Mr. Irresistible

by Karina Bliss

  “You’re not going anywhere.” Jordan didn’t even glance her way. “Mike? The jetboat can tow either the canoe or the kayak.”

  Mike hesitated, glancing uncertainly at Dillon, and Kate intervened. For Dillon’s sake the two men needed to sort out their differences. “All for one and one for all, right, Mike?”

  She took Jordan aside. “I’d say conflict resolution was an essential skill for camp trustees, wouldn’t you?”

  Jordan went up to Mike. “Just joking, mate. Couldn’t do it without you.”

  “Don’t patronize me.”

  Looking back at Kate, Jordan shook his head, as if to say, It’s hopeless. “Okay, Cinderella,” he said to Andrew, “let’s get you to the ball.” Not only had Jordan arranged a jetboat, he’d also arranged a helicopter to fly his nephew back to Auckland, so Andrew accepted the comparison with good grace.

  “See ya, Kate.” Blushing slightly, he hugged her, then shook Mike’s hand and mussed Dillon’s hair. “Bye, squirt.”

  He headed off down the track with his uncle, then hesitated and ran back. “He is my hero,” he reminded Kate earnestly.

  “Well, he would say that,” Mike commented as they gave Andrew a last wave goodbye, and the two disappeared from sight. “Jetboat, helicopter…that would buy my hero worship, too.”

  “Well, you would say that.” Kate turned back to the half-pitched tent and started laying out guy ropes. “You dislike him.”

  Mike hammered in pegs. “Don’t you?”

  “He drives me crazy, but that doesn’t blind me to the fact that he cares about kids. I’m not on anyone’s side, Mike, except Dillon’s. You need to separate your dislike for Jordan from what’s best for your son. Both of you do.”

  Mike’s expression darkened, but before he could say anything Dillon came running over with her cell phone. Too much had been going on last night for Kate to make the calls she wanted to, and he’d spent the time since they’d moored trying to find a signal—after she’d suggested the hot spot might still be warm. Mike had gone into the technical reasons why that was unlikely, but she’d captured Dillon’s imagination.

  “I even climbed up a tree,” he said glumly, “but no signal.” That explained the pine needles in his hair.

  Kate brushed them off. “Thanks for trying, Dil.” She was desperate to know how her brother’s dinner with their father had gone.

  Dillon saw her disappointment. “Did you want to call your mum?” He’d phoned his last night, fortunately their talk centering on the big eel he’d caught rather than Mike and Jordan’s fight.

  “My mum’s dead. It’s okay,” Kate added quickly, when he looked alarmed. “It happened a long, long time ago.” As though she didn’t still ache sometimes with missing her.

  “If you’re homesick you could call your dad,” he suggested. “Oh, I forgot you don’t talk to him.”

  Kate had to laugh. “Go find another tree to climb.”

  Obligingly, he ran off.

  She glanced at Mike. “That made me sound like a terrible daughter…but there are good reasons for our estrangement.”

  “Knowing you, Kate, I’m sure there are.”

  They went back to pitching the tent. “There was a ‘but’ in that statement,” she said after a few minutes. “It’s bothering me.”

  Mike put down the hammer. “But…speaking as someone who never repaired a relationship with his father before the man died, I’d say keep trying.”

  She tried to suppress her exasperation. “It wasn’t a fight over using the car, Mike.”

  “Neither was ours. We let grief push us apart…blame and guilt. But now that he’s dead, I wish I’d tried harder to find a way back to him.”

  His pain, she realized, was as deep as hers. “Sometimes,” she said at last, “stepping back seems the only way to save your life…the only way to heal.”

  “For a time,” he agreed, “not forever. I know it sounds corny, but rifts with family…they’re not good for your soul.”

  “Look at me!” Dillon yelled from the top of a totara, his flushed face a rosy berry in the green canopy. They made admiring noises and, satisfied, he started climbing down.

  Mike picked up the hammer again and pounded the last peg home. “And I believe in giving people second chances because Claire gave me one with Dillon. I don’t know why she changed her mind, but I thank God every day that she did. And this time, I’m going to make it work.” He glanced at Kate, who was collecting the superfluous pegs. “I guess you’re wondering why I haven’t been around for him.”

