by Zana Bell
She laughed. “The sea is cold now, but by Christmas it’ll be heavenly.”
“Sadly, by that time I’ll be long gone.”
“Do you have to go back?” The question slipped out.
One eye opened a slit. “Yeah, I do.”
“Why? Hang on, don’t tell me. Stuff.”
“Yeah, that’s right.” He smiled, opening both eyes and looking at her. “Don’t move.”
He pulled himself into a sitting position and reached for his camera. She felt self-conscious, sitting cross-legged, wet hair tumbling loose down her back to dry. But it also felt incredibly sexy to have Adam look at her through a viewfinder as he played with the focus. He had great hands. Fingers long, strong and lean like the rest of him, but sensitive and sure on the delicate settings.
“You’re beautiful.” He said it in such a matter-of-fact way she laughed.
“With this nose?”
She pointed to the offending feature and he snapped a second photo.
“Yeah, with that nose,” he said, now focusing the camera on the island. “It gives your face character.”
“Character’s not beauty.”
“It is in my book.”
Cressa moved so that she was facing the sea, and leaned back on her hands, stretching her legs out. Sunlight skittered on the water. The sky was deep blue. She turned her head to watch Adam, who was now engrossed in photographing a rock and a flax bush. “You know, if any other guy said that, I’d figure he was coming on to me.”
Adam lowered his camera. “You don’t hold back, do you? Most girls would just accept the compliment and say thank you.”
“I’m not ‘most girls.’”
He immediately assumed a lascivious expression and ran his eyes from her feet up to her face, taking his time about it. He was only kidding, but she was cross with herself for finding his perusal a turn-on. “No,” he drawled, “you ain’t. And isn’t this my lucky day, sweetheart. You are one hot lady.”
Cressa threw a shell at him. “And you are so full of it.” He laughed and she changed the subject. “What do you do with all your photos?”
He busied himself packing the camera away. After a beat he replied, “I put them on Facebook.”
“Yeah?” She was surprised. “That doesn’t fit.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re like the cat that walked by itself. I hadn’t picked you as the social network sort of guy.”
His eyes remained fixed on his task. “Well, gotta move with the times.”
“Why’s it so hard for you to answer a question in a straightforward manner?”
He paused and this time their eyes met. She held his gaze. “I wasn’t aware that I didn’t.”
“No? Well, let me tell you, mate, any question that’s vaguely personal has you ducking for cover. So let’s try again. How come you have a Facebook page?”
“It’s for my daughter.”
That rocked Cressa. “’Scuse me! Your what?”
“My daughter. There. You wanted to know. I have a Facebook page in case my daughter ever wants to know who her dad is.”
“Oh my God.” Cressa swung around so she was once more sitting cross-legged facing him. Adam, however, lay back down with an arm over his eyes, as though shielding them from the sun. But she knew better and wasn’t going to accept the ploy. “You have a daughter? Why the big secret?”
He shrugged. “It’s not. I just don’t talk about her.”
With half his face covered, she focused on his mouth, learning the shape of his lips. “Why not?”
“There’s nothing to say.”
Again she waited. Finally he lowered his arm and squinted at her. “Crystal, her mother, ran off with Stella seven years ago. I haven’t seen or heard anything of her since. End of story.”
He closed his eyes, his mouth a thin line. His body was rigid on the sand. End of conversation.
“So tell me about the Facebook page.”
His face hardened. “Don’t you ever take a hint?”
“Nope.”
For a second he said nothing and she watched the slow rise and fall of his muscled stomach. Saw the thin black hairs running down from his navel to disappear below the band of his boxers. She mistrusted his stillness, mistrusted the tiny lift to his mouth as he swung himself up into sitting, one leg curled in front of him, the other crooked, and he rested his elbow on his knee. His position brought his face closer to hers. Intimacy or challenge? She stared straight into his dark eyes, which glinted in the sun. “I’ll answer your question, but then it’s my turn.”
“No problem. I don’t have any secrets.”
