"Does that mean you can't sell it?" I asked.
"Well, not yet, seeing as there's a burned-out house on it, but there aren't any caves there. The whole property's sand – the limestone doesn't start until the other side of the road, where that ridge is. If there's anything unsafe underground, it's got to be crater where the mine blew up or the bunker. And if a truck's driven over it and the roof's collapsed...why would they say it's a cave?"
"They're old Defence ruins, so maybe Defence is checking it out for more explosives. Or it could be ASIO, given the history of the place..." I began thoughtfully. "Either way, it's a secret they want to hide. Maybe even bury."
"You know, I hope they do bury it." Caitlin laughed. "So it really is over. The fire took out the house, the demolition crew destroyed the bunker, and ASIO or Defence will cover up the whole mess and bury the past for us. But if that bunker hadn't been there, if you hadn't known where it was...it's a miracle we survived. It's over. I can't believe how relieved I feel. It's wonderful!" She grabbed me in a tight hug, which I was only too happy to return.
"Shall we have a drink to celebrate?" I asked.
She grinned. "Absolutely. I'll get a couple of beers and we can watch the sunset from the balcony."
We settled down to drink.
Caitlin sighed contentedly and said, "You know, if you'd agreed to enter the witness protection program with me five years ago, we could have been sharing beers on my balcony in Melbourne all this time."
I snorted. "No one ever offered me witness protection. I evidently wasn't worth protecting." I stared at her. "But if you'd wanted me to come with you, all you'd have had to do is say so. I would have dropped everything for you."
Caitlin's mouth hung open. "But Mott...he was supposed to tell you. To arrange for a transfer to Melbourne to be with me. That's what you came to the church to say. That you were sorry because you couldn't accept the offer."
I shook my head slowly. "Mott didn't offer me a damn thing. He fired my arse and took my gun off me the day before we went to the morgue to identify the bodies of your kidnappers. The only transfer I got was to the unemployment list."
She took a deep draught of her beer and was silent for a while. Conscious of having killed the conversation, I began babbling about the weather.
Two beers turned into four and the sun was almost out of sight when we waited for the first star to appear so we could make a wish.
"I wish..." we both began before laughing.
"You first," I offered, wondering what she looked so eager to wish for.
"No, you," she replied, reddening.
"Ladies first," I insisted. I didn't want to admit that I couldn't decide on just one wish.
Caitlin got up. "I have an idea. I'll be back." She crossed to the sliding door and reached into her apartment. From the table beside the door, she took a notepad and two pens. Returning to the tiny table beside me, she tore off a page and handed me a pen. "How about we write them down?"
"Sure," I said, clicking my pen in readiness. I stared at the paper. I had too many wishes that I knew could never come true. So much of the past I wish I could change. To write down only one...
Caitlin's pen skittered across the page until she threw it down. "Aren't you done yet?" she asked.
I covered my page with one hand. "It's hard to think which wish is most important," I admitted.
She folded her page in half, leaving it on the table. "Well, I'll go take the empties inside and get a couple more, shall I? While you're still thinking." She grabbed the empty beer bottles in the crook of her arm and slid the door open. I heard the glass clink into the bin.
Still I stared at my blank page. I glanced over at her crisply folded sheet. I reached over and snagged it as curiosity got the better of me.
I wish I'd told you I loved you five years ago.
Instead of helping, those simple words shot a hole through my heart. If I'd known she'd felt that way five years ago, I'd have stopped at nothing to keep her. Another wish joined the clamour in my head.
I stared at my paper. I wanted to wish that the painful events in our past had never happened. I wanted Alanna to be here, to introduce the two of us. I wanted Caitlin and me to fall in love like two normal people in one of the romance novels Chris read when I wasn't around. To live happily ever after. Not...any of this.
