by Anne Oliver
She’d have that autonomy with his blessing—and some conditions. He’d arranged to install a personal emergency alarm system and insisted she wear a distress pendant at all times while in the house. And—yes, Ms Black—he had indeed checked out the feasibility of a pool.
Tasmania’s climate didn’t favour an outdoor construction, so he’d been considering alternatives. Sunny loved swimming; she found the weightlessness liberating. But not when she was alone. Which was why, in the end, he’d decided against the pool. It wasn’t in keeping with the home and he didn’t trust her to stay away from a pool when he wasn’t there.
His freelance environmental management consultancy business took him to Tasmania on a regular basis and he anticipated dropping by her place at every opportunity. He also intended purchasing a suitable apartment nearby for himself. She could yell control freak and uncompromising jerk as often and loudly as she liked—he was immune as far as her insults were concerned, and was more than comfortable with any label she threw at him so long as she was safe.
‘Why are you standing there all by yourself and looking like the world’s about to end?’
‘Hey, Suns.’ He realised he’d been lost in thought awhile. ‘I was listening to you play and thinking how quiet it’s going to be here.’
‘Doesn’t say much for my skills then; I stopped five minutes ago.’ She was leaning on her elbow crutch in a slant of light studying him with a half-smile on her lips, blonde hair curling in wisps around her face.
He nodded, coming out of what felt like a daze. ‘I’ll want a CD of your music.’ He was going to miss her. Sunny by name, Sunny by nature.
‘Already working on it.’ She cocked her head. ‘Problem with the new house?’
Why did her question immediately conjure a certain dark-haired dynamo rather than his latest property acquisition? ‘A few surprises, that’s all.’
That famous Sunny mood dimmed. ‘So there is a problem.’
‘Nothing I can’t handle.’ He walked to her, clasped her shoulders with both hands and smiled his reassurance. ‘I’m ravenous. Did you wait for me?’
‘Of course I did.’
He squeezed her shoulders and released her, and she accompanied him down the passage, her crutch tapping lightly on the tiles. They both preferred the cosiness of the little kitchen alcove over the formal dining room. Because he knew she wanted him to, Leo sat down and let her ladle the fish stew into two bowls without assistance.
She’d raided his wine stash. He poured two glasses of pinot noir from the bottle she’d set on the lace-cloth-covered table. ‘Celebrating again?’
‘Can’t seem to stop,’ she said with a laugh. The table was arranged flush against the bench to accommodate Sunny’s disability and she carried the bowls to the table one at a time. When she was seated, she raised her glass. ‘To the next adventure.’
Crystal chimed against crystal. ‘Wherever it is you’ll find it, Suns.’
‘I was thinking more along the lines of your next adventure.’ Her blue-eyed matchmaking gaze winked back at him.
He leaned back and studied his glass. ‘We seem to be talking at cross purposes again.’
‘What happened with that pretty little brunette you sent fifty red roses to then escorted to the theatre last month? Aisha, wasn’t it?’
Ah, Aisha. Perfectly lovely, perfectly amenable. Or so he’d thought until she’d expected him to pay the cancellation fees for the overseas honeymoon she’d booked in anticipation of his marriage proposal.
Sunny and his love interests were very separate aspects of his life, except that she’d caught him ordering the roses. ‘You know me.’ He broke open his bread roll. ‘Short-term casual all the way.’
‘You’re right, I do know you. And it’s just sad.’ She pointed an accusatory finger at him then shrugged and sighed rather dramatically. ‘Okay, so you’re looking for ways to make your next million.’
‘Accumulating wealth.’ He drank deeply then tilted his glass towards her. ‘I thrive on the challenge.’
She grinned, picked up her spoon. ‘I love a challenge too. Swimming in the Australia Day Big Swim on Sydney Harbour, for instance.’
Leo set his glass down and blinked at her while she tucked into her meal. ‘Are you serious?’
‘I’ve put my name on the list for swimmers with disabilities,’ she said around a mouthful of fish. ‘January’s nine months away. Plenty of time for you to agree to be my swim buddy.’
