Free Love: Classified by Sally-Ann Jones Page B

driving. Let’s head to the river and sit under a big shady tree.”
         I waited, both curious and afraid to hear his story.
         Fi nally we reached a leafy suburb and walked to where the water lapped against the yellow sand, a Moreton Bay fig tree acting as a massive umbrella.
         Sitting beside him, I felt a nother delicious shiver deep inside. It was the beginning of what was becoming an only too common occurrence. I was dangerously attracted to this man.
         “The woman you saw me with was…”
         “Magnus, I can see this is painful for you,” I broke in, seeing the pulse throb in his neck as he struggled to keep his composure. “You don’t have to tell me now. There’ll be plenty of time.”
         “I just want you to know that I’ve been fighting a long, drawn out and well-publicised court case” he said, his voice harsh. “As you know, the court house is just a walk across the piazza to the art gallery. There was a break in proceedings and we felt the need to get out, to see something beautiful, after the ugliness of what we were having to deal with. A nanny had been minding the little boy but…”
         He’d been looking down as he said all this, as if counting the grains of sand in which his bare feet were planted. Then he looked at me and seemed to reach a decision. I could tell he wasn’t going to tell me after all. And why would he? What was I to him? Nothing.
         “I won’t bite you,” he said, probably noticing the way I was clenching and unclenching my hands in the sand.
         “That’s the least of my worries .”
         “Do you mind if I ask you something about you? It’s because of what Josie said.”
         “Ask away.”
         “It’s about your parents…”
         Even now, it’s difficult for me to talk about them, but at that moment I had an unaccountable urge to tell Magnus everything. Not that there was much to tell. “They were killed on the way home from my cousin’s wedding,” I said, chewing a thumb nail. “They were wonderful, kind, happy people and I miss them every day.”
        “I’m sure you do. And you’re young to be an orphan. It must be hard.” He laid a comforting hand over mine and despite my reawakened sadness, a wave of desire flickered.
         We sat for several minutes looking at the water.
         Then Magnus said, “I reckon it’s lunch time.”
         “You’re even worse than me when it comes to food,” I chuckled.
         “Let’s find some fish and chips.”
         We walked along the sand towards a jetty with a shop at the end. He picked up a flat pebble and skimmed it expertly along the water’s surface where it bounced three times. I picked up another and flicked my wrist to make it jump four times before it sank.
         Magnus whistled. “Where’d you learn to do that?”
         “Growing up in a small country town where there wasn’t much else to do.”
         “That’s where I mastered pebble flinging, too.”
         We walked another few steps and he said, gri nning,” See, that’s another thing we have in common. And we haven’t started yet.”
         I couldn’t help but smile back, but I did resist the urge to brush the thick fringe of shining brown hair back from his eyes.
         We ate the fish and chips out of the paper, dangling our legs over the water under the pier. Magnus acted like a kid, holding up the last few chips for the seagulls to snatch from his fingers.
         “When I was a little kid, my only friends were dogs, cats and our cage birds,” he said.
         “I find that hard to believe.”
         “We were dirt poor. My father sold farm manure to city gardeners for a living . Usually I walked to school but sometimes he drove me there in the truck with the manure in sacks on the tray and I was sure I stank of it. Then a relative we’d never met died and left Dad, who was his nephew and only