I wanted to take another deep draught of my beer, but it was empty and Caitlin hadn't returned. What was taking her so long? I glanced inside, but I didn't see her, so I stepped back into her apartment. I headed for the fridge and got out two more beers – the last of our six-pack. I started searching through the drawers for her bottle opener.
Maybe she'd gone to the toilet, I reasoned. I figured she'd be back soon enough and I'd have her drink ready and waiting.
I heard a sob – unmistakably hers. I looked around, trying to find the source. She sat hunched over the dining table, her dark hair blending with the dark cloth as she rested her head on her folded arms. Her shoulders shook with another sob.
"Angel, are you hurt?" I asked as I cautiously approached her.
"No," she whispered without lifting her head. She hunched her shoulders over, as if protecting herself from me or the rest of the world. "All this time, I thought you'd chosen your job over me. That you rejected my offer because you didn't want me. Shit, if that bastard Mott wasn't dead, I'd want to kill him twice over...and bring him back to life to do it a third time. If I hadn't been so trusting...if I'd asked you...I wish I could go back five years and do everything differently." She started to sob.
I couldn't stand to see her like this. I laid careful hands on her shoulders and started to rub them. Gentle strokes, just like I'd learned in that massage course with Alanna, so many years ago, easing away the tension until I felt her start to relax.
"I read your paper," I confessed.
I felt her shoulders tighten, but I kept up my massage until she dropped them again.
"I have so many wishes about the past – about things I can't change," I continued. "I'd like to wish that they'd never seen you, or that they'd never seen my sister. Or my parents had never annoyed so many people. I'd like to wish we'd met under different circumstances, so I'd have had a chance with you. I can wish for all those things and never get any of them. Or I can make a wish for the future and do my damnedest to make sure it comes true." I leaned over and touched my lips to the back of her neck. "I wish you'd let me carry you off to bed, right now, and make love to you all night. I'd like to kiss you, caress you, taste you and feel you wrapped around me in every way you're willing to be. I'd like to hear you scream my name the way you did the last time you let me pleasure you – as if you want me and you want more. When we're both so satisfied and exhausted by such an incredible night, I'd like to hold your naked body in my arms and sleep beside you until morning. When we wake together, I'd like our first thought to be how much we'd like to do it all again – even if it's not straight away, but some vague time in the future."
She sat, still and silent.
Now I'd started, I wanted to say it all, so I told her the rest. "I know I don't deserve you, but I wish I could have you, for a night or for a week or forever. If I could wipe all the horror of the past away, I would, but I'd still want my one wish. I love you, angel, just like I did then. More, maybe, because I know how amazing you really are, taking the broken pieces and making a man out of me again." I closed my eyes.
I heard the scrape of her chair across the tiles and I felt the leg crush my toe, but my pain and protests died as her mouth fastened over mine. Salty with tears, the taste of her tongue on mine drove me mad. I lifted her off her feet, cradling her in my arms, desperate to prolong that passionate kiss.
She broke for breath, but I just wanted to savour the feeling.
"What will you do if I agree to grant your wish?" she asked breathlessly.
I laughed. "I'll give you the best night I can manage – all of it. Just say the word, angel."
"And if I want
more than one night? Every night afterwards?"
"Then I'm yours for as long as you want me. A night, a month, a year, a lifetime. I owe you my life and I want to give it to you, one glorious day and night at a time. Do you want me, angel?"
"Yes," she murmured, kissing me again. "Yes, Nathan. You're my hero and you always will be."
Author’s Note
Afterlife of Alanna Miller is the end of the Nightmares Trilogy – a series I've worked on for twenty years. Knowing me, it was only a matter of time before I missed them so much I wrote another story set in the future after the nightmares are over. I can only imagine what Jason will say when he finds out that Caitlin and Nathan are back together...and so I started writing the Romance Island Resort series, set at the resort Jason buys to retire at.
So if you'd like to pay a visit to the Romance Island Resort...read on for SEVEN bonus chapters from Maid for the Rock Star, the first book in the Romance Island Resort series.
