Hired

by Lily Harlem

  Two minutes later, with Jack Johnson strumming his guitar gently into my ears, I examined the fridge. Like the driver promised, it was crammed with fresh island produce, colorful and vibrant—shiny red tomatoes, lush green salad leaves and rosy red peppers. The spread of fish, cheese, cold meat, wine and beer was decadent, more than I’d ever seen at my Aunt Belinda’s even at Christmastime.

  I spotted two plump, shiny tuna steaks on the bottom shelf and my mouth watered. Perfect. I reached for one, dropped it in a bowl, ducked back into the fridge and gathered up cilantro, garlic, chili and a lime. I glanced at the other steak. Should I cook Logan one? No, that was silly, he was happy with his beer. He probably didn’t eat tuna anyway, he more than likely ripped raw meat from the bone with his teeth.

  I mashed up a paste to coat the steak. The smell was divine—the zing of cilantro mixing with lime and the pungency of the chili and garlic. But I’d made far too much, so, as Jack Johnson sang about banana pancakes I took the spare tuna steak and basted it alongside mine. No point in wasting my mushy, colorful creation, and if Logan didn’t want to eat, it would go on bread for my lunch tomorrow.

  I bobbed my head to the melody and set about chopping tomatoes and shredding lettuce. The tuna sizzled away in a frying pan and before I knew it the meal was done. I treated myself to a glass of chilled white wine—after all I was on holiday—and put the two plates and my wine on a tray along with cutlery.

  I glanced out the huge lounge door leading onto the beach. I’d find somewhere outside to sit, no point hiding away in my bedroom all week when the breeze was calling me.

  Walking past the lounge section I set the food on a high occasional table, removed my iPod and dropped it on the tray. “Here,” I said, placing down the meaty fish and salad on the low table next to Logan. “I thought you might be hungry.”

  His frowning blue eyes shifted from the TV to my face and he stared at me as though I’d landed from Mars.

  I held his stern gaze. I refused to be intimidated by his unblinking sullenness. I noticed he had a two-inch jagged cut just above his left brow—it was healing, the scab dark and thin. “I was cooking and I made too much,” I said with a small shrug, suddenly not wanting him to think I cared if he was hungry or not. “If you don’t want it shove it in the fridge, it will do tomorrow.”

  He looked at the meal and took a draw of his beer. His tongue retrieved a small drop of foam from his top lip then he turned back to his game.

  I straightened and reached for my tray. I couldn’t care less if he ate it or not, nor was I bothered if he didn’t speak to me. This really was going to be an easy week and an easy packet of money if I didn’t even have to acknowledge my ignorant housemate.

  The decking off the main body of the house was lavish. I hadn’t noticed it when I’d walked past Logan earlier, I was too busy trying not to look self-conscious. But now, stepping outside, I stopped and admired. Sun-bleached boards stretched to the sand and worn pillars supported a twisted rope sectioning off the decking from the beach. Several large bronze tubs boasted delicate-looking fronds surrounding an enormous seating area. There were enough chairs for twelve—brown wicker with cream cushions—they looked meant for relaxing in for an entire evening, not just a formal meal. A scarlet parasol kept the entire seating area screened from the sun’s rays and small lights were set amongst the spindles.

  I picked a chair facing the sea and listened to the waves instead of music as I ate my lunch.

  Stomach full, wine drunk, I eyed a lavish four-poster bed on the opposite side of the decking. It matched the seating area—constructed of dark brown wood and cream covers, it was probably meant for sun bathing. But against the house and shrubs and with its white-netted roof, the mattress was dappled in shade. My eyes felt heavy just looking at it and my bones could already feel the squashy mattress molding around them. Life had been a whirlwind of work and study lately, and the last twenty-four hours had been emotionally draining as well as physically exhausting.

  I found myself wandering over and the next thing I knew my head was settling into the deep pillows and my legs stretching into the mottled light.

  Utterly contented, I sighed and let the dreamy glow of wine drift me into an afternoon doze. My mind became part of the sea, the waves, I was flying like a bird and swimming like a fish. The breeze was cashmere wrapping around my body, the cushions as soft as lying on marshmallow. I could feel karma being restored deep within my core. It felt good, so good.

