A Secret Between Friends: A New Zealand Sexy Beach Romance (Treats to Tempt You Book 6)

by Serenity Woods

  But it had lingered in her memory ever since, and she’d never gotten over him, not completely. There had been other guys—Paul, her first, then Rory, whom she’d caught with another girl, then Ethan, in the Army, whom she’d dated for a year until he’d been deployed to Antarctica. They’d decided it was best to break up rather than try to keep a long distance relationship going. But although Rory had broken her heart, and she’d been fond of Ethan and had been upset when he left, she’d never felt about a man the way she felt about Niall Brennan. Did he know that? Was he aware of how she’d felt—how she still felt—toward him?

  She pushed the thought aside. Even if he was, it wouldn’t come to anything. He’d made it clear all those years ago that he wasn’t interested in her.

  “So come on,” she said, half-wanting to change the subject, half-curious and desperate to know. “What happened with Tamsin?”

  She didn’t really expect him to answer the question. Usually, he’d respond to any demand for personal information with a witty remark, an offhand joke that nevertheless waved a “Do not enter” banner above it. Niall and emotions were not two things that went together, and she waited for him to brush her off.

  He sighed and took a mouthful of whisky. “We broke up.”

  “I gathered that much. But why? What happened? I thought you two were going to grow old together. You seemed so well suited.”

  Another mouthful of whisky. “We had a difference of opinion.”

  Genie nibbled her top lip. He hadn’t told her to get lost. Her instincts informed her he wanted to talk, but he was so bad at it, he needed her to pry it out of him.

  She softened her tone and stretched out on the sofa, gingerly bending her knee so she could bring her feet up. “What about?”

  He covered her feet with a cushion, a tender gesture that made her smile. “Kids.”

  That completely surprised her. She’d thought he was going to say sex or money. But children…

  “Kids?”

  He nodded.

  “In what way? Did she want them and you didn’t, or vice versa?”

  “She wanted them and I didn’t.”

  Genie said nothing for a moment. She hadn’t known that about him. He’d never seemed anti-children. Like all young guys, he’d never been at ease with babies and tended to hold them like a rugby ball. But when his cousins had brought their young kids over to the house, he’d always played games with them in the garden, teased them in his inimitable way, and been the first on the scene if they fell over and scraped a knee. He was also godfather to Beck’s baby boy, Teddy, and he adored the boy.

  She sipped her whisky, enjoying the strong medicinal taste and the accompanying burn. Slowly, she was beginning to relax, sinking back into the sofa cushions, the tension of the evening leaving her muscles. “Why don’t you want kids?” She made sure there was no hint of accusation in her tone.

  He heaved a sigh and looked out of the window. “It wasn’t so much that I didn’t want them…”

  “You didn’t want them with her?”

  He circled the liquid over the ice. “It wasn’t as simple as that. We’d been together a long time. Tam’s a couple of years older than me, and I guess she felt the body clock ticking more than I did. She kept talking about getting married and settling down and having kids, but every time she brought it up, I just went cold inside. I’d change the subject, and that would make her mad. In the end she gave me an ultimatum. I guess she thought it would force me to say yes, but I walked away.”

  Lifting his drink, he stared moodily into it, then finished it off and put the glass down with slightly more force than was necessary.

  “Sorry,” he said at the loud bang.

  “It’s okay.” He’d opened up to her much more than she’d thought he would. Was that it, or would he reveal more if she pushed him? “So why didn’t you want to settle down with her? Were you bored with her? Because you’d been together so long?”

  “No, not bored, that’s the wrong word.”

  “What’s the right word?”

  He shrugged, and they both smiled. “Don’t know,” he said. “I just kept thinking about forever, and I knew I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life with her.”

  Genie rested her head on her hand. “Is there someone else?”

  “You mean did I cheat on her? No, never. I was faithful to her, Gin. There’s been nobody else since I was eighteen.”

  “And since?”

  He shook his head. “Celibate.” He rolled his eyes.

  So it hadn’t been about another woman.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “It makes me sad. I liked her, and I thought you looked good together.”

