by Maren Smith
Kitty didn’t lower her hands an inch and she certainly didn’t shake his. His accent was thick and she was having trouble processing what he was saying. “Wh-what?”
Smile fixed firmly in place, he held up a finger and reached into the square leather holster on his belt. It was a crocodile belt, shiny and mottled in colors that ranged from brown to yellowish-green, and it had more than one holster clipped to it. They dotted all the way around his waist—some for pocket knives, sheathes for longer knives, a hook for his keyring and, of course, his cellphone, which was what he pulled out of its square holster once he unclipped it.
“Here.” He turned it on, tapping the touch screen. As if it were the most natural thing in the world, he edged even closer, turning his big body until he was standing beside her, showing her a picture of herself on the screen.
She looked traumatized. That was her first thought. That Garreth must have taken it was her second, because she was dressed in a pair of Hadlee’s hand-me-down shorts and t-shirt, sitting on the window bench in his apartment living room and hugging her knees to her chest. She didn’t know what day that was, but she was pretty sure what she was staring at outside that window had to be Ethen.
“You’ve lost weight,” Noah said, still cheerful, without a hint of censure in his tone. Reaching down, he picked up her dropped duffel bag and shouldered it. “Come on. We’ll grab some burgers before we head for home.”
Glancing back once, encouraging her with a smile and a wink to follow, he started across the airport parking lot. Presumably towards his car.
Feeling stupid, Kitty lowered her fists. Belly and legs both quivering, she chanced a quick look around. This was an international airport. From wasp-induced panic all the way to now, there were people around her and some were openly staring. They’d probably been staring the whole time.
Heat, that had nothing to do with the 80° sun, burned her face and chest.
This Noah Carver person was leaving with her stuff. Cheerfully leaving, in fact. He was whistling, as if picking up unwanted burdens at the airport and hauling them around Australia were the most natural thing in the world. His grin was wide and friendly and he waved her on to follow with a laughing, “Come on, love. Can’t rightly stand here all day. The boys in blue’ll shove us off.”
Kitty didn’t know what that meant, but she did know Noah was right about one thing. She couldn’t keep standing here, an object of pity and curiosity for heaven only knew how many strangers to gawk at as they hurried on about their lives.
She also knew that thing people liked to say about first steps being the hardest… well, it was true. She didn’t know where she was going, and she didn’t know what she was going to. That made cutting the roots her feet had sprouted, anchoring her to the airport sidewalk, one of the hardest things she’d yet done in her life.
What people didn’t say was how every step that came after did not magically get any easier. She followed Noah to his pickup. Candy-apple red, extended cab, it wasn’t anywhere near as beat-up looking as she imagined vehicles belonging to a man as rugged as Noah should be.
He put her bag in the backseat, then held the front door for her. “Up we go.”
He smiled, but he didn’t help her. He simply waited for her to make the choice. For almost one perfect second, Kitty lost track of where she was. The warmth of the sunshine vanished. Australia and Noah vanished. Instead of standing in the parking lot looking into his truck, she was standing on Ethen’s front porch, enveloped by cold, knowing if she took that first step nothing would ever be the same again.
Reaching up to grip the interior handle, Kitty climbed into the front passenger seat. She barely noticed it was on the wrong side of the car from what she was used to. He waited beside her, door open and silent, for what she didn’t know. Not until, slowly and gently, he took hold of the seatbelt strap, stretched it down and around her, and clicked it into place.
He’d done his best not to touch her; Kitty swallowed hard and did her best not to flinch the entire time he was close by.
“Good girl,” he said again as he withdrew from the car.
Nothing could have been further from the truth, but she didn’t correct him. She stared out the front window, her posture as straight as she could make it and her hands clasped tight in her lap. Now and then she pushed on her knee but it never stopped jiggling. Not once.
Chapter 3
It was a four-hour drive from Cairns airport to his home on the outskirts of Cooktown. With Kitty in the car, it took six.
