Ultimate Heroes Collection

by Various Authors

  Damien kept his mouth shut and let Caleb’s words sink in. Chelsea. The one. His sister?

  ‘You and Ava?’

  Caleb smiled, though there was no roguish humour in his eyes. ‘We’re focussing on you right now, my friend.’ ‘Right. Me. And Chelsea.’ The one.

  He’d told her he didn’t want permanence, or exclusivity, because he’d thought he couldn’t give them. He hadn’t wanted to hurt her because he’d seen the way she was falling for him. But the truth was, he’d pulled back because he’d been falling for her too. And from what he’d learnt about her dating history, and her childhood, he knew she was just as jittery about the prospect of for ever as he was. And having never been in that predicament in his whole life he’d been trying his hardest to stop himself from getting hurt too.

  When all the while she’d been there, offering herself. Offering a whole new world.

  ‘I’m a bloody fool.’

  ‘Nah, you’re just a man. But you’re also a Halliburton man and Halliburton men have a knack for getting everything they always wanted. So how about you stop cramping my style and get the hell out of here and go find your girl and get down on your knees and beg her to forgive you for being such a prat?’

  Damien’s mind swirled so fast he could barely focus. ‘Don’t you need a lift home?’

  ‘Damien. Leave now, before I stick a boot in your butt for making me feel so syrupy sweet I might puke.’

  Caleb stood then and reached out to take Damien’s hand, helping him stand. At the last moment they hugged, in a manly fashion, thumping fists on one another’s backs. But it was enough for Damien to know that Caleb wasn’t entirely the blackguard he made himself out to be.

  He too was a man content enough on the island to himself, but who would give away every speck of sand if it meant truly finding the woman he could love for ever.

  As he pushed blindly past transient, easy men and women that until now he’d always thought just like him to get to the front door, to fresh air and sunshine he so desperately craved, he patted his pockets for his car keys, his mobile phone.

  They were all he needed where he was going. That and a whole lot of luck on his side.

  Chelsea sat on a swinging love seat on the front porch of the ramshackle wooden house that Kensey and Greg had bought with the money she’d paid them for Kensey’s half of the apartment. Kids’ bikes lay forgotten on the patchy lawn beside her Pride & Groom van. Hanging plants made a jungle of the roof above her.

  She’d rolled her mobile over and over in her hands so many times it was warm to the touch. Not that she wanted to call anyone. It just made her feel connected to the world she’d left behind in the city.

  ‘That’s the last thing you need,’ she said aloud as she shoved it into the back pocket of her faded jeans.

  She’d signed the bank-loan papers and sent them off. She’d put Phyllis completely in charge at the salon for the day. She’d made the beginnings of what would be many changes to her life to give herself the illusion she had it back under her control.

  Now what she needed was fresh air, space, new scenery. And this was the place for it. This place that felt more like home than any other she’d ever known. It was true. Real. Messy. Honest. Unpretentious. And the complete opposite of Damien Halliburton’s world of fast and furious bright and shiny living. If she had to pick one place in the world to lick her wounds and get over him, and to get over the trust she’d so naively put into the possibility of him, this was it.

  Suddenly Hurley kids galore spilled out of every available doorway fracturing the peace. ‘Auntie Chelsea!’ one said. ‘Have you seen my Spiderman pyjamas?’

  Another asked, ‘Can you give me a piggyback?

  ‘What did you bring me for my birthday?’ said the third.

  ‘Ah, no, later and that’s a surprise,’ she said, giving each of them a quick kiss before they were gone around the side of the house as quickly as they’d arrived.

  Kensey came out of the kitchen wiping her hands on a tea towel.

  ‘My sister, the little woman,’ Chelsea said, moving over to make space for her.

  Kensey sat. ‘Are you ever coming inside?’

  A gust of wind swirled a pile of autumn leaves down the dirt driveway. ‘In a minute.’

  ‘It’s getting cool. Dinner will be ready in forty odd minutes. And the kids keep asking why you’re frowning.’

