The cabin was still a mess. The old, collapsed roof had been taken down and with it, one of the walls had come down as well. This had been rebuilt by now, and a new roof was ready to go in.

Martin immediately put the both of us to work, complaining loudly about the time it had taken us to finally get there, what with all the ‘pashing’ going on. Quentin bore it good-naturedly and punched his brother in the shoulder; I blushed and looked down, inwardly smiling.

We barely had time for more talk, but I had all the more time to think about what Quentin had said as I dutifully assisted where I could.

From time to time, I caught Quentin looking at me. I felt a jolt every time our eyes met, but at the same time I noticed how thoughtful, and slightly worried, he looked. Like he was trying to gauge my reaction to his words.

After some time, I took a break and went out to lean against the tree outside the cabin. I looked out over the fields and found myself struggling; I just couldn’t make sense of Quentin. He was, well, how to describe it? Insecure yet intrepid, smug yet shy?  Both ends of the scale. Very confusing. Very attractive, also, and very dangerous. Not for the first time, I told myself that he was trouble, and again I wondered why I hadn’t listened when I heard Jo say ‘Finch family’ at the airport in Coffs and the alarms in my head were going off. I should have run there and then, and look at me now. I just had the most fantastic night of my life and here I was, plastered to this tree trunk, feeling miserable and confused.

And what was it, between Quent and me? He had said he loved me, to my face. But that was all in the heat of battle, wasn’t it? Men say all sorts of things in the heat of battle; I had learnt that the hard way in the past. Better not to take it too seriously if they say they love you in the afterglow of orgasm.

I mulled over his words, replaying what he had said to me as we walked over to the cabin, and could come to only one conclusion. He didn’t think he would be able to make it work between us. He liked being with me, he loved making love to me – I didn’t doubt that for a second – but that was about it. Well, shit. I bit my lip and suppressed the urge to whimper as my chest contracted.

But really, I argued, I didn’t know him at all, did I, even though it felt like we belonged together when he had his arms around me, when I smelled his skin and felt his warmth course through me. God, I wanted Quentin. I wanted everything there was to have about him, his shyness and his smugness, his bravado, his off-beat sense of humour... His smell, his hair to run my hands through, his body against mine. I got in a fluster just thinking about it. I wanted him like I never wanted anyone before in my life… but only, only if he wanted me the same way.

In my mind, Martin’s words came back to me, how he told me that if it were meant to be, it would sort itself out. And how I just knew he had said that before, to Quentin’s former girlfriends who weren’t certain of his commitment. I would never allow myself to be one of them. I wanted Quentin to be committed, no, I required it; it was essential that he was certain it was me he wanted. That he wasn’t with me just because he couldn’t have Bree any longer.

I shook my head. Stupid, stupid Taryn; I should have had this discussion with him before all that mind blowing sex, before everything got so muddled in my head and my heart. Now, it was too late. I should have left before he came back, I should have...

Something inside me quietly shifted and I just knew, without looking, that Quentin was standing there. I heard the whisper of him lighting a fag, inhaling, blowing out smoke.

‘Tazzie, you OK?’ he inquired softly. ‘You’re so quiet, luv, what is it?’

I looked at him. He stepped closer and leaned a shoulder to the tree, right next to me. I felt his warmth, smelled his scent and that familiar swooning spread through me. I leaned into him and closed my eyes, and he responded by nuzzling my hairline.

‘Taz?’ he urged quietly, lips brushing my forehead.

‘I’m just thinking how… What you said when we were walking up here, how you’re not good at dealing with the real thing?’ I almost whispered it into his collar.

‘Mm,’

‘Well, if that’s how you feel about it, I don’t…’ I lifted my head and with superhuman strength, I looked into his eyes when I continued, ‘I don’t think I can do this either.’ My heart beat loud in my ears. ‘I’m not, I haven’t… haven’t had much luck with relationships so far, and I can’t tell if it’s because of me not being able to have a proper relationship or me just not meeting the right guy. But I do know that with you… With you, everything’s different. I’ve never felt this way before about anyone, and I don’t think I can handle being with you without… actually… being with you. You know?’

