And a very handsome man was on his way to a blonde-haired bridesmaid with an offer he hoped she wouldn't refuse.
When Lizzie saw Dan approaching, her heart catapulted somewhere out into the huge dark southern sky.
'Last dance.' He held out his hand. 'You promised.'
She'd been chatting with Harri, gossiping about the wedding guests, but when she saw him, she had to work hard to breathe.
Lizzie placed her hand in his with no hesitation. With a backwards smile to Harri, and a laugh at Harri's knowing wink, Lizzie followed Dan to the dance floor. He obviously had an arrangement with the DJ because, with a quick nod, the disco faded out and in its place an old Sinatra song, cool and jazzy, began to drift over the crowd. The crooner was singing effortlessly about having someone under his skin. Lizzie figured it was the perfect soundtrack for dancing with the thirteen kinds of handsome Dan McSwaine.
Oh yeah. Thirteen. Not an unlucky number at all.
He'd pulled her in tight, one hand around her waist, the other holding her hand up and out to the side, like real dancing. It felt romantic and unreal, dancing in the moonlight, the jazzy music all around her, Dan in his tuxedo shirt and the taste of delicious champagne still on her lips. She relaxed into his arms, resting her cheek on his chest as they swayed to the music, and then inched one hand up high, from his shoulder, to his neck, to tease the hair sitting on his collar. She let her eyes flutter shut, and breathed in the scent of him, something spicy from a bottle mixed with something all him, something all-man and Middle Point.
In a perfect world the night would never end.
'Dan,' she sighed against him. Slow-dancing couples, each moving slowly to the hypnotic strains of the music, surrounded them but all she could see and feel was him. It felt too good to be in his arms and she didn't want to have to give it up. Ever.
'Yeah?' he murmured in reply.
'We did it, didn't we?'
Lizzie felt the chuckle in his chest, his hard muscles moving under her cheek.
'We've done a whole lot of things, Lizzie. I'm thinking of one thing right now, as a matter of fact.' His arm was tighter around her and he pressed himself against her. 'Which one are you thinking about?'
She remembered everything. How they'd argued. Flirted. Pushed the bride and groom together. Roamed the streets of Middle Point at night holding hands. Shared sizzling sexual chemistry. Created The Market. Made love. Fought. Run from each other.
And kept secrets from one another.
That had to change. Right this minute. If she was to have any hope of hanging on to this, of creating her own happy ever after, she had to tell him the truth about who she was and why.
'Everything Dan, I'm thinking about everything.' She reached up as tall as she could so she could whisper in his ear. 'Everything I want. Everything I want to do.'
She felt him shudder and he groaned. 'Bloody hell.' He sounded like he was straining for control. 'Let's get out of here.'
She found his eyes and nodded. Dan grabbed her hand and led her from the dance floor.
CHAPTER
32
They made it across the road and onto the lookout over the Point before Dan pulled Lizzie in tight, wrapped her in his strong arms and kissed her until she was breathless. The power of it buckled her knees. Melted her legs. Had her heart beating loud and fast like a throbbing bass beat in a rock song. He held on to her like he'd never, ever let her go. Could she hope he'd keep holding her when he knew her secret?
When she dragged her lips from his, regained some strength in her legs, Lizzie found his hand.
'Let's sit for a minute,' she said and led him to a simple, worn wooden bench and they sat beside each other, close, thigh pressing against thigh, hand in hand. The bench had been built at the top of the Point to take in the spectacular views along the jutting Fleurieu coastline, along sandy kilometres to the west and south to the Coorong. But at night, it was all a dark mystery, with only the sound of the rhythmic and relentless crashing of waves the only clue what lay below. Dan moved one arm behind her on the backrest and Lizzie moved into him, resting a hand on his leg, wanting his warmth in the cool evening breeze.
They sat like that for a moment. Lizzie was still feeling a little light-headed from the champagne, exhausted from the wedding and nervous as hell about being out here, finally, alone with Dan.
She went over in her head what she had to say to him, and it felt like standing on the edge of one of the nearby cliffs. As if she was about to leap off into the darkness. It was a risk she had to take. Would this truly be the first day of the rest of her life?