“Okay, I started on Facebook over a year ago. I post photos because I don’t know what to say and because I don’t want just anyone reading all about my life—even though it’s boring. So I post tags saying where I am, what I’m doing. You know, like ‘Hey, Stella, your aunt just got married in New Zealand. It’s beautiful here.’ Then I put up photos of the beach, that kind of thing.” He looked at her dead-on. “Now it’s my turn.”
“Fire away.”
“What happened with Brian?”
She gave her usual explanation. “There’s not much to say. He’s fabulous. I was young, got swept away.
Panicked when I could see what life with him was going to be like, so I pulled out at the last minute.”
Normally, people came to her rescue here, making soothing noises about better discovering sooner than later, about her decision being hard but brave. But Adam pinned her with a dark look. “How last minute?”
She plucked at the edge of her towel. “I left him at the altar. Literally.”
Adam gave a low whistle. “Poor guy.”
Guilt made her defensive. “He refuses to see it, but it was the best thing for him. I mean—” she laughed “—can you see me as a doctor’s wife?”
His expression was difficult to read. “Why not?”
She shrugged. “I’m not the pillar-of-society sort. All that talk of patients and hospitals? I don’t think so.”
Adam leaned in a bit closer. This time she knew the move wasn’t intimate. “You know what? I don’t buy that.”
She was indignant. No one had ever questioned her before. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, there’s one helluva lot more to it than ‘Oh hey, I don’t want to be a doctor’s wife.’ What else was there?”
A fluttery, sick feeling kicked in, but she fought it down. “Nothing!”
He raised an eyebrow. “Again, Cressa, we see you can dish it out but can’t take it. More fun to rummage through other people’s psyches than your own.”
She tried for lofty but landed on snappish. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”
“No? Okay, here’s how it seems to me. You’re clearly intelligent, yet you lack focus. You are friendly and outgoing, but can’t seem to stick with people. You appear to travel light but, lady, you’ve got baggage all around you.”
Her chin went up. “You’re just angry because I pushed things about your father.”
“Maybe. Though—” he creased his brow “—I may have to thank you for that. It’s better to know who your father is.” His eyes held hers. “I bet under all your wild-child crap is a strong, amazing woman waiting to come out.”
She couldn’t tell whether she’d just been insulted or complimented. She could feel the jut of her jaw, her smile both defense and attack. “Thank you, Dr. Freud. So tell me. Did you take my photo to put on your Facebook page?”
She wanted to crack that control of his, that measured and measuring objectivity he was using to create a barrier. She appeared to have succeeded when a slow smile, sexy as all hell, spread across his face. One hand reached up to cup the back of her head, drawing her face inch by tantalizing inch closer to his. He leaned in, his features completely filling her vision. The waves breaking on the shore echoed the beat of her heart. When his face was just millimeters from hers, he paused, their breaths mingling. Then softly, very softly, his m
outh brushed hers. For a second she tasted the salt on his lips and then they were gone.
“No,” he said, his voice husky, “that photo was for me.”
Then the hand holding her head released her, and Adam was standing, picking up his towel in a movement that obscured his lower torso. The scar along his spine was white against his brown skin, healed but clearly visible. He looked down at her, and she blinked up at him, dazed. Disorientated. And burning for more. Adam’s smile was wry, his eyes once more objective as they looked into hers.
“When we first met, I admit there was a connection.” His eyes strayed to her mouth, then back to her eyes. “But nothing’s going to happen. I get that you are all here and now, but you’ve got me wrong. I’m not like that at all. I have enough on my plate at the moment and I don’t have time to be the biker on your list, coming after the skier and the archaeologist, but before whoever the hell next catches your fancy.” She began to argue, but he shook his head. “I know what you’ve been up to and I’m flattered—I really am. But no more games. Okay, Cressa?” His expression was reasonable, but his body was taut.
“Okay.”
He eyed her. “What? No arguments?”
“Nope, I heard you. Friends, right?”
“Yeah, friends, for sure.” Still, his eyes narrowed as she smiled up at him. She reached out a hand. “Pull me up.”