  * * * * *

  I don’t know how long I slept, but when I eased the knots from my bones and shifted up the pillow, sunset was stretching citrus fingers along the watery horizon. Down by a rocky outcrop, a solitary silhouetted figure ran on the shoreline, legs pounding, arms tight, a long, dark shadow moving over the sand.

  I yawned and rubbed the heels of my hands into my eyes. I hadn’t expected to see anyone else on our private beach. As I focused I saw the jogging figure was a man, a big man wearing nothing but black shorts and sunglasses.

  I tapped around for my own glasses but I’d left them on the dining table. I was just about to retrieve them when the figure turned up the beach. It was then I realized it wasn’t any old jogger, it was Logan Taylor.

  He was making a beeline for the villa, getting closer and closer each second. Over the sound of the surf I could hear the soft thuds of his bare feet and couldn’t help but notice that unlike mine, his body didn’t jiggle when he ran. It was perfectly still, honed into place by taut layers of skin.

  He slowed to a walk and stepped up onto the decking. I knew he was big, but now I also saw he was solid. Solid muscle. His golden chest was broad with a handful of dark hairs at his sternum. He had small chocolate-colored nipples that pointed slightly downward owing to the square outline of his pecs. His wide shoulders were balled and his biceps bulged even though his arms hung relaxed. I don’t know why I was surprised he was pure muscle, he was after all a finely tuned athlete, but there was something about his brutish manner and his swearing and beer swilling that made me think he’d be slobby under his clothes.

  “You’re awake,” he said in a voice deep with the effort of catching his breath. He stepped up to the bed and slid his shades from his face to the top of his head.

  “Yes.” I swallowed to moisten my dry throat, dry from wine and sleep, not from seeing a perfect specimen of the male body appear before me—or so I told myself.

  “I wanted to say thanks for lunch, but you were asleep when I came out for my run.”

  I shrugged as the smell of fresh male sweat mingled with the breeze and washed over me. “Like I said, I was cooking anyway.” I felt uncomfortable thinking he’d been by the bed when I was sleeping. Had he stopped and stared at me with those pale blue eyes? Had he run them over my body in a lazy, critical way and wondered why I wasn’t toned and tight?

  “Yeah, well, you didn’t have to cook extra. I appreciated it, I was hungry after the trip.” A lock of dark hair fell over his right eye and he pushed it away, wiping the back of his arm over his forehead.

  My eyes slid to his stomach, I tried to will them not to, but the packs of abdominal muscles and the dark trail of hair leading from his navel into the waistband of his shorts were like a magnet. The hairs looked so soft and they feathered outward in neat lines, each row getting denser until they disappeared from view. His shorts were loose-fitting and hit just above the knees. Loose fitting everywhere except right below the waistband, where they looked like space could be an issue.

  “You want some water?” he asked. If he’d noticed me checking him out he didn’t react.

  “Please,” I said, shifting to the edge of the bed and staring at my red toenails to avoid looking other places.

  “I’ll get it.” He turned and disappeared into the villa.

  I stared at his retreating back, wide at the top, tapered at the waist. But it was the way he held himself that really caught my attention, not the acres of perfect skin. He moved with such precision, such grace. An e
normous man would normally lump around but not Logan, he was almost elegant in the way he controlled his movements.

  Within minutes he was back. He set a tray on the table and poured two glasses of water from a jug chock full of lime and ice. As I sat on the same plush chair I’d used earlier he yanked a cord at the end of the decking and stood under a sudden shower of water, rubbing his hands over his body as though soaping his skin and raking the water through his hair. When the water stopped raining down, he grabbed a towel and vigorously wiped his chest and shoulders and scraped his hair backward over his head with his fingers.

  Despite the fact he’d been so rude earlier, watching him I couldn’t help wondering how it would feel to be one of those tiny droplets of water sliding down all that hard, chiseled muscle. Of their own accord my fingers twitched in my lap, rubbing together and imagining what it would be like to touch his golden skin, slick with water and heated from the sun. He may act Neanderthal but he had the body of a god.

