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He didn’t get angry like she’d expected. Instead his lips curved upwards before he turned to her. ‘I bet there are a lot of things you never imagined a man like me doing.’
He held her eyes for a fraction too long, an unnecessary fraction, before he turned his attention back to the weaving track.
She was so glad in that moment that he couldn’t possibly read her thoughts, because then he might know that already she’d imagined him doing plenty.
He wondered what she’d been going to say when she faltered, wondered what she was thinking now; if he didn’t know better, he’d think she was blushing. ‘As it happens,’ he admitted, ‘I do have a thing for sleek, black and—’ he threw her a glance ‘—fast cars. But here on the island this is how we get around. I’m sorry if it’s not sleek and black and fast enough for you.’
His smile widened. She was blushing—even under the dappled light her face was flooded with colour—but this time she wasn’t angry, he was sure of it, by the way her eyes wanted to avoid him rather than impale him. In fact, if he didn’t know better, he’d even have thought Miss ‘Prim’n’Proper’ Turner had caught herself out. What had she been thinking? The way she was sitting up now, so stiff backed and strait-laced, she could have been a Victorian spinster school teacher on her way to meet her new school in a village full of head hunters.
But she wasn’t as strait-laced and spinsterish as she liked to make out, he knew that first hand. She’d been no unbendable block of concrete in his hands. Instead, she’d felt all woman, a combination of tantalising dips and sweet curves, her feminine scent beguiling, her lips a silken caress.
He almost growled at the memory. And she was here now, on his island, in his territory. How would Fletcher react to that news? An eye for an eye, a sister for a sister.
Which reminded him…
‘How is it your name is Turner?’
‘Excuse me?’ She swung her head round but not before he’d noticed how the breeze shook tendrils of her hair loose to curl around her face and sculpt the soft fabric of her dress so it clung to her breasts and playfully teased around her knees. Then she noticed the direction of his eyes and tucked the wayward material under her legs. He didn’t mind that either, because now it only highlighted the elegant tapering of thigh to knees.
Long, shapely legs. Nice breasts. He could only imagine what other treats the surprising Miss Turner had in store. A pity, really…
‘You’re name’s Turner,’ he said, pulling his thoughts back into line. ‘Not Fletcher. But you weren’t married, you said, or at least you’re not now. Fletcher never mentioned having a sister.’
She hesitated, and he sensed the cogs in her brain working out his angle. She didn’t trust him, that much was obvious, although she was beginning to lose a little of that abrasive defensiveness. All that talk about what kind of car he drove—she’d been thinking about him, and he’d lay odds she hadn’t been thinking about automobiles. Finally, when he’d almost given up on a response, he picked up her shrug in his peripheral vision.
‘It’s no big secret,’ she began on a sigh, almost as if resigned to the fact he’d find out eventually anyway. ‘Our parents separated when I was barely a year old, splitting everything in two, including the kids. Dad kept Jake, Mum took me. She changed my name to hers, I guess so she didn’t have a constant reminder of her ex. I didn’t know about any of it for years.’
The gears in Daniel’s mind crunched. So she was Fletcher’s sister, as she’d claimed. Jo’s digging would confirm it, but he had no doubt she was telling the truth. Which meant that she probably was in on whatever her brother had planned to make this so-called marriage look as legitimate as possible in order to extract the best settlement. ‘So, how did you two find each other again?’
The buggy sped along the narrow track. Glimpses of brilliant sunshine and a sapphire sea appeared only to be swallowed up again by the foliage.
‘Mum died two years ago. Some lawyer told me then that I had a brother. I’d had no idea. I was too young to remember anything. We met for the first time at her funeral. And that’s when I learned that our father had died ten years before. My mother never…’
Her voice broke. He glanced over, but she wasn’t looking at him, her eyes appeared fixed on some point ahead of them as she took a deep breath, her breasts rising under the slip of silk.
‘Anyway, that’s the whole gruesome story.’
She sounded so lost and alone in that instant that it was his turn to take a deep breath. Next thing he knew, he’d be feeling sorry for her—Fletcher’s sister, of all people! Besides, he remembered seeing Jake’s old man once, sitting on the veranda of their timber house. The place had been practically falling down around him while he’d sucked his beer dry, the empties scattered around him like toppled ninepins. It was no surprise to hear that he’d gone.
