Man About the House

by Alison Kelly

  He didn’t know what events had led up to Joanna being in this less than sparkling state of health; there was no sign of her Porsche-driving escort and she wasn’t making much sense.

  ‘I...I’s not dunk,’ she continued insisting as he carried her into the house. ‘Don’t dink. S’never dink.’

  ‘Well, then, princess, I guess you must be having an allergic reaction to that Jack Daniel’s you wear as perfume, ’cause it’s sure as hell making my eyes water.’

  She frowned up at him. ‘Jack? Hoosh Jack?’

  ‘Someone you weren’t ready to take on, that’s for sure.’

  Despite the limpness of her body she was light as a feather, and for an instant Brett considered carrying her down the hall to the bathroom and shoving her under a shower fully clothed. It wasn’t as if she wasn’t already half drenched and in need of warming up, but she was snuggled against him in such a damn trusting way he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Instead, he stopped at the bedroom door and bent his knees so he could open the door without dropping her in the process; the handle, though, gave a useless half-turn, indicating it was locked.

  ‘Hell.’ He sighed heavily and felt the echo of a softer one as the body in his arms nestled closer. Even smelling like a brewery, with her long black hair a damp tangle and black tear-tracks streaking her face, she possessed an ethereal beauty that inspired protective instincts only Karessa had previously managed to provoke. If he could get her into her room and convince her to get out of her wet clothes and have a shower, she’d be in good enough shape for him to leave her and let her sleep it off.

  ‘Joanna... Joanna, I’m going to put you down and—’

  Her arms tightened around his neck. ‘No. Shleep...I’m ashleep.’

  ‘No, you’re not, honey,’ he said, fighting laughter and the stranglehold she had on him. ‘You’re what’s commonly known as tanked to the gills.’

  ‘Fank oooo,’ she mumbled. ‘You...nice.’

  Shaking his head at her inebriated agreeability, he used his left arm to haul her tighter against his chest for stability while his right forearm supported her lower body in such a way that his hand was free to blindly grab the door handle. His height, the bundle in his arms and the low position of the handle made it something of a juggling act, but fortunately long familiarity with the intricate lock mechanism worked in his favour.

  He nudged the door wide with his foot, then used his elbow to flick the light switch on the architrave. Immediately the woman in his arms gave a yelp, and buried her face into his shoulder.

  ‘Sorry, but if you think that’s bad, waking up tomorrow is going to feel like you’re staring directly into the sun.’ He stood for a moment, scanning the room, and decided he could do without emptying the assorted stuffed animals from the wicker chaise in the comer, which meant the bed was the only other place to put her.

  Crossing to the broderie anglaise-covered bed, he lowered her to her feet, intending to pull back the comforter. But before he could act on the thought she emitted a delighted whimper and lurched towards it so fast she nearly pulled him down onto it too. He managed to brace himself on the bedhead, and when her arms could no longer maintain the effort of stretching up around his neck, she slumped back onto the mattress.

  And this had seemed like a two-second rescue job when he’d started it!

  He shook her shoulder. ‘C’mon, Joanna, your clothes are wet. You can’t go to sleep in them.’

  ‘Yesh...shleep. I wanna go...shleep.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m sure you do. But you have to change into something else first.’

  She pushed him away when he endeavoured to sit her up. ‘Shleep,’ she mumbled, rolling sideways to embrace the . pillow on the other side of the bed.

  ‘Damn,’ he breathed. Trying to coax her into compliance would be a waste of breath, since neither her current comprehension or co-ordination gave him a hope in hell of success. Which meant he either had to let her sleep in clothes that were wet and grubby enough to support incineration over washing or...undress her himself. If Meaghan hadn’t been going away for the weekend he’d have taken great delight in calling at—he glanced at his watch—twenty to one in the morning and asking if the ‘hands off instruction she’d issued about his housemate extended to the point of letting her risk pneumonia.

  Looking down at the motionless, bedraggled form on the bed, he resigned himself to the fact he couldn’t in good conscience just leave her as she was, but dealing with the situation wasn’t going to be easy.

