To Wear His Ring

by Diana Palmer

  She stared back, trying to think of something to say. Her train of thought was completely attuned to the rhythm of his heart under her hand. And the warmth of his skin under the shirt invited each of her fingers to flex and flatten out, pressing fractionally closer.

  “You okay? What did he…?”

  Lucy gingerly took control of herself, lifting her hand off his chest. “He was just being vulgar.” She started to walk in the direction he’d come from. “Come on, they’ll be wondering.”

  Ethan’s hand landed on her arm, the same arm. His grip was gentle, but his voice was not. “Lucy.”

  She tensed, inhaling deeply. This had to be handled with a light touch. She had no idea what that man had wanted with Tom, but her gut feeling was it had something to do with money.

  Turning slowly to face him, she looked pointedly at his hand on her arm. “Gosh, it’s my week for being manhandled.” With satisfaction, she saw his eyes narrow at the coolness she’d imparted.

  There were people everywhere, pushing impatiently to get to their seats. Ethan guided her determinedly to the side of the thoroughfare. When her back was against the wall, he leaned in close. His hands were on the wall on either side of her, cutting off her escape, but he did not touch her.

  “What was that about?” His voice was low and tense.

  Lucy quailed when she saw how tightly reined he was; his jaw was clamped, his eyes flashing. Why he was angry with her? “It was nothing.”

  His breath puffed over her face. “Ex-boyfriend?”

  She shuddered. “No.”

  “His hands were on you.”

  She saw then it was not her he was angry with. God help Joseph Dunn if Ethan stumbled across him tonight. “As were yours, yesterday morning,” she said carefully.

  As a distraction, it worked. He shifted slightly, leaning on his arms, and his eyes slid down to her lips. A breathless shiver of excitement fizzed through her. Her fingers curled in remembrance of his heartbeat.

  He was thinking of their morning kiss, as she was.

  “Did I bully you yesterday morning?” he asked softly, and brought his eyes back to hers.

  Smouldering voice. Smouldering eyes. Desire, not just excitement or anticipation but hot, flowing, kneetrembling desire rolled through every cell of her. And he saw it, recognized it. She saw his pupils dilate, his lips part slightly, and Lucy had to fight not to sag against him, helpless with longing.

  And then the stadium erupted. Loudspeakers, applause, music rushed into the vacuum between them and sanity returned. Lucy shook her head and ducked quickly under his arm. “Forget it. Let’s go.” She made a timely escape, breathing deeply.

  Ethan straightened. Following, he glared at the sea of people, as if to pick out the obnoxious man. “What did he want with your brother?”

  She could not escape him; his long legs ate up the ground. “My brother? I told you, he was just trying it on. We’ll miss kick-off.”

  She flicked him a nervous look and knew he saw right through her lie. He must have heard the man.

  He moved to her side and put his arm through hers decisively. “You’ll tell me later.”

  It sounded like a threat but she was somehow soothed by the touch of his arm running the length of hers.

  This was a revelation. He was being protective, even territorial, of her. A champion. That was a first, ever since she’d been a kid, anyway. It was hard to know how to feel about it. No doubt she’d be called to account at some stage. By then, she hoped she’d have thought up something to distract him.

  Several distractions went through her mind over the course of the game. The corporate box catered for about twenty but seemed to be well over-subscribed tonight. Magnus and Juliette had managed to snare a leaner and some stools right in front of the big glass doors, but it was a crush. Stuck in between Magnus and Ethan, she wrapped her arms around her torso and tried to diminish her size.

  It was no good. The whole of her right leg was pressed up against his left. She felt on fire all down that side. If she moved to sip her drink, her elbow touched him. If he half turned to exchange a word with Magnus, his breath lifted strands of her hair. If she leaned forward to talk to Juliette, he seemed to fill the space behind so she could not lean back without touching him.

