by Ally Blake
‘Good evening, ladies,’ Zach said, purposely including all three. ‘Don’t you all look beautiful this evening?’
One gave Meg a small shove forward. ‘Don’t we just.’
Meg glared at her friend, while Zach pretended not to notice.
‘Ready for a big night?’ he asked.
‘I heard rumours of a marshmallow roast,’ said the brunette. Tabitha.
‘Bring ‘em on,’ said the blonde, her voice wry.
The hairs on the back of Zach’s neck twitched under the blonde’s incisive gaze. That one was the journo. At the very least she knew that something was happening between her friend and him. She who probably kept a lipstick camera and microchip microphone on her person at all times.
Meg slapped her friend on the arm, which he approved of heartily. ‘Don’t pay any attention to Rylie. She doesn’t understand that sweets belong to their own food group the way some of us do.’
When her eyes slid back to him, she let them flick to her friends and with a small shake of her head told him not to worry. He was safe. Ruby was safe.
Then a small smile hooked at the corner of her mouth. Thanks for the M&M’s, her eyes said.
He blinked back, My pleasure.
‘Are they actually serving drinks from coconut shells?’ Tabitha asked, then she was off.
Rylie, on the other hand, had her hand clamped over Meg’s arm as if they’d been soldered together.
Meg blinked at him, her mouth curving in apology. The St Barts crew were a hopeless cover. She knew he was there for her. And while she’d made it perfectly clear to him on more than one occasion that she understood why they should remain miles apart for Ruby’s sake, she’d come. The both of them needed their heads read.
‘I like the choice in music,’ Meg said over her shoulder as Rylie pulled her away. ‘Yours?’
‘Disco,’ he said. ‘It’s my secret passion.’
She grinned. It lit up the night. And then she was gone.
Zach slid his hands into the pockets of his trousers. He’d put in his promised appearance, meaning he could walk away. Ruby wasn’t home so he could slink back to his bungalow and work himself late into the night till his eyes burned and his back ached and he was too exhausted to think about anything but sleep.
He could do that, but instead he decided to stay a little longer. Listen to some Bee Gees. Drink some punch. Eat a marshmallow or two. See where the night took him.
Damn fool.
Meg sat on a straw mat next to Rylie, drinking a mocktail and pretending to watch Tabitha lead a conga line around the fire, but whenever she had half a chance her eyes sought out Zach.
The moment she’d first seen him standing with the fire at his back, feet bare, watching her with the kind of intensity that took her breath away, her skin had warmed as though she’d stepped too near the flames. Even wreathed in hot-pink flowers he was the most wholly masculine creature she’d ever known.
Dark hair slicked back, clean-shaven, and wearing a pale grey linen suit, he finally appeared how he should have all along—like the kind of man her father would know by name.
That first moment when she’d been allowed to dream he might be something he was not hadn’t been fair. If she’d first seen him looking like this then maybe she would have had her guard up and have avoided this whole mess from the outset.
Who are you kidding? she thought to herself on a slow release of breath. In cargo shorts and a soft faded T-shirt he was beautiful. In a perfectly cut suit he was devastating. A woman would have to be made of far sterner stuff than she to skim past such a creation.
‘You having a good time so far?’ Rylie asked.
‘Mmm?’ Meg said, turning to Rylie with the straw of her third pineapple mocktail bitten between her front teeth.
‘I feel like we’ve barely seen you enough to make sure you’re actually relaxing as promised.’
Meg raised an eyebrow. ‘If you actually turned up to any of the scheduled events rather than leaving me to fend for myself that wouldn’t be the case.’
‘I’m here now.’
Meg bumped her friend with her shoulder. ‘So you are. And I’m glad. This is fun. Especially since Tabitha is so on form, and thankfully not trying to rope us into her insanity.’
‘Too true. And, now that I am here, is there anything you’d like to catch me up on? The weather, perhaps? Petrol prices getting you down? Anything happen in the past couple of days you’d like to let off your chest?’