  Toni had always insisted that a pair of jeans didn’t fit right unless you had to lie down on a bed to get into them and then use a coat hanger hook to zip them up. Apparently Joanna adhered to the same fashion philosophy, because had the jeans she was wearing hugged her any tighter they’d have cut off her circulation. Dry, they’d have been tough enough to get off; damp, they were going to be a nightmare. Although executing that particular task was going to be a whole lot easier on his nerves than ridding her of the Lycra knit bodysuit she wore under them, because that was more than wet and tight enough to tell him she was sans bra.

  Damn.

  He raked his hair in frustration, then grabbed her bootshod foot and gave it a hard shake. ‘Hoy! Joanna! C’mon, wake up!’

  No response. He repeated the action, this time with more vigour and a raised voice. ‘Hoy! Wake up!’

  The futility of the exercise didn’t take long to register. The next time Brett grabbed her ankle it was to start unlacing the trendy pseudo-army boots she wore. If his putting her to bed meant Joanna would suffer severe embarrassment as well as a terminal hangover in the morning... well, damn it, she had no one to blame but herself for getting into this state in the first place!

  CHAPTER THREE

  BRETT climbed the steep stone steps rising from the beach to the grassed area that his mother always referred to as ‘the backyard’. It was, in fact, only a small patch of painstakingly laid and maintained lawn which people failed to notice because it was overwhelmed by the sweeping Pacific view beyond it. For Brett it was the pristine sand and thick rolling waves of Whale Beach which had been his true backyard growing up. There’d only been a handful of days from the time he was ten until he was nineteen that he hadn’t felt the urge to grab his board for a quick surf even if the waves weren’t ideal.

  Today, having woken to discover a surf breaking to near perfection thanks to a pre-dawn storm, the fact he was thirty-four and it was smack in the middle of winter hadn’t mattered a whit. Of course, after about twenty minutes, when the initial adrenalin rush of making a ride all the way to the beach on his first choice of wave had worn off, cold and old age had started to prove a diabolical combination. Not his age, of course, but the wetsuit he’d fished out of his wardrobe was about thirteen years old; as insulation it was as useful as a screen door on a submarine.

  He laughed aloud when he caught himself giving his most beloved tri-fin an affectionate pat as he leaned it against the wall of the laundry, yet in that instant he knew that even though he’d come to no firm decisions about his professional future he’d made the right personal one in coming home. He’d missed this...really missed it. Oh, sure, he could’ve surfed in California, and on occasion he had, but somehow it suddenly seemed more natural, indeed essential that the rest of his life be spent seeing the sun rising over the Pacific rather than setting on it.

  Reaching behind his neck, he snared the plaited tail of the wetsuit’s zip and was tugging it down when a startled yelp behind him caused him to almost leap free of the clinging latex.

  ‘Lord, Joanna! You frightened the life out of me.’ His heart was still beating out of whack. ‘You always sneak up on people like that?’

  ‘I... I...I’m sorry. I didn’t realise you were home.’ She was hugging a pile of bedding and looking everywhere but at him. ‘I...er...just wanted to use the washing machine. But it’s okay. It can wait. I’ll do it later.’

  When she went to dart from the room, Brett snagged her arm. ‘Whoa, th
ere. Contrary to whatever stories you’ve heard, I don’t bite.’

  Though she stilled, her head was downcast, and he used his free hand to tilt it. The minute their eyes made contact she flushed the most vivid red Brett had ever seen and he couldn’t help smiling. ‘Now your skin matches the red lines in your eyes.’

  If possible she turned even redder. With the exception of last night, when she’d been totally plastered, whenever she was around him Joanna Ford acted as if she was being asked to deal with an alien. It put an irritating dent in his ego, since women usually made no secret of the fact they enjoyed his attention.

  ‘So, how are you feeling this morning?’ he asked. ‘And if you say anything but “half-dead”, I’m not going to believe it.’