  He sat opposite me and twisted the towel so it hung around his thick neck. “We should start again,” he said with a hint of a smile.

  I swallowed a lump in my throat and pushed my shades up the bridge of my nose. Watched a trickle run from his temple, past his ear and down his neck, settling in the hollow of his throat and glistening in the sunlight.

  “I was rude,” he said, “I’m sorry. I hate flying and I hate surprises even more.”

  “What was the surprise?” I forced myself to look at his face.

  “You.”

  “Me!”

  “Yeah, I thought I was going to have the place to myself for the week, that’s what Fergal said, then last night he rings me up and tells me I have to share it with some girl doing college exams.”

  I took a sip of water. The ice clinked against the glass. I wasn’t about to apologize for being there.

  “I was high-sticked in the forehead last week by a dumb Russian, it set me in a bad mood, big-time… What else can I say?” He shrugged. “I’m sorry.”

  “Is that how you got the cut?” I flicked my eyes to the wound across his head.

  “Yeah.” He pressed his fingertips against it. “Stitches came out yesterday.”

  “How many?”

  “Seven.”

  “Its healing well, I don’t think you’ll have much of a scar.”

  “It’s not bleeding into my eye anymore, that’s enough for me.”

  I rested back in the chair and flopped my arms to the side. A breeze lifted my hair and I caught it in a deep breathy sigh as it caressed my neck and shoulders.

  “So,” he said.

  “So what?”

  “So, aren’t you, you know…” He shrugged again.

  “What…?”

  “Going to apologize to me.”

  “Apologize?” I was shocked. “For what?”

  “You threw me an evil glare when you got on the plane, refused to speak to me in the car and then when I tried to be civil when you were cooking you ignored me.” He folded his arms over his chest and his biceps swelled all the more.

  “What are you taking about?” I had no idea. Glared at him when I got on the plane? I was sure I hadn’t. And he hadn’t spoken to me as much as I hadn’t spoken to him in the car. I decided to start with the easiest accusation. “You didn’t say anything other than swear when I was in the kitchen.”

  “Sure I did.” He gulped at his water. “I called you to come and see the third crap decision the ref made at last week’s match against Denver.”

  “And why on earth would I be interested in a wrong decision?”

  He frowned. “It was a major league game, a playoff for the Stanley Cup.”

  “Major league, minor league, its all the same to me, hockey is really not my thing and until Gis…Fergal told me yesterday about the double booking I’d not only never heard of,” I did quotation marks with my fingers, “Logan Taylor, but I also don’t follow the Orlando Snipers.”

  “Vipers,” he said with a scowl, though the corner of his mouth twitched. “Orlando Vipers.”

  I shrugged again. “So you can see why I wasn’t interested in watching some rubbish referee decision, I’m just not bothered.” I spotted my iPod strewn on the surface of the table. “But I didn’t ignore you, I was wearing this.” I fingered the thin white headphone lead. “I was listening to music, trying to restore my calm center after your outburst of cursing.”

  He looked at my hair lying tousled around my shoulders. “I guess the wires were hidden.”

  “And the plane,” I said, squinting as I remembered back. “I’d just burned my hand on the rail—it was piping hot. I was probably scowling in pain.”

  “Yeah,” he frowned. “What a hot fucker, that got me too.”

  I lowered my brows. He used swear words like normal people used nouns and adjectives. It only served to increase his caveman-like quality.

  “And,” he said with a shrug, “I was pissed ’cause I thought you were going to be a rink bunny.”

  “A rink bunny?” Did he think I’d have long ears and fluffy tail? “What on earth is that?”

  “You know, the girls that hang around the changing rooms and the local bars, hoping to hook up with a hockey player.”

  I gave a disbelieving head shake. “Do I look like a rink bunny?”

  “I’m pleased to say no, not at all.” His gaze dropped to my throat and then headed lower to my deep cleavage. His cheeky stare was like a hot caress and prickles of sensation swept over me like tiny whips of fire. I crossed my arms over my breasts, I didn’t want this jock staring at me.

