Wild Flower (3 page)

He nudged closer. ‘Can I stay close while you tell me?’

It seemed hard to concentrate on her facts with him so near, towering over her.

‘There are two kinds of vanilla.’ Her voice came out breathy. ‘There’s artificial vanillin, that’s the synthetic compound, the kind you smell and taste in a cupcake. But I use Vanilla Absolute, made from real vanilla pods, the kind that come from orchids.’

‘So this is the real thing.’

Her heart star-jumped. ‘Vanilla pods have hundreds of aromatic compounds. There’s a big difference.’

‘I’ll say.’

Another step. His shadow swamped her.

‘So you like it?’ she asked.

‘You bet,’ he replied.

‘That’s because you’re American.’ Close now, so close. Hardly any distance between them. ‘Americans have had a long love affair with vanilla.’

‘A love affair,’ he drawled. ‘Is that right?’

‘Americans use more vanilla than anyone else in the world, as both a fragrance and as flavouring.’ She trawled her brain for another orchid fact while her heart went crazy. ‘President Thomas Jefferson brought vanilla beans home to the United States.’

‘I’m impressed. You know your American history.’

As she giggled his focus went to her mouth.

‘I know my orchid history,’ she managed to say.

‘Now I do too.’

‘You’re still close to me.’

‘Am I?’

It had gone quiet, all of a sudden. The people outside the restaurant across the road had disappeared.

‘I’ve got
orchidmania
,’ he whispered.

He reached for her, and yanked her into a bear hug.

She intended to pull away. Really, she did. Dianella Lee never kissed strangers in the middle of the main street.

Yet that same sense of safety enveloped her, the same as when he’d gripped her hand. And he smelled good. Really, really good. His top note, like clean clothes hung out on a washing line, and something else, something she inhaled as he bent her in his arms into an old-fashioned swoon.

The taste of him too, toothpaste clean and fresh. And a darker, deeper taste as with his tongue he opened her, searched her, tasted her. Inhaled her. Drew her into him. She closed her lashes, let her senses swirl. Blasts of rainbow light and colour mixed with taste and smell.

Americans sure knew how to kiss.

‘I haven’t been able to forget the scent of you,’ he murmured at last, his lips still close. He held on to her.

‘Ten out of ten.’ Wade ran his fingers through her hair. ‘Your vanilla perfume is driving me crazy, Dianella Lee. I can’t resist you, and you taste better than a cupcake.’

In another huge, sweeping swoon, he leaned down to kiss her again.

Dianella pushed against his chest. ‘Wait!’

Wade drew back. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘This is crazy. I can’t get involved with you,’ she gasped. ‘You’re visiting here. I can’t do this!’

Chapter 3

The talk is of orchids mostly, as these gentlemen stroll along … scrutinizing with practiced glance…
About Orchids: A Chat—Frederick Boyle, 1893

‘Where did you disappear to after the orchid talk last night?’

Dianella jerked her head up from where she was doing the accounts at the Go Native counter. Had Borrie learnt about her incredible, knee buckling kiss with Wade Hamilton? Already? Who had seen her?

‘Did you go for a drink with some of your garden club friends?’

So it hadn’t got out. The kiss remained a secret that only her lips, no, her entire body, would relive and remember. It hadn’t climbed the gossip vine yet. She’d barely slept all night. She’d wanted to melt into his kiss again, be swept off her feet into the huge American’s arms. But her urge to flee had been stronger.

No long-distance relationships.

That was her rule and she stuck to it.

‘I didn’t hear you come in. You must have got in pretty late.’

‘Well I …’

To Dianella’s relief the bell over the door jangled.

‘Hello!’ Relieved at the chance to change the subject, Dianella hurried around the counter.

The customer was a local woman beaming with excitement. ‘I thought I’d come and start planning my wedding flowers.’

‘Congratulations! What flowers are you thinking of?’ Borrie asked from her roost on the ladder where she was poised on one leg, hanging baskets. She always insisted on doing it herself, even though Dianella tried to do it for her.

‘I’m not sure yet.’

‘You had Geraldton wax at your wedding, didn’t you, Borrie?’ Dianella had seen old photos showing huge bouquets of the small, wax like blooms in shades of purple and pink.

‘With my namesake Boronia mixed in for the scent.’ Borrie winked. ‘Very enticing.’

‘A bit of a family tradition, is it?’ the customer asked.