  Her tongue came out to graze her lip a split second before she spoke, so mesmerising Brett that it took him several seconds to realise he hadn’t heard her response. Releasing her chin, he shook his head to clear it. ‘Sorry...what?’

  The sigh she gave was so heavy he regarded it a disguised blessing she was still hugging the laundry. Considering his lower body was clad in a wetsuit, the less he was reminded of the fact she even had breasts the better off he’d bel

  She’d been out cold when he’d finally summoned the courage to strip her wet top from her last night, but, as swift and circumspect as he’d endeavoured to be in averting his gaze, images of their translucent white firmness and cherry-red peaks had tormented him for the better part of the night.

  ‘I said...I’m mortified about what happened last night.’

  Her voice was slightly shaky and her knuckles whitened as she tightened her grip on the wad of bedding. She swallowed hard before continuing, ‘I don’t remember much, except being sick and you talking to me, then helping me inside. I’m sorry you had to find me like that... I know how...how revolting it is to see someone vomit, and I want you to know I appreciate you staying with me and taking care of me.’

  It irked the hell out of him that while the tone of her apology was polite and sincere she’d delivered it without once looking at him. He didn’t know if she realised he’d been the one to undress her, but suspected she didn’t; her embarrassment didn’t seem that extreme.

  ‘Listen, Joanna, I realise getting drunk and pulling a hangover can blur the brain a bit, but it wasn’t the washing machine who carried you inside and tucked you into bed.’ His bored tone had her head swinging around to him and her mouth opening and closing like a beached fish.

  Eventually she managed a sound. A loud, indignant sound. ‘I was not drunk!’ The declaration was immediately followed by a painful grimace that called her a liar.

  ‘Sweetheart,’ he said through a chuckle, ‘if they took blood from you now, they could sell it as eighty proof.’

  ‘I tell you, I don’t drink. I didn’t have anything last night but punch and cola.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ He didn’t bother to hide either his scepticism or amusement at her straight-faced avowal. ‘And I suppose you don’t have a hangover this morning either, even though you look like death warmed up.’

  ‘Having never been drunk, I don’t have the slightest idea what a hangover is,’ she told him, devoid of all trace of the previous shyness she’d exhibited around him. ‘And if I look a bit off colour it’s because I’m obviously coming down with some kind of flu.’

  She was absolutely serious, Brett realised. She truly believed she was feeling the way she did because she was getting a bug. Meaghan had said she was naive, but this... Hell, it was criminal to let someone as innocent as Joanna Ford out alone!

  ‘The flu, huh?’ he said casually. ‘Running a temperature?’

  ‘No, but I think the aspirin I took earlier is keeping it at bay.’

  ‘And the aspirin was for...let me guess...that mild headache you have?’

  ‘There’s nothing mild about it. It feels like—’

  ‘Like your skull is being split in two from the inside?’ he inserted, knowingly. ‘Except, of course, when a raised voice, a slammed door or even a sneeze makes it seem like someone is using a jackhammer to clear your sinuses.’

  Thick black lashes blinked over surprised turquoise eyes. ‘Well, yes...I guess that’s one way of putting it,’ she conceded, her tone tinged with the same hint of doubt that was beginning to show in her wan-looking face.

  Brett gave a sage nod and went on. ‘And I’d say the odds would be in the red that, despite the fact you’ve probably brushed your teeth three or four times now, your mouth still feels like it’s coated with old cotton wool that’s been dipped in vinegar and rolled in sand. Oh, and your stomach probably feels like it’s going to cave in too, but the mere thought of actually introducing food to it makes it start recoiling in dread.’

  He raised an eyebrow at her ever-increasing frown. ‘How’s Dr Brett’s description of your symptoms so far? Ah, yes...and shaking your head hurts,’ he added, seeing her grimace after doing so.

  ‘Well?’ he prodded.

  ‘That’s what a hangover feels like?’

  ‘Yep, ’fraid so.’ As concern battled with confusion for dominance in her pretty face Brett wished he’d been a little less smug. “I know it’s small consolation right now,’ he said, ‘but you aren’t the first person to have one, Joanna.’

