“What kind of book? Law for Dummies?”
That earned a mouth twitch, a.k.a. a quarter smile. “A novel.”
“Crime, thriller, murder mystery?”
“How stereotyped your mind is. What makes you think I don’t write romance?”
A laugh exploded out of her before she could snatch it back. “Really?”
An epic eye roll behind his tortoiseshell frames. He unfolded his arms and for a moment the silence, broken only by the rustle of the wind sighing through the trees, stirred, flared, became electrified. Then the electrified silence collapsed into just plain old awkward silence as Glen exhaled in a frustrated rush.
“Other than because I specifically asked you to stay away from the house,” he said. “Why, exactly, are you here?”
More than monosyllables out of him—progress. She pasted on a sheepish smile. “I forgot to get milk.”
Both eyebrows rose. “And?”
“And I wondered if I could borrow some of yours.”
“Let me get this straight. Instead of driving to your cousin’s place, you sneak over here, proceed to nearly give me a heart attack and wreck my train of thought…all to ask for some milk?”
“If you wouldn’t mind, that’d be great.”
He threw up his hands. “Go bug Nate.”
“Are you really so petty as to not give me some milk when I asked politely for it?”
Blue eyes sparked fire in response.
Sav smiled. A syrupy smile—it was good practise. Charlotte Malone used her sickly sweet smile a lot.
“I’ll get you some milk.” He turned and strode into the family room.
She crossed the deck to stand by the open glass slider door but made no move to step inside. Pushing him too far wasn’t part of her plan—this time, anyway. Her heart did give a little flip-flop at being so close to all the pretty things she’d picked out for her house. And she had to admit the state of the family room was impressive—unlike Liam, her ex-husband, Glen hadn’t left piles of newspapers cluttering the coffee table. No dirty mugs on the counter or gym gear dumped wherever it landed. Her only complaint was something in her gleaming white and chrome kitchen smelled a-mazing.
“There’s a little milk jug in the top cabinet,” she called out helpfully.
Glen yanked open the fridge door. “I’m not petty enough to only give you a jug.”
He pulled out a small, unopened carton of full-cream milk and nudged the fridge door shut with his hip.
“Oh—” Her hand jerked up to snag his attention. “You don’t have any no-fat or skim, do you?”
“Do I look like the kind of guy to have no-fat in his fridge?”
“Well, you look good—” A beat while her tongue curled into a mortified ball and heat mushroomed over her cheekbones. “I mean you’re obviously health conscious, you probably eat nutritiously and work out regularly.” Shut up, Sav. Shut, up, now. She bet if she pressed her face to the door, her cheeks would melt the glass.
Glen’s frown flipped into a white-toothed, wolfish grin. “Uh huh.” His glasses slipped down his nose as he studied her over the frame. “I work out at the local a couple of times a week, but mostly I run. And I fence.”
“Fence? Like on a farm?” A mind picture popped into her head of Glen strolling around a paddock with a coil of number eight wire over one bare shoulder. Cue for her saliva glands to work overtime…of course, the delicious smell wafting out of her oven must be the cause.
He strolled back around the island counter, his grin expanding. “Wrong kind of fencing.” He bumped the carton on the left side of his stomach, against the hard planes of his abs. “The kind like my tattoo—with a sabre, foil or épée.”
She stepped over the threshold into the house as he set the milk on the counter nearest the door.
“I was in the fencing club in high school, then at university,” he said.
“What? No rugby or cricket or soccer?”
“My brother, James, was the rugby star at Kelston Boys’. I was a beanpole back then—one tackle from a fullback and I would’ve ended up in traction.”
“Ouch.”
“I figured doing this”—Glen angled his body to the side, his knees bent and his left arm raised shoulder height behind him. Muscles rippled across his torso and down the length of his extended and slightly bent front arm—“reduced the likelihood of getting the shit kicked out of me and it took advantage of being fast on my feet.”
He shuffled forward a few steps and did some fancy twisting thing with his wrist. If he’d had a sword in his hand she would’ve been disemboweled.
A little flame kindled low in her belly. “Oh.”