One
"Rock stars don't retire at twenty-five! I'm way too young. And there's no way in hell I'm taking up lawn bowls." Jason stared moodily out the helicopter window at the pearl farm below.
Beside him, Jo shrugged. "So get a job. Find a different hobby. And no, banging every girl you meet isn't a hobby. It's more like an addiction you should kick."
"It's not my fault women find me irresistible," he said smugly. "I'm a fucking rock star. C'mon, sis, name two women who wouldn't sleep with me if I asked them."
"Well, there's me, for a start." Jo spotted the pearl farm. "Ooh, I should stop there before I leave town. I could wear pearls in the office..."
Jason snorted. "You're family. You don't count."
Jo favoured him with the glare he'd seen her practising in the mirror – the one she planned to use on staff who'd blown their budgets. "My dear stepbrother, in case you've forgotten, there's no blood relationship between us. So if you truly are irresistible, your charms should work on me. And I'm just not interested."
"No, you're just crazy." Jason waved a hand up and down the body he knew was sculpted to perfection. "No sane woman can resist this."
"Approaching Romance Island now. I'll have you on the ground in five minutes," the pilot said flatly.
Jason considered her. No, too old. She had to be well over thirty. He peered back out the window, hoping to catch a glimpse of bikini-clad bodies on the beach as the white and green streak on the horizon expanded into a heart-shaped atoll.
He couldn't help feeling a thrill of excitement. This was the place, he knew it. This exclusive tropical resort was where a rock star could get a bit of rest and recuperation, with plenty of female company to keep him busy at night. And when Angel came to her senses and set out to find him...well, here he'd be. In paradise. What more could she ask for than the perfect man in the perfect setting? Maybe she'd reconsider her decision to break up the band, agree to do a comeback tour, and realise that nothing was better than living the rock star life. She just needed a bit of time, that's all. Time he'd spend in paradise, living it up.
He wondered whether he wanted blonde, brunette or a rare redhead tonight. When the helicopter bumped to the ground, he decided to leave it up to chance. After all, he could try something different tomorrow.
Two
"Audra, you'll take care of the Pearls this week." Annette didn't lift her eyes from the staff roster in her hands.
Audra raised her eyebrows at hearing the name of the resort's crown jewels. "I thought only Jackie cleaned the Pearl Villas." Casual housekeeping staff like her didn't have a hope in hell of getting near the VIPs who stayed in the Pearls. She usually ended up dealing with the motel-style rooms in the main building. Families, honeymoon couples and well-paid professionals who didn't have secrets to keep like the Pearl guests did on the other side of the lagoon.
Annette shrugged. "Jackie's off sick. Injured her knee when she slipped cleaning one of the bathrooms. I can assign one of the other girls – Penny, maybe – but you asked for more responsibility, and if you want to stay on after the dry season's over, you'll have to know how to deal with VIPs."
And if she didn't, Penny might get the permanent position instead, was what Annette didn't say. She didn't have to. Audra needed the job and she couldn't afford to lose it to Penny. This job would see her through until next year's round of graduate job offers, if she could win the contested full-time position in the off season. Otherwise, she'd be forced to return to endless rounds of job-hunting between queuing up for unemployment benefits. Just like her brothers and her father. "No, I'll do it," Audra replied. "Thank you."
"You should thank me. Maxima's the only villa occupied at the moment. One VIP whose only request is privacy and solitude. Should be easy."
Audra nodded, but she didn't agree. Nothing in her life was ever easy.
Annette set the roster down on the table and pulled her phone out of her pocket. "I'll just send a message to Dennis and get him to authorise access for you." She tapped at her phone screen. "There. Run on over to Reception and he'll take care of it."
