by Susan Napier;Kathryn Ross;Kelly Hunter;Sandra Marton;Katherine Garbera;Margaret Mayo
After a night like that.
She looked beautiful in her crumpled blue dress. Rested. How on earth she pulled that off he didn’t know, because she certainly hadn’t had much sleep. She smiled at him and her smile was warm and easy, which was both good and bad. Her awkwardness seemed to have disappeared. His, on the other hand, seemed to be growing. ‘Juice?’ he offered.
‘From the bar fridge?’
‘From the bakery. Breakfast roll?’
She looked at the bakery bag on the counter, looked at him. ‘You’re feeding me?’
Damn. He knew walking into that bakery had been a mistake. ‘Don’t dwell on it.’
She smiled and reached for the bag of bread rolls and the tension in his stomach eased. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ she said, and the ache in his stomach was back, only this time it was multiplied tenfold. He hated it when a woman got to thinking. Especially the morning after. ‘You didn’t give me a compliment last night at dinner.’
‘I didn’t?’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘You’re very smart.’
‘Backhanded compliments don’t count,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I want a genuine one.’
‘Working on it.’
Her smile was pure challenge. ‘I’m glad to hear it. Is that coffee?’
‘I wasn’t sure how you took it.’ He had all the fixings there. He just hadn’t made it.
‘White, no sugar.’
Girl coffee. He made it fast and set it on the table beside her, deliberately not handing it to her directly, because handing it to her meant touching her and touching her was out.
‘So…’ she said, after she’d sipped her coffee and nibbled on her bun, ‘I’m thinking we need lots of inane morning-after conversation.’
‘Silence is good,’ he countered. ‘Silence is golden.’
‘No.’ She eyed him steadily. ‘We do not want golden this morning. We want casual and meaningless. At least, I’m assuming that’s what you want.’
It was. He was desperate for it. Whether they could manage it was a different matter altogether. ‘Nice day outside,’ he said doggedly. ‘Rain’s gone.’
‘That’s good.’ She smiled at him and sipped her coffee. ‘Did you know that Inverell has an old-car museum?’
‘That’s not inane,’ he said indignantly. ‘That’s important.’
‘Hmm. It opens to the public at nine a.m. When did you want to leave for Sydney?’
‘When do you want to leave?’
‘It’s an eight-hour drive, straight down the New England,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘We could leave at lunchtime and still get home this evening. If you wanted to.’
‘Or if you wanted to,’ he said.
‘Mmm.’ She handed him a glass of orange juice. ‘Cheers.’
She was doing it deliberately. Holding off until he said something about where they were going and when. As if he knew.
‘Had any more thoughts about that compliment?’
‘No.’ He wasn’t currently thinking complimentary thoughts about her at all and one look at the smirk she was trying to hide behind her orange juice told him she knew it. Damned if she didn’t think she had the upper hand in not-nearly-as-inane-as-it-seemed conversation this morning. The fact that she did didn’t improve his mood any.
It was half eight already. It would take half an hour to eat, shower, and get underway. After that it was straight down the road. He did want to get back to Sydney today. Didn’t he?
‘Here’s the plan,’ he said. ‘First the car museum, then a quick stop at Wallace Sapphires. After that we hit the highway and head for home.’
‘Why Wallace Sapphires?’
Tristan rubbed the back of his neck. For all that this wasn’t his beat or his business he couldn’t let Roger keep stealing from the widow Wallace. ‘I thought I might speak with Mrs Wallace about protecting her sapphires from theft. Simple measures like a security camera in the shop, for instance.’
‘Or finding another fish-tank cleaner.’
‘That too. The point is, she has options. She should know that.’
‘I like it.’
Erin’s smile warmed him through. Spun him round. He didn’t want it. Didn’t need it. He told himself that as he stood there watching her and wondering just what it was about her that made her so different from any other woman he’d ever known. ‘I need a shower,’ he muttered.
‘And I’m off to pack.’ She downed her coffee, collected her shoes, and started to leave. Her steps slowed as she drew level with him and her smile faltered as her eyes searched his face. ‘If I thought I could pull it off I’d kiss you good morning,’ she said solemnly. ‘One of those quick, thanks-for-the-good-time-last-night kisses. One that said I was used to feeling the way I felt when I was in your arms. That’s the kind of kiss I’d give you this morning. If I thought I could pull it off.’