He took it and drew her to her feet. The towel stayed clutched to his midriff.
Friends? Yeah, right. She didn’t know whether the day had been a step forward or two steps back, but one thing she was sure of. Their dance hadn’t ended, whatever Adam might think. It was only just getting started.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
WINTER RETURNED with a vengeance over the next few days. Temperatures plummeted as impenetrable curtains of rain streamed past the windows. Eiderdowns of cloud hid the hills. Filming was impossible, so Cressa hunkered down with Adam and Alicia. They lit fires in the potbelly stove in the living room and switched on heaters throughout the house. Even so, they needed to bundle up in jerseys and thick socks. Cressa was used to the unrelenting Northland rain and swings in temperature, but her Texan companions weren’t.
“What’s with houses in New Zealand?” Adam complained on the third day as he paced across the kitchen, where she was making tea. He was wearing a thick, dark blue jersey, hands shoved deep into his jeans pockets, shoulders hunched as he waited for the kettle to boil. She still got a kick out of seeing his exotic features in mundane surroundings, and today he had a prowling restlessness that enhanced his brooding face. “How come they’re so damn cold?”
“No regulations.” She passed him mugs from the dishwasher. “This is an old house. No insulation. Blame our optimistic nature. We refuse to believe New Zealand winters are that bad.”
Watching him put tea bags in the mugs, she tried to work out why he seemed different from anyone else she’d ever met. Partly it was because working out the real Adam was hard. Her favorite Adam was the man of their first meeting. He’d had a sizzle in his smile and promise in his eyes. But she was intrigued, too, by the wild Adam, who rode like a demon at midnight or back-flipped into treacherous waters. Work Adam, however, with his finicky insistence on perfection, was a pain in the butt, and she just wanted to shake Secretive Adam, with all his “stuff” shit. She hadn’t liked Psychoanalysis Adam, either, and while she grudgingly admitted that Affable Adam at mealtimes was good company, he was also infuriatingly remote.
When she looked at Adam this way, she found there was a lot about him that wasn’t great. So why this growing obsession with him?
Adam put away the box of tea bags. “This weather is horrible.”
His hair flopped forward, and he shoved it back impatiently. She wished she could reach up, smooth it away from his face.
“You guys have to toughen up.” she said briskly. “No deserts here to dry out in. Alicia’s wearing two jerseys, two pairs of socks and still carries around a hot water bottle like it’s a baby.”
As the kettle came to a boil, Adam lifted it. “Poor Mom. She’s always had an aversion to the cold. We both need some real sun to warm us to our bones.”
He poured water into the three mugs and Cressa crossed to the fridge for the milk. This was another thing she didn’t get. Normally, she liked her relationships crazy and fun filled. With Adam, she caught herself enjoying the small domestic things they did together—making tea, washing the dishes, taking out the rubbish bags. What was with that?
“I was thinking,” she said. “How would you like to go sailing the next fine day off? The Bay of Islands is beautiful. You can’t go back to Texas without seeing it.”
No one could smile refusal as beautifully as Adam, a lovely mixture of ruefulness and regret. No one could fake it better.
“Thanks, but no.”
The finality in his tone was real enough. She was learning to pick her battles, however, and let this one go—for the moment. “You’re just grouchy because you’ve been in your room all day long with nothing to dwell on but the cold. You need something to take your mind off your misery.”
He cocked an eyebrow at the “nothing” but let the remark pass, asking, instead, “What do you propose?”
“Monopoly!” She gathered up two of the mugs. “Let’s go. Alicia said she’d set the game up while I made tea and dug you out of your lair.”
His eyebrow rose farther. “Lair? Hardly. Still…” He eyed her. “What made you think you stood a chance of digging me out?”
“Charm.”
“Oh, yeah?” He sounded skeptical.
“All right. I also found chocolate biscuits.”
She’d learned early on the Texan was a chocoholic.
“Now you’re talking—but unfortunately, I’ve still got stuff to do. I’ll take a couple of cookies with me.”