  “Don’t,” he said sharply. He stood, picked up his glass, and marched over to the kitchen to pour himself another. “Don’t defend her,” he continued as he added more ice and a larger splash of whisky to the glass. “She doesn’t deserve your pity. She’s an attractive woman, and she’ll have no trouble finding the right guy to settle down with.” He came back to the sofa and sat heavily.

  “I wasn’t defending her.” Genie frowned, taken aback by his sharp tone. “I’m sure you did the right thing. It’s better to make the break than stay together out of habit. It’s just…odd, that’s all. I’ve come back and it’s as if I’ve stepped through the looking glass—everything is the same but different, and it’s unsettling. Even Jonah’s not dating at the moment. I mean, seriously, what’s up with the world?”

  Niall gave a short laugh. “That won’t last.”

  “Of course it won’t. But it is odd. I’d say it was all to do with Ciara, but you broke up with Tamsin months ago, didn’t you?”

  He nodded. “Halfway through August. Day after my birthday, actually. That pissed her off, too. She’d just bought me an expensive ring, hoping I’d get the hint, I think.” He blew out a breath and swallowed the whisky.

  “How did she react? Was she mad?”

  “Yeah.” He gave her a rueful smile. “Steaming. She broke my guitar.”

  “Jeez.”

  “Ah, I probably deserved it. I hurt her. She loved me and she just wanted some security—I can’t blame her for that. She was very bitter. Accused me of stealing the best years of her life.”

  “She’s only thirty, isn’t she?”

  “Nearly thirty-one.”

  “That’s not old to have kids.”

  “No, I guess not, but when she was younger she’d obviously had this picture in her mind’s eye of where she would be at that age, and this wasn’t it. She’s got to start again, and that’s not fun for anyone.”

  “I am sorry. Sorry that you had to go through it. It couldn’t have been nice, and then you had all the stuff with Ciara to deal with.”

  “It’s not been an easy six months,” he admitted.

  “Jonah said you went away over New Year.”

  “Yeah. I spent Christmas with Mum and Dad, but it was just awful and I couldn’t bear the thought of seeing in the New Year with them. I went to Melbourne—a mate of mine has a house on the beach, and he was going to stay with his girlfriend’s family, so I house-sat for a few weeks.”

  “I bet that was a nice break.”

  “It was good to get away, I suppose. Odd though, being alone. I’m not sure it was the right thing to do.” He looked sad, and Genie’s heart went out to him. He was usually so carefree, so light of spirit—it was odd to see this other side of him. It was unsettling, and yet it also made her glow inside that he’d allowed her in for once.

  She held her hand out to him. He studied it for a moment, then he placed his in it. His fingers were warm, his grip tight as he squeezed.

  “It’s good to have you home,” he said. “Whatever else is going on, I’m glad you didn’t die as well, Gin.”

  “I’m glad I’m not dead, too.”

  Chapter Six

  Niall laughed. “I bet.” She grinned at him, and he felt a surge of fondness for her.

  While he’d been on his own in Me
lbourne, he’d dealt with a rollercoaster of emotions, most of them concerning Genie Sharpe, which had frustrated him even more considering he’d just broken up with his long-term girlfriend and his sister had died. Shouldn’t he have been thinking more about them than the sassy chick who’d made much of his youth a misery?

  But the truth was that Genie lay at the root of all his problems, the way plants failed due to bad soil. If she hadn’t convinced Ciara to go into the Army, Ciara would still be alive. But an even bigger personal problem was that if he’d been able to get her out of his head, he’d be engaged to Tamsin now, settling down without a care in the world.

  He’d passed a good portion of the three weeks he’d spent in Melbourne cursing Genie, convincing himself he was mad at her, and that she was to blame for all his unhappiness. Being here with her now, though, he could no longer maintain that anger.