His eyes were a startled pale green in the afternoon sun. He took a last drag and ground out his fag with his heel. Blew out the smoke, looked at the fields beyond, then looked back at me again, his features tense. ‘I, uh, Taz, you wanna… break it off? I thought you said you… wanted to go out with me…? This morning? Bloody… hell…’ his voice came haltingly and he pinched the bridge of his nose, frowning. A big sigh, then he continued: ‘Is this because of what I said earlier?’

‘Well I…’

‘Fuckin’… trust me to stick my foot in it,’ he groused at himself, then to me, pinning me to the spot with his intense gaze: ‘Look, Taz, all I wanted to say was that I’m not Mr. Perfect, you know? Just so you know in advance what you’re getting into, with me. I’m not…’ He sighed again and shook his head, breaking eye contact. ‘Don’t, I… just... don’t say it’s over before it’s even started, I dunno how to do this either, I’ve never felt…’ He looked at me again, helplessly, imploringly. ‘Tazzie, please…?’

‘I don’t want to end it…’ I whispered, eyes downcast, ‘ I just don’t think I can have a, well, a fling with you,’ I said, groping for a word that would describe what I meant.

‘You think that’s what we’re doin’ here? Havin’ a bloody fling?’ his voice suddenly sounded hard and gritty.

‘I don’t know what we’re having, Quent,’ I said, miserably, ‘I just don’t know, and that’s exactly the thing. I really... really do hope it’s more than a fling, because I… I really…’

‘Yeah?’ said Quentin, fixing me again with his intensity. ‘Say it, Taz. Tell me what you feel, for once. You’re always so fuckin’ reserved, I feel like I’m flying blind with you. I know I’m probably not your ideal bloke to go out with, but I’m… willing to… you know? Have a go at it...?’

‘I’m,’ I said, groping for words again, ‘I’m so… Oh, Quentin, I’m so in love with you…’ There. I had blurted it out, and I teared up immediately. It was so hard saying it out loud, admitting my vulnerability - I felt stripped of everything, lonely and naked and unprotected. A big, uncomfortable shiver ran through me.

‘Well, Taryn, I’m… I’m in love with you too,’ he said, so seriously he sounded almost surprised, his eyes locked on mine. ‘So why the fuck are we havin’ this talk? Oh, don’t cry, luvvie, shh, come here,’ and he pulled me into his warm embrace. ‘Don’t tell me it’s that bad, bein’ in love with me?’ he whispered against my temple.

‘No,’ I sniffled into his shoulder, ‘it’s not… It’s just that... I’m just really scared…’

He rocked me gently and made little soothing noises, then said: ‘For what it’s worth, I’m scared shitless too, luv. I’ll probably do something, or say something, and you’ll go off me so fast I won’t know what hit me… I’m a fuck-up waitin’ to happen, remember?’

Slowly, I felt the frozen muscles in my chest beginning to thaw as what he had just said started to sink in. He was in love with me too. And, I could hardly believe it: Quentin Finch, world famous, critically acclaimed brilliant Oscar winning actor, Mr. Sex On Legs from Down Under, global heartthrob, Quentin, my Quent, was just as insecure as I was, when it came to relationships. Who would have guessed? But there it was, and he probably needed comforting and reassuring as much as I did.

‘I don’t believe you’re a fuck-up waiting to happen,’ I softly said, my lips against his earlobe. ‘You’re loving, and considerate, and warm, and funny, and, and you look good, and you smell nice too, and… you’ve got a nice bum…’ here, I could feel a small chuckle ripple through him, though he didn’t make a sound. I went on: ‘… and you can be really charming, if you want to be… Granted, your language sometimes leaves something to be desired, but…’ I looked at him with a hint of a grin, ‘I think you might actually be the ideal bloke to go out with, for me anyway…’

‘Yeah?’ he smiled into my eyes, then hugged me tight.

