here, plus a clinic for the work you used to do. Caring for the horses that used to live up here and will live up here again. Families are returning, Tori. Life's starting here again.'
'But-'
'And we could call it after the dogs you lost,' he said gently. 'Mutsy and Pogo and Bandit's Animal Care. Big letters out the front. Every care in the world inside.'
'Oh, Jake … '
'Or two,' he said hurriedly, and maybe he thought she was about to burst into tears. She might, she thought mistily. She just might. But for now it was more important to listen.
'Okay, moving right onto option two,' he said, and his grip on her hands became more urgent. 'Option two's if you decide you still want to live here. But even if you did want to live here, you'd agree that I could live here, too. I've thought that one through. If you did that, then we could turn next door, my place, into Mutsy and Pogo and Bandit's Animal Care. It'd take a bit more work, as we have a house there and a blank canvas here, and it'd be a bit of a waste of new curtains, but it could be done. If you want this to stay as your kitchen view, my love, then that's your option.'
'Your love?' It was a squeak. It was definitely a squeak.
'Definitely my love,' he said, and he tugged her tight against him. 'And then there lies option three. Because much as I love you, much as I admit that my five-minute date was the best thing that could ever have happened to me, much as I want you to be beside me for the rest of my life, if you don't want that, or you're not ready, or you think you could do better, then I'll help you rebuild here, and I'll live next door so I can still teach Hildebrand to play baseball … '
'Hildebrand?'
'We have some discussion to do,' he said lovingly. 'Lots of discussion.'
'Jake … '
'Yes?'
She was trying to get her head around this. Her head wasn't big enough to take it in.
'You'd live up here? And work … in Melbourne?'
'In the valley. As Susie says, there's work and to spare. She's already set up discussions with health-care providers. I can start work tomorrow if I want. I'll need to go back and forth to the city for further training but that's feasible. You could come with me. And I need to take a few weeks off before I start. I have a half-grown dog to train.'
'Jake, stop.'
'It's too fast,' he said, suddenly rueful. 'I promised myself I wouldn't pressure you. Those three options-you can take your time, my love. You can have our baby and we can decide then. I won't coerce you into falling into my arms because I want to be a father. Because I want to be your husband first. That's what I want most. Everything else can wait.'
And then, because she didn't speak, because she couldn't, he smiled and suddenly lifted her up into his arms and he carried her across the scraped-up earth that was all that was left of her past life, and he took her to where the fireplace still stood, a blackened sentinel in the centre of what once had been her home.
The chimney stood, charred and blackened, the massive mantel that had straddled it still there, burned and twisted but still recognisably a mantel.
And on the blackened timber, a crimson box.
'This is for later,' Jake said softly, and he set her down. 'I came up here on the way to find you, and I left this here and I made a vow. I'd help you rebuild your life, my love, and if at any stage of the rebuilding you think, Maybe I wouldn't mind a man in my life, then this little box will be here. It'll sit here waiting so that I won't have to wait for the right time. Any sliver of opportunity and I'm in.'
'You … you just left it here?'
'There were three wallabies here when I got here,' Jake said. 'They promised they'd guard it. You want a look?
And what was a girl to say to that?
'It's not as big as the one at Tiffany's,' he said, suddenly anxious. 'And it's presumptuous.'
'I only want a peek.' She could almost laugh at the look on his face. Almost but not quite.
So he flipped it open.
It was like the one at Tiffany's.
He'd had it copied exactly. A glistening solitaire diamond in the centre, a heart, then five tiny rubies, with the thinnest ring of diamonds forming the outer edge of the heart. It had all the beauty of the one she'd seen but none of the ostentation. It was exquisite.
Her heart seemed to still, settle, warm …
But then, as she put her finger down to touch, he tugged it back and the lid snapped closed with a firm little click. Back it went, onto its resting place of charred timber, a crimson slash against the black.
'It's too soon,' he said, sounding firm. 'Far too soon. It's to sit there, Tori, until it's not too soon. It's to stay there until you know your heart, and if it stays there until we're old and grey, it's okay, I'll still be waiting.'
She started up at him, speechless, and she knew he was absolutely serious.
No pressure. She could live here again for as long as she wanted, and he'd be next door, the father to her child, doctor to this community.
The man she loved.
Was it too soon?
And she knew.
Five-minute dating? She didn't need five minutes, she thought mistily, and she put both her hands on Jake's shoulders and she pushed him sideways, so hard he staggered. She grinned, for her way was clear now. There were no barriers between herself and the blackened hearth.
'If you don't mind,' she said softly, wondrously, even finding room for laughter. 'You're getting in the way of my heart's desire.'