Silence throbbed between them, painful as a toothache. “I’m sorry, Savannah,” he added.
Glen didn’t have to spell out what he was sorry for; the pity was written in his softening gaze. She swallowed hard, stomach dipping in the elevator-plunging sensation she got every time she thought about her ex.
“You know about Liam?” Her voice sounded flat in her ears, as if every nuance of emotion had been sucked out. “Did Nate tell you afterwards how Liam…?” She couldn’t finish the rest of the sentence.
Glen gave the barest shake of his head. “I drew my own conclusions from what I know of your cousin, not from what crap the media hurled about—”
“Parasites.”
This earned her a fleeting smile. “Yeah.” His lips thinned again. “Nate was protecting you from your ex. Liam hurt you.”
It wasn’t a question.
“Yes. That time he left bruises. The other times didn’t show on my skin.” She tapped her forehead. “They were all up here”—and then her chest—“And in here.”
Savannah’s gaze slipped from the jerky shifting of his Adam’s apple to his long fingers, now clenched in a fist. A strand of silence twisted between them, harsh and cutting.
She moistened dry lips. “Nate didn’t tell you more when he came to see you that first day?”
“No. He only said you were a little vulnerable at the moment, asked me to, ah…” He scratched the back of his neck.
Oh, she got it. Nate had asked Glen to be gentle with his poor, spineless-as-a-jellyfish cousin. “He asked you to be nice to me?”
A shit, I’ve said too much noise rumbled deep in Glen’s throat.
“You know, I liked you a hell of a lot more twenty minutes ago than I do now.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” She met his gaze. “Because then you weren’t treating me like a porcelain doll who might shatter if you looked at it the wrong way. You’ve gone head-to-head with me, assuming I’m tough enough to take anything you dish out. So go back to the guy who kissed me without worrying I’d flinch or run away.”
Something flared hot and hungry in his gaze. “You like that guy, huh?”
“A little. But don’t get smug about it. You’re insufferable enough as it is.”
He released the parking brake and smoothly accelerated up the slight rise after the gate. “Can’t argue with that.”
“Insufferable, but kind of sweet to allow your sister-in-law to kick you out of your own home.”
Glen grimaced. “I’m not sweet. If I were sweet, I’d have stayed down there to help with the kids during the school holidays next week instead of just offering to take Erin’s teenager off her hands.”
Wait—what? He was planning to have a teenage houseguest?
“Your nephew’s coming here?”
“Yeah—Tom. He’s fifteen and a good kid, but he’s not coping well with his parents’ dramas. I told Erin he could stay with me. That way he’ll at least have a quiet place to study for his exams next term without his younger brothers bugging him.”
Well, hell. Wouldn’t that make her look like the Wicked Witch of the West if she continued to object to Glen being in her house? The deviousness of inviting his nephew to stay so she’d feel guilty was pure genius. Because how could she continue a campaign of terror when an innocent boy was involved?
But Glen had underestimated how distracting a fifteen-year-old roomie would be. The teenager might just do what she couldn’t.
Savannah bit off a smile and said sweetly, “Having three kids living with you must cramp your style when you have company over.”
Even in the dim dashboard light, the humor in his gaze was evident as it skimmed over her. “If you’re interested, you only have to ask if I’m single.”
The thing about being an actress is that her snappy comeback lines were scripted. Not so much in real life. Not when the man next to her made her feel hot-squishy-bellied one moment and biting on tin-foil the next. A rush of blood fired into her cheeks, and she angled her chin toward the passenger window.
“I am single, by the way,” he said in a just-so-you-know tone as they continued to drive. “I wouldn’t have kissed you otherwise.”
“You shouldn’t have kissed me,” she muttered. “You messed up everything.”
“Sometimes, messing things up is fun.” He turned onto the long driveway that led to her property.
Fun? A fun kiss, was it? The kind you shared at a New Year’s Eve party at midnight if you happened to be there solo and a good-looking man was next to you. That was a fun kiss. Obviously, the world-rocking, axle-shifting, can’t-remember-my-name kiss she’d just experienced had been one-sided.