‘Yeah… I just find it hard to believe you’d want to be with someone like me…’

‘Oh, Tazzie, will you bloody well lay off with the inferiority complex? Hasn’t anyone ever told you you’re really…’ he tipped my chin up and kissed away the remnants of my tears, ‘…really beautiful? Everything about you is so… so contained, so mysterious… so special. I want to be part of that… And what the fuck is wrong with my language?’

Now I grinned for real. ‘Nothing. I love the way you speak. Love the sound of your voice too. But, um… am I really too reserved…?’ I said with a questioning look.

‘Mm,’ said Quent, his breath softly whispering over my cheek, ‘you’ll have to say how you feel about me from time to time, luvvie, I can’t read your mind. I’m not you,’ and the corners of his mouth crept up and his eyes twinkled.

‘Well even if can feel a bit of what you feel, I don’t know what you’re thinking either… Reckon we’ll have to do the old fashioned thing and just get to know each other, right…?’

‘Yeah… I want that... And I need you to trust me, luv, when I’m telling you that it’s you I want to be with, no one else…’ He laid his hands around my face and gently stroked my lips with his, making an ever so soft humming noise.

I put my hands on his cheeks in answer and whispered to him: ‘Watch out for your brother, he’ll give you an earful if he catches us snogging…’

‘I don’t give a fuck,’ Quentin whispered back, and tucked in for a long, lazy, languorous kiss.

I smelled the sunshine on Quent’s skin and remembered how, when he kissed me for the very first time, exactly that was so intoxicating to me. It still was.

~*~

As the afternoon came to an end, we all drifted back to the big house. Quent and I slowly walked back, arms around each other. I leaned my head against his shoulder and floated alongside him, so high on being in love with him that I never once touched the ground.

‘You know what I want to do?’ he rumbled in my ear.

‘No… but I can guess, from your tone of voice,’ I grinned.

‘Yeah, that,’ he said from under one raised eyebrow, and he pulled me into his side to put his nose in my hair. ‘Love the way you smell, Tazzie,’ he mumbled, inhaling a loud noseful.

‘If you sniff any harder you’ll hoover me up,’ I went, poking a finger in his side.

He yelped and complained: ‘Oi, leave off, no tickling!’ Then he giggled like a madman when I prodded him some more. He whirled around, grabbed my arm and threw me bodily over his shoulder so fast that I didn’t even have time to protest. It was very undignified and totally hilarious as I hung there and he marched undauntedly towards the house.

‘Quent, put me down, you’ll hurt yourself, please,’ I panted, my head hanging down and my hair swinging with each step he took.

‘No,’ he grunted, ‘you’re too… bloody dangerous…’

We reached the back door and he just walked inside with me over his shoulder like I weighed nothing at all. He was breathing a bit more heavily by now, but apparently that didn’t stop him. He proceeded towards the stairs and gave his Mum a wave in passing.

‘Jo,’ I went, trying to elicit some help, but she just laughed and raised her hands, so I put my elbow on his back and laid my head in my hand, exasperated, as he started to climb to the first floor. Then finally, in his room, he dumped me unceremoniously onto the bed. He stood, hands at his sides, hair a mess, eyes twinkling, looking down on me.

‘What, Taz, you want to say something?’ he said, catching his breath.

‘Who, me?’  I said, laughing, ‘I wouldn’t dare, now come here, you, you... temperamental fellow!’

He let himself fall onto the bed with a whoop; then he buried his face in my neck and grunted and snorted and rooted around like a happy pig.

I could only laugh some more, wrap my arms around him and bury my hands in his hair. Slowly, we calmed and relaxed, and he looked at me with the warmest, sweetest gaze. ‘You’re such good fun, Taz… you know that? Crazy Tazzie…’ He put his nose against mine and crossed his eyes.

