Chapter 15

Fifteen

T amara needed a walk.

Her mum’s cooking had been amazing, but the authentic Goan cuisine she consumed too much of at every meal was sublime. She was particularly partial to bibinca , a rich dessert made from flour, sugar, ghee, coconut milk, and about twenty egg yolks, baked and flavoured with nutmeg and cardamom. Rich, delicious, addictive.

Exactly like Ethan, though his sweetness had evaporated around the time he’d stolen her hard-fought trust in him and flung it into the Ganges.

Picking up the pace, she headed for the water’s edge where the ocean tickled the sand. She loved the tranquility of Colva Beach. Her mum had said it was special but Tamara had attributed Adhira’s partiality to the fact she’d met Harrison here.

But her mum had been right. This place had an aura, a feeling, a sense that anything was possible, as Tamara stared out over the endless ocean glowing turquoise in the descending dusk.

She slowed her pace, hitched up her peasant skirt, and stepped into the waves, savouring the tepid water swirling around her ankles.

As a kid, she used to run through the shallows at St. Kilda beach, jumping and splashing and frolicking, seeing how wet she could get, her folks strolling hand in hand alongside her, smiling indulgently. They’d head to Acland Street afterwards, trawling the cake shops, laughing as she pressed her face against every window trying to decide between melt-in-the-mouth chocolate éclairs or custard-oozing vanilla slices.

And later, much later, when her tummy was full and her feet dragging, she’d walk between them, each parent holding her hand, making her feel the luckiest girl in the world.

A larger wave crashed into her legs, drenching the bottom half of her skirt, and she laughed, the sound loud and startling in the silence.

How long since she’d laughed like that, truly laughed spontaneously?

Ethan had made her laugh last week, several times… she shook her head. She needed a new focus rather than the same old.

With her skirt dripping, she trudged up the beach, heading for her hut. Maybe a long soak in that huge tub, filled with fragrant sandalwood oil, would lull her into an Ethan-free zone?

As she scuffed her feet through the sand, a lone figure stepped onto the beach near her hut. She wouldn’t have paid much attention but for the breadth of his shoulders, the familiar tilt of his head, and she squinted, her pulse breaking into a gallop as the figure headed straight for her, increasingly recognisable with every determined stride.

It couldn’t be.

In that instant, she forgot every sane reason why she should keep her distance from Ethan and sprinted towards him, her feet flying across the sand before she hurled herself into his open arms.