She knew what Rylie was asking. And it was fair enough. They were best friends. Had been since school. Maybe she could give her a little sugar, so long as she gave nothing away about Zach or Ruby. But to do that she’d have to give too much of herself away as well. The myriad reasons why she couldn’t just throw herself at him and be done with it went deeper than even Rylie knew.
‘The weather, then,’ Meg said, tilting her head towards the heavens. ‘Look at that sky. Have you ever seen so many stars? Hasn’t this been the most beautiful night?’
Rylie paused a long moment before glancing across the fire towards the man they were both pretending not to be talking about. ‘Absolutely gorgeous.’
On a sigh Meg said, ‘You have no idea.’
A gorgeous man and a gorgeous dad. It was the second part that was making it so easy for her to fall for him, while also making it impossible for her to have him.
She’d never gone through the grieving process the doctors had warned her she might when she’d convinced them to give her the operation that would take away her chance of conceiving a child. All she’d wanted was to do whatever she could to stop her father from ever getting the chance to bully another kid again.
She was beginning to fear that was what the faint but now constant ache in her heart was—fissures that had existed in her happy facade since the morning she woke up in Recovery. Only now, as she understood fully for the first time what she’d given up, those fissures were turning into cracks big enough to split her in two.
‘Can you do me a favour?’ Meg asked.
‘Anything. Always.’
‘I don’t want to be missing any more. In the press, I mean. Dylan texted me today. Apparently the snippet Chic ran online a couple of days back has grown legs. I’d rather not be hounded by people with mobile cameras any more than usual this week.’
‘I’ll get onto my contact at Chic and give them the word,’ Rylie said. ‘Where do you want to be instead of missing?’
Here. ‘Anywhere but here.’
‘May I ask why?’
Meg tucked her chin against her shoulder and glanced at her friend. ‘I wish I could tell you, but it’s complicated.’
‘Okay, for now. I’m not so silly to think wheat-grass juice is the reason you’re glowing like you are. Tell your man he can do as he pleases, I’m looking the other way.’
Meg gave Rylie a quick hug.
Tabitha chose the perfect moment to twist her way out of the line and head on over, laughing as though she could barely draw breath.
‘You are a maniac,’ Meg said, her voice still slightly ragged.
Tabitha slumped down onto the straw mat beside them. ‘Every party we ever have from now on should be exactly like this.’
‘With nobody we know as guests and no alcohol?’ Rylie asked.
Tabitha shrugged. ‘Why not? I know the wellness class we took the first day was all about finding balance, but sometimes I think you need to let yourself go completely off balance too. It’s a yin and yang thing.’
Off balance. That was the term Meg had been reaching for to describe how Zach made her feel.
He was intensely private while her life was splashed about the papers so regularly she might as well have been living in her own reality TV programme. He saw family as something to safeguard, not to flaunt. His life was so far removed from her own as to be completely foreign.
This was a man trying so hard to be worthy of his daughter, if he knew how low she’d sunk, how desperate a measure she’d
taken in order to pull herself back out into the bright lights, would he understand? Or would he think her ridiculous? Hopeless? Weak? All the things she’d been told she was by the one man who ought to have been her fiercest champion. If even her father couldn’t see the good in the real her, what hope did she have with anyone else?
He shifted in the firelight, all shadowy angles and dark good looks.
This man had given her chocolate when she’d needed chocolate. He’d given her disco when she’d needed disco. Would he, could he, be the one she could trust to accept her just as she really was?
‘As much as it pains me to admit,’ Rylie said to Tabitha, ‘you may be onto something with this off balance thing.’
‘I hear that,’ Meg whispered.
When the party had well and truly wound down, Zach found Meg standing by the bar alone—a bright red firecracker amongst the few shadowy forms lingering till the end.
‘Did you get your fair share of marshmallows?’ he asked when he was close enough to breathe in her subtly exotic perfume.
