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She laughed. ‘Quick trip, I know, but so worth it!Sucha great museum, Joe, and they knew all about my great-grandfather!’
He closed his eyes for a moment. Here she was, all hot and heavy in his arms, and his thoughts were all about midnight trysts and lazy Sunday mornings and skinny-dip romps in a secret Clarence waterhole.
Her thoughts were all about that bloody plane.
He lowered his arms so her feet could touch the ground and took a step back. He’d thought for a moment there, when she’d gripped his hair, that—
Well. What he thought didn’t always turn out to be true, did it? All that confidence he’d thrown around when he was younger had turned out to be a sham. That’s what came of being the oldest and having siblings looking up to him; it had swelled his head. Then he’d moved to the city, forged a career for himself—a successful one for the most part—and carried on blithely patting himself on the back.
Joe Miles, success story.
He rubbed a hand over his face. He wasn’t a success story.
He wasn’t some tragic hero.
He was a guy trying to dig himself out of trouble, and he had a family to reconnect with, which was why he shouldn’t be havingmoonlit conversations with dark-eyed women who had the power to crush his heart.
Again.
‘Joe? Were you … worried? I should have called you. Although, now I think about it, I don’t have your number.’
‘Huh,’ he said.
‘So … am I forgiven?’ There was a smile in her voice, and man, itwashard to stay mad with a woman in frilly green knickers.
‘For now,’ he said. While he sorted out his head … and his heart. ‘Since Mooball isn’t finished and you’re a heck of a rouseabout.’
‘Compliments,’ she said, cocking her head, and the thin glow of moon filtering through the mango tree wasn’t enough for him to read her expression. ‘I like them. Tell me more.’ But her tone? It was more than happy. It wasflirty.
The velvet quiet of the night seemed too perfect a time for frivolity. Time to get real. ‘You’re at a crossroads a little bit like I am,’ he said. ‘This suitcase has made you stop and question who you are. Where you came from. And for some reason that I can’t quite work out …’
‘Yes?’ she said, warily.
He hesitated. Not everyone liked to be told what was obvious to everyone but themselves. ‘There’s unhappiness simmering away under that girl-next-door surface.’
She crossed her arms over her chest—a classic defensive manoeuvre if ever he’d seen one.
‘Unhappiness.’
‘Maybe I’m wrong.’
She turned a little so all he could see of her face was her cheek, the dark sweep of lashes. ‘No. It’s true, I am feeling … something. I just haven’t quite figured out exactly what it is … or even what it’s about.’
‘You ever thought about therapy?’
She smiled a little, then. ‘I’m more a bash-out-my-drama-with-a-fencing-project type.’
‘That’d explain the lightning speed reno on my cottages.’
She slanted him a glance. ‘I … do appreciate you letting me stay here, Joe. And not pressuring me about the’—she waved her hand between them as though that in any way came close to explaining whatever it was that was growing between them—‘you know.’
He sure as heck did know and hearing her say thatsheknew had got his libido all stirred up again.
She cleared her throat. ‘I’m … not overly skilled at letting people know how I feel, but Idofeel. You know … stuff. About you.’
He wanted to grin. For a declaration of romantic interest, that was about the clumsiest he’d ever heard, but the lust he’d been trying to shove back in its box got in the way of him grinning, because it suddenly got all argy-bargy and took over his brain.
She was leaning into him, and looking up at him, and holy shit, was she about to kiss him? In the middle of the night, wearing nothing more than a flimsy,flimsysinglet and knickers a guy could die happy dreaming about?