The moment the car drew to a stop outside her house, she unbuckled her safety belt and bolted. Manners hammered into her by her mother forced her to turn back before she slammed the car door. “Thanks for the interesting afternoon. Since you won’t let me in the house, give Nate a call, please? Let him know we’re back.”
“Sure.” He scraped a hand over his hair, crinkling his nose as a few granules of sand drifted onto his shirt. “Right before I have a long, hot soak in the tub.”
All sorts of images popped into her head at that, but the most tempting was not of Glen’s soaped-up, naked body, but the thought of an endless hot water supply.
Bastard.
“Don’t fall asleep then, sweetie,” she said with slitted eyes. “I’d hate for you to drown.” Then she slammed the door shut and stalked around the car.
“Goodnight, Savannah.”
His voice was muffled inside the car, but it was still sexy enough to light a slow-burning fuse inside her.
Bastard.
Chapter 6
A week later, Glen hit the road to Bounty Bay to collect his new housemate.
Glen sighed at his nephew’s thousand-yard stare partially obscured by the black hoodie pulled low over his face. The boy leaned against the bus depot wall like a gangly grim reaper, a floral suitcase and a guitar case at his feet.
Huh. Glen hadn’t realized his nephew played. Last he’d heard, it was mandatory piano lessons for Tom, cello for Reece, and the baby, Mikey, just started with a teeny-tiny violin. Jamie bought into the whole “correlation between musical training and improved executive function in children”. Or some over-achieving shit like that. Glen couldn’t imagine a guitar featuring as a suitable instrument in Jamie’s world view.
“Hey, Tommy,” Glen said as he approached. “Good trip?”
“Awesome.” Tom, as was usual these last couple of years, looked deliriously happy to see his uncle. Not. The boy’s gaze flicked from Glen’s face back to his smartphone. “And it’s Tom, not Tommy. Last time I checked I wasn’t twelve anymore.”
Last time Glen checked, he hadn’t wanted to kick his nephew’s sarcastic, back-talking ass, either. Still, the boy’d had a sucktastic couple of weeks.
“Right. Tom, then.” Glen grabbed the handle of the suitcase, catching Tom’s wince of teenage embarrassment. “Nice suitcase.”
Tom’s pained look implied how much he suffered with his uncle’s delusional wit.
“Your mum’s?” Glen asked.
“Yup.” Tom picked up his guitar case. “It was the flowery one or the pink one. She gave me the look and told me to man up and just pick.”
Dragging the suitcase toward his car, Glen looked over his shoulder at Tom, trudging at least four steps behind. “Tough choice, but you made the right call.”
Glen opened the SUV and hauled the case inside the back, turning with a grin that showed a lot of tooth. “The blue flowers match your eyes.”
With a kill-me-now eye roll, Tom carefully transferred the guitar into the backseat. He slid into the car and kept his hood-covered head pointed out the passenger window.
Glen resisted an eye roll of his own as he started the engine. Yup. His fifteen-year-old nephew was the spitting image of himself at the same age. Forty minutes of fun times ahead on the drive back home.
By the time Glen locked the gate after them on the private road, he’d all but given up making conversation. Tom hadn’t moved from his hunched position in the passenger seat. Every question Glen asked was dutifully answered in a multi-choice of monosyllabic words including: good, yup, nope, okay, maybe, and, it sucks. The longest conversation Tom voluntarily participated in was about his guitar.
“You play the guitar now, Tom?”
“Yup.”
“What kind? Electric? Acoustic? Classical?”
“Acoustic. Some electric.”
“Are you taking lessons at school?”
“Yup.”
“You any good?”
“Hell, yeah.”
Glen grinned as they passed Nate and Lauren’s house, a spiral of smoke coming out of their chimney. He’d let the boy cook up some S’mores tonight in Sav’s fireplace.
“You in a band?” he asked.
This garnered a little more reaction. The boy’s shoulders hunched higher, closer to where Glen imagined Tom’s ears to be beneath the hood.
“Yeah.” A drawn out pause. Tom shifted in his seat to meet Glen’s eyes. “But you can’t tell my dad. He’ll make me quit.”