‘Erin?’ She was halfway out the door before he spoke. ‘If I thought I could pull it off I’d let you.’
Erin didn’t mind taking a wander through the old-car museum. There were other things there to look at besides cars. Old petrol-station pumps and shopfront signs. Porcelain dolls.
Tristan…
She really, really liked seeing the boyish side of Tristan come out to play. She’d tease it out more often if he were hers. Make sure it appeared at least once daily to counteract the seriousness of his work.
No! She had to stop thinking about what she would do if he were hers. He wasn’t hers. He didn’t want to be hers. And that was a good thing because he was everything she didn’t want in a partner. Work he couldn’t talk about. Hurt she couldn’t heal. And a dedication to duty that he simply couldn’t shake.
Oh, he was trying, she thought with grim humour. He was hurt enough, and tired enough to wonder about finding another job. A more menial job. And two months into that he’d wonder what on earth he was doing there. His need to make a difference, to make the world or at least the part of it he walked through a better place, was too strong.
So they would call in to Wallace Sapphires on the way home today and he would do what he did. With compassion and with grace he would serve and protect.
It was ten-thirty before they left the museum. He’d immersed himself in yesteryear and lingered longer than he should have, thought Tristan, but the old jalopies, some perfectly restored and some not, had been impossible to resist. Erin could have hurried him along but she hadn’t. She’d given him space and walked her own path through the museum, an easy wander that had taken in the little curiosities more so than the cars, but if her aim was to put some distance between them, both literally and figuratively, she hadn’t succeeded. Even surrounded by a hundred classic cars he always knew where she was. He knew when she was watching him, and he knew when she looked away. It was then that he looked at her. She was in his head. And he couldn’t get her out.
It was almost eleven before they pulled into the Wallace Sapphire mine car park. ‘What are you going to do if Mrs Wal isn’t in the shop today?’ asked Erin as he opened the car door.
‘Find her. Wait in the car.’
‘I’m coming with you.’
‘No.’
‘Clearly one of your favourite words,’ she muttered as she got out of the car and met his gaze over the roof of it. ‘It’s like this. You can try and tie me to the car—and under different circumstances I might enjoy letting you—or I can come with you. I won’t interfere—’
‘Then stay in the car!’
‘But I won’t be left out. This isn’t some official investigation, Tristan. You know it isn’t. It’s you and me trying to help an old lady with an employee problem.’
His glare was his blackest and he knew for a fact that it could reduce grown men to stuttering, but not Erin. Hands on her hips, she traded him glare for glare before dismissing him and heading for the shop.
He was one step behind her when she reached the door. One step ahead of her as he reached for the door handle and turned it for her. ‘One of these days I really will
shackle you to the car,’ he muttered.
‘Bite me.’
‘That would come after,’ he said, and meant every word of it.
Erin’s eyes grew dark and slumberous. The grin she gave him was lethal. ‘Promise?’
‘Keep your mind on the job,’ he muttered. ‘That way maybe I can keep my mind on it too.’
‘I’m on it,’ she said, and with a deep breath, ‘sorry.’
‘First rule of policing.’ She looked so contrite that he couldn’t resist bringing his hand up to tuck a wayward strand of silky brown hair behind her ear. ‘Never hit on your partner.’
‘Right.’ She took the hand he’d used to touch her with and brushed her lips against his knuckles, sending a jolt of desire straight through him.
‘Why are we doing this now?’ he muttered.
‘Because right now we’re safe. We know we have to stop,’ she said with a tiny tilt of her lips as she let go of his hand and drew away.
Her words made a frightening amount of sense.
‘Looks like we’re in luck,’ she said, peering through the door. ‘There’s Mrs Wal.’
‘She’s probably wondering why we’re making out on her doorstep,’ he muttered as he pushed the door open and ushered Erin into the shop. ‘If she asks, you explain it.’
‘If she asks, I will. Morning, Mrs Wal,’ she said cheerfully.
‘Oh, dear,’ said the older woman with a tentative smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. ‘It’s going to be one of those days, I can tell. You’ve changed your mind about the sapphires, haven’t you?’
‘Not at all,’ said Erin. ‘Those sapphires are perfect.’
