by Leah Ashton
So finally, she changed into jeans, curled up on the couch and called her mother for a chat, and pretended everything was totally fine.
“No, Mum, nothing to worry about. If Elite SWAT think I’m safe, I am.”
She certainly didn’t tell her mum about the persistent prickling at the back of her neck, or her absolutely certainty that she wasn’t going to be sleeping tonight.
But she kept on trying to convince herself everything was totally fine as she ate dinner (leftovers from dinner with her mum on the weekend), and watched the least violent show she could find on Netflix.
But the absolute proof that she wasn’t fine, was when a knock on the door almost gave her a heart attack.
Not so much her reaction to the arrival of the unexpected visitor – as telling as that was – but to how she felt when she saw the unexpected visitor was Nate, standing in a pool of light on her teensy verandah.
Because her reaction to seeing the man she’d told to leave her alone was not anger, or even frustration, but instead absolute relief.
But even so, no way was she inviting him in.
“Go away, Nate,” she said, only partly opening her front door.
He was wearing black jeans and a slate blue T-shirt, and looked just as gorgeous as usual.
“You don’t want to know why I’m here? Maybe I’ve got something important to tell you.”
Lou shrugged. “I’ll take the risk.”
She closed the door but had only taken a step away when he knocked again.
“I’ll do this all night if I have to,” he said, his voice barely muffled by a door that had never seemed flimsy until today.
With a sigh – and Lou didn’t know if it was aimed at herself or Nate – she opened the door. And stepped outside.
It didn’t seem wise to have Nate in her home.
“How did you find out where I live?” she said, keeping the door opened behind her.
Nate barely moved, so she took a step back to put some space between them. Her bare heel brushed against one of the nest of terracotta pots she had arranged beneath her front window, and when she looked down she noticed a small mound of dark potting mix on the jarrah decking, as if someone had knocked over one of her pots and done a poor job at putting it right again.
“Lou?” he asked. “Is something wrong?”
She shook her head. “No,” she said. Anyone could’ve knocked it – a delivery driver, maybe. Or maybe she did.
She met his gaze and narrowed hers. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“I looked you up on the E-SWAT system,” he said, totally unapologetic. “And here I am.”
“Why?” she said. “I asked you to leave me alone.”
“No,” he corrected. “You told me to leave you alone.”
For some reason that made her smile despite how bloody annoying he was, and she fought hard so Nate wouldn’t notice.
The glint in his eye told her she’d failed.
God this was frustrating.
She swallowed and straightened her shoulders, reminding herself why she’d told him to leave her alone in the first place. He doesn’t get to pretend to care about me.
“Why are you here, Nate?” she repeated, her words firm.
His gaze was direct, his words as firm as hers. “Because I don’t like the idea of you being here alone.”
Lou made herself sigh. “If E-SWAT says I’m safe, then—”
“You don’t really believe that.”
She raised her eyebrows. “You don’t trust the most highly skilled police officers in the state?”
“I trust they’ve weighed up the risk level and assessed it as low,” Nate said. “That isn’t the same as guaranteeing your safety. You and I both know even the best can make mistakes.”
He wasn’t trying to be cruel, just make a point, but his words still felt like a punch to her gut. Yes, she knew all about making mistakes.
She hugged herself, rubbing her hands up and down her upper arms, now pebbled with goose pimples in the cooling evening air.
“You can’t stay here,” Lou said, but without bite.
Had Nate heard that concession?
He shrugged. “No problem.” He nodded at the steel grey dual cab ute parked across the road. “I planned to sleep in my car anyway.”
Yes, he absolutely knew he’d won.
“No, you didn’t,” she said. “You planned to tell me that so I’d feel bad, and invite you to sleep on the couch instead.”
“Almost,” he corrected. “I figured you’d last about an hour before your guilty conscience had you inviting me in – but I’ll happily skip that bit. Thanks.”
Again, she had to fight against the urge to smile. “You think you know me so well,” she teased.
“No,” he said, his tone utterly different now. No humour, no smugness. “I don’t think that at all. A lot has changed in twelve years.”
Lou blinked. “Has it?” she asked, before she could think that one through.
Something hot flared in his gaze – the thing between them that definitely had not changed in the past decade: this instant, electric attraction between them.
But as she ignored her own visceral reaction to Nate and pretended her belly wasn’t flooded with heat, she reminded herself what hadn’t changed.
Nate had hurt her. And she wasn’t giving him the chance to do that again.
She forced a laugh, and shook her head, as if bemused by her own question. “I know what’s changed,” she said. “Me. I was so young, so naïve. To think I thought what we had was love.”
She managed another breezy laugh, this one quite convincing.
“It was l—” Nate began, then went abruptly silent.
Lou shook her head again. “No,” she said firmly. “While I don’t forgive you for what you did, you were probably right to do it. I was infatuated with you, imagining so much that wasn’t there. I didn’t know what love was.”
This was all absolutely rubbish, or a variation of the rubbish she’d told herself over the years.
That maybe she’d imagined the connection between them. That maybe she’d confused lust with love.