  This attraction was fast becoming overwhelming, especially since her skin—her very nerve endings—were already sensitized by their altercation earlier. She was totally aware of every breath he took. Of every muscle in his long, taut thigh pressed against hers. He had rolled his shirt sleeves up a little and her eyes strayed, time and again, to the coffee-colored skin of his forearm with its sprinkling of springy-looking dark hair, and to his hands—long-fingered and spread wide on his thighs.

  Worst of all was his reaction to the accidental touches. A stillness which told her more than the many three-second meetings of their eyes. A stillness that seemed to pass from him into her. An awareness of each other breathing, moving, just being. They spoke hardly at all, and the silences were fraught with a constant hum of excitement and perplexity.

  What a relief to finally leave the small area and lose herself in other people again, although Ethan stuck quite close to her this time.

  The crowd was in high spirits as they swept onto the streets. The plan was that Lucy would drop the Australians at their central hotel, go back to the apartment and change and meet them at the new jazz restaurant she’d booked, by ten or ten-thirty.

  But when they came to the spot where Tom’s SUV should have been, it was nowhere to be seen. Lucy knew she’d left it right here; she recalled seeing the black balloons fastened to the lamppost right beside where she’d parked.

  Where a green Toyota now sat. She shook her head. “Good grief, it must be the next street over.”

  “Look.” Juliette was looking at the ground, moving the toe of her expensive boot over the road. “Glass.”

  Ethan crouched. “Broken car-window glass.” He picked up a fragment. “Someone broke into it and drove it away.”

  “I don’t believe it.” Lucy squatted beside him, rummaging in her bag for her phone. She was hot with embarrassment. What a great impression of her city this would leave on the visitors. “I’ll call a cab.”

  It was handy having a few connections in the tourist business and five minutes or so later, a corporate cab pulled up alongside.

  When they reached the hotel, Ethan got out to let Magnus and Juliette out and then insisted, despite her objections, on accompanying her to the police station.

  Half an hour later, they were still in the queue and she was still objecting. It was a busy Saturday night with an assortment of drunks, assaults and reports of thefts to entertain them. Finally they stood in front of a young policeman and Lucy outlined why they were there.

  “Fill this in.” A form was placed on the counter. Her heart sank. Filling in forms on the spot with people watching—him watching—was as much fun as being in the dentist’s chair. Both men’s eyes on her, she picked up the pen and frowned down at the paper. Her face felt hot. The text in front of her danced behind her eyes.

  “Registration number?” the officer inquired, tapping his keyboard.

  Lucy wished the ground would open up and swallow her. In times of stress, her dyslexia was exacerbated. She knew there was nothing wrong with her intellect, just the way her brain processed words and figures.

  Right. And it didn’t matter how often she heard those words, or read the literature from well-meaning disability learning centers. She felt so dumb, having to punch her PIN number in three times at the front of a queue, putting numbers back to front. Names, too—if she was given a written message to call someone she didn’t know called Joe Brown, Lucy was likely to say, “Is that Brown Joe?” when the called person answered.

  Then she felt Ethan’s fingers cover hers, easing the pen from her iron grip.

  “Call Tom,” he murmured, his lips brushing her ear and making her shiver.

  Vastly relieved, she pressed the speed d
ial on her phone. Tom answered on the third ring. Quickly she explained the situation and requested the car registration number.

  Tom didn’t respond. Someone in the queue behind muttered loudly about the time they were taking.

  “Tom?” The growing worry must not show in her voice. Not with him standing there.

  “I forgot to register it.”

  “What? When?” Her voice was low, her face turned away to hide her confusion.

  Tom sighed heavily. “Last year.”

  “Last year?” She swallowed a very unladylike oath, snapped the phone off and slowly turned back to the cop, unwilling to face Ethan. “It appears he forgot to register it.”

  The cop looked disgusted.

  “But you can still look for it, can’t you?”

