by Margaret Way
‘I need to know…’ His voice dipped, deepened, and his hands came up to close over her upper arms. ‘Should I have sent you here seven years ago? Maybe there was some other way to protect—’
Her.
To protect her from what he’d seen as a bad thing at that time. And it would have been. Whether his feelings had been involved or not, he had been committed to Dianna—though Callie hadn’t known that until he’d told her they were engaged to be married, that they’d kept the fact low profile because he hadn’t wanted media attention.
His concern touched her, softened her when she already felt too vulnerable to him. But Callie fought to give him a coherent response. Not easy with his hands on her.
All she could find was, ‘I’m not that young girl.’
It sounded too open, perhaps too needy, and she didn’t want him to think she needed him, because that insinuated something more than attraction, and that depth of feeling for him was not a place she was prepared to go. Not when she believed him incapable of loving with all his heart.
I didn’t really love him. It was just a young girl’s imagination, even if it felt much deeper than that at the time.
Callie forced her gaze to drop to the tote bag. ‘We have enough cuttings. We should head back.’
Head back. Avoid lingering here with him. Avoid the temptation of this moment away from everyone, just the two of them, alone on an isolated stretch of the island.
Gideon let go of her and lifted the bag.
A fat drop of rain fell, then another and another, and then a deluge of it. She’d known it was coming and she’d let it creep up on her anyway.
Rather like the feelings that had driven her to Gideon’s door when she was young enough and believed she loved him enough to expose herself that way. She had been so sure she could seduce him, draw his attention, and that when she had it he would somehow miraculously realise he loved her.
So silly.
‘There’s an empty cottage beyond the rise.’ She blinked splashes of rain out of her eyes, felt the sting of the droplets against her cheeks and nose and mouth, the whip of a wind that was indeed stronger than she would have liked.
They stumbled up the small hill against the wind; against the rain that soaked them in the space of time it took them to hit the top of that rise. The cottage was just beyond it.
Callie pushed the door open, and Gideon stumbled in behind her and slapped it shut again. Their breaths sounded loud in the sudden stillness inside those four small walls.
There was no furniture. Just bare faded walls and a wooden floor. A bank of uncurtained windows to one side, what used to be a kitchenette, gutted now, in the far part of the room.
Maybe it was the sudden onset of the storm that made her glance out of those windows and feel as though they were being watched.
They stood there dripping with rain, facing each other. Gideon had set the tote bag onto the floor at his feet; all his focus was on her, and Callie forgot that odd feeling. Instead, something in his expression made her heart stutter.
‘Mary,’ she said. There was something that had to be said about Mary. Callie resisted the urge to retreat a step while her concentration shattered, but all she could do was look into blue eyes that had darkened and focused so intensely on her.
‘Mary…?’ He reached out his hand and wiped a drip of rain from her cheek. His fingers lingered, cupped her face.
‘Mary—your aunt. She…’ Do not press into his touch. Don’t do it, don’t do it.
Callie pressed. Closed her eyes and then forced them open again, hoping somehow she’d have managed to break this…whatever it was that had her standing here, unable to move away from him, wanting all sorts of inexplicable things she probably shouldn’t want.
What did she mean, probably? She knew she shouldn’t want those things.
‘Mary is in love. With Mac.’
Callie drew a breath and his hand dropped to his side. She told herself it was all right now, but the rain outside got heavier and pounded on the roof, and in here it was filled with quiet and intimacy, and that was not all right.
‘They’ve been planning this wedding for a year now. They’re committed. She knows everything there is to know about Mac. Just…you know…just to reassure you about things. I should have said all that at the start. I was worried about keeping my job here. I’m glad you’re going to let me do that.’
Callie forced her concentration to remain on Mary’s situation, not on the intimacy of her own.
‘If you investigate Mac, which you really shouldn’t, your investigation won’t reveal anything that will surprise Mary, because Mac has been completely up-front with her. He spent the first six months of their courtship doing his best to make her push him aside, after all his truthfulness about his past. I watched that happening.’
‘I don’t want to breach Mac’s privacy, Callie.’ Gideon’s brows drew down. ‘But I do have to be certain Mary will be safe.’
‘I know.’ Callie did know. She knew because she knew Gideon. She had cared about him all the time she’d lived with her uncle. ‘Can’t you take my assurance on the issue?’
He pushed back a sigh. ‘The wedding is tomorrow. I’m going to contact an investigator I know and set him onto this immediately. He’s discreet, and I expect to have information from him by nightfall—or early tomorrow at the least.’
‘I see. Well, I guess I can’t blame you for caring about her.’
‘And about you.’
Water dripped down the side of his cheek as he gave a reluctant sigh. Callie’s fingers twitched with the need to reach up and trace the line left by that rivulet of water.
Her heart acknowledged something. He cared about Mary—loved her. That was why he felt so concerned about his aunt. He wanted her to be happy and safe.
And don’t you think maybe he felt the same way about you?
Something inside Callie softened despite herself. ‘I truly believe Mary will be okay, Gid. If I didn’t believe that I would have called you long ago and asked for help to protect her. And I believe I’ll be quite safe, too.’