Thanking her boss one last time, Audra left the staff dining room and wended her way past the staff accommodation, through the palm trees and up to the main building. It wasn't until she reached the doors that she caught more than a glimpse of the heart-shaped lagoon that gave Romance Island its name. Not for the first time, she marvelled at how well the luxury resort's service areas were hidden among the dense palms and pandanus. When the guests paid a fortune for every night they stayed on the island, they didn't want to be reminded that the small army of staff who served their every need also lived there, rent-free.
Audra breathed in the faint scent of frangipani as she entered the air-conditioned foyer, wishing she could wear one behind her ear like the Reception staff did, but the flowers scarcely stayed in place through the first room she cleaned, let alone the whole day, so she'd given up on them.
Hana, the Japanese tour guide, stood alone at the Reception desk.
"No tours today?" Audra asked.
"Just heli-fishing this morning. This afternoon I have a large group snorkelling in the Rose Garden, if you want to come." Her dark eyes shone with eagerness. Audra suspected Hana preferred being in the water to staying on land, but she didn't understand it.
"Only if you tell the sharks to stay away," Audra replied.
Hana giggled. "Oh, but the reef sharks are the best part! They're so very shy."
"Not with me." Audra still bore the scars of her first meeting with a reef shark. She'd stood knee-deep in the shallows of what had turned out to be the reef shark nursery and one of the beasts had bitten her on the leg. She wouldn't venture into the water again in a hurry.
Speaking of hurrying... She caught a glimpse of Dennis entering the security office, made her excuses to Hana and headed after him.
Dennis gave her a curt nod of recognition and held out his hand. "ID?"
Audra slipped off her wristband and handed it over.
Dennis dropped it into the scanner and drummed his fingers on the keys. "So now you have access to all the Pearl Villas, too. Anything else I can get you?"
Audra shook her head and fastened her ID around her wrist. "Thank you."
"You watch out over there," Dennis said darkly, glaring at the lagoon.
Audra followed his gaze. "Believe me, I'm not interested in getting up close and personal with any more sharks."
He snorted out a laugh. "Not just the sharks in the water. The ones in the villas, too. Rich snobs, people with more money than morality. Or sense. Be careful, or you'll lose your job."
"How? I'm not going to steal from them, and I know all about our confidentiality and non-disclosure clauses. I'm not stupid enough to take any stories to the press."
"That's good, but it's the no-fraternising rule you'll need to remember." His gaze seemed to be searching for her soul.
"I haven't fraternised with anyone, guest or staff, since the day I arrived, and I don't intend to," she replied. "Do you seriousl
y think I'd seduce some old mining tycoon for his fortune?" The money would be handy, she couldn't deny it, but the thought of sleeping with some old man... it just wouldn't be worth it. She wasn't desperate enough to do that.
"No, you're a good girl, but your dad would want me to look out for you, is all. We worked together for long enough, he's almost like family, which makes you family, too. And your mum would kill me if I let anything bad happen to you up here. I'm already in hot water over the shark." Dennis coughed. "There's a reason only Jackie services those houses."
"Because she's the most senior housekeeper under Annette," Audra snapped. "She's damn good at what she does. She still holds the record for being the only person capable of cleaning the entire main building in a single shift, and she managed that ten years ago. No one else can do it."
Dennis nodded thoughtfully. "That's why she's senior staff, yes, but not why she gets the Pearls. We used to send younger staff out there, but I've had to escort too many of them off the island. Seduced by the guests. Money or love or...some of them said they were bullied into it by the VIPs, told they'd lose their jobs if they didn't cater to the guests' every whim. I don't want to see it happen to you."
Audra fought back her anger. Dennis and her parents worried about her, she knew that, but she'd been working part-time hospitality jobs for the last seven years, since she turned fourteen. And she knew how to deal with misogynistic male customers with entitlement issues, whether they were paying a thousand dollars a night for a beachside villa or three dollars for a cup of terrible coffee. Though hot coffee to the crotch was a better defence than trying to crush his foot with a lumbering cleaning trolley full of towels. More satisfying, too.
Afterlife of Alanna Miller Page 23