I giggled and kissed his face, hugging him to me, asking jokingly: ‘…you never had a girlfriend with a sense of humour before?’

‘No, not really…’ he said, turning serious again with a suddenness that kept surprising me. ‘Usually, girls I went out with were either worried about what I would think of them or they were too focused on their respective careers to make time for a good laugh…’ His brow creased.

‘You must still hurt,’ I softly said, looking away, feeling insecure again.

‘…from what?’ he asked, leaning his head in his hand. His hair flopped into his eyes and he blew at it impatiently.

‘Well from you and Bree, um, breaking up, just like that, I mean, it must have been really hard on you… I understand that, um, things may be difficult for you, even if we try to… you know, make it work…’

‘Yeah, well…’ he sighed, ‘there’s a lot of stuff I need to think about. You see, I’m… not so much heartbroken over Bree as… confused about why I reacted the way I did… Bree and me, we were long over, to be honest; there was just too much…well… stuff… that happened between us, that can’t really be undone.’ He sighed and stared into the distance.

I remembered him telling me, before he left for the States, about him and Bree. There was something he hadn’t told me then, something he wasn’t telling me now. Something really big, that must have hurt him more than anything else. I could feel it sitting there, a jagged clump of emerald green pain. I touched his cheek, which brought him back to the here and now and which softened his eyes.

He pinched his lips for a second and looked at me, then continued: ‘I was here, sulkin’, not knowin’ what to do, and then you lobbed in, just like that… and I suddenly found I had feelings for you, didn’t even know you but I had them all the same, which sort of hit me over the head… and I had this image in my mind of Bree and me bein’ the perfect couple, and I just… ran from reality and tried to chase a dream, I reckon. Looking back, I knew it all along but I just didn’t pay attention… Feel like a fuckin’ idiot.’

‘Don’t give yourself any grief, Quent, it all turned out all right, didn’t it?’

‘Yeah but I still feel like a bloody idiot…’

‘Mm,’ I said, a smile spreading its wings on my face, ‘that’s probably because you are a bloody...’

‘Grrrr,’ Quentin growled into my ear, which gave me goose bumps all over, and then he tickled me until I squealed.

‘Hey, that’s not fair, I’m not allowed and you are?’ I protested, and gave as good as I got.

He gave up pretty soon and rolled himself into a ball, his back to me, giggling his ridiculous giggle and flapping helpless hands at me, moaning and begging for me to stop.

‘There, now was there anything you wanted to say?’ I said menacingly into his ear, leaning over him.

‘Uh, no, hee-hee, Taz, I surrender…’ he gurgled.

I kissed his ear.

‘Retaliation is in order, luvvie,’ he said darkly as he slowly uncoiled himself and turned over to give me a stern look. ‘You don’t think I let you get away with it, hey? You won the battle but not the war.’

‘Oooee, I’m scared,’ I mocked.

‘Arrr, you’d better be!’ he went, one eye closed, the other one sporting a piratical glint. ‘I’m gonna... Hey, by the way, what did you do with my guitar?’ His tone and facial expression changed direction at light speed as his mercurial mind latched onto this new subject.

‘Oh, it’s downstairs, in the guest room. I tuned it and played it... hope you don’t mind...?’

‘You play? Christ, I had no idea! You’re just full of surprises, eh, crazy Tazzie?’

‘Well it’s not like I’m any good, but I used to work in this guitar shop and I picked up a few chords…’

‘Yeah, yeah, that’s what they all say. Come on, let’s go get it and I’ll play you a tune, and then you’ll have to play me one, come on then Tazzie-luv!’ He bounded off the bed, full of energy again, and extended a hand. I grabbed it and he pulled me up and off the bed, and dragged me out the room and down the stairs into the guest room, loudly singing: ‘I love rock ‘n’ roll, so put another coin in the juke box baby, I love rock ‘n’ roll…’

In the guest room, Quent clipped open the lid of his guitar case and lifted out his Martin with a practiced but loving grip around the neck. ‘Ahh, there we are!’  he said, as if he was talking to a family member that he hadn’t seen for some time.

