ZANE - THE WILD ONE

by Bronwyn Jameson

  "You trust me in your house while you're gone?"

  "Why wouldn't I?" Her gaze—warm, hazel and a little perplexed—came to rest on his. "You're Kree's brother."

  Trust by association. Of course. Why had he thought it might be something personal? She didn't know him. She couldn't even hold his gaze for more than a second. And the way she kept shifting her weight from one sneaker to the other—hell, she looked as if she would be more comfortable in a snake pit.

  He should tell her he wasn't here for Kree. He should hand over the keys, leave, go. Hadn't he found what he'd come here to find? The real Julia? The naive good girl?

  Funny, but he didn't feel reassured … or much like leaving. Call him perverse, but if she needed to go walk her dog, if she wanted him to step aside and let her by, then she could tell him straight-out instead of pussyfooting around.

  Settling one hip against the gatepost, he looked around as if studying his surroundings for the first time. "You've done a great job here."

  She thanked him, politely but reservedly, as if she thought his words were empty rhetoric.

  That only ticked him off more, and he found himself adding, "Yeah, I like it. But if old man Plummer were still alive, he'd come after you with his shotgun."

  Her eyes narrowed a fraction. "What do you mean?"

  "You cut down his hedge."

  "It was overgrown, and it blocked the view."

  "He treasured his privacy."

  "Privacy!" She made an indignant huffing sound. "I needed a chainsaw and a blowtorch to get through the wretched thing."

  "That hedge was something else."

  "Old man Plummer was something else." But she couldn't help the small fond smile that came with memories of the irascible recluse. "And he was a lousy gardener. About the only thing I kept was the cedar tree out back."

  "In the northern corner?"

  "Yes. Why do you ask?"

  "I hung a tire swing from it one summer." He grinned, remembering. "That's one great tree."

  Julia shook her head. A funny mix of surprise and wonder and delight bubbled around inside her. Not to mention the effect of that grin. Mama mia. She shook her head again. "I won't ask how you got past the hedge and the shotgun."

  "You don't want to know." Their gazes met, held. Heat, yes, but this time it was the solid companionable warmth of a shared memory, and she didn't need to look away, to escape. This time she smiled and said, "You want to come take a look at your tree?"

  He looked surprised; then the corners of his mouth curled into that killer grin. "Yeah. I'd like that."

  Julia turned away quickly. The way her heart started hammering away in her chest every time he grinned might just be noticeable to a man with such an intensely sharp gaze. That grin was one the first things she'd noticed when she'd come upon him in her garden.

  One of the first, right after the immediate impact of his presence.

  Today the T-shirt was black, the jeans faded by work and wash, and as he'd stooped to pat McCoy, both had molded the hard contours of his body in a way that screamed m-a-n. All that potent masculinity was thrown into perfect counterbalance by the gentle frame of her pastel-pink David Austen roses … the ones she'd planted to replace old man Plummer's infamous hedge.

  "I didn't know you were so familiar with this place," she said over her shoulder.

  "We lived around the block, on Docker Street."

  "I remember."

  "Yeah?"

  "Kree lived there, too."

  "I don't recall you visiting." They came to a halt on the open stretch of lawn behind the house, but she knew Zane wasn't looking at the tree. As she bent to free Mac, she felt the full force of his gaze on her.

  "I wonder why that is?" he asked.

  "Why do you think?"

  "Scared of big brother?"

  Lifting her chin, she met the intense stillness of his gaze. "Terrified. But that's not the reason. Kree didn't ever invite me."

  A touch of bitterness sharpened his silver-gray gaze and hardened the line of his mouth. His tension seemed to reach out and enfold her, blotting the late evening sounds until all she could hear was the heavy pounding of her heart. She felt sure he would say something, something to challenge why she'd never visited her friend, something that included the word slumming.

  But whatever burned so harshly in his eyes remained unsaid. He turned and walked away, stopping in front of the tree, hands on hips, to inspect the tire she had slung from the lowest branch.