  “You don’t need to give me an explanation, Mike,” she said quietly, retying the tent bag. “I’m not judging you.”

  “I want to tell you,” he said. They both paused in their work. “We were only eighteen and students when Claire got pregnant with Dillon. It was a summer romance with a kid from the wrong side of the tracks. Her parents didn’t want us to get married, but we did, so they cut off financial support, hoping the pressure would split us up. It did.”

  Absently, he started tapping his palm with the hammer. “I wasn’t giving myself any breaks at that point in my life so…as far as I was concerned, the separation only proved I wasn’t worth much. Jordan was right, I did walk away. I believed it was best for Dillon.”

  “I’m really happy you’re a family again.”

  “Now I can hear a ‘but,’” he said, smiling.

  “But my dad and I…we’re not likely to resolve our differences.”

  “It must have been pretty bad, Kate.”

  “I’m starving,” Dillon declared. The interruption saved her from having to answer.

  She looked at her watch. “I’m not surprised, it’s way past lunchtime. I wonder why Jordan’s taking so long.”

  “We don’t need him to feed us, do we?” Mike said impatiently. “How about we do a chip fry-up? I know we’ve got potatoes.”

  Kate’s mouth started to water. “Sure, but I don’t know how to assemble the stove.”

  “Neither do I,” said Mike, “but how hard can it be?”

  Fifteen minutes later they were almost ready to cook. Sustained by a slab of fruit loaf they’d found in one of the storage bins, Mike and Dillon had peeled and chipped the potatoes, while Kate made a salad of cucumber and tomatoes. “No one’s going to eat it,” Dillon had pointed out, but she’d told him he’d get scurvy, which had led to a fascinating discussion of other horrible diseases. No one’s appetite was the least affected, which just went to show, thought Kate cheerfully, that she’d been spending too much time with little boys.

  She dug around in the food barrel, hoping to find salad dressing, but the only bottle she could find held brandy…probably for medicinal purposes. Salt and pepper would have to do. Now for the hard bit. Crouching back on her heels, Kate examined the metal pieces of the portable stove, sniffing the fuel for clues. Then she nearly toppled over as fumes of methylated spirits hit the back of her throat.

  “Let me,” said Mike with male superiority, and then proceeded to take ten minutes to assemble the stove. With Kate’s help.

  “Okay, guys, it’s showtime.” Tentatively, Kate stretched a lit match toward the burner. It went out.

  “You need to get closer,” said Mike, and she handed him the matches.

  “Go ahead.”

  Twice he tried; twice the wind extinguished it. Mike cursed.

  “Maybe we should wait for Jordan,” Kate suggested.

  Everyone looked at the potatoes, which were starting to discolor.

  “I have an idea,” said Mike. He repositioned the stove under the canopy that sheltered the tent’s entrance, and they all huddled over it, using their bodies as a windbreak. The next match flared and caught.

  A wave of fierce heat slammed Kate’s face and, with a startled cry, she flung herself backward. So did Dillon and Mike. Dillon’s foot knocked the stove against the tent, splattering fuel.

  Blue flame licked tentatively at the tent flap, and Mike dived forward, fumbling with the whee
l adjuster to turn off the fire, then kicking the apparatus into the clearing.

  But it was too late.

  JORDAN ADDED ANOTHER fallen branch to the bundle in his arms and paused to absorb the sights and sounds of the bush.

  Two fantails flitting nearby squeaked and fussed. They’d been dining on insects disturbed by his footfalls.

  Smiling, he turned toward camp and caught a sudden movement out of the corner of his eye. A Captain Cook razorback boar, about 150 pounds, stood frozen by a rata tree, heaving flanks evidence of its fright. “I wish Kate could see you,” he said aloud, and the animal jumped again.

  “Scaredy-pig.” Jordan turned his back on it and nearly stumbled over a piglet. With a terrified squeal, it vanished like a black streak into the undergrowth. He could barely make out the rear end of a full-grown razorback before they both vanished. Behind him, he heard a heavy grunt, then the thud of hooves.

  “You’ve gotta be kidding me.” He spun around to see the boar charging toward him, and flung himself to the left, sending the firewood in all directions. The pig skittered on its hind legs as it turned midrun, then hurtled back, charging again.