  “So…” he said, suddenly standing and dragging his attention back up to my face. “You know my name but I don’t know yours.”

  “Brooke,” I said. “Brooke Ambrose.”

  “Nice to meet you, Brooke,” he drawled as he picked up his glass of water and stepped into the villa. “I’m going to get a proper shower now we’ve cleared up our little misunderstanding.”

  * * * * *

  Logan showered and stayed in his room afterward. I sat on the edge of the decking with another glass of wine and watched the most brilliant aura of them all, the setting sun’s. After that I was happy to spread a selection of healing crystals around my room, sprinkle a few drops of lavender on my pillow and settle into the cool sheets of the über-soft bed. I read up on anatomy for an hour then drifted into a deep and dreamless sleep. Calm was definitely returning to my world.

  Chapter Three

  As I stepped from my room the next morning, the fragrant smell of roasted coffee hit me. Wearing my bikini and a matching sarong, I walked barefoot into the kitchen, letting my nose lead the way, my tongue already tingling in anticipation of caffeine.

  Logan was sprawled on the sofa in his black shorts, a big red mug in his hand and yet more noisy hockey on the TV. But until I’d had at least one cup of coffee on board I wasn’t a sociable person, so I said nothing, reaching for the pot and pouring steaming liquid into a mug.

  I added a splash of milk and wandered past the sofa, through the open doors and into the morning sunshine. Padding over the deck and onto the sand, I was pleased to find it hadn’t transformed to molten glass­—yet.

  The lull of the waves called so I headed to the shoreline, walking toward the outcrop of gnarled, reddish brown rocks, stopping every now and then to admire the view and sip coffee.

  When I reached the rocks I dipped my feet into the shallow pools and let the sun warm my shoulders. Tiny blue fish skittered through strands of lime-green weeds, a larger, golden fish with bulging black eyes showed a brief interest in my red toenails before darting back behind his rock. A lone gull screeched overhead and I spotted an orange crab scampering sideways beneath a rock—then something pierced the side of my left foot.

  “Argh!” I screamed. I couldn’t help it, the pain was so sudden and so severe. Like an electric shock shooting up my leg in agonizing slices of heat. I half fell, half hopped away from the water. My cup dropped and landed upside do
wn, spilling the last of my coffee. I sat heavily, just beyond the waves, grasping my ankle and jerking my foot up to examine the source of the sting, dreading what I’d discover.

  Protruding from the side of my arch were three long, black, incredibly thin needles. I gritted my teeth and hissed. They’d pierced my skin deep and disappeared well beneath the surface. A bright globule of blood was already seeping from one puncture site. The scarlet red against the shiny black and my pale flesh was sickening and my coffee threatened to surface as my stomach clenched.

  Tears welled in my eyes. It hurt so much, like a burn and a stab wound at the same time. How would I get the needles out? How would I get back to the house? The black shards became a blur as I stared at them unblinking. I’d allow myself a moment of self-pity then hop or crawl or drag myself back to my room. I was sure I’d packed a pair of tweezers. I’d pull the spines out, if only I could make it.

  “Hey, hey, what’s going on?” a deep voice called from behind me. “You all right?”

  I turned and through watery eyes saw Logan jogging down the beach, sunglasses shading his eyes, bare feet kicking up sand.

  “No,” I said, with a wobble in my voice. Why was I such a wimp with pain? I wished I was tougher but it had never been in my genetic makeup. “I’ve stood on something, something really horrid and sharp, it’s stuck in me.”

  “Let’s see.” He dropped to his knees, shoving his shades on top of his head. Small creases darted from the corners of his eyes as he lowered his dark head over my foot.

  I caught my breath. Suddenly I had something other than pain to concentrate on. The breeze lifted his brown hair around the base of his neck. His broad, golden shoulders shone in the sun and the delicious scent that filled the car yesterday washed over me. I tried again to pinpoint it, neroli and cedar perhaps?

  “Sea anemone,” he said with a frown, wrapping his big hand around my calf and lifting my foot higher. “But at least they’re on the side and not the base. Once we’ve managed to get them out, you’ll still be able to walk.”