  Moving closer, he reached up and took a firm grip of the rope, as if to test its strength. The action called Julia's gaze to the width of his shoulders, to the richly tanned curve of his biceps, and she was back in that moment when she'd first seen him in her garden. Giddy, dry-mouthed, determined not to keep staring in case she hyperventilated.

  Needing a distraction—badly—she threw a stick for Mac and watched him execute a spectacular catch. She sensed Zane's soft-footed approach, felt it in the heightened sensitivity of her skin. She rubbed her hands along her arms, but the tingling remained.

  "How long is he staying?"

  "Indefinitely." She tossed the stick again. "Mitch used to have a house with a yard and plenty of space, but when he got married, they moved into an apartment and he couldn't keep Mac."

  "Isn't that meant to work the opposite way? Apartment first, house and yard second?"

  "Oh, there's nothing usual about Mitch's marriage," Julia said without thinking. Chastened, she bit her lip. "That didn't come out right. They both travel an awful lot, so it wasn't practical to have a pet or a garden that would need care."

  He didn't comment, but he looked around, taking in the rest of her yard—Mac's kennel, her well-tended herb and vegetable plot, the swing and sandpit over by the fence. She sensed a strange tension in him as he took it all in, as he turned to look at her. "Kree told me you'd been married. She didn't mention kids."

  Kids? It took a second for his meaning to gel. The swing, the sandpit, the discarded toy dump truck. "Oh, no, I don't have children. These are for Joshua, for when he stays."

  "Joshua?"

  "Mitch and Annabel's son."

  "They farm him out, too?"

  He might not have been passing judgment—neither his casual tone nor his closed expression gave anything away—yet Julia's protective instincts shot to full alert. "It's only occasionally that they're both away at the same time, and I don't mind having him."

  In fact, she loved having Joshua stay, loved indulging him with the simple things he missed out on, such as homemade swings and sandpits, and playing with a dog. Staying here was good for him. It wasn't farming out.

  Feeling unduly aggrieved, she put her whole shoulder behind the next throw, then watched Mac disappear around the side of the house in frantic pursuit.

  "Where is he getting out? Your fences look good."

  "Around the front. It's simply not high enough."

  With one of those noncommittal grunts peculiar to men, he ambled over to the side fence, studied it this way and that, then started pacing the distance between fence and house.

  "It's three point six meters each side," she said, way too snappily. "And I know that by fencing it off I can enclose the backyard to keep him in. I'm saving to do it."

  "What about the dog's owner? Shouldn't he be the one saving?"

  "I don't think that's any concern of yours."

  "You're right." He gave her a hard, sidelong look. "And it shouldn't be any concern of yours, either."

  "It's my fence and my house, so that makes it my concern."

  End of debate. End of yard tour. End of short nerve-racking interlude with Zane O'Sullivan.

  She whistled to Mac, then started for the front yard.

  "Hang on a second." He put out his arm, presumably to prevent her passing, and she walked right into it, waist height. For the life of her, she couldn't back away. She couldn't move. All she could think was His arm, hard against my body.

  The thought caused her mouth to
turn dry. Or perhaps that was because he was standing so close and making no attempt to increase the distance. Her senses were flooded with his proximity, with the absolute stillness of their bodies. It seemed as if neither of them had taken a breath in a very long while.

  Then, just when she thought she might explode from the pressure, the expectancy, the not knowing what would come next or what she wanted to come next, he moved his arm … not abruptly, but in a long, slow, brushing caress across her abdomen.

  She knew the instant he detected the belly button ring. She could tell by the jerk of his head, by his swift intake of breath, by the sudden tension that stiffened his whole body.

  And by the look of astonishment on his face.

  In another place and time that look might have been comical, but not here and now. For he still stood way too close—so close she could feel the heat emanating from his big body, and where he had touched her, oh, there was more than heat.

  There was fire.

  She closed her eyes, imagined his broad, long-fingered hand spread across the bare skin of her belly, swore she could feel the touch of his thumb as it circled the delicate piece of jewelry, as it slid slowly lower. A responsive flush seemed to light her skin from the inside out.

  "You have a piercing?"