Just ways to deal with having her heart broken. Ways to make what had been so huge at the time something she could manage and move on from.
“And you do know what love is now?” Nate asked.
His eyes had revealed so much tonight – his determination to stay here all night, his humour as he’d teased her, the heat of his attraction to her.
But he revealed nothing now.
“Of course,” she lied. “I’m a grown-up now. I want more than just puppy love.”
Oh, he didn’t like that. His eyes narrowed.
“We had more than that,” he said.
“No,” she said firmly. “We didn’t. Clearly.”
Or you wouldn’t have disappeared.
He knew that too, as he didn’t argue any further.
Lou closed her eyes. It was so tempting to just tell him to leave, but she knew there was no point. The furthest he was going away tonight was to the passenger seat of his car.
Earlier today she’d told herself off for thinking she could anticipate Nate’s actions, but she did know that for certain. Nate had made his mind up to be with her tonight, to protect her, she supposed.
He wasn’t going anywhere.
And that in itself was more tempting than the uselessness of pushing him away. The idea of Nate being here for her, needing to be here for her, verged close to intoxicating.
Dangerously, it wasn’t only because she was genuinely scared of the Notechi. The fact that an outlaw motorcycle gang could be planning her demise had literally not even crossed her mind since Nate had turned up on her doorstep.
Nate did that to her. Distracted her from her own murder.
That made her laugh.
“You okay?” Nate asked, his face an adorable, handsome picture of concern.
Oh, fuck. It would still be extremely unwise to let Nate inside.
/> But still, that’s exactly what she did.
Chapter Fourteen
Lou’s house was full of colour. From the green velvet couch, to the framed vintage movie posters, to the glass vases that dotted her bookcase and sideboard – one green, another purple, another pink.
It was … cute. A really cute house.
And it was not at all what Nate had expected.
When they’d been dating, Lou had lived in a share house with a couple of other female recruits. That place had been a mission brown 1970s disaster, its one redeeming quality being how far away Lou’s bedroom had been from the other two girls. Her room then had been classic student style – almost exclusively flatpack furniture, and a free-standing clothes rack on wheels housing her entire wardrobe.
Back then, Lou had gone to zero effort to decorate. Her goal had always been to pass her training and as soon as her pay jumped up once she was out of the academy, to get her own place.
“This is a nice house,” he said.
Lou had been leading him through the small lounge to the kitchen, and she turned to raise a quizzical eyebrow. “You sound surprised?” Then she read his mind. “Expected circa 2005 Ikea, did you?” She grinned. “I’ve worked out what I like since then.”
She turned and continued onto the kitchen as Nate tried to work out if that last sentence had been as packed full of subtext as it’d sounded.
He rubbed his forehead. Shit.
This was messy. Their past, yesterday, last night, filled every molecule of air within Lou’s house. It was impossible for him to be here without bringing all that complication with him.
He hadn’t expected anything less, of course.
It certainly hadn’t stopped him from looking her address up in the work system. He could get in a fuck tonne of trouble for that, but he hadn’t cared. He still didn’t care.
Because after he’d shoved Lou out of his brain long enough for his team to ace the hostage scenario they’d run through today, he’d gone back to remembering last night.
Yes, the best bits, obviously – how hot it had been to have Lou like that against the wall, to have her so eager, so wet for him …
But also, the rest. How her hands had been shaking. Her fear back at the bar straight after the shooting, the wobble in her words: Whoever pulled the trigger was shooting at me.
For all her bravado this morning, he was suddenly certain she wasn’t cool with the removal of the CPP team. She wasn’t cool about it at all.
But she was letting her own – negative – feelings for him cloud her judgment. She pushed him away this morning because he was a dickhead a decade ago, not because she was supremely confident in the intel provided by an undercover cop she’d never met.
Or at least, that was Nate’s theory.
But he’d needed to test it – so he’d driven here, fully prepared to be sleeping in his car all night. He’d even chucked some blankets in the back of the ute.
Because he wasn’t capable of leaving Lou alone tonight.
“Have you eaten?” Lou asked. She leaned back against the wooden benchtop, the white cabinets a stark contrast behind the dark brunette of her hair.
He nodded. The brown paper drive-through bags were in the footwell of his car.
“A drink would be good, though?” he asked, and once again Lou raised an eyebrow.
“Shouldn’t we have our wits about us?”
She was teasing, and he’d only been after a water – but still he replied seriously.
“I asked around a bit at work, about the source of the intel. I remember him from the academy, and he was a good guy then, and everyone seems to agree he’s a great cop now. Keeps to himself, although probably a good trait given his current job.”
Lou’s lips curved into half a smile.
“But the feedback was consistent – he’s trustworthy. Plus, Organised Crime and Covert Ops definitely know what they’re doing. They know how these gangs operate, and obviously they endorsed the recommendation to pull the CPP team,” he continued.
“So, you don’t really think that the Notechi are going to be murdering me tonight,” Lou said. She said it in a conversational tone that made Nate narrow his eyes.