The end of ordinary and the beginning of spectacular?
Before she could start, Dan whispered into her hair. 'Tell me how you knew.' There was a hesitation in his voice that she hadn't heard before. 'When I was making the best man speech. Trying to make the best man speech. How did you know what was happening to me?' Dan shifted, turned his body towards her, so he could search her face for answers. 'How did you do that?'
So she wouldn't have to pretend she hadn't seen the look of sheer terror on his face when he'd stood with the microphone in his hand. She didn't have to gloss over the fact that her heart had ached for him, just as much as if it had been happening to her.
The guardian angel of Middle Point turned her eyes to his. 'I saw it in your face. I've spent a whole lot of time looking into those green eyes of yours, Dan McSwaine. And I recognised what it was.'
His hand slipped from her shoulder, down the fabric of her capped sleeve to caress the goosebumped skin on her arm.
'God, Lizzie. You saved me.'
She shook her head a little. 'It was a magic trick. I distracted you until it passed, that's all.'
A car drove by behind them, its lights flickering in the dark. Voices and music floated across to them from the wedding.
'Panic attacks?' she asked softly.
'Too many to count,' Dan said into the wind. 'Since the accident.'
Lizzie moved her hand from Dan's thigh to his waist and could feel the muscles bunch and move underneath.
'It's no surprise, really. After what happened.' When you nearly died. When I nearly lost you.
Dan stared out into the inky night. 'You know, when I bought the house down here, I told everyone in the city that it was because I was going to be working on Windswept and it was close. They believed me when I said it would save the drive up to Adelaide every day. I spun them some bullshit that it was a good property investment, that I could flog it off in a few years for triple what I paid for it.'
A bitter laugh was on his lips. 'All that was a pile of absolute, steaming horseshit. You know why I moved to Middle Point, Elizabeth?
She could see by the look on his face that she didn't need to answer.
'I came down here to hide. Not a bad place for it, huh? Sleepy coastal town, quiet streets. No nightclubs. No pressure. Nothing to tip me over the edge. And all that was rolling along fine except … '
Lizzie snuggled her face into his neck, savouring the warmth there and the smell of him. 'Except for what?'
'You. You came knocking on my door, the guardian angel of Middle Point, with eyes so big and blue they can make a grown man weep. How could I say no to you?'
Her heart swelled. 'You did, if I remember correctly. When you slammed the door in my face. You were like the wild man of Borneo.'
There was the hint of a smile in his voice. 'The what of who?'
'Your long hair, your beard, your attitude. Wild. Dangerous. Like a bear with a thorn in his side.'
'Tell me something,' he murmured into her hair. 'Why didn't you give up when I was such a rude prick to you?'
Lizzie shrugged. 'I wouldn't be a very good guardian angel if I gave up so easily, would I? I had a clue what was going on with you, even back then. I thought I'd better cut you a bit of slack. You deserved it.'
'I didn't realise just how much the accident had screwed me up until Anna turned up here in Middle Point before Christmas. She helped me see it. She's an amazing doctor.'
Lizzie blinked. 'Anna is a doctor?'
'Yeah. She has her own practice up in Adelaide. That's why I spent so much time up there with her. Jesus, Lizzie, I know you must have thought that I was with her. But I couldn't tell you the truth about who she was because I would have had to come clean about all this stuff, too. And I wasn't ready. I still had some things to work through. She helped me with that.'
Dan was right, she thought. Anna was amazing. In a whole range of ways that Lizzie hoped to get to see for herself. She tightened her grip on Dan.
'I'm so glad she was able to help you.'
'I spent months and months feeling like I didn't want to be a part of the world anymore. Could barely get out of bed. Until you came bursting into my house and my life. The reason I wanted to feel better was you, Elizabeth.'
'Dan … '
'That future that Ry and Julia have created for themselves, after today? The bit where they have a life together? I want that too. And I want it with you.'
Lizzie blinked in confusion. 'But just before … you said you were done waiting for me.'