  Julia blinked her way out of the sensual heat haze and felt his gaze skim in a quicksilver motion from her face to her belly. She swallowed, moistened her arid mouth, although she hadn't a clue what to say other than a simple. "Yes."

  Should she explain how she'd felt the day after she'd signed her divorce papers? Could she explain the surge of restlessness, of recklessness, of unreality? How she had decided that was the day to do something un-Julia-like, something to mark the start of her new life. Something like getting a tattoo.

  Except once she walked through the door of Skin Pix, the old Julia wouldn't stay silent. She didn't want the statement of a multihued butterfly stamped into her skin. She wanted something a little less obvious.

  And so she had walked out the door with a silver ring in her navel.

  Of course the new Julia wasn't any different to the old one. She could never bring herself to wear clothes that bared her midriff and showed off the adornment, just as she could never explain to anyone else why she'd had it done, or why she kept wearing the unseen ring.

  "It's just something I did on a whim." She shrugged self-consciously. "I had better get moving. Make yourself at home—Kree shouldn't be long."

  "I'm not here to see Kree."

  He was still standing too close, still blocking her path, still making her feel incredibly hot and bothered. Seeking relief, she looked down … just as he slid a hand into the front pocket of his jeans. Oh, dear Lord, she should not be looking there.

  "I brought your car."

  Her gaze sped guiltily back to where a set of car keys now dangled from his fingers. That was what she should have been noticing in the front of his jeans, instead of other, um, things.

  "I guess that means I owe you two drinks," she said.

  His pause was infinitesimal, just long enough for Julia to notice how the levity in her tone had done nothing to ease the heavily charged atmosphere. Then, in a slow, measured tone, he said, "I thought we agreed that wasn't a good idea."

  "You said it wasn't a good idea."

  "You had a man waiting at your gate."

  "I didn't invite him." Her gaze held his without wavering—an amazing feat, considering the anticipatory quiver running from her toes to the tips of her ears. "And when he rang today and asked me out to dinner, I declined."

  "So?"

  Julia moistened her mouth, felt the lick of his gaze follow the movement. "So what if I want to buy you those drinks?"

  "You know where to find me."

  "The Lion?"

  "Back bar." One corner of his mouth quirked. "But we both know Julia Goodwin wouldn't be seen dead in a dive like that."

  And before she could even think of a reply, let alone voice it, he pressed the car keys into her hand and sauntered off.

  * * *

  Chapter 3

  «^»

  Julia wished she had been the one to deliver the clever exit line and saunter off. She wished he had been the one left standing nonplussed in her garden. Except that scenario wasn't ever likely to happen, seeing as it completely contravened nature. Mitch had snaffled all the family genes for saber-sharp one-liners, and Chantal had garnered most of the clever DNA.

  Besides, walking away would have been impolite, and Julia was always polite.

  That didn't stop her wishing … or trying to devise the perfect comeback. By the time she finished walking Mac, she had declared the latter an impossibility. How could she come up with anything sassy enough to top his reaction to her piercing?

  She pictured him standing in the dappled garden light, those silvery eyes dazed, his expression dumbfounded, and her body almost buzzed with the unfamiliar blend of power and pleasure. Because nice, polite Julia Goodwin had shocked—nay, stunned—the baddest boy ever to swagger through the corridors of Plenty High. It was an intoxicating notion, and it made her feel strong in the most female of ways.

  Strong enough to walk into the Lion, to sit down beside him, to order those drinks? Probably not. But that didn't stop her enjoying the fantasy. Not even the sight of Mrs. Hertzig, patiently waiting to ambush the next passerby, could dampen the moment.

  "Hello, dear. Been out walking the dog, I see."

  Julia's fantasy dissolved as her elderly neighbor leaned over her front fence, eager to natter.

  "We've been all the way out to Maisie's and back," Julia supplied. When Mrs. H. didn't immediately pitch a question about her best-friend-slash-rival's garden, Julia knew there was something on her mind. And as Kree liked to point out, Mrs. H. never kept anything on her mind for long. She always aired it for public consumption.