He leaned one foot on the bed, tucked the guitar under his arm and strummed, his eyes never leaving me. He softly sang a few lines from Mystery Train, quirking a brow at me.

I sat on the bed and just smiled at him; I couldn’t help myself. I was so happy. Just look at him, this wonderful, beautiful, special man, singing to me…  And I loved his singing voice, it was low and so very sexy. I could immediately imagine droves of girls losing their heads over him when he was playing with the band; he just had it. That thing, that made women behave like silly cows over men they had never met before.

‘Oh, go on, please,’ I said to him when he stopped playing and smiled back at me, ‘You sound just great.’

‘I can’t, Tazzie-luv,’ he said, still smiling, ‘I can’t think straight when you look at me like that. Here,’ he handed me his Martin, ‘you play something.’

I took it, shyly, and set it on my lap as he sat down beside me. My fingers found a few chords and picked some random strings. Quentin looked at me expectantly.

‘Really, I’m no good at this, please don’t make me...’ I said, head down.

‘Aw, c’mon luv, there must be a tune in you somewhere?’

‘Oh... alright then,’ I almost whispered, and started playing, and singing:

I’m waiting, waiting for your love...

As the song progressed I gained more courage, and I made it to the end without faltering once, but only because I refused to look at him. I felt his eyes on me all the way through. When I was done he remained silent, and it took me a bit of time to gather enough courage before looking up at him.

‘That wasn’t half bad, luv,’ he said, pleasant surprise in his gaze when it met mine, ‘but I don’t know it. It’s a good one though.’

‘You think so...? Um... reason you don’t know it is because... um... I... wrote it,’ I muttered, head down again, ‘when you were still in the States... remember when you rang me from your lawyers’ and you were upset that I didn’t pick up?’

‘Yeah, Christ, don’t remind me,’ he replied, shaking his head at himself.

‘Well, I had just finished it right before you rang, well, um, I mean, right before I finally picked up...’ I faltered into silence.

‘Bloody hell, Taz. I mean... bloody hell.’

I stared at him as he struggled for something more to say, but nothing came, and after a while he just shrugged and gave up. He gently lifted the guitar from my lap, replaced it in its case, sat back down next to me and extended his arms. I fell into them and snuggled up.

‘Tazzie,’ he whispered in my hair, ‘that must be the most beautiful song I ever heard...’

~*~

After that, Quentin and I were inseparable. We walked for hours, sat down to read together, drank our tea together, ate together and slept together. And of course we made love as often as humanly possible; we just couldn’t get enough of each other.

The days slowly, dreamily strung themselves into a week, then two, then three, and before I knew it, I had been at Nana for almost two months. It was hard to believe. I said so to Quentin, who was sprawled beside me on a blanket, dozing off our outdoor lunch and white wine. He opened one eye, squinted against the glaring sun and raised a hand to cover it.

‘You beginning to get bored, Tazzie-luv?’ he asked, jokingly, but with a serious undertone.

‘No, actually, I’m not,’ I said, ‘I’m having a wonderful time here with you. But I do feel like it’s borrowed time, of sorts, like we can’t live like this forever. Like, you know, reality will claim us at some point.’

‘Mm,’ Quentin hummed drowsily, and pulled me down beside him. ‘Come here, luvvie, I wanna...’

I rolled into his arms and he sighed, ‘Yeahhh, that’s better...’

He was such a cuddly bear, I’d never have guessed from watching him with Bree. He seemed happiest when we touched, whether it was just holding hands or full body contact, like right now. He tightened the circle of his arms around me a little more and hooked a leg over mine, effectively pinning me to his body, all the while happily rumbling deep in his chest.