“I’ve always been fascinated with knights and swordplay.” He straightened, pulled in his outstretched hand and ran it through his hair, offering her a smile. This time a full three-quarters smile. “Kind of geeky, I know.”
“No.” He’d reduced her vocabulary to one syllable words with the hint of vulnerability in his tone. She scrubbed a fist over her thudding heart. “I used to love reading about heroic knights who went on quests to win a lady’s favor.”
“The whole knight in shining armor complex?”
“No complex, just a naive ten-year-old who still believed in that sort of thing. I grew out of it by the time I hit my teens.”
Their gazes met, locked, then shattered when his icy blue eyes blinked, and he turned back to the counter. “Do you want the full cream or not?”
And…that concluded their little moment. Obviously, it had been an imaginary moment.
“Yes, please. I’ll replace it next time I go to town.”
He shrugged and picked up the carton. As he turned to pass it over, her stomach let out a loud, complaining rumble.
“Hungry, diva?”
Back to the diva thing. Steamrolling over what could’ve been a civil conversation.
She raised her chin. “Not really. I ate before I came over.”
If you counted a raw carrot as eating, which she totally didn’t. Not when the spicy scents of tomato and basil and garlic came steaming out of the oven—her oven. Again her stomach rudely demanded a share of whatever was cooking. She snatched the carton out of his hand. “It does smell delicious though.”
See? She could play nicely with others.
“Thanks. It’s basil and tomato pasta. Kind of my specialty.”
While she had a low salt, low taste can of vegetable soup waiting. Plus a boring green salad with diet French dressing and bottled water since beer had over a hundred calories. Hugging the carton tight to her belly to try to freeze the rumbling, she stepped backward—and her fluffy socks slipped on the wood-paneled floor.
She uttered a startled squeak. Glen sprang forward, grabbing both her arms and pulling her upright. Even though a layer of Merino wool separated her skin from his, the warmth and strength of his touch tingled right down to the soles of her feet. Her breathing hitched and behind the lenses of his glasses, his gaze narrowed.
“I knew perfecting the fencer’s lunge would come in handy one day.” This close heat pumped off him, waves of testosterone-infused radiation that could burn a woman from the inside out. “You okay?”
When she nodded, he released her and stepped back.
“I’m fine.”
But just for a second there she hadn’t been fine. Sav resisted the urge to rub her arms where his fingers had grabbed her. Five spots on either arm tingled from the memory of his touch. A good kind of tingle, not the ache of fingers dug into resisting flesh. Fingers that left bruises like petals from some hideous purple flower.
“I never quite grew out of my uncoordinated stage,” she muttered and dropped her gaze, which unfortunately landed on his chest. Again. Dammit.
And now she’d officially worn out her welcome.
“Thanks again for the milk. I’ll let you get back to your work.” She aimed herself toward the open door.
“Savannah?”
She turned, careful to make slow, stea
dy movements because she really didn’t want to fall on her butt in front of him.
“My book’s high fantasy. The Lord of the Rings-ish if I was arrogant enough to make a comparison.”
Fantasy. Somehow it fit. A blink in time, a memory of a group of guys crammed in a living room with paper and dice and weird terminology she hadn’t been the slightest bit interested in deciphering… She strained, trying to pick out individual people, but the recollection was too vague, her ability to remember faces too sucky.
“I never read fiction.” Sav brushed the frustrating wisps of memory away and concentrated on stepping onto the deck without slipping. “There’s too much make-believe in my life already.”
“Fair enough.” Glen’s mouth curved, but his eyes were chips of polar ice. “Goodnight.”
And just like that, her enthusiasm for Operation Know Thy Enemy vanished, because she suspected Glen had learned just as much about her in their short exchange as she had about him.
Chapter 3
It felt as if rusty nails dipped in sulphuric acid jabbed into his head.
Glen lurched upright, his feet tangling with the bed sheet twisted around his ankles. Music blasted through his bedroom walls as if they were paper thin.
Really awful music.