The hopelessness in his nephew’s tone was a barbed arrow tip to the heart. Glen had only been a little older than Tom when his father crushed his dreams of becoming a writer. Glen shifted down a gear to make the final hill leading to the house.
“He won’t hear it from—”
“Who is that?” Tom’s voice, still in the throes of adolescent breaking, squeaked as loudly as a rusty screen door.
Tom’s black hoodie craned toward the windshield. They’d crested the hill, and there was Savannah, dressed in black running leggings and a loose tank over her skin-tight, boob-enhancing pink sports top. She continued away from them on the side of the road, her butt jiggling prettily as she ran.
“That’s Savannah. The lady whose house I’m renting.”
The lady in question paused and turned toward them, the gusty wind whipping her ponytail around her face.
Tom shoved a hand in the kangaroo pocket of his hoodie and dug around with frantic movements, until at last he yanked out a pair of glasses, jamming them onto his face so fast it was a wonder he didn’t poke out an eye.
“Holy shit,” he breathed. “That’s Savannah Payne!” His bugged eyes behind the lenses made him look all of twelve again. “You’re renting her house? She’s living there with you?”
Glen pulled over and buzzed down his window. “Yes, I’m renting her house. No, she’s not living with me. She’s staying in a caravan on the property. And put your tongue back in your mouth before she sees it falling onto your knees.”
Savannah ducked her head to peer inside the car, giving a little wave. “Hi.”
Even with damp strands of hair clinging to her brow, she made sweaty and disheveled sexy. A generous eyeful of cleavage appeared above the pink top’s neckline, causing moisture to evaporate from Glen’s mouth. He had to swirl his tongue around his mouth twice to gather enough spit to talk without croaking.
“Hey,” he managed. “Savannah, this is my nephew, Tom. Tom, this is our temporary neighbor, Ms. Payne.”
“Hi, Ms. Payne,” Tom said, sounding like the class suck-up addressing his teacher.
Savannah switched her gaze to a point past Glen’s shoulder. “It’s lovely to meet you, Tom. Please don’t call me Ms. Payne; it’s Savannah. Your stick-in-the-mud uncle can call me Ms. though.”
“Okay…Savannnnnah.”
Glen whipped his head around to stink-eye his nephew. Gone was the hood tugged low over the boy’s face. Gone was the defiant slouch and defensive posture. Now, a different kid sat in the passenger seat. One with bright eyes, artfully mussed hair, a puffed out chest and a blinding white smile. Not a glimpse of surliness in sight.
Funny that.
And Glen’d wager his next pay check the kid sported the mother of all boners under that baggy sweatshirt. Somehow, when he’d invited his nephew up for two weeks, he’d forgotten fifteen-year-old boys were walking erections at that age. At the time, he hadn’t expected Savannah to last more than three days max. But she’d lasted nearly two weeks total, including the seven days after he’d kissed her.
Seven more days of waking up to country music’s most annoying hits—though high caffeine levels helped his body clock adjust, plus he got a boatload of work done early every morning now. Seven days sitting on the couch with laptop balanced on his knees so he didn’t have to witness her yoga workout. Seven days of flinching each time he glimpsed the growing army of lawn ornaments strategically placed around her caravan. She had a butt-ugly family of gnomes, for God’s sake. Gnomes and two bright-pink flamingos staked into the ground.
A campaign of passive-aggressive tackiness.
“Well, have fun, guys. See you back at the house.” She turned a sharp smile on Glen. A smile that zipped straight to his groin. He shifted uncomfortably on the seat.
“Yeah.” He buzzed up his window and slowly edged the car away from her so he wouldn’t kick up chips of gravel.
Picking up speed, Glen couldn’t resist a glance in the side mirror. Two perfect breasts bobbed enticingly as Savannah resumed jogging.
Holy shit, indeed.
“Man,” Tom said as her reflection grew smaller. “I would so be tapping that if I were you.”
“Hey.” Without taking his eyes off the road, Glen reached over and lightly smacked his nephew’s head. “You don’t talk about her, or any other woman, like that. Got me?”
“But she’s smokin’.”
“She’s also a nice lady, like your mum. Or your Aunt Grace.” He turned into the driveway.