On the way out of town, he stopped at a café for two of the biggest burgers they had to offer. He even indulged in a milkshake because, frankly, the more she ate the better, in his opinion. The pictures Garreth had sent hadn’t done the situation justice, and not in a good way. She was thinner than in the photos, with her stress showing openly on her too-pale face. It was in the hollowness of her eyes and in the tiny, premature frown lines etched around her mouth. She probably hadn’t smiled in at least as long as she hadn’t eaten.
And yet, in the time it took him to scarf his burger down, she only managed four small bites, not even a fourth of the burger, and maybe as many sips of the shake. Less than ten minutes later, he yanked the truck over to the side of the road while she hung her head out, vomiting. It happened so fast and without any warning from her, right up until she vaulted out of her seatbelt to roll the window down.
The wrong question entirely was out of his mouth before he could censure himself. “Are you preggo, love?”
She didn’t answer. Accepting the burger napkins he handed her once she’d eased back in through the open window, she gave him a withering frown and wiped her mouth.
Okay, then. Well, stress was certainly known to have this kind of effect on people, and obviously she was under a fair amount of that. So did a touch of the stomach flu. So did travel sickness, for that matter, and she had just got off a plane and promptly into his truck.
Pulling back out into traffic, Noah continued on his way, comfortable once again in his mind that, while this was going to be a big change for him, it was also the best possible thing for someone in Kitty’s position. “Give your gut time to settle, then sip your shake,” he said with a nod, because while he couldn’t do much about travel sickness, once he got her home and into bed, time and rest would sort out the other two.
Kitty didn’t answer but ten or so minutes later, she did take another sip of her shake. Then putting it back in the cup holder, she didn’t touch it again. She didn’t touch her burger either, not until they were a good hour underway. And then, she only touched it long enough to roll her window down and chuck it, wrapper and all, out into the wood brush.
“The smell,” she said by way of explanation as she rolled her window back up again. Gathering every other remnant of their meal, she stuffed it all back in the sack and tossed it into the backseat as far from her as she could get it. Hugging her stomach, she curled against the side of the door, turned her face to the window and closed her eyes.
Noah let her pretend to sleep. With any luck, the real thing would creep up on her while she was doing it and she’d get some much-needed rest. If it did, however, she didn’t snore and, every now and then, when he happened to glance over at her, more often than not he could tell by her lashes that her eyes were open. He had to look carefully, though, because she was listening for his movements. If he turned his head or shifted, or even dropped a hand from the steering wheel into his lap, she heard it and closed her eyes. No, all of his cautious spying had to be done via the rearview mirror if he wanted to catch her. He wasn’t offended. If he’d been through half of what Garreth reported that she had, he’d have been a cot case too.
The sun was almost gone by the time he pulled off the road to Cooktown. He went slow, but the single-lane road to his house wasn’t paved and the truck bounced in and out of the well-worn ruts and runnels so badly that even one as stubborn as Kitty gave up on ‘sleeping.’ She sat up.
“Home sweet home,�
�� Noah said, somewhat proudly, as he pulled up to the front porch of his one-story ranch house. Once upon a time, it had been his grandfather’s house, built by the Carver patriarch’s own work-rough hands and to the aesthetic tastes of most 1930s farmspreads in the Outback. Not that being located on the outskirts of Cooktown qualified as the Outback, but the house didn’t know that and Noah was always proud to show it off.
It was red brick with an upgraded grey metal roof and white shutters, window awnings, porch posts and railings, and an extra wide, screen-enclosed veranda that kept the bugs out all the way around the house. The windows were huge and many, and although his property did not butt up to the ocean as so many did in Cooktown, he was close enough to it that opening all the windows north to south still worked as the best summertime air conditioning by catching that saltwater breeze that swept in off the Pacific. Shade cast over the house by the towering mango and eucalyptus trees did the rest, at least until it got too hot and muggy. At that point, Noah figured God made indoor air conditioning for a reason.
