Yet of all the women who would have jumped at the chance to be on his arm dressed in designer clothing, he'd asked her.
Rosie grabbed Adele's hand, tucked it into the crook of her arm and tugged her away from the shop window. 'I'm done here. We're going to the Valley.'
Adele tugged against her hand. 'No, Rosie! I'm not going to let you find some sad old second-hand prom dress to wear to Quinn Kelly's birthday bash. Please, for me, for the sake of the future princes of Brisbane you may one day be able to introduce me to, no!'
Cameron drove up Samford Road, one hand loosely working the steering wheel, the other running back and forth across his top lip.
Within hours he'd be face to face with his father for the first time since he was a teenager.
He could have given his mother a believable excuse. None of the family would have been surprised. But now that he'd committed he was not backing out.
A familiar National Park sign had him turning left towards Rosalind's. He breathed deep and pressed the accelerator to the floor. Even the whisper of her name helped relieve the pressure building inside his head.
Their night together had been beyond anything he could have expected. It was the most intense, affecting and wicked night of love-making of his young life. And right then he couldn't have been more impressed with himself for having had the mettle to go after her.
As he drove up her dirt driveway he was forced to slow, to shift his mind to focus on the matters at hand so that the low-hanging trees didn't scratch his car, and so he didn't land in the same great hole in the ungraded path in which he'd almost lost himself when he'd dropped her home the morning before.
That made it almost thirty-six hours since he'd last laid eyes on her, since he'd left her at the door of her crazy caravan, with its hills, sun and flowers painted all over the sides like some leftover relic of the seventies. Since he'd touched her hair, and held her tight, and kissed that spot on her lower back that made her writhe.
The tyres jerked against the wheel, and he concentrated fully on finding a path that led him to her door relatively unscathed.
The ground was dry, so his dress shoes didn't collect any mud as he picked his way up the path made only by her daily footsteps rather than by any kind of design.
He looked for a bell, but found nothing of the sort. At a loss for a moment, he lifted his hand to knock thrice on the corrugated door.
Shuffling was followed by a bump, then a muffled oath. Then, when she didn't appear in an instant, he tugged at his tie and hitched his belt so that it was perfectly set just below his navel. He straightened his shoulders and cleared his throat. He had no reason to be nervous. So why did he feel like he was seventeen again, and picking his date up for the senior dance?
The door whipped open, and that was where all fidgeting stopped.
Backlit by the warm, golden light of a small desk-lamp, and helped along by the thin moonlight falling softly through the clouds above, Rosalind stood in the doorway looking like she'd stepped out of a 1930's Hollywood movie-set.
Her shoulders were bare, bar a thin silver strap angling across one shoulder. Lilac chiffon fell from an oversized rosette at her chest and swirled about her long, lean form like she had been sewn into it. Several fine silver bangles shimmered on her wrist. And her hair was pinned at the nape, with soft tendrils loose and curling about her cheeks.
He'd never once in his entire life been rendered speechless-not when one of his mates had streaked during the debate-team final. Not when he'd made a three-hundred percent profit on the sale of his first property. Not even when his father's only response to his declaration that he could never work for a man with so little backbone had been that, as long as he didn't work for the Kelly family, he was not welcome in the Kelly family home.
But Rosalind Harper, in all her rare, noble, charming loveliness, had him at a complete loss for words.
'Hi,' she said, her voice breathy, and he knew it had nothing to do with her rushing about before she opened the door.
She looked at him like she'd be happy to keep looking at him for as long as she possibly could. Like he was all she'd ever wanted, and all she would ever want.
His heart raced like a jackhammer. He felt the boundaries he'd set being smashed left, right and centre and he had no idea what to say, or do or think.
But then she let out a long, descending whistle and flapped her hand across her cheeks, and her eyes ran coquettishly down his dinner suit. His skin tightened every place her gaze touched, and his heart eased.
He snuck a hand to her waist, the fabric sliding against his palm until he connected with the curve of her hip. It took all of his self-control not to throw her over his shoulder, take her back inside her crazy home, close the door behind them and forget about the rest of the world.
Instead he leaned in and kissed her on the cheek, letting her sweet vanilla scent wash over him like a cure-all.
'You,' he said, his voice gruff, 'look like a dream. And that dress; there are quite simply no words.'
The smile he wrought lit her from the inside out. 'What,' she said, swinging from side to side, 'this old thing?'
Her tone was wry, but he knew she half-meant it. For nothing that romantic could ever have come from today.
'Are you ready?' he asked.
She held up two fingers. 'Two seconds. I'm still missing an earring. You'd think in a place this small that wouldn't be a concern, right?'
She turned and raced inside. He followed, intrigued at just how much Rosalind's home might reveal about the woman whose layers seemed to go on and on.
At one end an ajar door revealed the corner of a double bed which all but filled the space. It was covered in a soft, worn, pastel comforter. It was unmade. One pillow lay in the centre of the bed, dented where her head had lain. She was used to sleeping there alone. So far, the insights were entirely positive.
In the middle where he stood was the kitchen. He looked for photos of family or friends, but there were none on show. No knickknacks had pride of place on the pleasantly scuffed bench. It was almost as though she was on holidays rather than living in the place. He wasn't sure what to make of that.
He glanced up. In lieu of a chandelier was a home-made mobile of the solar system made from bent wire-hangers and string, planets made from chocolate wrappings, balls of rubber bands, and an old squash-ball pitted with teeth marks. He'd asked for insight and he'd been given a fanciful, inventive, dynamic mind. No surprise there.
He counted. No Pluto. Poor Pluto. He was in, then suddenly one day he was out. Cameron felt an affinity with the little guy. He only hoped Pluto was out there in the universe, kicking butt and taking names.
'Found it!' Rosalind called out from deep in the other end of the caravan.
In the bathroom, perhaps? He took a step in that direction, and out of the shadows a face peered back at him. Against one wall rested a life-size cardboard cut-out of a musclebound actor in a wetsuit. And just like that all the good the single pillow on her bed had done to his ego was wiped out. By a piece of cardboard.
He stepped back into the relative safety of the more conservatively decorated kitchen. His head brushed against something. He turned and came face to face with a line of string, over which had been hung a collection of skimpy lace underwear, quite different from the androgynous knickers she'd had on under her layers upon layers of clothing the other night.
He swallowed hard, wondering just what she might or might not be wearing under her diaphanous dress. The answer would be his for the taking if he wanted it, of that he was sure. And try as he might he couldn't imagine a situation in which he would not.
Before he had the chance to interpret the thought, Rosie appeared from the other end of the van, pinning the back on a dangly earring at her left lobe, saw where he was standing and came to a screeching halt. And blushed.
It wasn't even the loveliness of the blush that got him deep in his gut. It was the fact that, even after he'd already seen every inch of her beneath the underwear, she still managed to blush at all.
Their eyes caught. And locked. Her sparkling grey depths were warm, questioning, unguarded as always. But this time he felt like he was teetering on the edge of a most important discovery, when she closed her eyes and spun away, and it was gone.