She turned to him with a coconut shell curved into her palm and a straw in her mouth. That mouth. If Zach had ever had cause to believe in heaven and hell that mouth was enough to convince him of both.
‘I’ve eaten far more than my fair share. But it’s too late. There’s no getting them back now. You had a good night?’
‘Tonight hiding in plain sight finally caught up with me. My right hand is bruised from pressing local flesh all evening.’
Her eyes smiled as she sucked on her straw. ‘So how was it being Mr Social?’
‘One couple had me pinned for half an hour trying to get me to join their pyramid scheme.’
She laughed so hard she tucked her drink to her chest so as not to spill it. ‘If you want I can give you some hints on how to extricate yourself quickly and politely so that they leave thinking you were lovely but somehow certain they’d better not go near you again.’
‘You are a woman of many hidden capabilities, Ms Kelly.’
She raised one thin eyebrow. ‘And then some. Now come on, you must have met some nice people.’
‘I did.’ Most were surprisingly decent. Warm, welcoming, enthused that he’d seen such value in their beautiful region to create the resort. He said, ‘One local businesswoman had some fantastic ideas about marketing local produce around the country using the resort label. I might even look into it while I’m here.’
She grinned. ‘I told you schmoozing had its perks.’
‘So you did.’ He glanced around. ‘Where are your chaperones?’
‘Rylie needed her beauty sleep and Tabitha practically had to be carried back to the room, she so wore herself out dancing.’
When she smiled at him she made him feel as if he were sixteen again with possibilities he’d never even imagined opening up before him. He felt as if he could take on the world. He felt as if he were standing on unstable ground.
He waved an arm away from the bright bar. Together they walked around the edge of the beach to a place the firelight didn’t quite reach.
She slid her bare feet sensually through the sand. Her fingernails and toenails had been repainted blood-red. She smelled of jasmine. Her skin glowed warm and creamy in the firelight. Escaped tendrils of her hair flickered away from her lovely face in the light summer breeze. Heat curled deep within his abdomen.
His voice was rough when he said, ‘I’ve had a question I wanted to ask you all night.’
She clutched her coconut shell to her chest and looked at her feet. ‘And what’s that?’
‘Did you seriously have that dress in your suitcase this whole time?’
She laughed. ‘A girl never knows when she’s going to need a party frock. Besides, the girls packed my bags for me. You’ll be shocked to discover coming to a wellness retreat was their idea.’ She glanced sideways. ‘You look very smart yourself.’
He puffed out his chest. ‘I always do.’
‘Mmm. But there’s just something extra special about you tonight that I can’t put my finger on.’
She put her finger on the fullest part of her bottom lip instead. The urge to drag her into the reeds and finish what they’d started the day before, to give in and let instinct and abandon bring release, was almost overwhelming.
Until she asked, ‘So did you choose hot pink for your little necklace there?’
Zach glanced down at his shirt only to be reminded of the wilting lei. ‘Give me a break—everyone got one coming in.’
‘Do you see me wearing one?’
‘They must have run out before you got here.’
‘Likely excuse.’ She slid the straw into her mouth and grinned.
And now you’re flirting, he said inside his head. Of course you’re flirting. Just look at her. I mean, really look at her. He did. She took his breath away.
They hit the far side of the fire and as one took up residence on an empty straw mat. The bonfire no longer blazed, but embers glowed red-hot at the base of the gently licking flames.
‘It’s very quiet out here all of a sudden,’ she said, her voice soft.
‘I think we may officially be considered stragglers.’
‘Most socially uncool.’
‘No need to panic quite yet. We won’t be the very last. I’m told there’s always one fellow hanging about ready to douse the fire once all’s said and done.’
‘Then our party reputations will live to see another day!’ she said, but he saw in the flicker of her eyes that she heard what he’d really been telling her. They had a chaperone of sorts after all.
She crossed her legs frog style, sitting her drink on her far side and laying her hands in her lap—they fast disappeared into her ample skirt—as she looked into the fire.