In the seat beside him, Kitty scrunched down low enough to stare, wide-eyed and open-mouthed at the leafy awnings of the sheltering trees and—in particular—at the koala lazily climbing from one grazing spot to another higher up in the canopy.
“What—” she breathed, but stopped herself and looked at him instead.
“Koala,” he told her. “Which, by the way, are nowhere near as cute as the movies like to portray. They mostly stay up in the trees; sometimes they come down to the porch, especially when the weather gets bad. I’ve a watering trough and a screen left open for them out back.”
“I thought koalas didn’t drink,” Kitty said hesitantly.
“Used to be I thought that too. But, I suppose climate change’ll catch up with all of us eventually. Most of the year, they get what they need from the leaves. The rest of the time, they know where the watering trough is. The point is, cute they may be, but they’re also wild animals; they can and do bite. If you see one on the porch, give it a wide berth and leave it be. That’s Rule Number One.” He flashed her a smile as he snagged her bag from the backseat and got out of the truck. “Come on. I’ll give you the tour.”
He was all the way to the porch steps before she, reluctantly, unclipped her seatbelt. He used a smile to encourage her to follow, though he couldn’t help but note the supreme reluctance with which she stole glimpses of the field around his house and then the surrounding woods beyond them. He loved the natural seclusion his home offered and, especially, he was fond of the fact that nothing could be seen of any of his neighbors. Not so much as a porchlight at night. Judging by the shuttered absence of expression on her unsmiling face, Kitty did not feel the same. She did follow him, but only to the bottom of the porch steps. Then she stopped again.
Kitty wasn’t a short woman. Slightly taller than the average female he knew, nevertheless, she wasn’t as tall as he was and it didn’t help that he was standing one step shy of the top of his porch. So, Noah made himself smaller, lowering himself to his haunches and gentling his smile. Yet another that she would not return. She was a skittish one, he’d give her that.
“If your friends didn’t trust me,” he reminded her. “You wouldn’t be here. Right?”
Breathing in, she swept the remoteness of their surroundings before her gaze grudgingly returned to him. She nodded once.
“All right, then.” He straightened again, pointing west. “Cooktown lies three kilometers that way. Nearest neighbor is a bloke named Harris, almost a kilometer past those trees.” He directed her gaze back behind her, southeast past his truck. “If you feel like exploring, there’s no place on my property that you cannot go so long as I’m with you. If I’m not with you, you need to be within a quick sprint of this house. That’s Rule Number Two.” He waved her up the steps. “Come on inside.”
He put his car keys into his pocket. The door was never locked; he just went in.
“Welcome to my home.” Her bag still clutched in one hand, his smile morphing into a grin, he gestured broadly from living to dining room. “Come in, come in. Don’t let the A/C out, love. That’s Rule Number Three.”
A hand to the small of her back as soon as she crossed the threshold helped to hustle her far enough inside for him to close the door. Dropping her bag on the end of the couch, he crossed the room to the hallway that divided the two front rooms. “Living room,” he said, quite obviously to the pleasant sitting area to her left. A beige couch for company, an overstuffed easy chair for him, the blue curtains his mother had given him to help block out the sun, several dozen sporting trophies and winner plaques, plus a television that he almost never turned on made up the whole of its contents.
He pointed the other way. “Dining.” Four chairs were currently tucked up to the oversized table his grandfather had hand carved and which could easily have seated twelve when the three leaves were put back in. “Kitchen’s through that door.”
She obediently glanced to the open archway to the dining room’s far right.
“And here right behind me—”
Her eyes followed when he pointed to the other archway directly behind him.