Music that seemed to involve a hellish combination of violins, guitars and what sounded like an honest-to-God banjo. He cracked open an eye and snatched up his smartphone from the nightstand.
Six-o-bloody-clock?
He scrubbed a hand over his face, then glared at the blind-covered window. A guy was singing—a guy with a nasal twang that made his scalp crawl. He flopped back down, snatching the spare pillow from the other side of the queen-size bed and jamming it on his head. Every note of the banjo solo assaulted his eardrums. He clamped each end of the pillow over his face.
It didn’t help.
With a snarl, Glen rolled out of bed and grabbed yesterday’s jeans off the rocking chair in the corner.
“Would serve her right if I decided to show up bare assed at her door.” His voice sounded as rough as a pack-a-day smoker.
Serve her right, except glancing down at his bare-assed self, he’d be the one embarrassed. Bad enough he’d been awake for hours the night before thinking about how she smelled like juicy summer berries—the kind you couldn’t wait to sink your teeth into. Or the rounded curve of her bottom with no panty-line in sight as she’d bent over the caravan jacks the day before. Or the briefest spark of fear in her eyes as he’d grabbed her arm to prevent her falling on her butt.
That last thought effectively killed his ardor. Not that his morning wood was from dreaming about Savannah Payne…except it totally was, and he wasn’t happy about it.
He yanked on his jeans in record time, didn’t bother with the button, and shrugged on a long-sleeved flannel shirt.
Icy stars twinkled above as he threw open the back door and strode onto the deck. The first haze of dawn had lightened the horizon, and the abundance of native birds in the area chattered and called through the trees. He assumed the poor buggers were also pissed about the racket blasting out of Savannah’s caravan. Lights blazed rectangles on the chewed-up patch of lawn in front of the caravan, and Glen kept his eye on her windows as he shoved his bare feet into his gumboots. He marched across the grass. The caravan’s front door was pinned open—all the better to conduct the music out at ear-wincing volume.
“Savannah?”
No answer, but considering his voice battled against a cacophony of musical instruments, it was little surprise. He banged a fist on the orange-painted side of the caravan. “Goddammit, Savannah!”
“Good morning.” Her voice tinkled in a cheerful sing-song as she appeared in his line of vision, smooth, bare legs flashing under an eye-wateringly yellow dress.
He couldn't help peering inside her caravan. Floral curtains hung over the small windows, and red-checked lino and matching painted cabinets lined the space between ceiling and walls. Opposite the door entrance was a small fridge and next to it a dinette with white-and-red striped cushions. Classic kitschy 1950s decor. And Savannah—in her yellow dress, hair tied in a simple tail and bright-red lipstick on her pouty mouth—looked the part of a domestic goddess.
“Are you kidding me with this crap? It's six in the morning.” He had to shout to make himself heard over the twanging guitars.
Savannah ran a tap at the sink, sliding a stove-top kettle under the stream. She twisted the volume dial on her sound system and the music volume dropped to only ear needling rather than ear splitting.
“Early bird catches the worm.” She finished filling the kettle and placed it on the tiny range-top. “Today, I overslept. Normally I'm up at five, and if I'm working on a set, sometimes I’m even up at three.”
Glen shut his eyes against the lights and the blinding colors of the décor and gripped the door’s edge. Counted to five slowly. He had a sister—so he knew Savannah was baiting him. But he couldn’t help himself. Something about her pushed his buttons. Always had, always would.
“Cup of tea?”
Her voice purred and his eyes popped open.
She smiled, all glossy-red lips that promised sinful sweetness. The woman had a killer smile; he'd give her that. A smile as sweet and sincere as a cat who purred against you one moment and left your arm in bloody shreds the next.
“I don’t drink tea.”
“Coffee?”
“I’m not drinking anything with you at this time of day.”
“Not a morning person then?” She opened a cabinet above the sink, stretching up on tip-toes, the hem of her dress rising to give him a glimpse of silky thighs.
He dropped his gaze, wincing as another song started. This one featuring a harmonica, God help him. He scrubbed at the stubble on his jaw and debated jamming his fingers into his ears. Nope, wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction. “No. How about you turn that music down? It’s noise pollution.”