  In the past, when she’d come home on leave, she’d brought the Army with her. She’d always worn her hair tightly pinned up, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her in a skirt. Tonight, even though she wore jeans and a plain vest, for the first time in ages, years maybe, her hair fell in soft waves past her shoulders. She was such a pretty girl, with strong, well-defined features. When she smiled, her eyes creased at the edges and almost disappeared.

  But she wasn’t just pretty on the surface. It was such a cliché, but the phrase about being beautiful inside really was true for her. Yes, when she was younger she’d irritated him on a regular basis, and even as an adult she’d made it her goal in life to goad and tease him. But like a pair of black panties worn beneath a white dress, Genie’s true nature always shone through. He’d missed her, but it was only now he realized how much.

  She’d tipped her head onto the back of the sofa and was humming something, more relaxed than she had been when she’d first walked into the bar. He took another swallow of the whisky, letting the heat melt away his tension, as if he’d stepped into a warm bath.

  “Are you going to show me your war wound?”

  She lifted her head to look at him. “Seriously?”

  “Yeah. I’d like to see it.”

  Lazily, she gestured at her jeans. “They’re too tight to roll up.”

  “So take ’em off.”

  She rolled her eyes and swung her legs around so she could sit up. “I don’t think so. But I will change into something more comfortable.”

  “A lacy nightie?”

  “A pair of sweatpants, more like.” She pulled her bag toward her, unzipped the top, and rifled around in it. Not finding the item, she proceeded to slide open the zippers on one side of the bag, then the other. “Jeez. I can never find anything in here.”

  He watched her with amusement. “I don’t get chicks’ bags. A guy would have a rucksack with one clip at the front.”

  “We’re organized—we like to separate our stuff. Although I’m beginning to see your point.” She undid the zipper at the end of the bag and rummaged around the bottom. She exclaimed when she found the sweatpants she’d been looking for. Then she frowned and pulled out an envelope that had been tucked underneath them. “What’s this?” The flap was unstuck and she slid out the contents, which consisted of two sheets of folded A4 paper. Her jaw dropped.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “I’d completely forgotten.”

  “What?”

  She leaned back, still holding the papers. “It’s our bucket lists. Ciara’s and mine.” Her eyes glistened and her lips curved a little as she looked into the distance, obviously seeing another time and place. “We made them for a joke one night last year. We’d had a few to drink and we weren’t dating anyone, and we were feeling sorry for ourselves. I said we should come up with a list of things we could look forward to doing—things that would make us happy.” She gave a small, wry laugh.

  Of course, it had been her idea. Niall could picture his sister staring up at her, eyes wide, nodding enthusiastically at this new and wonderful scheme.

  He watched Genie read briefly through the lists. “What do they say?”

  She didn’t reply. Then, to his surprise, she stood, picked up the sweatpants and her cane, and limped off to the spare bedroom.

  He stared after her for moment. Was she upset? She’d never cry in front of him. What had got to her—was it the memory of making the lists with Ciara, or was it something in particular on the lists?

  Picking them up, he separated them and examined them. They were handwritten, and it would have been obvious which one belonged to which girl even if they hadn’t put their names at the top. His sister’s handwriting was small and neat, the tails of the “y”s and “g”s forming tiny loops she’d occasionally colored in. Genie’s writing was larger and rounder with distinctive flourishes. A graphologist would probably say it denoted a bubbly personality. Niall smiled.

  He looked at Genie’s list first. Instead of being written in list form, it consisted of bubbles drawn all over the page at different angles as the ideas had hit her. Most of it was what he’d expected—physical goals such as bungee jumping in Queenstown, sky-diving, taking skiing lessons, and leaping off the Sky Tower in Auckland. A few things surprised him—learning Italian was one, as she’d never shown much interest in languages when she was younger, and flower arranging, which made him laugh, as he couldn’t imagine her standing still for long enough to arrange a vase of flowers. But most of them summed her up perfectly, illustrating her desire for adventure and activity, demonstrating her restless spirit.