  Knowing she could never fool Kensey as well as she could fool herself, Chelsea dropped her head into her hands and frowned to her heart’s content. She revelled in it, feeling as sorry for herself as she wanted. ‘I’m frowning because I’m miserable,’ she sulked.

  ‘Of course you are. But good riddance to bad rubbish, I say. Who needs a handsome, hunky, rich guy who cooks and isn’t scared of a little illness lusting after them? You did the right thing cutting him off. Feel better?’

  Chelsea lifted her head and somehow managed to laugh. ‘Infinitely,’ she lied. ‘Thanks ever so much for your understanding.’

  ‘He did make you glow, though, pet.’

  ‘Kensey—’ she warned.

  ‘Well, he did. Made you glow and glisten and act all gooey and girly and give me hope that one day I’ll be able to get you off my hands for good.’

  ‘If you truly do want to get me off your hands for good, then you’d do better than to say things like that while I’m in the process of moving on.’

  Kensey drew her in for a hug. ‘You’re right. Sorry. You will feel better. Eventually. Time wounds all heals and all that. And until then, tonight … there’s cake. And vodka. And a Hugh Jackman movie marathon on the telly.’

  ‘Thank goodness for you,’ Chelsea said, feeling some small measure of relief that her itinerant father and absentee mother had given her this woman in her life at least. Everything else would come together eventually. Her business, her love life, her broken heart.

  Hopefully.

  The sudden grumble of a high-octane engine had them facing the road. When Chelsea saw Damien’s sports car pull into the driveway she had to blink twice to make sure she hadn’t conjured him up from her gloomy imaginings.

  ‘Holy cow,’ Chelsea said.

  ‘Lookie here,’ Kensey said.

  ‘Nice wheels,’ Greg said, coming outside to see what the noise was about. ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘That would be Chelsea’s Damien,’ Kensey said.

  ‘Ooh,’ Greg said. ‘He’s flash, Chels. Handsome fella too. So why did you dump him again?’

  Kensey answered for her. ‘I believe the theory on this one was do unto others before they do unto you.’

  Chelsea heard their words as though they were coming from the other side of the world. Despite having let him go, seeing him again in the flesh had every part of her straining towards the car, and the man getting out of it.

  The man in the sleek black suit, the crisp baby-blue shirt, the silk tie that likely cost more than her whole outfit, with the dark preppy hair lifting sexily in the breeze. The man she’d watched drive away only the night before, certain she’d never see him again. The man who was behind the fact that she now sat there with unwashed hair, red-rimmed eyes and an aching chest.

  ‘Kensey, do you know anything about this?’ she whispered loudly, but Kensey just shrugged, and snuck towards Greg, who put an unconscious arm around her waist. ‘Then how on earth did he find me?’

  And more importantly, why?

  Damien shut the door, straightened his jacket, then turned and found the three of them watching him. He lifted his hand to give a short wave, then let it drop.

  Chelsea motioned with her eyes for Kensey and Greg to make themselves scarce, but Kensey just smiled all the bigger.

  Damien slid his keys into his trouser pocket and headed up the path. He ran a hand through his hair. She’d never seen him looking so nervous before. Or so adorable. And completely out of place in the rustic setting as she’d known he would be.

  But he was there. And that was something.

  She
suddenly didn’t know what to do with her hands. To wring them, cross her arms, or slide them into the back pockets of her jeans. In the end she let them hang at her sides in loose fists.

  Damien stopped at the foot of the steps and looked up at her. His blue eyes so achingly familiar and beautiful they managed to create a new series of cracks in her already fragmented heart.

  ‘What are you doing here, Damien?’ She was dead pleased when her voice came out without shaking.

  His mouth curved into a half-smile and he said, ‘I was passing through. You know there’s a wine-tasting festival down the road?’

  Well … Her eyebrows shot skyward and she had a whole slew of retorts to shoot back at him despite the audience before he held up a hand, shook his head and pinned her with the most serious gaze she’d ever seen him use.

  ‘Wipe that last statement. Please,’ he said. ‘I drove up here without really knowing what I would say when I got here. So let me start again.’

  She shrugged.