Cressa barred his way. “Oh no, you don’t. You need a break.”
His eyes narrowed. “Sez who?”
“Sez me.” Then she dropped her sergeant-major act. “C’mon, you’ve been cooped up in that room for two days and two nights. I can’t even begin to wonder what the hell you’ve been doing all that time, but you have to socialize again.” She put on her best smile. “I’ll let you win.”
He laughed. “If I believed that, I’d be one poor fool.”
“Well, if I told you the truth, which is that I always win, you’d just turn tail and run.”
He sipped his tea, watching her over the cup brim. He had the most fantastic eyelashes. “You are the most manipulative woman I’ve ever met.”
“Thank you. So is that a yes? You’ll make Alicia’s day.”
CRESSA MIGHT HAVE KNOWN that playing Monopoly—usually such a straightforward game of economic dominance—would become something different with the Walkers. Ten minutes into it, Cressa felt she was in an alternative universe. The careful kindness was killing her. There were no howls of triumph at buying a coveted property. No one jeered when she was sent to prison. But when Adam saw his mom had two of the green properties, and offered to give her the third, which he owned, Cressa couldn’t stand it any longer.
“Don’t just give it, Adam. Sell it. Or play hardball. Don’t let her have it at all. Alicia’s got the yellows. She’ll be able to dominate that corner. Sorry, Alicia, but you know, the whole point of the game is to crush your opponents and win.”
“Jeez, you’re tough,” Adam teased.
“I’ve got four sisters,” she retorted. “I’ve had to be. Not to mention a mother who wouldn’t show mercy to a rabbit in a trap if a win was at stake.”
“Cressa!” Alicia protested. “Your mother is charming.” At the same time, she cast an appraising look in her son’s direction.
“I didn’t say she wasn’t charming—just that she’d trample over all five daughters to win at Monopoly. I’ll show you the footmarks she left, if you like. We all play to win, so you’d better be ready for my knife in your backs.”
Adam only smiled. Getting a reaction out of him
was hard. All loose limbs, he lolled back in his chair, tossing the dice with a lazy wrist. He took the highs and the lows with the same slow grin that melted Cressa down to her core, but at the same time irked her. What would get this guy to engage—not just with the game but with them? When Alicia landed on Mayfair, he refused to accept her money.
“Just give me a free ride the next turn.”
Cressa rolled her eyes, but Alicia surprised her. She leaned back and looked at her son. “Cressa’s right. Why won’t you take my money?”
Cressa paused, dice cupped in her hand, to hear his answer. Alicia seemed to be as relaxed as her son, but her eyes held an expression Cressa had never seen before.
Adam shrugged. “It’s just a game.”
“I agree,” Alicia said. “So answer my question.”
Her voice was soft and reasonable, but Cressa wasn’t fooled. It seemed that something had finally gotten through to Adam. He glanced uneasily at his mother and scratched the back of his neck. “I just thought—you know.”
“No. I don’t know, Adam.” She settled her hands in her lap, waiting attentively. “Please explain.”
Uh-oh, Cressa thought. A please in front of a command. That wasn’t good. Adam hesitated. He hadn’t moved, but somehow his body had shifted from sprawled limbs to tensed readiness. He appeared to be sifting through his mind for an answer, but when it didn’t come, Alicia continued in veneer-thin tones of measured logic. “I’m sure you don’t mean to, but you are patronizing me.”
Adam blinked. “Because I won’t accept your money?”
“Exactly.”
He held out his hands, palms up. “I don’t get what the big deal is.”
Oh Adam, thought Cressa. Don’t pretend innocence. His mom was on to him in a shot. “Have you refused Cressa’s money?”
“No, but—”
“If it were Cole or Sass, would you be playing like this?”
“That’s different!”
“How?”
Adam turned to Cressa, who just shook her head. “No good looking at me for support. I’ve already made my family’s approach to games very clear.”
The smile Alicia gave had a dangerous edge. “What is it, Adam? Are you afraid that if I lose, I’m going to hit the bottle again?”