“Savannah is nothing like Mum or Aunt Grace.”
“Remember what happened that time when you were ten and your mum made you go clothes shopping with her and Aunt Grace?”
“Ugh. Do you have to remind me?”
“You got tired of waiting, so you told them the jeans they were trying on made their bums look like they had two watermelons stuck in them.”
“I’d seen it on TV.” Tom’s shoulders hunched again and his voice had lost some of its teenage attitude. “I thought it was funny and they’d laugh about it.”
Glen said nothing, just continued to drive.
“I heard Aunt Grace sniffing in the changing room. I made her cry.”
Glen parked in front of the house. “Savannah is like your mum and your aunt. I know she’s pretty. I know she’s famous. But she’s a real person with feelings, and like any woman, she deserves your respect.”
“Do you respect her?”
There was no challenge in his nephew’s voice, just curiosity. Glen gripped the steering wheel and drummed his fingers. In spite of everything—her pink flamingos and on-tap sassiness, her country music and a body that drove him nuts—he respected her never-say-die spirit.
“Yeah, I do.”
A glimmer of a smile touched Tom’s lips as he glanced out the windshield. “How about her taste in decorating? You respect that?”
Glen laughed and ruffled Tom’s hair, earning him a mock glare. “Absolutely freakin’ not. Now, how ‘bout an ice cold Coke while I show you around?”
“Okay. And food.” Tom cranked open the door. “I’m starved.”
***
Coke and a sandwich crossed off the list, Glen and Tom went outside to unload the SUV. Tom left the floral suitcase for Glen and slid out his guitar with the delicate hands of a surgeon performing brain-surgery. Glen hauled out the suitcase, turning to Tom’s shifty-eyed shuffling.
“I forgot my backpack,” he said. “It’s got all my study stuff in it.”
“You forgot it where?” Glen asked.
“Bounty Bay, I guess.”
“You guess you left your backpack at the bus depot?”
“Yup.” Tom didn’t sound apologetic.
Glen dug in his pocket for his keys, shoving his irritation aside. Could’ve been Auckland, so no big deal. �
�Let’s go get it, then.”
Tom gave him both barrels of teenage ‘tude. “Why can’t I stay here? I’m fifteen. It’s not like I need a baby sitter.”
“Let me get this straight. You stay here and make goo-goo eyes at my neighbor”—he gestured toward Savannah, outside her caravan with her back to them, stretching her hamstrings—“while I make the round trip to the depot to pick up a bag you forgot?”
“It was an accident.”
“You accidentally left your bag of school books behind, but remembered your guitar?”
“Yup.”
“Is everything okay?” Savannah had wandered over, her gaze switching between Tom and Glen.
“We’re fine. Tom left his backpack in town, so we’re heading off to collect it.” He’d hoped to squeeze in a couple of hours writing since his morning had been disrupted with housework and making up the futon couch in the office for Tom. Now he’d another long drive on his hands.
“Oh.” She dabbed her brow with the small towel draped around her neck. “These things happen. I’m sure the staff will be keeping it safe.”
She dazzled Tom with a smile, and he gave her a star-struck goofy grin in return.
“Right.” Glen skirted around her and opened the driver’s door. “Let’s hit the road.”
It wasn’t until he’d driven out to the locked gate that Glen discovered he’d left his wallet containing his driver’s license behind. He swore and turned around, Tom wisely keeping his mouth zipped shut. Slowing down as he reached Nate and Lauren’s house, Glen spotted Drew and Nate—his friend shouldering a small load of lumber and Drew reverently carrying a tool box.
Impulsively, because he now felt like a dick for making Tom come into town, he said, “You want to hang out with Nate and his boy? Looks like they’re working on their tree house.”
“I guess.”
But Tom quickly unclipped his safety belt.
Glen buzzed down his window as they drew alongside. After checking Tom was welcome to stay, he killed the engine and hopped out. Nate directed them to the remaining pile of wood, and Glen helped transfer it to the base of a puriri tree ready for construction. With a wave and a promise to pick up Tom on the return trip, Glen drove toward home.
Know Your Heart: A New Zealand Enemies to Lovers Romance (Far North Series Book 2) Page 10