Borrie snorted as she climbed down the ladder and crossed the shop floor. ‘If you think my daughter Diana wanted flowers you can pick from the side of the road in her wedding bouquet, you’re mistaken.’

‘What did your daughter have?’ the customer asked curiously.

‘Depends on which wedding.’ Borrie ticked off her fingers. ‘Roses for the first, big fat cabbage roses. Have to admit they were gorgeous. Orchids from Singapore for the second, of course. Calla lilies for the third. They’re not meant to be lucky, though this one seems to have stuck. But to not use Australian wild flowers! When we’ve got the best orchids in the world here!’

‘Australian orchids are only tiny.’ Dianella tried to ignore the instant pang that came from thinking about her mother’s third wedding. Not too long afterwards Diana, with Gary her new husband, had moved across the country to live on the Gold Coast.

Borrie patted Dianella’s hand. ‘The best things come in small packages.’

Dianella turned to the customer. ‘I can arrange the flowers too, if you like. I can do the bouquets, and the table arrangements. Even some boutonnieres. We can also find you a wild flower essence, and if you like, I’ll make you a special perfume to wear too.’

‘Ooh. That will drive my groom wild.’

After the customer had gone, Borrie chortled.

‘Wild flower scents can work magic if the American who came in here yesterday looking for you is anything to go by. I haven’t seen anyone with that crazed look in his eyes for years. Not since my Harry first smelt my Boronia, God rest his soul. He never quite recovered.’

‘What?’ Dianella gasped. Wade Hamilton had visited the Go Native Nursery? He hadn’t mentioned it. He’d been talking about orchids and vanilla and her scent and then …

‘He pretended to browse among the pot plants.’ Borrie roared with laughter as she picked up her secateurs. ‘Anyone less interested in a pot of climbing hibbertia I have yet to witness. You haven’t told me you’re seeing someone.’

‘I’m not. I mean, I wasn’t,’ Dianella floundered. She’d dragged herself out of his arms with no further explanation, and rushed to her car barely saying goodbye. Her face flamed in embarrassment, remembering.

‘Well, you soon will be.’ Borrie pointed with her secateurs. ‘He’s just pulled up in a fancy SUV in the car park.’

***

Wade sat across the table from Dianella and tried not to stare. Actually, he tried not to lean over and inhale.

That scent. In the car, when he tried not to stare at the way her short floral dress, another 1950s style number that revealed her legs, he’d noticed the scent seemed even stronger today. What had she explained about it? Vanilla orchid mixed with Australian wild flower essences. Not too strong, still subtle, but he had become in some weird way attuned to it. Had his sense of smell been dormant all his life and now suddenly gone haywire? Walking to the hotel after that amazing kiss, like a guy from an on old movie, he’d wanted to stop at every rose he passed. And his morning coffee? Nothing had ever smelled so good.

Except Dianella Lee.

He hadn’t been sure she’d come out to lunch with him. If her grandmother hadn’t practically pushed her out the door, she’d have said no.

There must be more to it than him being a visitor to her part of the world, he’d come to the conclusion. That much he’d realised as he’d lain awake until the early hours. He’d gone for a swim at the beach, hurling himself into the cold waves, but even that hadn’t stopped him thinking about her and that amazing kiss.

He didn’t want to watch her running away, no matter how good she looked from behind. He wanted to see her running towards him.

Covertly he studied her as he took a swig of soft drink. They’d come to a waterfront fish shack that in spite of the plastic tables and tin roof, she’d promised had the freshest and tastiest fish in town.

‘How’s your fish?’ she asked him. She speared chips onto a wooden fork and lifted them up to her lips, blowing on one to cool it in a way that made him want to grab her across the table.

He muffled his groan in a bite of battered snapper. And another. And another.

‘This fish is incredible,’ he said.

‘Direct from the Southern Ocean.’

She was making small talk. Well, at least she was staying in one place, and he could do small talk, before they moved on to finding out why she’d bolted after a kiss that could only be described as five stars.

He stared across the car park to the ice-blue water lapping the jetty. A few boats bobbed on the white crested waves. ‘When I planned this trip I needed a complete change of scene. I considered Antarctica.’

‘Too cold, right?’

‘Yep. While I looked at a map online I noticed that the next landmass before Antarctica is …’

‘Albany, Australia.’ She grinned. ‘Yes, next stop Antarctica is a bit of a joke here. There are a couple of small islands in the way, but it can get freezing cold. We get pretty fierce winds sometimes.’