  From the corner of her eye she saw Ethan lay the pen carefully on the counter and lift the form. His hand landed lightly on her shoulder. “I’d say your credibility’s shot,” he told her quietly. Turning, he coaxed her toward the exit, crumpling the form into a ball. They moved outside, Lucy glad of the cool night air on her burning face. Sighing miserably, she sank down on the bottom step leading into the station. Ethan remained standing, leaning against the wall of the building.

  Lucy stared at his feet. “I can read and write, you know. It’s just when I’m not prepared or people are watching, I get flustered.”

  He did not answer and she shot a look at his face. His expression was serious and concerned.

  Then he moved, startling her. “Shove up.” He sat down. “What was the name of the guy at the stadium?”

  “I—don’t know,” she lied and then put her head in her hands. What was going on with Tom? They’d never been close, but they were family. His recent moods and the problems he kept alluding to were beginning to really worry her.

  “Why are you covering up for him?”

  “Who?”

  “Your brother.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Lucy, he sent clients out in an unregistered vehicle, which was subsequently stolen, probably by a disgruntled associate.”

  “We don’t know that.”

  “I heard the guy. He’d seen the car and you’re to tell Tom he’s looking for him.”

  Could this night get any worse? Lucy searched the streets, trying desperately to think of a way to deflect him. “My, Grandma. What big ears you have.”

  They were interrupted by a couple trying to pass. Ethan rose and Lucy pressed close to the railing to let them through. He put his hands in his pockets and stared down at her. “What sort of trouble is Tom in?”

  She pushed herself to her feet. “He’s not. Let’s get to the restaurant. You’ve wasted enough time on me tonight.”

  He just stood there, looking at her. “I have time to waste.”

  Silence, and that peculiar stillness, rolled between them. After the evening spent pressed up against him, being so aware of him, and being in no doubt that he felt the same, it was tempting, so tempting, to give in, twine her arms around his neck and forget her problems for the rest of this night.

  She was experiencing this way too much today. It was hard to recall they had met only a couple of days earlier. There was a familiarity and intensity that was usually reserved for more…intimate acquaintances.

  Breaking eye contact, she took the last step down. “Ethan, I’m sure that person had nothing to do with the car. But I’ll tell Tom, and then it’s his decision if he wants to involve the police. Satisfied?”

  Her pulse leapt when he sought her eyes and swept her with a rare, reluctant smile, his dark brows arched.

  Lucy shook her head and began to walk away from temptation.

  His voice behind her made her check. “One condition.”

  She looked back over her shoulder at him.

  “Magnus and Juliette are on their honeymoon.” He drew level with her. “So let’s you and I leave them to it and have a drink.”

  Chapter Five

  “Unless,” he continued, “you’d rather go home.”

  Lucy blinked at him, swallowing hard. Images of being alone together, enclosed within four walls, with a bed not too far away, leapt between them.

  “Uh—I think there’s a bar around here somewhere.” Her eyes slid away and he smiled. A drink would do, for now.

  They jostled their way to the bar at a noisy pub a couple of blocks away. The only perch was outside, leaning on a forty-four-gallon barrel with the smokers, nursing their beers. Ethan pulled his jacket closer around his neck.

  “Shouldn’t you call Magnus and tell them not to wait for us?”

  Ethan shook his head. He’d already told Magnus that when they’d dropped them off. Reporting a crime on a Saturday night when there was a big game on in town would have been a long job.

  Lucy was quiet, and, although he badly wanted to know what was going on with her brother, he thought he’d let her loosen up with some friendly chitchat first.

  He sipped from his bottle and followed her gaze to a young couple leaning on their own drum a few feet away. There was some pretty heavy kissing going on there. It amused him when Lucy turned back and shifted so she was facing away from them.

  “Why aren’t you hunting with the others tomorrow?” She took the slice of lemon from the neck of the beer bottle and raised it to her nose, inhaling deeply.

  He shook his head distastefully. “Not into blood sports.”

  “Why not?”

  He sighed. “As a kid, my job was to shoot or cut the throats of the animals on our farm.”