The widow Wallace looked relieved. ‘Well, if there’s anything else I can help you with…’
‘Actually, we haven’t come to look around,’ Tristan said gently. ‘I’m in law enforcement, Mrs Wallace, and I’d like to talk to you about some options you might like to think about with regards to those missing sapphires. Nothing official,’ he said at the older woman’s look of alarm. ‘But if they’re being stolen rather than misplaced there are things you can do to protect your stock.’
Her eyes watered and she gave him a tremulous smile. ‘You’ve a good heart,’ she said. ‘I knew it the first time I saw you. And I thank you for your concern, but it’s not necessary.’ She looked down at a closely written sheet of paper beside her on the counter.
‘I found this tucked underneath the front door when I came in this morning. It lists every stone he ever took from me along with dates, prices, and calculated interest.’ She looked as if she was about to cry. He hated it when they cried. He looked to Erin. Maybe she could help when it came to the tears. Nope. She looked as if she was going to cry. This was a disaster.
‘This next sheet’s a repayment schedule,’ said the widow Wallace, picking it up and handing it to him. ‘Starting today, of how he’s going to pay it back.’
‘Roger?’ he asked gently and she nodded.
‘These,’ she said in a slightly firmer voice for which Tristan was truly thankful, ‘are my calculations, using the cost price of the stones instead of retail price. I’ve used a lower interest rate as well. I knew he was in trouble, not that he ever said. That wife of his…’ She shook her head. ‘I’m offering him a job. I should have had someone in to oversee the business well before now. Lord knows my heart’s not in it, not since Edward passed on. Besides, it’s about time someone offered that boy a chance.’
‘You’ll be running a risk,’ he said as he set the sheet on the counter beside her. It was a solution, yes. But it wasn’t one he would have advised.
‘I know.’
‘What if he steals from you again?’
Mrs Wallace looked down at Roger’s letter, at his estimate of what he’d taken and what he owed her, and smiled through her tears. ‘He’s a good boy,’ she said. ‘I know he is. Sometimes you’ve just got to have faith.’
‘That went well,’ said Erin when they reached the car. ‘Not quite what I expected, mind, but it certainly feels like a win for the good guys. I feel good about this. Mrs Wal feels good about this.’ She stared at Tristan’s stern profile. He was doing the driving again. ‘Do you feel good about this?’
‘I’m not unhappy about it,’ he said after a while. ‘I believe in giving people a second chance.’
‘I’m hearing a but,’ she said.
‘But I’m not a big believer in happily ever afters either,’ he said quietly. ‘I don’t see it.’
‘What about hope?’ she asked him. ‘Do you see that?’
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Lately I do.’
They stopped for a late lunch in Tamworth and even after they’d lingered over coffee they were making good time. Erin took a stint at the wheel and then it was his turn again, as the sun slipped behind the horizon and the night unfolded. They would get home that evening, without a doubt, thought Tristan. They would get home and say goodbye and he would walk away unscathed and so would she. That was what he wanted. What they both wanted. Wasn’t it?
She didn’t like what he did for a living.
Yet she understood it instinctively. She knew the heaviness that came with duty and by God she knew how to fight it. With laughter and hope and a hefty dose of distraction, she brought balance into a world that was too often too dark.
He lived in London.
But he wouldn’t be going back there. Not to live. He wanted a transfer back to Australia and a break from undercover work. He could make it happen.
He was scared witless of giving his heart to a woman and then losing her.
There was that.
No woman had ever captivated him so completely, or made him fear so much. He didn’t know how she did it, she just did and she was everything he’d ever needed and everything he’d never allowed himself to dream of.
‘Whoa!’ she said suddenly.
‘What?’ he said, alarmed. ‘What is it?’
‘Kangaroo,’ she said. ‘A big grey one. Huge. It was just about to hop out in front of us.’
‘I didn’t see it.’
‘Could have been a wombat, I guess.’
‘A wombat?’
‘Big grey one.’
He saw the tilt of her lips out of the corner of his eye. He was too busy looking for kangaroos and oversized wombats to look at her properly.
There was nothing there.
‘Dangerous business, this driving down the highway at dusk,’ she said conversationally.
‘Yeah.’ Particularly with a madwoman in the car.
‘There’s a motel a few kilometres up ahead. We passed a sign a couple of kilometres back.’
‘Was that before or after you saw the mutant kangarombat?’
‘I’m pretty sure it was just before.’
He chanced a glance at her. Her smile was wicked.
‘Maybe we should consider spending the night at the motel,’ she said. ