Against her side he was all bunched muscle and restrained strength. His clean scent wrapped itself around her, and it took everything not to just lean into him and forget everything else.
To reforge the natural boundary between them, she asked, 'So, what is it like being a Kelly?'
'What makes you think there is only one way?'
'I'm not sure. Terrible instincts. Stumbling about in the dark only to find the electricity has been cut off. No, wait-that's how it is to be a Harper.'
His steps slowed until they came to a stop. 'Right. Let's stop talking around the real question, shall we?'
Rosie bounced from one foot to another, wondering what can of worms she'd inadvertently fallen into now. 'And what's that?'
'If you were such a poor unfortunate in your youth, while I was given every opportunity, how did you work out twenty percent faster than I did?'
Her head fell back as she laughed into the night. She bobbed her head in the general direction of the Red Fox, wondering briefly if everyone else had made it home to their nice warm beds. 'Don't beat yourself up. Spending time with that lot, how could you not revert to your teenage IQ?'
His eyes narrowed. 'I'm not entirely sure that was in the slightest bit complimentary to any of us.'
She looked him dead in the eye and said, 'Well, colour me surprised. You're not as slow as you seem.'
His cheek slid into the kind of smile that would melt the icy crust of the moon Europa. No wonder she couldn't stop moving. He was always so switched on, he made her feel like there were ants in her shoes.
'So, how did a smart mouth like you end up in such a dry field as astrophysics?' he asked, lifting his foot to lean it against a log on the edge of the garden beside them.
Rosie clasped her hands together behind her back. 'I used to wish upon every star I saw. When I didn't get a trip to Disneyland for my eighth birthday, I gave up on them.'
'Stars?'
'Wishes. Stars I couldn't let go of quite so easily. So, while you hunkered down in your seat shaking like a little girl at the animated wormholes on your planetarium visit, I paid attention. I learnt about Venus, about how she always appeared alone, separate from all the other planets, and only at the most beautiful times of day, sunset and sunrise. That afternoon, I sat in the kitchen window of our apartment block and there she was-bright, constant and unblinking. A free show, for anyone in the world to see. That was the beginning of a beautiful love affair that has lasted til this day.'
Rosie came back to earth to find Cameron standing very still, his eyes dark, intense, with the kind of absolute focus she was certainly not used to being on the receiving end of. She'd been balancing on her toes. She bounced back to her heels with a thud. It didn't help. Those deep, blue eyes looked just as hot from a lower angle.
She started walking again; no dawdling any more. Assuming he'd follow, she said, 'Did you know Venus is the only planet in the solar system named after a woman?'
'I think I'd heard that.' His voice told her he was close.
'And, with a few exceptions, all surface features take their names from successful women.'
'That I did not know.'
'And that, if you weighed one-hundred kilos on Earth, you would weigh about ninety on Venus?'
'I feel like you're trying to sell me an interplanetary timeshare.'
She glanced back and wished she hadn't. When she looked into his eyes she forgot herself. Forgot that their time together was one of the universe's crazier anomalies. And she found herself wishing again. Just for the briefest moment, but each and every time.
He asked, 'So are any other planets allowed a look in, or is this an exclusive relationship?'
She looked up, and the tightness in her chest ebbed away. 'I'm a one-planet woman. Earth and Venus are the most similar in size of the planets in our solar system. They came into being around the same time with nearly the same radius, mass, density and chemical composition. But she has clouds laced with sulphuric acid, a surface hot enough to melt steel, and her surface pressure is equivalent to being a kilometre under the sea.'
'She's one feisty broad.'
'Isn't she?' Having built up a safer distance, she spun to face him, and, walking backwards, said, 'Sorry you asked?'
'Not in the least. So, how long have you been working at the planetarium?'
She fell into step beside him, figuring it best to keep her eyes on the path ahead. 'I don't. I've known the manager there-Adele, who you met yesterday-since uni, and she lets me camp out in the observatory whenever I like. I travelled a lot after school, and now, being back, having the observatory on hand means I can mix things up.'
'And it's a living?'
She shot him a sideways glance. 'As Australia's pre-eminent Venus specialist, I've given talks at international conferences, guest lectured at universities, and even talked on TV about her. And I've worked freelance for NASA for yonks. So, yeah, I do just fine.'
'You're a humble little thing, aren't you?'
'The humblest.'
He moved alongside her, close enough she could feel the whisper of air from his swinging arm brushing her jacket against hers. Their footsteps found a rhythm; her heart on the other hand felt like it was skittering all over the place. It was a feeling she'd never experienced before, comfortable and sexy all at once. She wondered if he felt that way all the time, if being with him she would too.
Rosie slid her arm out of Cameron's grasp, feigned having to unhook the back of her shoe from her heel, then walked on with a good foot's distance between them.
They hit the end of a row of cafés at the southern end of South Bank, then veered around in a one-eighty-degree arc and headed back towards the Victoria Street Bridge. Towards their cars.
Towards the end of the night.
And Rosie's relief and disappointment at the thought of their date coming to an end ran pretty much neck and neck.
On the other hand, Cameron was feeling strangely content. He would have expected by now to be over the elation that came with revelation, and to have moved on to disappointment with himself for giving into a moment's weakness.
But instead his mind was completely filled with the fact that he was out on a stunning winter's night with a beautiful woman. And, having given up so much of himself, he found himself wanting more from her. To restore the balance? That was the reason he was most comfortable admitting to.
He said, 'What's your relationship with your father like?'
She tilted her face towards him; her hair shifted against his shoulder, long, soft, kinky, fabulous. He breathed in deep to stop himself from ravaging her then and there. She really tried his self-control, this one.
'You ask that question like it should have an easy answer.'
'Complicated man?'
She shrugged beneath his arm. 'I wouldn't know. He and my mum met, married, he left, then she had me.'
Cameron's neck tensed. Not in surprise, but in disillusion at the levels to which some men would sink in the grips of their own self-interest. 'That can't have been easy on your mum.'
'Not for the whole time I knew her. They knew one another less than a year, but she dropped out of uni when she met him and never went back. It was as though she always thought one day he'd come back, and she wanted everything to be the same as when he left.'
'So where did a grown-up daughter fit into that?'
Her smile was as rich as always. Could nothing floor her? 'With difficulty, and tantrums and killer grades. Whatever it took to break through the fog. Mum passed away a few years ago when I was overseas. I wish she was still around so that she could see that I've landed on my own two feet. Him too, actually-which is the nuttiest thing of all.'
Her voice was strong, as though she was telling a story she'd told a thousand times. But Cameron was close enough to feel the tremble beneath the gusto.
'Cousins? Grandparents?'
She shook her head. No blood ties. No fallback. No choice about whether or not to turn her back on the man who'd hurt her …
'But I've known Adele since I was seventeen. She's as bossy as a sister, as cuddly as a grandparent, as protective as a dad ought to be. So as far as family goes, I'm more than covered.'
He held out an arm, an offer, and she sank into him. It took a whole other kind of strength not to lean against her, not to kiss the top of her head.