  "I couldn't help noticing you had company earlier." Her lips pursed on the word company, giving Julia enough time to think, Uh-oh. "If I'm not mistaken, it was that wild O'Sullivan boy."

  Boy? Julia didn't think that tag quite fit her visitor, unless defined by the word bad.

  "Back in town to visit with his sister, is he?"

  "Yes, and—"

  "He's a bad egg, that one. Do you think it's wise to have him in your yard, dear? I doubt your parents would approve. Your mother won't have forgotten that window he broke in her office."

  "He's grown up since then," Julia pointed out, but Mrs. H. was in full flight.

  Graffiti, vandalism, theft, arson—in her mind all Plenty's crime of the past twenty years could be laid at the feet of "That wild O'Sullivan boy." It was really too much, even for Mrs. H.

  "Mrs. Hertzig? Mrs. Hertzig!" she tried a little more firmly. "Zane didn't even live in Plenty when Larbett's was broken into."

  "He can drive, can't he?" And she was off again.

  Julia frowned, disturbed by a side of Plenty gossip she had never considered. Then she heard the faint burr of a ringing phone.

  "Excuse me, Mrs. Hertzig, but that sounds like my telephone. I'd best run and see if I can catch it."

  She felt Mrs. H.'s affronted glare boring into her back as she trotted off but couldn't summon any guilt. Not even for denying her neighbor one of her few pleasures—someone to talk to, or at least to listen to her.

  As Kree would likely be home by now, and if not the answering machine would pick up, there was no need to chase after the ringing phone. Except she did not want to hear any more stories about Zane's wild youth, especially those she knew had been stretched and embellished until they bore no resemblance to the truth.

  As she stepped onto the veranda, the phone stopped mid-ring. She opened the front door and called, "If that's for me, I'm home."

  Kree's head—an extraordinary shade of strawberry-blonde this week—appeared from the living room doorway. "Chantal," she mouthed.

  Since Julia's dinner party no-show, her sister had been very cool. She would turn even frostier wh
en she found out Julia had passed on dating Dan.

  "I'll take Mac," Kree offered as she handed the receiver over; then she winked cheekily. "Don't say anything I wouldn't say."

  Which left plenty of leeway. Julia settled into the nearest armchair and put the receiver to her ear. "Hello, sis. What's new?"

  * * *

  She hadn't moved when Kree returned sometime later.

  "That dog is such a guy. You know what he—" She came to an abrupt halt when she saw Julia's face. "Hey, what's up? Is it your parents? Has there been an accident?"

  "No. It's nothing like that." Julia's attempt at a reassuring smile failed badly, so she focused on the pattern in her Axminster rug as she struggled to put the crux of the phone call into words. "You know Paul's cousin-in-law who works at Chantal's law firm?"

  "Janet Harrington?"

  "She told Chantal that Paul is having a baby."

  "Wow." Kree raked both hands through her short spiky hair. "How did that happen!"

  "In the usual fashion, I should expect."

  Kree didn't laugh at her attempted humor, but then it wasn't a particularly funny attempt. Instead her eyes clouded with concern as she peered into Julia's face. "How do you feel about it?"

  "I'm still working on that one. I mean, how should I feel? He's not my husband anymore. He has a new wife and obviously they've decided to start a family."

  "Doesn't mean you can't feel something."

  "Okay, so maybe I feel a little … I don't know…"

  "Heck, Jules, you were married to the schmuck for six years and he didn't give you a thing worth keeping. She's married to him six minutes and she gets a baby. You've a right to feel cheated."

  Cheated. Did that describe how she felt? Did it explain the strange sense of hollowness, the emotional black hole where her reaction should reside? Perhaps she should feel cheated by her seeming lack of emotion. Something more palpable, like the sharp spike of jealousy or the bitter taste of regret, would make more sense.

  A baby was the one thing she had wanted, desperately, from her marriage, but Paul had wanted to wait a few more years. Paul had insisted they wait. And now she was fast approaching thirty, with no prospect of ever experiencing the joy of carrying a baby, of childbirth and motherhood.