  His lungs filled and deflated before he said, ‘I’m here to see you.’

  Her heart rate kicked up a notch. Her long since empty well of hope filled so fast it threatened to spill over. But she couldn’t let him see. He hadn’t said he felt any differently than he had twenty-four hours before. ‘How on earth did you find me?’

  ‘I looked your sister up in the phone directory of a public phone booth in town.’ He glanced at Kensey and nodded. ‘A paper one. Sometimes technology isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.’

  ‘You won’t find any fancy technology here,’ Greg said. ‘Damien, right? I’m Greg Hurley and this is my wife Kensey.’

  Thus invited, Damien sidled up the stairs, stopping at Chelsea’s side.

  ‘Chelsea’s told me a lot about both of you,’ he said.

  She felt his warmth, smelled the faint rays of autumn sunshine clinging to his clothes as though loath to let go. She closed her eyes and leaned as far away from him and his magnetic scent as she could.

  Then the Hurleys’ collie chose that exact moment to bolt around the side of the house, run straight to the newcomer and leap, his great muddy paws landing smack bang in the centre of Damien’s shirt.

  ‘Oh, Lord. Slimer, down!’ Kensey cried out.

  Chelsea grabbed the dog by the collar, but he lived up to his name and slobbered all over her hand.

  ‘He’s fine,’ Damien said, rubbing hard hands over the dog’s ears and grinning from ear to ear. ‘Slimer?’ he said to Kensey. ‘Ghostbusters fans?’

  Kensey’s face broke into a matching grin. ‘You bet. The reason I went out with Greg in the first place was because he reminded me of a young Bill Murray. Do you have a dog?’

  He laughed. ‘What’s with you girls and dogs? Chelsea asked me the same thing on our first date.’

  Chelsea felt as if she were in the twilight zone. She was so confounded she wasn’t quick enough to stop Kensey from telling her tale.

  ‘When we were little we spent a few months living out this way with a friend of our dad’s. He was nice. His house was clean. He could cook. Which made me fall in love with him as only a hungry eight-year-old can. But for Chelsea it was all about his dog. A fluffy grey mongrel of a thing that only ate what we ate. That always looked and smelled worse five minutes after a bath. And who slept on the end of Chelsea’s bed and followed her around like he was her guardian angel. She’s had a thing for dogs, and the people who value them, ever since.’

  Damien continued rubbing Slimer behind the ear, but his gaze was all for Chelsea. It was a nice gaze. A warm gaze. A gaze full of promise that he’d assured her again and again was not there. Glutton for punishment that she was, she gazed right on back. She needed her head read.

  ‘But you’ve never owned a dog yourself?’ he asked.

  Chelsea shook her head.

  ‘Yet you run a pet-grooming company?’

  She narrowed her eyes and nodded, daring him to make something of it. To overstep the mark even slightly so that she could grab him by the scruff of the neck and shove him back into his car and out of her life, before all this niceness and dogpatting made her love him so much more she’d never ever get over him.

  ‘When we eventually moved out of the place,’ Kensey added to be that much more helpful, ‘it was like the world had ended. Having to leave the dog behind broke poor Chelsea’s heart. And I don’t think she’s ever found herself a replacement love who measured up with Rover’s level of commitment and adoration.’

  ‘Fascinating,’ Damien said, slowly easing Slimer to four feet. He stood, blinked at Chelsea and she could see the wheels turning behind his far too intelligent blue eyes. ‘Can we talk?’

  Here we go. Without preamble she demanded of Kensey and Greg, ‘You guys. Inside now.’

  ‘Right,’ Greg said, practically dragging Kensey away. ‘Dinner’s in half an hour.’ Chelsea thanked her lucky stars he was smart enough to know if he’d extended an invitation to Damien she would have killed him.

  Feeling far too close to Damien for comfort, Chelsea jogged down the stairs and headed around the side of the house towards the back yard. Damien followed close enough his smooth aftershave curled around her nostrils, blanketing the scent of Italian herbs and lemon cake wafting through the open windows.

  ‘They seem nice,’ he said.