  “Why?”

  “They were starving.”

  “Why?” she repeated.

  “Drought.” Ethan bared his teeth mirthlessly. “My father and I were piss-poor farmers.”

  A movement caught his eye and they both glanced over at the couple again. The guy had put his fingers in the girl’s waistband and pulled her lower body flush against his. Their kisses were deep. They kept breaking off to talk, but all the time he was tugging her gently into the front of him.

  “Where was this?” Lucy asked, bringing him back.

  “Western Australia.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Moved to the farm when I was six. Walked off it at twelve.”

  “Are you an only child?”

  He nodded.

  “When did the drought end?”

  Ethan shrugged. “We left when the bank foreclosed. Moved into a trailer park in Perth.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “Nosy, aren’t you?”

  She nodded, not in the least self-conscious. “Are your parents still together?”

  “He kicked my mother out when I was thirteen.”

  Lucy’s eyes widened. He could almost hear her mind ticking over. Maybe they had something in common. Lonely children, dysfunctional families…

  “Kicked her out for a girl five years older than me. She was only interested after he won the state lottery. Trailer trash no more.” He raised his bottle and clinked hers in a salute.

  She stared at him, fiddling with the stud in her ear. Women, he thought wryly. Nothing fascinated them more than someone’s troubles.

  “What happened to your mum?”

  “Came back to New Zealand. She’s from Kaikohe.”

  “Why?”

  His brows rose.

  “I mean, why did she leave you?” She had said exactly what was in her mind, judging by the hand she clamped to her mouth. Ethan nearly laughed out loud. A blush streaked her cheeks. She was embarrassed, but she wanted to know. That was the sort of thing women liked to know.

  He looked at her seriously for a moment. “Farming the outback’s tough for a woman. After the farm, he drank and she worked. Couldn’t afford a school uniform, so she home-schooled me in between cleaning jobs. Then one day, my father spent his last dollar on the lottery and it came in. I was sent to a private school. They bought a big house. Mum stopped work, got her hair done.” He took a long pull on his bottle, enjoying the total concentration on Lucy’s face. It was no
hardship being the object of her avid attention.

  Where was he? “Might have been a lousy farmer, the old man, but turned out he was lucky as sin on the share market. Doubled his money in little more than a year.” He set his bottle down very carefully. “And that’s when the fortune hunters started sniffing around.”

  It was the longest speech he had made. Lucy looked riveted. He decided to give her a bit of a jolt, so he hit her with the full intensity of his eyes. “Young, beautiful women who’d do anything for money.” His voice was low and loaded. “You know the type.”

  He watched her blink, as if surprised, then her head nodded once, slowly, as if something had suddenly clicked in her mind.

  Was she a gold digger, he wondered? He swore he could see no guile in her eyes, though it was dark out here. But a couple of her lighthearted quips had stuck under his collar like grit.

  And yet, there was a freshness about her that did not equate with any of the parade of girls his father traded in at the rate of one every couple of years. Or the women who schmoozed in the corporate world he moved in. He couldn’t imagine anyone more different.

  “I was settled in a good school. I guess she didn’t want to disrupt my schooling any more than it had been. I spent every holiday with her.”

  “What happened to you after she left?” Lucy asked.

  He considered. “Did well at school. Made the national swim team.”

  “I knew it,” she smiled. “I thought you looked like a swimmer.”

  “Could have made the Olympics.”

  “But?”

  Another long pause while he assessed how much more to divulge. He wasn’t one for baring his soul but he felt easy, comfortable. Burning up for her, sure, but enjoying himself and quite prepared to continue. “Wasn’t part of the plan.”

  “The plan?” Lucy shifted against the barrel.

  “To—succeed. No luck involved.”

  “To succeed where your father failed,” she told him triumphantly.

  He grinned at the sparkle in her eyes. “Dammit, you’re right, Freud!”

  “You haven’t forgiven him, have you?” Her head was cocked to one side, the grin fading.