The man held up an arm and called out. The wind blew the sound away but it could almost have been her name. She stared hard and the figure waved again.

“Flynn?” She half raised her arm. Was she seeing things? What would Flynn be doing here?

He came striding towards her waving something in his hand. As he got closer, she could see it was a bottle of wine. He stopped just a step away from her. She continued to hold her hair to the side of her face and stare at him.

He gave a slight bow. “A something more wine,” he said in a pompous voice, “the Scarecrow label is produced by one of Margaret River’s long-established wineries.”

She frowned at him. More like something in the wine. Either he’d lost the plot, or she had.

“That was how the judge described it.” He grinned and waved the bottle under her nose. “Scarecrow won. Levallier Dell’s new Haystack label…Scarecrow Dry White…won a trophy for best white blend. They rang me this morning.”

Keely looked into his eyes and saw just a flash of hesitation. “That’s great,” she said quickly.

“I tried to get you on your phone but I kept getting your message so I thought I’d come and tell you…in person.”

The hand holding the bottle dropped to his side and they both stood in silence for a moment. The waves crashed on the beach beside them and the wind was loud in Keely’s ears, so she almost didn’t hear him when he spoke again.

“Keely, I’m sorry.” Flynn took a little step closer and pinned her with his mournful look. “I let my annoyance at Maggie stop me from saying what I should have said to you the other day. I tried to ring you that night but your phone wasn’t answering and I had no idea where you were staying. By the time I got to the bus station in the morning, you were gone. I’d almost convinced myself to let you go but then I got the phone call about the wine winning first prize and I…” His voice faltered and he looked down.

She’d seen the missed calls on her phone but had wanted to put more space between them before she talked to him again. “You drove all this way to tell me?”

“I wanted to share the moment with you. You believed in me.”

“How did you find me?”

“Persistence.” He gave her a little grin. “When I explained you’d won a prize and didn’t know about it, the guy at the backpackers at Cervantes told me you’d moved on. There aren’t that many places the bus stops.”

Keely looked at him, still hardly daring to move in case she woke up to find that she’d been dreaming.

“I’m glad you came,” she said.