The planes and angles of his face softened as though that diminutive use of his name had got past his defences. ‘Callie—’
She did back away then, when he spoke her name in that soft, deep tone. Backed a step physically, tried to back up emotionally as well.
‘It’ll all be over tomorrow and you’ll leave again.’
And then Callie could get on with her life and not be confused by feelings about him that she didn’t want to have, hadn’t wanted to admit she had, still couldn’t consider she had.
‘I don’t want—’ Gideon was at a loss as to what to say as he felt an intensity inside himself that he couldn’t allow to be there, and yet it still was.
A big drip of rain splashed onto his face and dribbled down his nose. Gideon glanced upwards. ‘The roof’s leaking.’
‘Yes. The rain is hammering down, but the wind seems to have died down, don’t you think? That may be a good sign.’ Callie’s gaze tracked over his hair, face, chest, and came back to meet his eyes. ‘You look quite bedraggled, actually. Your shirt’s going to wrinkle.’ She gave a half-reluctant laugh and swiped the drip from the end of his nose.
And Gideon took a really good look at her for the first time since they’d come into the shelter of the cottage. He knew they were standing in an empty room, and the place smelled musty. He had noticed those things—peripherally at least. But now he noticed Callie.
The rat’s tail her ponytail had become. Her face with its freckles and not a scrap of make-up. Her milky skin and soaked orange shirt and soggy dungarees. Her big green eyes locked to his gaze.
It just welled up in him then. The same need that had hit him earlier.
‘Callie.’ He murmured her name, and somehow she was reaching for him, and he was reaching for her, and his lips closed over hers.
All he could register was the taste of her. The feel of soft lips beneath his, mouldin
g to his. He couldn’t force himself away from that kiss. He had to have it. He didn’t know how she did that to him. Put him so far out of control so fast.
Gideon’s lips on Callie’s brought all kinds of emotions to the surface in her.
Her heart squeezed.
His eyelids drifted closed and he inhaled. His mouth softened against hers as the kiss went to a whole other level—one that held her spellbound, lips to his lips, as everything within her reached for this moment.
Gideon sighed his pleasure.
Callie was sensual in his arms, beautiful and…and hungry in a way that heated the blood in his veins as her hands shaped his shoulders, his upper arms and chest. He realised he’d crushed her close and could feel every inch of her body pressed to his.
Gideon tipped her head back and deepened the kiss. His senses took over. One hand drifted down her spine to the base of her back. The other cupped her neck, shaped the outer curves of her breasts, her waist and hips.
‘God, Callie.’
The heat had washed over them so fast, so strong. As Gideon realised that he finally made himself slow down. Enough to stop him crushing her close. Enough to ease off on a kiss that had become all the most tempting kinds of ravishment—of the woman in his arms and of his own senses.
He didn’t want to lose this closeness with her. But he forced himself to draw back.
Cloudy green eyes looked into his face.
‘What are we doing, Callie?’
Gideon wished he knew the answer.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘I DON’T think there’s going to be much more rain—’
‘We should go. The rain has stopped—’
They both spoke at once, stepped back—way back.
Gideon glanced out of the windows. Anything other than looking at the kiss-softened woman he’d held so recently in his arms.
Callie did the same. Though he wondered if she registered the view outside any better than he did.
Hands dropped away. Bodies that had warmed against each other chilled back to awareness of wet, uncomfortable clothing and the musty smell of the cottage, the earthy, pine and spice scent of the foliage they had cut for Mary.
Gideon felt all this inside himself. Then Callie shivered, and he wanted to wrap her into his arms and keep her safe and secure, and kiss her again and more…
Kissing her was not smart. And ‘more’ was out of the question utterly. If they did that he’d want her again. And again and again and again. He wasn’t stupid enough that he didn’t know that. And Callie had held her heart out to him once already. He hadn’t been able to take it then, and she was still a generous, giving person.
She would understand now that she wasn’t in love with him, as she’d believed she was back then, but she was still capable of becoming emotionally attached to him. And he…He wasn’t good at that. Like his parents, who had a calm but unemotional and distant relationship with each other, Gideon didn’t do well at the kind of intimacy that needed to come from a soul-deep level. He’d simply never found it inside himself for a woman. If it wasn’t there, it wasn’t there.
‘Callie, I can’t—I don’t have—’
‘Please.’ She cut one slender hand through the air. ‘We let ourselves get a little carried away. I guess that’s natural when we’ve been there once before. You know—curiosity, old history…Let’s go back. There’s so much still to do, and I want to check in for another weather report with the bureau.’
‘Yes. That’s what we should do.’ Gideon picked up the canvas tote, moved to the door of the cottage and opened it, and figured the tightness in his chest was an after-effect of realising he’d gone somewhere with Callie that he shouldn’t have. It had to be that.