She set the cup she’d reached for onto the counter and swirled over to stand in front of the door, fists on hips. “Hey, it’s classic country. You being a lawyer, I thought you’d have more appreciation for human misery and the whole ‘I lost my job then my wife left me and now my dog died’ genre.”
“I work in corporate law; there’s enough human misery there.”
Savannah stood a step above him, and because of it, his nose was now level with her breasts. Her two very perky, very lush breasts which were swaying gently as her rib cage rose and fell in exasperation. He tried hard to remain irritated and indignant, but her body was a major distraction when his brain clearly hadn’t woken up yet.
He needed caffeine, stat. But not hers—she’d probably poison it.
“Corporate law?” She rolled her eyes. “You really are a suit, aren’t you?”
“Are you going to keep calling me a suit?”
The tag rankled because he had never, ever wanted to be one. No, he’d dreamed of changing the world in a different way. By writing the great New Zealand fantasy novel. Then life and his father interfered. Law became his world, not warlocks, and swords, and heroism. As an idealistic nineteen-year-old he’d switched to a more conservative dream of preserving New Zealand’s clean-green image with environmental law or helping lower income families. But even that dream had fizzled. He’d ended up at his father’s corporate law firm, burning out with twelve hour days reading and writing briefs…and the last thing he felt like doing during what little downtime he had was working on his novel.
“Are you going to keep calling me a diva?” She tossed her ponytail over her shoulder.
Ah, so it did piss her off—he’d suspected as much. “If the shoe fits…”
Long, dark lashes narrowed, and he couldn’t help but wonder what time the woman had crawled out of bed in order to look so damn perfect at six in the morning. He also couldn’t help but wonder what Savannah wore to bed—flannel pajamas? Silky lingerie? Or like him, nothing at all?
If she wasn’t watching h
im so intently, he’d thunk his head into the caravan’s metal shell. Then do it again, for good measure. He had no business and no excuse, caffeine deprived or otherwise, to be thinking about Savannah’s sleepwear. He couldn’t even blame it on the embarrassingly long time it’d been since he’d last had female company sharing his bed.
Because it all boiled down to Savannah. Like it or not, she’d clawed into the part of his brain reserved for sexual-fantasies-that’ll-never-happen ten years ago, and he’d never been able to get her out.
“You really are cranky in the morning. You should go back to bed.”
Then with a swirl of her yellow skirt, she turned her back on him to crank up the volume again. Without gracing him with another glance, Savannah sauntered into what he surmised was the tiny bathroom, and shut the door behind her.
“You’ll drain the caravan battery dry. Remember that when you’re sitting in the dark later.”
Reduced to yelling at her like a teenage boy—and back when he’d been a teenage boy, she hadn’t paid any attention to him then, either. Glen clenched his teeth together hard enough to practically snap his jawbone in half and stalked back to the house.
***
Glen sat on his deck with a beer-stein-size mug of coffee and brooded. Normally, he wasn’t a brooder. That was his brother’s way of dealing with stuff. Glen, like his dad, went and got things done. Fixed whatever bugged him.
But he couldn’t fix the annoyance of Savannah, who for the last two mornings blasted out at dawn the top one hundred hits of the world’s worst country music. So he’d been reduced to fuming and brooding about it while the sun peeped over the hill, sending shafts of rosy gold through the punga fronds and cabbage tree leaves, sparkling off the dew collecting on the deck’s railing. It was shaping up to be a blue-sky stunner of a spring day. A perfect day for getting another ten or more pages written.
Thankfully, his unwelcome neighbor turned her damn music off half an hour ago. He took another sip of coffee and rolled his tense shoulders forward. He’d suck it up and lose himself in the Forest of Knawth where his warlock was being tracked by blood thirsty demons. His fingers hovered over the keyboard, jiggling lightly as he tried to ignore the cheeky fantail darting down to snatch toast crumbs near his bare feet.
Know Your Heart: A New Zealand Enemies to Lovers Romance (Far North Series Book 2) Page 4