Daniel tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear and watched her for a moment longer. Then he reached across the distance again and peeled one of her hands away from her body, cradling it in his. “Why did you leave criminal law?”
The abrupt subject change made her blink up at him like a moron while she scrambled for the words to answer. “A defense lawyer sees the gray murky areas in situations. It’s your job to convince a judge or jury that there is reasonable doubt by muddying the water so nothing is black or white.”
They started to walk again, but he didn’t drop her hand and she couldn’t make herself pull away.
“When Neil was killed, I experienced being a victim for the first time. I won’t bore you with details of the trial and listening to another lawyer do my job, but by the end of it I couldn’t see the gray anymore. Just black. Endless black. I lost my taste for the courtroom and I was fortunate that Joel offered me a job not long after Alyssa was born.”
“Regrets?”
She squeezed his hand. “No. Corporate law might not have the flashiness of criminal law but I get to spend more time with Theo and Alyssa, and they’re the most important things in my life.”
“How did Theo cope with what happened to his dad?”
“He was devastated. Neil was his stepdad, though, you know?”
“Yeah, Nadia told me.”
“Neil was the only dad Theo ever knew.”
“And Theo’s biological father?”
Ana slipped her hand from his grasp and shifted the straps on her backpack to a more comfortable position. On the few occasions when Maggie had twisted her arm to go on a blind date with some accountant or sales rep she’d commandeered for her poor, single friend, Ana had a series of trip-wire questions she booby-trapped their dinner conversation with. It was cruel and unnecessary punishment really. She hadn’t intended to be involved with any of them long term, whether they answered her sticky questions satisfactorily or not.
Being the mother of a teenager and a toddler was often enough to put off most interested men, and if that didn’t deter them, discussing her emotional baggage usually had them looking for the nearest exit with glazed eyes.
“I threw him out of my apartment a few weeks before I discovered I was pregnant. I’d gone to work even though I felt nauseous, but by lunchtime my boss ordered me to go home. I stumbled in the door clutching a bottle of antacid and caught him in bed with my best friend. How’s that for a cliché? I was twenty-two and naively thought he loved me. Add in a dose of pregnancy hormones and that’s my excuse.”
“You don’t need to excuse yourself for some idiot’s behavior.”
“The saying ‘Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me’ is apt in my situation. I’m a slow learner.”
“You took him back?”
She laughed bitterly. “Hell no. He dumped my friend soon after that morning of being thrown out in a howling Wellington southerly with all his gear. Two weeks later—and one week after I told him I was pregnant—he was headed off backpacking around Asia. I never heard another word from him.”
“Who hurt you the second time?”
“I hurt myself.” A fine mist of rain drizzled over them. Ana zipped up her jacket and pulled the hood over her hair, which she could already feel frizzing in the foggy air. The conversation had taken a far too abrupt turn into personal areas—her personal areas—and as sympathetic as Daniel seemed, she didn’t want his pity. Already she had revealed far more about herself than she was comfortable sharing. “I should’ve never agreed to marry Neil. I could never be the woman he wanted me to be.”
“What sort of woman was that?”
“The kind who blindly trusts a man.”
“You couldn’t trust the man you married?” His tone was soft, but she heard the incredulousness behind it.
Her forehead creased. “I did trust him at first. We were colleagues, then friends, and with his persistence it became more. I could see that Theo loved him, and I thought Neil being so sturdy and dependable was a foundation solid enough to build a marriage on. I thought he was trustworthy.”
“Did he prove otherwise?”
She thought about the times she’d caught him talking on the phone with what she surmised was a guilty expression. The two occasions she’d checked his text messages while he was in the shower, only to find nothing out of the ordinary. The late hours a couple of times of week, the unfocused expression in his eyes when talking to her, the way he would roll to the far side of their bed, pretending to fall asleep when she knew damn well he was still awake. But nothing concrete. Nothing she could latch onto as proof.
If she was honest, their relationship had soured long before she became aware of those other things. That was the key really. She hadn’t been aware of what was going on with Neil, as she had effectively shut part of herself away from him, never letting him near. If she had loved him passionately, instead of with caring affection, maybe she would’ve noticed emotional withdrawal earlier.
“No. There was no proof otherwise, only my suspicions.” She tugged her hood tighter around her face. “If he hadn’t died we probably would’ve been divorced within a year.”
Taking two strides forward, he invaded her space. He tilted her chin up so she was forced to meet his gaze. “Were you in love with your husband? Really fallen-on-your-ass in love with him? Did you give him everything you are, with no holding back?”
Chapter 21
Sunday, July 25. 4:31 p.m. Khandallah, a northern suburb in Wellington, New Zealand.
* * *
Once again the intensity of his gaze struck Ana somewhere in the region of her brain that controlled her capacity to breathe normally. It felt as if he could see all her heart’s unhealed wounds and jagged scars. For a moment the temptation to cast shades of gray over her marriage slid stealthily into her mind, but she dismissed it. If nothing else, she’d tell him the truth. After saving her skin twice, she owed him that much.
“No.” She dropped her gaze to the strong cleft of his chin, ignoring the sting of unshed tears in the corner of her eyes. “No, I wasn’t in love with him.”