‘You should be looking for a nice guy. Someone your age who can give you what you need.’ The words came out whether he should have let them or not. But Callie should try to find someone to…to love her. She deserved that. She needed that. She didn’t have that. And if she had that she would be purely and simply out of bounds. Not that he should view her any differently but out of bounds now…
‘I’m twenty-five. I can choose someone any age that I want.’ Callie stepped past him through the door. Maybe it was the glare she cast his way, or the emergence of the sun from behind the clouds, or the fact her hair was still damp, but she seemed to glow all over…
She’d stomped quite a way from him before he tugged the door shut and followed, using his longer stride to catch up with her. She glowed. Appealed. Made him want to take her into his arms all over again. Callie did all of those things.
‘For your information, I’ve looked for relationships.’ Her words were low, and, yes, irritated. And something else he couldn’t define as she turned her face away to look out to sea. ‘Living on an island doesn’t stop me from spending time socialising—both here and in Melbourne, and in other places when I feel like it.’
Callie couldn’t look at Gideon. If she did, he might see all the feelings in her eyes. His kisses had swept her away. The landing when he’d put an end to them had been bumpy. She was too conscious of him still, and that was dangerous.
Back to the point. She enjoyed socialising and she’d done relationships. Well, she’d done dating.
There was no need to admit she’d struggled to care enough about any man to get beyond dating, to find much more than fleeting pleasure during the one or two times those relationships had gone that way.
‘Anyway, you haven’t settled into another relationship since Dianna. Not a serious one.’
‘How do you—?’ He broke off to help her over an old fallen tree limb.
Callie let him help her, and then took care to shift away from him again—because his touch on her was somewhat problematical to her concentration still. But she was going to take care of that!
‘You’re a billionaire bachelor, you have business interests that put you in the papers all the time, and your whole family is of interest to the media anyway because of your combined wealth.’ She didn’t add that he was also gorgeous and appealing, and of interest for those reasons as well. He had to know he was on every ‘Top 100’ list in existence for reasons that included his appeal as a male of the species. Instead she said, ‘I doubt you’d hide any kind of significant relationship from the public eye for long.’
That was enough. And she hadn’t deliberately followed his business interests or his attendance at this glitzy function or that one. The coverage was just there, and she noticed it.
Sure, Callandra. Whatever you say.
‘I need to get back to work. Get focused on this wedding and make sure everything is done in preparation for tomorrow.’ Callie picked up her pace. But she couldn’t outrun her thoughts, or her consciousness of Gideon striding along at her side.
He’d kissed her, and she had felt such tenderness in her heart for him when it happened. One minute she’d been laughing, the next her heart had been cracking open and letting him most of the way in, while her senses had simply flown away at his every touch and caress.
Even if that had only been the upsurge of a long-time affection, it was dangerous. She had to retreat from that emotional position. From her awareness of him altogether. And she had to do it fast, because Gideon wasn’t opening up to her in the same way.
He wasn’t even capable of trusting her judgement over Mac and his family. And he wanted to throw her at the first stranger who came along and offered a nice, secure relationship.
At this sobering reminder, Callie drew a fortifying breath. ‘Let’s just get this wedding done, so life can go back to normal for both of us. That’s what’s going to be best.’
It might have been nice for her to go straight to the gazebo, put the foliage in place as Mary wanted it done. Preferably while Gideon went to the guest house and did anything that didn’t involve being with her.
Instead, a group of Mac’s family spilled out onto the steps of the guest house as they approached. It had to be Mac’s three brothers, didn’t it? They we
re life-weathered men, strong and muscular, and somewhat life-roughened.
‘I see the rain caught you, Callie?’
The one named Andrew grazed his hand over his shaved head, revealing a tattooed underarm in the process. Callie particularly liked the serpent with its jaws wide open.
‘Yes. I want to get a weather report. What’s brought you all outside?’
‘None of us can stay indoors for more than an hour at a stretch.’ This comment came from Damien, the youngest of all the brothers. He gave a grin that didn’t quite reach the world-weariness in his eyes. ‘Been that way since jail.’
‘Do the crime, do the time’ The third brother shrugged his shoulders. ‘We learned—didn’t we, boys?’
And on that note…
‘Gideon,’ she murmured, ‘I’d like you to meet Mac’s brothers.’ She introduced each one. ‘Mac’s happy to have his family around him for this special time, and it’s a rare opportunity. He doesn’t see a whole lot of his brothers.’
She hoped Gideon understood the subtext—the fact that the Joneses didn’t spend a lot of time massed in one place—but he didn’t look particularly reassured.
After brief hellos, the first brother turned thick shoulders in the direction of the doors. ‘Two of our wives almost came to blows over how to make the sauce for one of tomorrow’s desserts. It could get ugly if we don’t supervise. Better get back in there.’
They disappeared, laughing at what Callie hoped was a joke.
‘I have to find out if we’re still on storm alert,’ she said. As far as the weather was concerned, at least. Callie wasn’t sure if she should think about possible storms among the Jones family!
Callie followed the men into the guest house, and prayed that tomorrow would dawn fine and mild and the forty-seven people inside the guest house would feel equally mellow and mild.
Someone shouted from inside the kitchen, and someone else shouted back. So far her hopes weren’t looking overly realistic.
Gideon’s mouth tightened and he strode purposefully in that direction. ‘I think I’ll meet everyone else now.’