  Seizing one of the dropped branches, Jordan slammed it across the bristly black hide, twisting away from the sharp tusks as the boar tried to gore and bite him. Still more surprised than afraid, he whacked the pig again, and this time connected with its snout. With a squeal of outrage, the animal tore off through the trees, splintering undergrowth as it went.

  As the sound faded, Jordan became aware of his own heavy breathing, and stumbled back against a tree, sliding to the ground. His first thought was that Kate must never know about this. His second was thank God she’d told him not to run. It had been his first impulse.

  He started to laugh until he caught sight of his right thigh. Blood oozed through a slash in his jeans. Examining the wound, he was relieved to see it was shallow. Nothing his first aid kit couldn’t handle, and he carried a tetanus shot as part of his medical supplies. At that thought he started to sweat.

  But first things first. He pushed himself to his feet and took off his Swanndri, tying it around his waist to conceal his injury. Gathering the scattered wood, he staggered back to camp. Everyone must be wondering where the hell he was.

  Jordan smelled the smoke first. Great, they’d got the fire started. Then, through a gap in the forest canopy, he saw a billow of black smoke, large and ominous.

  He dropped the wood and ran.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  SIPPING HER TEA, Kate grimaced at its necessary sweetness, and cast an apprehensive look at Jordan. He stood in stony silence amid the charred debris that had been her tent, toying with the handle of his shovel.

  Probably contemplating using it on our heads. She inched farther up the mound where she sat with her codefendants, also wrapped in blankets and holding hot drinks. Adding to their misery, it had been raining for the past half hour. Although now the sun beamed into the clearing through the dispersing cloud.

  Lighting up the scene of the crime, she thought despairingly. Jordan lifted the shovel and thumped it into the dirt with a single, powerful thrust. It quivered with the impact, and Kate pulled her knees up to her chin, trying to make herself as unobtrusive as possible. Everybody waited meekly for Jordan’s recriminations.

  He removed his T-shirt, muscles rippling across his back as he lifted it over his head and dropped it. Kate shivered. Effortlessly, he pulled the shovel out of the ground and started covering the mess with earth.

  He’d said nothing for forty minutes, ever since he’d returned to find them flapping at the fire with a flaming blanket. After one pithy expletive, he’d extinguished the flames with a competency that mocked their previous efforts.

  Then he’d made everyone sit down, had brewed tea and silently restored the camp to order. Except for a brusque, “Anyone hurt?”

  Thank God, no one was.

  Just Kate’s wardrobe, now being given a decent burial. The only item that had escaped was her wet suit, drying on a tree branch. She had nothing to wear but what she had on. She hoped Jordan would think that punishment enough.

  His expression, when she caught glimpses of his face, looked ominous, but her attention kept returning to his half-naked body, perfect in its symmetry and fluidity of movement. Even in a crisis, her feelings were complicated by lust.

  Jordan finished his work and turned to face them. “Right,” he said, “who’s to blame?”

  NEVER IN HIS LIFE had Dillon been scared of Jordan. But he was scared now.

  Bravely he lifted his chin. “I am,” he said. “I knocked it over.”

  “It’s not your fault, son,” his dad said quietly. “It was mine. I lit the stove near the tent.”

  “Our fault,” Kate corrected, reaching across Dillon to touch Mike’s arm. “The danger didn’t occur to me, either.”

  But Jordan was only looking at Dillon’s dad. “I might have guessed,” he said. Jordan was going to kill Mike.

  But he didn’t. At least, not with his hands. He did it with words. Hard words that Dillon didn’t always understand, but felt every time his father flinched beside him.

  And Dillon’s empty stomach began to hurt as though he’d eaten too much.

  Kate kept trying to interrupt, to share some of the blame, but Jordan wouldn’t listen. And Dad said nothing, not a word in his own defense, though it really was Dillon’s fault for kicking over the stove. If he hadn’t kicked it over this wouldn’t have happened.

  Jordan looked at the surrounding forest, and got even madder. “Do you have any idea what would have happened if the bush had been dry? You could have killed your son and Kate as well as yourself. But then, of course, irresponsibility is part of your nature, isn’t it, Mike?”