‘I’m gonna claim you before reality does,’ he muttered in my ear, and when I turned my head to look at him, our mouths suddenly locked and the cuddle turned into something else entirely. We had a way of doing that. One moment we were chatting amiably, holding hands, the next we were desperately plucking at each other’s clothes to get them out of the way.

His mouth was hot and insisting as it pulled on my lower lip, sucking it in and softly chewing it. My hands were tugging at his t-shirt, wanting access to the warm, soft skin on his back. He held me against him with his muscular arms and ground his crotch into me, growling and plunging his tongue into my mouth. An involuntary sound escaped me and finally, finally his shirt came free and I shoved my hands up his back, feeling his muscles move under his delicious layer of soft padding. He had gained a little weight over the last weeks and I wasn’t complaining.

At a certain point he had asked me, standing gloriously naked in the bathroom, pinching his side: ‘Taz, am I growing fat?’

I had grinned, wrapped my arms around his body and said to him: ‘Quentin, sweetness, there can’t be enough of you in this world as far as I’m concerned, so what if you were?’

I smiled against his mouth now, remembering that moment, and what had come after it.

He felt it, pulled back a little and asked, smiling himself: ‘What?’

‘Oh nothing,’ said I, ‘just enjoying your puppy fat,’ and I gave his love handles a squeeze.

He jerked – he was enormously ticklish, but enjoyed every bit of it. ‘Whoa, Taz,’ he grinned, ‘you’re killing the mood.’

‘No I’m not,’ I whispered, and I blew softly on his neck. He shivered and I felt a wave of promise run through him.

He hooked his fingers under my top and pulled it up and over my head in a swift, practised move. He must have done that a million times since he came back from the States, my mind whispered, and I smiled again as he reached behind and grabbed a handful of t-shirt on his back, pulling it over his head in a disorderly fashion, bunching up his hair until it all hung in his eyes.

‘You’re so messy,’ I said lovingly, running my hand through his locks.

‘Why aren’t you wearing a bra?’  he grinned, fondling my freed breasts with enthusiasm. ‘Not that I’m complaining, mind you.’

I sighed as that aching need for him quietly blossomed and settled low and insistent in my body. My fingers busied themselves on the fly of his jeans as he rubbed his chin against my nipples, then licked them and blew on them until they were hard little buttons.

‘You sure we’re safe here?’ I asked softly, suddenly worried that someone would walk in on us.

‘Just us and the ‘roos, luvvie,’ he replied, his breath ghosting over my sensitive skin.

His fly sprung loose and I grabbed hold of him, marvelling as always on the velvety softness of his skin over the hardness of his cock. His breath caught and a small, almost mewling sound escaped him as I softly rubbed my thumb over the tip. He scooted up from my breasts to take possession of my mouth again, claiming it fully. In the mean time, he stuck his hands under the elastic band of my trackies and pulled them down over my bum.

‘No panties either, fuckin’ beaut!’ he grumbled, and cupped my buttocks in both his hands.

‘...learned that little trick from you,’ I breathed, which made him grin again. He hardly ever wore any underwear, unless he had to.

I worked one leg out of the track pants and climbed on Quentin, covering his hardness with my wetness, and we began to move against each other. Slowly, almost tauntingly, he slipped inside me and I fell against him, clutching his shoulders as our want rose from deep within us. He took over, setting a stride that was both luxuriating and urgent, but instead of speeding up towards our release, he slowed, and slowed even more until we were almost motionless. His eyes bore into mine, his hands still around my bum. We trembled from holding back and panted our shallow breaths into each other’s mouths, lost in this eternal frozen moment of our desire.

Then Quentin whispered:’ Now, Taz, now...’ and we moved, frantically, almost immediately soaring to a peak and plummeting back down into total boneless relaxation.

We lay still for a long while, my head upon his shoulder, one of his arms across my back, the other flung out as if for support.