“Toilet’s across from it. Only one, sad to say. We’re going to have to be nice roommates.” He winked, then beckoned her to keep following as he strolled down the long hallway. He flicked on the lights as he went, in case she had problems with the dark. His office with its backyard exit was next to the bathroom. “This door’s always open.” His bedroom dotted the end of the hall. “This one not so much. I like my privacy,” he said as he touched the closed door. He then touched the closed door to the right of it. “This one’s yours. Now, I reckon you like your privacy too. Sad to say, there’s no lock. But, my mum raised herself two of the finest gentlemen this town has ever known. I promise always to knock first and never to enter without your say so. Privacy and trust are very important, to about everyone I suppose. We’ll make that Rule Number Four.”
“Is that all of them?”
He swung his gaze back to hers, both startled and a little pleased that she was at least speaking to him. Her voice was pretty too, soft, not too high-pitched and not too low. She wasn’t smiling, but at least she wasn’t mute.
“That’s it,” he replied. “It’s a small house, but seeing as it’s just me, it fits right fine.”
“No, I mean the rules. Is that all of them?”
Her tone was as guarded as her expression, but he could have sworn his dominant’s ear had picked up a hint of sullen defiance. He kept his smile. “Nah, not even close. Rule Five: Shoes on at all times and check ‘em in the mornings before you put them on. Rule Six: I forgot to pay the maid service, so pick up after yourself, yeah? The rest of them I figure we can plot out as we go along. How’s that sound to you?”
She was here, maybe by her own agreement but not necessarily of her own free will. Still, when he locked his eyes with her, his persistent smile doing little to soften his commands, she only kept his stare for a moment before dropping hers to the floor.
“Fine,” she said, no trace of that momentary sullenness. Something told him it might still be there, but she was good at hiding her feelings. Her refusal to hold his gaze made it harder for him to get a good read on her, and that bothered him. He’d seen this kind of defense mechanism before. It wasn’t the sort born out of pleasant past experiences.
“Are you hungry?” he asked, softening his tone.
She shook her head.
It had been hours since she’d thrown up what few bites she’d attempted, and heaven only knew if she’d eaten anything during her travels. The poor girl was little more than a skeleton as it was.
“I’ll make a sandwich,” he decided. “Thirsty? We’re on well water here and it’s the best you’ll ever taste coming from a tap, but I’ve also a pitcher of tea in the fridge. So long as you bring your glass back out every morning for a scrub up, feel free to take some in to bed with you at night.”
“Rule Seven?” Her fa
ce was a careful mask, pale American porcelain without a trace of disobedience. But again, he could have sworn he detected a hint of it in her voice, and the dominant half of him was definitely taking notice. That tickled him. Noah liked a little spunk in his submissives. Not that Kitty was his. In fact, up until this point, he hadn’t wanted to think of her even as a submissive. More, she was like the koalas in the trees above his house. A wild thing, something that needed a little help from him to get by, but definitely not a thing for him to hold or keep.
“We’ll chalk that one up under cleaning up after ourselves, eh?”
She said nothing.
“I’ll get your bag, shall I?”
Funny, how he’d never before noticed how close the hallway was. But, from the moment he made that suggestion, suddenly he found himself eyeing what little space there was between her and the wall. If she didn’t turn sideways, they were going to touch. A curious pang thumped once in his chest as he envisioned his hand contacting her shoulder as he squeezed past her, his back brushing full up against the wall, maybe even bumping some of the family pictures that still hung there from his grandparents’ day. And yet it was the incredibly physical brush of the back of her arm against his that exploded that imaginary tingling into the realm of the very real all throughout his skin.
“I’ll get it,” Kitty said, turning on her heel and retreating in long, quick steps all the way back to the living room.
Just like that, the spell was broken.
What the hell, mate, he thought to himself. No, he didn’t invite a lot of company back to his house, but he wasn’t a hermit. Now and then, he did have guests. Some were even women. He couldn’t count the number he’d slipped past coming in and out of the kitchen or the bathroom, but none had made his skin break out in tingling chills.
It was because she was submissive, he decided as he watched her grab her duffel bag off the end of the couch. He usually did well with submissives, but it wasn’t often that he brought one home for… close encounters.