  Dad got smaller and smaller beside him. Dillon could feel him shrinking, and knew Mike was sorry his son was hearing all the terrible things Jordan was saying.

  Jordan was wrong. He was in the wrong. The shock made Dillon blink for a minute, then he was on his feet and screaming. “Stop it, Jordan, stop it! It’s not all Dad’s fault, it’s mine and Kate’s, as well. Stop being a bully.”

  Jordan shut up. For a moment he and Dillon stared at each other, and the only sound was the dripping of rain off the trees. Then Jordan put a shaky hand to his face, turned and strode off toward the river.

  Dillon burst into tears.

  JORDAN SAT BY THE RIVER, his face buried in his hands. The bush rang with birdsong and he concentrated on identifying the calls…the bell-like warble of the tui, the throaty cry of the wood pigeon, kereru. His leg hurt—he’d forgotten about it until now. But he couldn’t bring himself to care.

  He heard Kate’s light-footed approach and the rustle of grass as she sat beside him. He waited for her lecture, but she didn’t say anything.

  Jordan lifted his head and looked at her. There was wood ash in her hair, and she reeked of smoke, but her hazel eyes were as clear and calm as the river.

  “Go ahead, I won’t argue.”

  “I’m here to listen,” she said.

  “A bully,” he said, a lump in his throat. “I’m the guy who protects people from bullies. What the hell got into me?”

  “You imagined what could have happened and it scared you into overreacting.”

  He had. Oh, God, he had imagined losing Dillon. But also Kate. “That’s a reason,” he said brusquely, “not an excuse. I blamed Mike because I wanted to blame him, not because it was fair.”

  Wearily he rubbed his eyes. “I’ve been accusing him of jealousy, but I’m as bad. I just hid it better…until now.”

  Jordan shivered and realized he’d left his T-shirt at camp. He still had his Swanndri tied around his waist, but he didn’t want Kate to see his wound. He’d tend to that later.

  “You know what the irony is? I convinced Claire to let Mike back into Dillon’s life. I’d created the vacuum by not marrying her. It was my responsibility to help Dillon fill it, and he badly wanted to meet his real dad.” />
  “It’s natural Dillon got curious as he got older. That doesn’t mean he lacked a father figure. You’re obviously very close.”

  “We were.”

  “He’ll forgive you, Jordan.”

  “But will Mike?” She didn’t jump in with reassurances, and Jordan appreciated it.

  “I met Dillon when he was two,” he said. “I had a struggling new business, a grief-stricken mother and hormonal teenage sisters who hated their older brother for telling them they couldn’t date. But Dillon was always happy to see me. I’d walk in the room and his face would light up….”

  Jordan remembered Dillon’s face a few minutes ago. Oh, God. Getting to his feet, he helped Kate to hers. For a moment he kept hold of her hand. “Thanks, Kate.” He added gruffly, “Guess I need to start apologizing.”

  Jordan found Dillon throwing pebbles at an empty can, his small body taut with concentration. He looked like any other kid on the verge of growing up, hopelessly endearing to those who loved him. Then Dillon caught sight of him and became apprehensive.

  That hurt. “You were right to defend your dad, Dil-boy. I was being a bully.”

  Dillon flung himself into Jordan’s arms and they didn’t speak for a few minutes. “I thought you’d be so mad at me.”

  “No, I’m mad at me. I’m sorry for scaring you. Are we friends again?”

  Dillon pulled away and nodded, but he still looked anxious, and Jordan made a stab at the cause. “I’m going to apologize to your dad, too.”

  The boy finally relaxed.

  “He may not be as forgiving as you are, though. I said some pretty mean things.” Jordan thought it wiser to prepare Dillon, and Mike’s reaction made him glad he did.

  The man brushed off all Jordan’s attempts to apologize. “Yeah, well, you made your feelings about me plain, so let’s take it as a given that you think I’m a loser and I think you’re an arrogant prick.”

  Jordan tried again. “Mike, I’m asking you to give me another chance.” For a moment the other man hesitated, and Jordan started to hope. “Kate was right, we have been acting like two dogs with a bone—”