‘We’ll need to have that conversation at some point,’ he growled and got stuck into his own meal. But of course he’d agree—what was more, she knew it.
She tolerated her scars and deformity without a whisper of complaint or self-pity. Her wish to live independently was her choice, not his.
‘I’ll be fine,’ she said, reading his mind.
‘Mum would’ve been proud of you.’
‘She’d have been proud of us.’ Spoon halfway to her mouth, Sunny eyeballed him. ‘I know what you’re thinking. Don’t.’
Sunny’s pain was physical and would last a lifetime. Leo’s anguish was deep and every bit as enduring. Guilt. Regret. His memories of the night twelve years ago when their lives had changed forever was as stark and real and terrifying as if it had happened yesterday.
He’d saved his sister but had been too late to pull their bruised and battered mother from their burning home. If his father hadn’t goaded him into swinging that punch earlier in the evening, maybe the monster wouldn’t have come back later and torched the place. The only justice was that he’d also died in the blaze.
‘I wish she could have been here to see me perform in Sydney,’ Sunny was saying. ‘She’d always wanted to attend a concert at the Opera House.’
‘I’ll be there,’ he said, pushing the past away and raising his glass to her.
‘I’m counting on it. It’s my last gig with the gang before I join Hope Strings. Three weeks, don’t forget.’
‘I won’t,’ he promised.
How could he forget? He only had to oversee the renovations, secure his own rental accommodation in Hobart and check out the environmental practices of a new client on the east coast of Tasmania in addition to his existing workload.
And to top it off there was the nosy neighbour with the attitude.
He tossed back the last drop of wine and set his glass on the table with a decisive plunk. He absolutely, positively, without a doubt, didn’t have time for a distraction like Breanna Black.
TWO
One week later on Saturday afternoon, with Eve’s Naturally closed for the rest of weekend, Brie made her way to East Wind’s back door trailing her small plant trolley. She and Carol had exchanged keys years ago for those times when either of them were away. Before she handed her key to the agent Monday morning, she’d made arrangements to reclaim several dozen
potted herbs and flowers she’d given Carol over the years. She’d intended collecting them during the week but had been working insane hours and they’d slipped her mind.
Taking a last look down the driveway to make sure Mr Hamilton of the husky voice hadn’t decided to turn up in the last two minutes, she deactivated the alarm and let herself in. Not that she expected him—apparently he wasn’t able to collect the keys until Tuesday. Carol hadn’t elaborated and Brie was thrilled with herself for not asking for more details.
The glass-walled atrium formed a semicircular structure at the back of the home; soothing and familiar scents greeted her as she crossed its old brick floor. The sun’s warmth on nutrient-rich, damp soil. Basil. Oregano, mint and lemongrass. ‘Hello, my little treasures.’ She trailed her fingers over a variegated thyme. ‘I’ve come to take you home.’
Positioning the trolley near the workbench, she collected the smaller pots, and to keep the more delicate plants going until she had time to deal with them tomorrow, she filled a spray bottle and began misting them.
She caressed the thick leaves of a large aloe vera in an elegant waist-high blue pot. ‘You’r
e going to be a challenge to lift, aren’t you, my pretty? Maybe I should ask our friendly as a frozen fish neighbour for help.’
Huffing out a breath, she plugged her ear buds into the smartphone in the hip pocket of her jeans, switched on her favourite playlist. ‘He’d have to acknowledge I’m alive first.’ In time with her music, she shot off three hard squirts at a struggling coriander. ‘And I sure as heck am not going to be first to acknowledge him.’
He’d barely given her the time of day. As if she’d been invisible.
Story of her life.
Well, not quite. She knew she stood out in a crowd now, thanks to her late growth spurt at the age of fifteen. She’d had years to practise how to garner attention—and she’d learned well. Even if it hadn’t always been attention garnered for the right reasons and had landed her in trouble more often than she cared to remember. Her rebellious years.