  Turning to his sister’s list, he stretched out along the settee to peruse it. The list also exemplified Ciara’s personality on paper. The items weren’t numbered and didn’t seem to be in any particular order, but they were in list form from the top to the bottom of the page. Crochet squares for a blanket for charity. Visit the Tower of London. Take a boat trip down the Nile. Read the top hundred most popular books. Learn more about classical music. Take cooking lessons. Learn how to embroider.

  Some of them were more active—cycle from Cape Reinga to Invercargill, learn how to serve better at tennis, take up yoga—but they didn’t have the risk element that Genie’s had.

  A couple of them made him smile wistfully—dance with a man in Central Park, find a guy to kiss on New Year’s Eve. He put down the list and stared up at the ceiling. She’d never be able to fulfil any of these now. Would never kiss a guy on New Year’s Eve again.

  Was that what had upset Genie? The realization that these wishes would forever remain unfulfilled?

  He sat up—there was still no sign of her. Leaving the lists on the coffee table, he got up and walked across the room to the bedroom. The door was slightly ajar, but he knocked anyway.

  “Come in.”

  He pushed it open. She stood on the opposite side of the room, staring out across the bay. She’d switched on the bedside light, and the window showed her reflection rather than the glittering lights of Paihia in the distance. She’d changed from her jeans into her sweatpants and she’d brushed her hair, which curled in a twist across one shoulder. She still held the brush, as if she’d got halfway through before being distracted. Her cane lay on the bed.

  He leaned against the doorjamb. “You okay?”

  She glanced over and cleared her throat. “Sorry. I was just thinking…about how she’ll never be able to do any of those things…” Her voice tailed off and she looked back out of the window.

  He walked across the room to stand beside her. She wasn’t crying, but she was breathing quickly, fighting against a swell of emotion.

  “Show me your knee,” he said.

  She looked down at it, hesitated for a moment, then pulled up the leg of her sweatpants. Niall dropped to his haunches beside her and examined the wound.

  His initial reaction was one of shock, but he fought not to let it show and bent to inspect the puckered skin of her once-smooth and shapely leg. The scar ran from above her knee, over the joint, and down her leg. The wound didn’t look infected, but it was s
till raised and red, not yet having faded to the silvery line that indicated an old operation. The leg looked a little swollen—she’d been on it too long, and needed to put it up and rest it.

  What shocked him more were the myriad of scars around the knee, presumably caused by the explosion rather than the operation—tiny nicks and gashes on her leg. Was she like this all over? His heart raced as he pulled down the leg of her sweatpants. For the first time, he fully comprehended what she’d been through.

  He pushed himself to his feet and looked down at her. Then, without another word, he put his arms around her and held her tight.

  Clutching hold of his T-shirt, she buried her face in his chest.

  “I’m sorry.” He kissed her hair and rubbed her back. “It must have been awful for you.”

  “I miss her,” Genie whispered. “I miss her so much.”

  He continued to rub her back, wishing he could help her. Ciara had been his sister, but although everyone assumed a blood link was the strongest, in every other way Genie had been closest to her.

  Beneath his fingers, her muscles were tense and knotted, her whole posture resonating anguish and grief. And yet she still didn’t cry.

  “I was so relieved to hear you’d survived the crash.” He said the words, thinking maybe she needed to hear that he didn’t resent her being alive while Ciara wasn’t. She didn’t say anything, but she turned her head and laid her cheek against his chest.

  He took a deep breath. “Gin, I’m sorry I didn’t call you in the hospital.”

  She went still. “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not okay. I was trying to deal with my parents’ grief as well as my own, and I was confused and angry, but that’s no excuse for not talking to you. We’ve known each other a long time and it was unforgiveable. I want you to know I’m sorry for that, and I am really, really glad you survived.”

  Placing her hands on his chest, she pushed herself back a little so she could look up at him. Her blue eyes shone with unshed tears, and her bottom lip quivered. Unable to stop himself, he lifted a hand and stroked his thumb across it. Her lips parted, and she inhaled. He slid his hand along to cup her cheek, unable to tear his gaze away from her mouth. He wanted to kiss her, but he knew it was inappropriate, and he’d be taking advantage of her heightened emotions.