Finally, Quentin started to speak. ‘You’re right, though, luvvie,’ he said softly, picking up our thread of conversation as if the lovemaking interlude had never happened, ‘we probably can’t live like this for the rest of our lives. Something’s got to happen at some point. You’ll get your new book done. You’ll have to go do promotion for that. And I’m...’ he faltered.

I looked up and saw a straight, narrow frown lining his brow. I lifted my hand to smooth it out and I saw, and felt, the pain in Quentin’s eyes as they locked on mine.

‘I’m a fucker without a job,’ he muttered, low.

‘Oh, Quent, there’s so much that you can do, even if you’re not able to work in the States,’ I said, soothingly. ‘You can single-handedly change and boost the whole Australian film industry, don’t you know that?’

‘Hm,’ he said, not at all convinced.

‘What do you think? Everything you’ll do here will definitely find a wider audience. Just because you don’t have a US work permit doesn’t mean that people don’t want to see your films any more! I’m sure that people all around the world who admire your work and follow your career will still do so, regardless if you work from here or anywhere else. Just imagine! You’d be able to get huge financial backing for projects here that would normally have trouble getting off the ground...’ I got more and more enthusiastic.

Quentin grimaced and rolled the both of us over on our sides. We slowly untangled until we were cuddling again.

‘I dunno, luvvie... I’m not sure I’d get the right directors interested, or find other actors I’d want to work with willing...’

‘Have you ever considered directing yourself?’ I asked, interrupting his negative train of thought.

‘Mmm, yeah, thought about it, that’s about all I’ve fuckin’ ever done... I always reckoned that I needed more mileage for that though, more... depth, more visual artistry... I only pretend, remember? The director is the guy who has the vision in his mind’s eye of what, and how I should pretend...’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t think I’m ready for that yet.’

‘OK, I understand that...’ I said pensively. ‘So how about writing a script then? I can help you with that; I’m a pretty good editor, if I may say so myself.’

And that was the beginning of it. After that conversation, Quentin started thinking about what sort of project he’d want to do if he had complete control and complete freedom, and he started churning out ideas for storylines faster than I had thought possible. A lot of them met with an untimely end when we sat down to discuss them further, but some of them stood up to my editorial criticisms. Quentin found the whole process stimulating and exciting, and he spent more and more time clicking away at his notebook.

The cabin was finished by now and we decided to use it especially for writing. We set up twin desks and spent many an hour amiably working side by side. Quentin would interrupt me from time to time, read me a passage or ask me what I thought of a certain subplot. I churned out fairly large slabs of copy and asked him to read them and check if the prose had good rhythm. And we began to write some songs together, tentatively at first, but as our – or more precisely my – confidence grew, we worked on harmonies and lyrics for hours. Quentin had had a studio built a couple of years ago and considered inviting his band mates over for a recording session.

One thing we didn’t change in the cabin: the bed. It had its uses. And between the passionate bouts of lovemaking, the long talks and the music, I made excellent progress on my book. I was happier than ever before in my life and began to think that we might not be living on borrowed time after all. Nothing could come between Quentin and me, as we worked, loved and lived together in an ever-increasing intimacy.

I couldn’t have been farther from the truth, of course. Because that one fateful morning when Quentin’s mobile rang, he picked up and uttered a surprised ‘Bree?’ proved that everything can change on a moment’s notice. I observed Quent’s face, my heart pounding high up in my throat, and saw a big furrow appear in his forehead, his eyes growing steely gray and his mouth narrowing into a thin, hard line. And when he ended the short, icy conversation with a terse ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can,’ I knew that nothing would be the same now.

Chapter Twelve

right click and save target as for Jackie performing Taryn's Song.

email feedback

Return to Real Russell        Return to Main Page

WANT TO POST FEEDBACK?

VISIT THE ROUGH MAGIC FEEDBACK MESSAGE BOARD!