‘No snow and ice.’

‘Sea and sand instead. Whales. Beaches. And the best rainbows you’ve ever seen. That’s why this part of the coastline is called the rainbow coast. The best beaches have both rainbows and whales.’

The best beaches had Dianella Lee in a bikini. Wade forced himself not to say it. Sounded a bit sleazy.

‘Beats Antarctica,’ he said instead. He had to admit the combination of inland bush, rugged coastline and the historic port of Albany to be a lucky find.

But he’d moved too fast. He had to take it slow, even if it killed him.

Dianella laid down her chip fork and flashed him a mischievous smile. She seemed to be relaxing. ‘I have an orchid fact about Antarctica.’

‘You do?’

‘Species of orchids grow on every continent
except
Antarctica.’

‘Cute.’ Yet not as cute as the way she rubbed her nose, a gorgeous little button. ‘Well Antarctica is definitely off the itinerary now. Have you always lived here in Albany?’

Time to get beyond small talk.

‘I was born in Singapore. My dad was Singapore-Chinese, my mum is Australian. I came here when I was nine. A year after I came to live here my dad died, in Singapore.’

The desolation in her eyes when she revealed that information tore at him. She clearly hadn’t fully recovered from the grief of losing a parent. He realised his luck, with his relaxed and happy family, two parents still married, and his squabbling, fun loving sisters. Their house in the suburbs, even a dog; he took it for granted.

‘What was it like for you coming to an Australian town after a city like Singapore?’

‘Tough.’ The way she tensed as she squeezed tomato sauce onto her chips told him how tough. ‘My mum remarried and moved away, and I moved in with Borrie. She isn’t the kind of grandmother who cossets you. Instead she gave me chores. I had to water the garden for her. It’s all reticulated now, or most of it is, but there’s always hand watering. While I watered I fell in love with the plants. If you don’t visit a plant every day, you don’t see what’s happening with it, whether it’s ready to bud, or whether it’s getting too wet or dry, or when it’s about to flower. When you get to know the plants, it’s as if they have personalities.’

‘Plants have personalities?’

Yeah.’ She munched a chip. ‘It sounds crazy.’

‘Hey, I’m from California.’ He grinned. ‘Crazy is fine by me. There are loads of hippies and new age stuff. Everyone talks to plants in California. You’re considered crazy if you don’t.’

The tension loosened as she laughed.

‘I thought you were a fairy when you appeared yesterday,’ he revealed. ‘An apparition, shouting at me. You have a loud voice, for a flower fairy.’

‘Flower fairies are called devas,’ she told him. ‘They’re supposed to protect different flowers and help them to grow.’

‘Now I know. You’re a plant deva.’

Another giggle. Her shoulders relaxed even more.

‘Singapore and Western Australia.’ He added some sauce to his own plate. ‘Do you speak Chinese?’

‘Of course. I speak Mandarin. And I have a Chinese name too. It’s Mei-Hua.’ She pronounced it May Hwa. ‘I’m named after the song Mei-Hua by Teresa Teng, my dad’s all-time favourite.’

Her voice wobbled. Only slightly, but he noticed.

‘I know that name.’ Wade frowned as he chewed his fish. ‘Why do I know that name?’

‘It’s a flower name. Beautiful plum blossom. You know Chinese?’

‘I don’t mean Mei-Hua. Wait!’ He slapped the table. ‘Teresa Teng. Of course!’

‘What?’ She widened her eyes. ‘No one Western knows about Teresa Teng. No offence.’

Wade reached for his smart phone, punched in a few letters. ‘She’s a Chinese singer, right?’

‘Yes, she is. Or she was. From Taiwan. How do you know about Teresa Teng?’

He grinned. ‘Because recently she came back to life.’

‘What?’

‘I told you that I work in Silicon Valley. Well my area is 3D imagery.’

‘Your camera. The tiny one. It’s 3D? Wow.’

‘We aren’t the only US company working on 3D images. Another Californian company recently created a hologram that performed on stage.’ He smiled. ‘Of Teresa Teng.’

‘You’re kidding,’ she gasped.

He clicked a few more buttons, tried to ignore the waft of vanilla that hit him as soon as she craned over to look. ‘This hologram of Teresa Teng can walk and talk and even sing. She died eighteen years ago, but here it appears as if she’s alive. This hologram has given a performance on stage, singing a duet with a real life singer from today.’