These days she didn’t have to work hard for that attention. Except from people like Leo Hamilton. And why did that irk her?
‘I’m very much alive, Mr Big, Bad and Built,’ she told an overgrown cactus with delusions of its own importance. ‘And I’m going to make it my business to show you I do exist.’
Aiming her bottle at it, she squeezed the trigger. Hard. Seemed she wasn’t done with rebellion yet.
* * *
Arms crossed beside a potted kumquat tree, Leo leaned a shoulder against the door jamb and watched with some amusement while his new neighbour drowned the arid-loving cactus and his reputation as a usually well-mannered guy. With those bits of plastic in her ears, he wondered if she even knew she was voicing her opinions aloud. Yeah—she existed all too clearly and, despite his best efforts to the contrary, his body responded, the tension tightening with every squeeze of her slender fingers on that trigger bottle.
He wasn’t hiding but he was counting on her not seeing him just yet—he hadn’t witnessed anything as fascinating as Breanna Black making herself at home in his atrium since his pubescent self had ogled the naked female form for the first time.
He’d wandered around the back of the house with some landscaping ideas on paper to find the door open. He was ticked off that she still had the key George had mentioned and, worse, she was still using it. Obviously she had the security code as well. He intended familiarising her with the concept of privacy...soon. Right now he couldn’t take his eyes off her. She had the sexiest backside, especially when she wiggled it as she was doing now in time to music only she could hear.
Her top was a yellow-raincoat yellow, and, from what he could see in profile as she moved, cling wrapped to those abundant breasts. The short hem flared over black leggings that clung to long, long legs. She looked like the sunflower she was standing next to.
She continued squirting, flicked her long black plait back over her shoulder. His fingers itched to free it from the confines of its elastic band, to watch it shimmer the way it had that moment at the top of the stairs last week, to feel its silky texture against his palms. To bring it to his nose and inhale. Slowly. Deeply.
Pull yourself together.
She was a neighbour, and, right now, a damn nuisance. He’d worked past midnight every evening this week so he could be in Hobart over the weekend to check out some nearby short-term accommodation for himself while the electrician ripped out the guts of this place and installed new wiring throughout. The plumbers were going to be here, and the kitchen renovation crew.
He did not want this woman in his space. Nor did he need her sensual perfume wafting his way and clogging up his sinuses with scents better appreciated in the bedroom.
She plunked the sunflower on the trolley, gave it a drenching. ‘He’d better not be planning any external changes that will affect the value of my home. An elevator, for crying out loud? And if he even thinks about getting rid of that foyer chandelier...’ Her rant trailed off—presumably she was contemplating what she’d do to him in the event.
Wearing skin-tight leather and brandishing a whip.
The image of the two of them engaged in bodily combat flashed before him. The slippery slide of that black leather against his flesh. His teeth finding the vulnerable place under her chin while she screamed in pleasure. He clenched his jaw—he could literally feel his blood pressure spike.
He’d heard enough. He wanted her out of here, now. Before he said, or did, something detrimental to his state of solitary well-being.
Uncrossing his arms, he pushed off the door frame.
* * *
‘Now why would I want to do that?’
The low murmur near her ear at the same instant someone removed her ear buds had Brie practically leaping out of her skin. ‘What the...?’ Fists raised, she spun around. ‘You.’ Her fists uncurled and she lowered her arms to the workbench. ‘You startled me.’
She was still startled, but in an electrifying, breath-stealing way, and her strength seemed to drain out of her under the force of his steely eyed gaze.
He wore casual today—faded denim and a matching soft-looking jumper, and he smelled of warm wool and that indefinable masculine scent she recognised from the last time she’d seen him.
‘Then again, if I did want to do that...’ He didn’t appear concerned that he’d scared ten years off her life and looked her up and down in a manner that wiped whatever she had been talking about from her mind.
‘Do...what? And...and what are you doing here?’
‘Shouldn’t I be asking you that question?’ His voice was all reason and calm. Not to mention husky and low and seductive.