“Why can’t you look at me when you say that?” His fingers stroked along her jaw to trail a soft, blazing path down her neck to rest on her collarbone.
Because of the way you look at me.
Her gaze slid to his tanned Adam’s apple that jerked as he swallowed.
Because of the way you smell like woodsmoke and Mrs. Wilcox’s pine soap that you washed with this morning. Because of the way you move, so graceful and dangerous at the same time. Because the sound of your voice saying my name sends hot tingles down my spine. Because when you touch me my pulse gallops and when you kiss me, suddenly I start feeling things I’ve never felt before.
But she didn’t speak those thoughts that whirled like a feverish tempest through her brain.
Instead she said, “Because looking into your eyes scares me.”
His hands drifted across her collarbone to gently grasp her upper arms. “It kinda scares me, too.”
“Nothing scares you. You’re brave.”
“And you’re not?”
She huffed out a breath somewhere between a grunt and a snort of laughter. “I’ve been terrified since the earthquake struck. Bet you didn’t know I was afraid of heights either.”
“Come on, everyone could see you were shaking in your boots.” A smile curved his lips then faded as fast as it appeared. “That’s why you’re brave. Because you felt the fear and did it anyway.”
Ana rolled her eyes. “Cliché, much?”
“Well, that and taking on those assholes with only window cleaner and a can of beans.” He shook his head. “Seeing you come back instead of running away was pretty damn gutsy, but it scared the shit outta me.”
“Because you feel responsible for my well-being.” Why her stomach chose to give a ping of hurt over her undoubtedly true statement, she didn’t want to dwell on. Of course he felt responsible for her. A man who was the eldest of
six siblings just oozed responsibility from every pore. “That’s sweet but unnecessary. You laid out the risks clearly before we left my building.”
“I wasn’t scared because I felt responsible for you—”
A sound of disbelief rolled off her tongue before she could contain it.
“Okay,” he admitted, the crooked smile returning. “Responsibility wasn’t the only reason I was scared. I think we both know it’s more than that between us now.”
Ana didn’t like the direction this was heading or the hypnotizing stroke of his thumbs gently rubbing her arms where he still held her. Or the nearness of his big, buff body causing an unsettling chain reaction within her, or the way he looked at her with a barely tamped-down desire in his eyes to claim her heart whether or not she gave him permission to try.
And whoa. She didn’t give him permission—her heart was well and truly out of bounds.
“Speaking of responsible”—she twisted out of his grasp and took a giant step away, tugging on the drawstrings of her hood—“if we catch pneumonia standing around in the rain that’s coming, I’ll hold you accountable. Let’s move.”
His gaze shuttered, the tender way he’d been looking at her vanishing like wisps of smoke in the harbor breeze. “You’re the boss,” he said.
Ana walked away from Daniel. Again. Already he could see a pattern forming. Gutsy as hell when it came to climbing down buildings or taking on scumbags twice her size, but confront the woman with anything too personal and she’d beat a hasty exit.
Go figure.
Wasn’t it usually the other way around? In his experience, women were in seventh heaven talking about their feelings—happy feelings, mad feelings, sad feelings. Feelings about how their coworkers treated them, how they felt when their best friend forgot to send them a birthday card, hurt feelings because Daniel took two hours to reply to a text message.
Apparently, Ana didn’t behave like other women.
Daniel walked after her, hands shoved deep into his pockets. He’d pretty much thrown it out there when he’d admitted how easy it would be to fall for her. And had she been receptive to what, for Daniel, was a baring-of-the-soul vulnerability? That was a solid, resounding no. So maybe he was just caught up in the stress of an over-the-top situation with an attractive woman. Rookie mistake. He’d confused simple lust with something else.
Denial ain’t just a river in Africa, son. His father’s voice again.
A scowl twisted his lips as he lengthened his stride to catch up. “The weather’s closing in fast,” he said, drawing alongside her. “We’ll need to look for somewhere to pitch Mrs. Wilcox’s tent before it gets worse.”
She tilted her face up at the sky as they walked, crinkling her nose as a droplet of water landed on it and muttering a string of four-letter words she wouldn’t want her daughter repeating, followed by the words, “Wellington weather.”
Really? Was it the weather that bothered her or the thought of being huddled next to him in a tent all night that rattled her cage? To be fair, he thought as he shoved damp hair off his forehead, she’d well and truly rattled his.
Daniel kept his gaze on the rivulets of rainwater collecting in the gutters picking up clumps of leaves and sending them spinning back the way they had come.
“What about up there?” She pointed toward a signpost advertising one of the main walkways around the city hills. “I’ve been on that walk. There’s a clearing big enough for the tent about five minutes’ walk along the path.”
“Let’s check it out.”
They hiked until Ana called out and ducked off the path, leading them between a cluster of overgrown prickly gorse bushes that seemed eager to spear them with their inch-long spines. The grassy area, roughly the size of an average family yard, was tucked almost out of sight of the main walking path. It was as safe a spot as any, considering they needed somewhere where something wouldn’t fall or slide on them during the night.