Silence stretched between them. He wondered if she could feel the same electricity running up and down her arms that was creating havoc over his.
When she blatantly asked, ‘So where’s Ruby tonight?’ he knew without a doubt that she was well aware.
CHAPTER NINE
THE fact that Meg had to be the one to remind him of the participant in their relationship who wasn’t there brought Zach solidly back to earth.
Habit had him slamming his lips shut tight. But then Meg tucked loose strands of hair behind her ear and shot him an encouraging smile. And he couldn’t deny, even to himself, that talking to her helped. More than talking to Felicia, or the teachers at Ruby’s school, or the social workers who came to the house once a week.
Maybe it was the fact that she would be leaving in a few days. Maybe it was because sometimes she seemed to understand Ruby more than even he did. Or maybe it was because he simply enjoyed talking to her.
For whatever reason, he said, ‘She’s sleeping over at her friend Clarissa’s house. Her first sleepover since moving here. She was so excited when the invitation came through this morning I couldn’t say no.’
‘Did she tell you about the invitation before or after she made you pancakes?’
He thought back. ‘After.’
Meg laughed softly. ‘Getting you all nice and buttered up before going in for the kill. I love it.’
The affection in Meg’s voice didn’t surprise him, but again it moved him. Because of this woman, parts of himself he’d thought long since turned to dry ice had begun to melt. And he wasn’t the only one.
He patted the chest of his jacket and felt inside the card Ruby had presented to him that morning. A card she’d made, addressed to Meg. He’d brought it with him with every intention of giving it to her. He even got as far as reaching inside and touching the pink cardboard before his fingers curled into his palm.
Even as he’d slid the card into his jacket earlier that evening, he’d known he couldn’t ever tell Meg about the card.
Letting Ruby develop a fondness for her was a bad idea. A kid could only have the object of their affection snatched away from them so many times before they learnt it hurt less to simply never form attachments at all. It was
his duty to protect Ruby from that kind of hurt as well. As such he could only in good conscience encourage friendships he knew would last.
Meg turned to him with a wide, lovely, genuine smile, and he wished he could be as conscientious with himself. He let his hand slide out of his coat pocket, empty.
She waggled a finger at him and said, ‘If I didn’t know better I’d think you’ve read the book after all.’
‘Which book is that?’
‘How to Father a Girl. It’s extremely hard to track down and even more difficult to decipher. Lots of hieroglyphics and double talk. But you seem to be following along beautifully.’
‘I don’t always get that same feeling from Felicia.’
Meg raised an eyebrow. ‘Do tell.’
He baulked. Then convinced himself that while keeping Ruby a step removed was one thing, sharing pieces of his experiences was fine. In fact, so far it had done him nothing but good. ‘She seemed to think I ought to keep Ruby home from Clarissa’s because a) she did have a sore throat, or b) she’d been hamming it up. Either way she should be spending the weekend in bed.’
‘You overrode the nanny?’ Her eyes widened. ‘Brave man.’
Zach laughed. ‘Letting Ruby have some fun felt right.’ He scooped up a handful of sand and let it run slowly through his fingers as he remembered. ‘Then after it was settled, for some reason I winked at her. I’ve never, not once in my entire life, winked. Didn’t even know I knew how. And you know what the rascal did?’
‘What?’
‘She giggled. No more amazing a sound have I heard in my entire life.’
Meg pulled her knees back to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. ‘I knew it,’ she said on a sigh. ‘You’ve so-o-o read the book.’
Zach brushed the sand from his hand and glanced at her from the corner of his eye. In the semi-darkness the angle of her body was outlined in gold from the dying fire—all curled into itself like a ball of shimmering red fabric. It wouldn’t matter who her father was, or the size of her trust fund, she would draw the eyes of those who knew quality when they saw it wherever she went.
He took in a deep breath, wood smoke tickling the back of his throat. ‘I may be faking it well enough to fool you, and perhaps even Felicia and Ruby. But the grim truth is I know next to nothing about kids, and less about girls.’