  ‘They are. And they mean everything to me. Whatever your reason for coming to find me, choosing to do so while I’m here is playing dirty. So say whatever you’ve come to say and make it quick. You heard Greg—I have less than half an hour before the macaroni and cheese is on.’

  He shot her a quick sideways glance, which still told her nothing of his motives. Or of his opinion of macaroni and cheese. He could have been there because she’d left him in such a state the night before he’d come in the hopes for one last booty call, to prove to his ego that he could still have her despite her protestations, or for such fantastical reasons she dared not think for all the damage they could do to her determination to stop loving him.

  She led him out to the back deck and folded her arms across the split-wood banister looking out over rolling hills covered in the spoils of other people’s wealth. There were white grapes as far as the eye could see and a lone bright yellow hot-air balloon floated lazily across the sharp blue sky.

  About a foot of space lay between her fingers and his. But he might as well have been leaning his might and muscle against her for the way he affected her simply by being near.

  ‘It is beautiful here,’ Damien said.

  ‘Too quiet for your tastes, I would have thought.’

  ‘Not at all.’ A smile curved Damien’s cheek and for a moment Chelsea forgot she was no longer allowed to lean in and kiss the crease at the edge of his mouth. To tuck herself against his side and take his arm and wrap it around her shoulders so that she could lean into all that strength and warmth.

  She looked away, and she hoped he had not seen her intimate desires splashed across her face.

  ‘If I wasn’t here I’d be back in the city at a bar with Caleb.’

  ‘Very cosmopolitan.’

  ‘It was,’ he said. ‘A bunch of people I’ve never met and likely will never meet again, a glass of over-iced Scotch at my fingertips, and shouting at Caleb to be heard over the loud music.’

  ‘Sounds just your kind of place,’ she said.

  ‘A week ago I would have said the same.’

  She felt his eyes on her still, and she did her very best to hide the quickening inside her as she tried to decipher just what he was trying to say.

  He turned to rest the backs of his elbows on the railing and crossed his feet at the ankles. Without the distraction of rolling hills of wheat-yellow grape vines laid out before him, his eyes were all for her.

  Her eyes hurt from crying, her hair needed a brush, her nose was pink and her lips were raw from biting at them. While the late-afternoon sun lent his skin a glow that made him look so healthy it just wasn’t fair.

  But the way he
looked at her … it was as if he couldn’t even tell she looked a mess.

  This time her voice shook like crazy as she asked, ‘What are you doing here, Damien?’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  DAMIEN reached out and pushed a lock of hair from Chelsea’s cheek. The gentle touch did such things to her senses she gripped tighter to the railing to stop from trembling all over.

  ‘I couldn’t handle leaving things as we did,’ he said.

  She swallowed. ‘It was pretty awful. But you didn’t have to follow me out here to remind me. I think you know my mobile number.’

  He smiled but it didn’t really reach his eyes. ‘Nevertheless I didn’t want to tell you the things I have to say over the phone.’

  She wished he had. Because then she could have cried silently while he broke things off in a more civilised way. Now she had to see him, smell him, hold herself together within touching distance of him.

  ‘There’s nothing more you need to say, Damien. Don’t think walking away from this makes you the bad guy again. I understand where you are coming from. I do. But you meant what you said, and I meant what I said. So that’s that. It was pretty great while it lasted, but now we are done.’

  He nodded, though all the while his gaze still roved over her face as if he couldn’t believe she was really there in front of him. And then he had to go and say, ‘Then why did I miss you so terribly when I fell asleep last night? And when I woke up this morning. And as I drove up here breaking the land-speed record.’

  No, no, no! the voices of reason inside her head screamed. Don’t do this to me!

  ‘When two people agree to stop seeing one another that’s one of the down points,’ she said.

  ‘If you could tell me any up points to us not seeing one another, I’d like to hear them. Because I’ve racked my brain and I can’t think of one.’

  She shook her head. Hard enough to make her brain rattle and crash against the sides of her skull in punishment for momentarily agreeing with him. ‘Damien, you were right to put the brakes on, and I was right to end it. Can’t we just leave it at that?’