‘I thought George told you about the key,’ she went on, since she did owe him an explanation. ‘And the plants.’ She began picking up pots at random, setting them on the trolley. ‘I apologise, I meant to get around to it during the week but I was busy.’
One dark brow rose, his expression clear. Doing what?
‘You’re not the only one who works, Mr Hamilton.’
He slouched casually against the workbench. ‘You can rest easy—I have no intention of removing the chandelier. The elevator’s not happening and there’ll be no exterior changes—I love the house’s old-world charm and I appreciate that the two buildings share a history, which I believe should be retained. Apart from some electrical and plumbing work, I’m doing some kitchen renovations, which involve shifting a wall about fifty centimetres, but they won’t compromise the integrity of the place. You okay with that?’
She breathed a sigh of relief and slapped a hand to her chest. ‘Thank goodness. I’ve been thinking about you—about it—about your renovations all week.’ Busted. ‘And I’ve been thinking other stuff out loud too, haven’t I?’
No reply as his gaze stroked over her again.
Her blood rushed through her body and heat bloomed beneath her skin. ‘I’ll, um, get out of your way.’ She tossed the rest of the pots onto the trolley willy-nilly. When had she ever been so scatter-brained talking to a man?
‘You wanted me to give you a hand with this one, right?’ He indicated the aloe vera.
He gave no outward hint that he’d heard her ‘friendly as a frozen fish neighbour’ comment, but she knew he had, and cringed inwardly. ‘That’d be great,’ she muttered. ‘Thanks.’
‘Reckon you’ll need to keep it steady,’ he said, lifting it on board the trolley as if it weighed no more than an empty bucket. Which drew her attention to the movement of the muscles beneath his jumper. The way they stretched the wool tight across his chest and bunched beneath the sleeves.
He glanced her way. ‘Your back yard, I presume?’
She shifted her focus to his eyes. Only his eyes. ‘No need for you to bother. I can manage, thank you.’
‘Wouldn’t want that pot to shatter.’
Wouldn’t want her self-control to shatter either. She wanted to be away from him asap. Away from his warm man smell that made her want to burrow against his chest and breathe deep. She didn’t want to like her new neighbour but her body had a mind of its own.
Best to
let him play Mr Macho then and get it over with. Get him over with and she could go back to whatever she’d been doing before. If she could just remember. ‘Okay. Thanks.’
They proceeded outside with rattling pots and trailing greenery as he manoeuvred the trolley towards the driveway.
Probably not wise to tell him she’d entered his property this way but, ‘There’s a gap between our fences.’ Brie lifted a chin in the general direction, holding the pot steady with both hands. ‘Carol and I used it to save time. I was going to close it after I got the plants,’ she told him.
When he said nothing, she continued, ‘We looked out for each other. As neighbours should. Don’t you agree?’
‘I’d say it depends on the neighbour.’ They reached the gap and he stopped to inspect it. ‘I’ll organise a tradesman.’
‘Fine. Thanks.’ He seemed so keen to take charge, she’d let him. This time.
‘Which reminds me.’ He held out his hand, palm up. ‘You have my key.’
Brie glimpsed scarring on the inside of his forearm as she retrieved the key from inside an empty ceramic pot and dropped it in his palm. ‘Thanks, it’ll save me a trip to the agent.’ Flipping her hand, she grinned at him. ‘And while you’re at it, you might want to change the security code.’
‘Yes. I will.’
Then he smiled back. Kind of. As if he hadn’t meant to and it was a surprise to him too, generous lips quirking at the corners. She glimpsed a twinkle of humour in his eyes.
Her stomach fizzed, her limbs went soft and her fingers tightened on the rim of the pot as her inner flirt demanded she come out and play. No, Brie told her.
He looked away, resumed pushing the trolley again. ‘So, Ms Black. Breanna—’
‘Brie.’
‘Brie. How do you earn a living?’
‘I’m a beauty therapist. You?’
‘Environmental management consulting.’
Her brows lifted. ‘And what does an environmental management consultant do, exactly?’