  ‘But my stomach doesn’t feel like you said,’ she told him, in a grasping-at-straws tone.

  ‘Ahh,’ he said sagely. ‘Then you’re obviously what I call a cast-iron gut drunk,’ he told her, softening the description with a smile. ‘The majority of hangover victims, myself included, cannot look at anything even remotely greasy the morning after. But there’s a second category who swear ingesting as much cholesterol-laden food as quickly as possible restores them to a reasonable facsimile of health.’ He grinned. ‘My bet is you’re in the latter category and that you’re craving...oh, say, a big plate of bacon and eggs? Or maybe a nice, thick juicy hamburger?’

  He allowed himself a smug chuckle as her expression came close to a drool. ‘Tell you what, you put those sheets in the machine while I go get dressed, then meet me in the kitchen.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it just so happens I’m the cure for your hangover,’ he said, returning to the task of peeling off his wetsuit. ‘I happen to cook the best damned bacon and eggs you’ll ever taste.’

  ‘You can’t do that while I’m here!’ The adamant declaration surprised him.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t expect you to do all the cooking.’

  ‘I mean you can’t just take your clothes off like that!’

  Take my—’

  There was no containing his amusement once he’d caught on to where she was coming from, but he sobered quickly when she dumped the bedding onto the floor and pivoted towards the door. Acting purely on instinct, he threw out an arm, barring her escape; he instantly regretted the action when fear flared in those gorgeous eyes.

  ‘It’s okay, Joanna,’ he said hurriedly. ‘I’m dressed. That is, I’ve got a pair of swimmers underneath.’ Once again she flushed pink.

  A week ago he’d have sworn blushing had been entirely bred out of the last few generations of females, but Joanna Ford was a real revelation. A very attractive, very sexy revelation. It was clear she didn’t know what to say or where to look. Or rather, she was working hard to look at everything bar his bare chest, to which she was currently close enough for him to feel the warmth of her stuttered, ‘Oh. Well... I...’

  The husky quality of her uncertain whisper sparked interest in muscles of Brett’s body which in the wake of the emotional workout Toni had given him weren’t supposed to be looking for exercise. They especially weren’t supposed to be motivated by a petite twenty-two-year-old with more curves than common sense and a way of nibbling her mouth that made a man want to say, Hey...taste mine.

  When she did eventually bring her gaze to his face, her demeanour of shy expectation as she slowly slipped a strand of silky jet hair behind her ear almost made him groan. Had any other woman looked
at him like that he’d have read it as a come on and accepted the invitation. Hell, he wanted to accept it now! Trouble was, as difficult as it was to believe, he doubted Joanna had a clue about the signals she was emitting.

  Deciding they both needed space Brett lowered his arm and stepped back. Producing what he hoped was a reassuring smile, he excused himself and headed to the bathroom.

  Brett heard her enter the kitchen scant seconds before a soft, awed voice officially announced her. ‘You really can cook.’

  ‘You seem surprised.’ He spared her a quick glance. ‘Can’t you?’

  ‘Can’t I what?’

  ‘Cook.’

  Her laugh was incredulous. ‘Of course I can. I’ve just never met a man who could.’

  ‘Then you must’ve met a lot of useless, skinny, hungry men.’ His teasing comment limped into an awkward silence.

  The way she was fidgeting with the carton of eggs lying on the benchtop hinted at her still being uncomfortable in his presence, for which Brett was grateful. It meant she’d be too distracted to notice any semblance of unease he might display, because there was no denying this girl seriously raised the level of his awareness meter. In the half-hour or so since their earlier encounter, she’d donned make-up and a trendy trouser suit and it irritated him. To his way of thinking, the sexy fashion-plate image constituted false advertising by promising things that were way out of this kid’s league and strictly off limits to him. Sans make-up, dressed in the blue jeans and sweatshirt of earlier, she’d been less of a threat to his good intentions by at least looking as innocent and unworldly as she so obviously was. Now she looked as if she not only knew the score but wanted the role of captain-coach in the game.