“Perfect. The gorse and scrub will give us some shelter from the wind, too.” He angled his head, the breeze carrying cool droplets of rain to dot his flushed face.
“Oh, I can’t wait to get this backpack off.”
Ana moaned loudly as the bag thumped to the grass beside her. She peeled off her jacket and arched her back. Daniel froze in the midst of shucking off the straps from his own shoulders. He’d heard that moan before. Not the same, but similar to the sound he’d heard humming out of her throat when he’d kissed her back at the office building.
Like heat-seeking missiles, his eyes were drawn to the outline of her breasts thrust against the thin shirt. He knew her breasts felt as good as they looked. At least, he knew how they felt pressed against his back and once, briefly, into his chest.
Calder, do not go there.
He unzipped the backpack and pulled out the tent carry bag. Dumping the bag’s contents on the long grass at his feet, he fumbled with clumsy fingers to check the contents.
“Can I help with that?” Ana appeared at his side, taking the bag of pegs out of his hand when he couldn’t undo the tiny knots holding it closed.
“Thanks.” His voice came out sharper than he’d intended as he restrained himself from flipping her onto the sweet-smelling grass and kissing her until the only sounds she could make were those sexy little moans.
While Ana fiddled with the tie cords, he busied himself picking up stray rocks and twigs in the area they would set the tent in. Each rock he tossed was thrown harder and farther, which didn’t do much to ease the frustration of seeing Ana naked in his mind’s eye, but it sure as hell felt good.
He spread the groundsheet out and started to peg it down.
“What to do I do next?” Ana asked.
“You can assemble the poles.” He nodded at the stack on the ground. “Need a demo?”
She rolled her eyes at him. “This isn’t my first pole assembly rodeo.”
“Thought you said you’d never been camping.”
“No.” She snapped the first two pole sections together. “I said I hated camping. Big difference. Bugs, lack of privacy, and someone snoring only inches away from you—ugh, nightmare.”
“Let’s hope this impromptu experience will change your mind.”
“Yeah. That’ll happen.”
Normally he’d have a tent like this up in less than ten minutes but with the constant distraction of her presence it took double the time and twice the effort to concentrate his attention on what he was meant to be doing.
So focused was he on tensioning the guylines, he didn’t become aware of the rain trickling down the back of his shirt until Ana called out, “Are we nearly done? It’s starting to come down.”
He stood, spotting her on the other side of the tent, bent over their backpacks. The white shirt, a shapeless boxy thing, had been rendered almost transparent as it clung wetly to her skin. The outline of a bra strap cut across her back, and before he had a chance to look away for sanity’s sake, she turned toward him.
Her gaze flickered down, then straight up again, catching him ogling. “What?”
“Nothing.” He deflected with a grin and kept his eye level well away from the glimpse of her nipples jutting through damp cotton, spotted in the seconds it took to lift his gaze. “You look kinda cute when you’re completely out of your element.”
“Cute?” She picked up the backpacks and lugged them over to the tent. “Kittens are cute. Puppies are cute. Just because I’m on the petite side doesn’t make me cute. I eat cute for breakfast.”
“Can I say you look hot instead, ma’am?”
She set the bags inside the tent opening and smiled. It was the first time she’d switched on the full wattage and it sucker punched him straight in the gut.
“I much prefer hot as an adjective than cute.” She paused, wrinkling her nose, as if something had occurred to her. “Incidentally, what did I say at the park that was so damn funny?”
“It was the commando comment.” He folded his arms. “I can’t believe you’v
e never heard it before, but going commando generally means to not be wearing any…” He couldn’t resist stretching out the punch line while he sent her a toothy smile that was pure evil. “Underwear.”
“Oh.” She flushed prettily and disappeared inside the tent.
He listened as the wind splattered droplets of rain against the nylon, waiting to see if she would come out again. She didn’t, and it was just as well. A man could only deal with so much temptation at one time.
That’s right. Look all you want, Calder, but keep your hands to yourself.
She’s trouble.
Chapter 22
Sunday, July 25. 5:34 p.m. Khandallah, a northern suburb in Wellington, New Zealand.
* * *
Ana was in camping hell.
She kneeled at the far end of the tent, with little pattering sounds of water dripping steadily off her shirt and onto the ground sheet. Rain like rattling gunfire hit the tent’s nylon sides and something lumpy under the tent floor dug into her kneecap. Her underwear, also sopping, had wedged itself in an extremely uncomfortable place, and the only thing she had to look forward to, since dry clothes were off the menu, was a can of cold baked beans.
Daniel ducked into the tent, took one look at the come any closer and I’ll cut you vibes she was giving off, and zipped open his backpack.
“Here.” He tossed her his woolen sweater. “Get that wet gear off and put this on.”
“You’re soaking, too, and it’s your sweater.” Repressing a shiver, she threw it back. “You should put it on.”
He caught it with one hand and immediately returned it, aiming so the garment landed on her head. “We’re not having this argument. Get your shirt off and the sweater on before you get hypothermia.”
Stripping to bare skin in this tiny space with Daniel only a few feet away made hypothermia an attractive option in her opinion.
“You don’t want to get sick overnight. You need to be strong for tomorrow.”
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