“No,” he said. “I don’t. And I really wish you’d stop joking about dying.”
“I wasn’t joking,” she said, then paused and met his gaze. He was still on the other side of the kitchen, although it was such a small space that it wasn’t really all that far away. She’d pulled her long hair into a loose plait that fell down her back, and the soft light thrown by the single pendant light above the counter created long eyelash shadows on her cheeks. “So, you don’t really think I’m in danger, yet you’re here.”
He nodded. “Like I said before, even the best make mistakes.”
She looked at him with an assessing gaze. “Do you want a drink then?”
“Yes,” he decided. “I do.”
Lou didn’t have any beer or bourbon, but she did have red wine. They ended up in her lounge room, Lou on the two-seater couch, Nate on the mismatched brown leather armchair which Lou had specified he sit on.
You sit there, she’d said, her expression implying she expected him to devour her if they shared the cosy couch.
Which was probably accurate.
Ten minutes alone with Lou in this cute little house, and it was impossible to not get seduced by the intimacy of it. Or by the intimacy of her in casual clothes and her bare feet tucked up under her as she swirled her wine in a stemless glass.
What was the reason they weren’t supposed to have sex again?
And what was the reason he ever left her in the first place?
That reminded him to sit where he was told.
“So,” Lou said into the awkward silence. “You did make it to Elite SWAT. I remember it was always your dream. Congratulations.”
“Thanks,” he said, then cleared his throat. He sounded as awkward as the silence had been. “Do you like working out of Coogee station?”
She took a long sip of her wine, her gaze aimed down at the knotted rag rug on her floor. “You know where I work?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “I know you went north of the river for a few years, then to Fremantle, then Coogee.”
He wasn’t sure why he told her all of that.
“You looked that up today or something?” she said. She was looking at him now, her forehead crinkled into a frown.
“No,” he said. “I’ve uh,” he swallowed. He sounded like a stalker, but he found he needed to tell her the truth. “I kept tabs on you, I guess. Asked about you occasionally. How you were going.”
He couldn’t work out her expression at all. Was she freaked out? Flattered? He had no idea.
“Why the hell would you do that, Nate?” she said, then stood up and walked over to her bookcase with stiff strides.
Right. Not flattered, then.
Her back was to him, and he watched as she took a deep breath. Then another.
“I’d look you up sometimes on Facebook too,” he said. Why was he doing this? “But you always keep your profile pretty locked down. I like the dress you’re wearing in your current profile photo though, the red one. You look hot.”
She took another deep breath, still keeping her back to him. Then, as he watched, she drained the rest of her wine, and placed the empty glass beside one of her coloured vases on a shelf.
She didn’t say a word, and then Nate found he’d stood up.
For a minute he just stood there, trying to work out what to do now. Tension filled the room, but then as he’d noted before – tension was everywhere when he was with Lou. Right now, the flavour of tension radiating from her was definitely angry, but not just that.
No. That was the thing with them, wasn’t it? It was always more. Twelve years ago, and now as well.
She was angry with him, and yet he still felt compelled to go to her. And somehow, he knew, like – deep down knew – that part of her wanted him close to her too. Not th
e logical part of her, sure. But the part of her that kissed him last night. And that let him into her house tonight.
He went to her, his sneakered feet almost silent on the rug. But she knew he was there. She didn’t say a word, and kept on studying those books in front of her as if they held all the answers.
“Of course, I looked you up, Lou,” Nate said. “And I asked about you. You were …”
He struggled to work out what he was trying to say, trying to grasp the right word.
She spun around abruptly, so she was right in front of him, her chin up as she glared at him.
“I was the girl you just weren’t that into, right, Nate?” she said. “Can we stop going over all of this? I don’t want to hear about how you kept tabs on me, like I was some sort of lovesick trophy for you. Did you look me up between girlfriends? When some girl dumped you? To stroke your ego, to remind yourself that hey – this stupid girl is still pining over me?”
“No,” he said, “of course I didn’t, I—”
“But the jokes on you, right, Nate?” she continued. “Weren’t you listening before? I grew up after you left. You treated me like trash and I learnt from that. I realised how stupid I’d been to say that I loved you, when I didn’t even know what the word meant yet. I haven’t been pining for you. Not at all.”
Her gaze was hot and direct. Furious.
The idea of Lou dating other men triggered a wave of jealousy Nate was helpless to tamp down, even knowing how inappropriate it was. Who was he to be jealous of the woman he’d just thrown away …
“I never looked you up, Nate. I didn’t know you worked at Elite SWAT because I didn’t care. I never asked about you, I never thought about you, I never fucking Facebook stalked you. Because you ended what we had and so you being in my life was done. Forever.”
She turned on her heel.
“I’ll go get some blankets so you can sleep on the couch,” she said. “I’m going to bed.”
But Nate followed her, grabbing her hand in his.
She went still, then slowly turned to face him.
Inexplicably, she didn’t tug her hand away.
And because he couldn’t help himself, he ran his thumb over the delicate bones of the back of her hand. Caressing her.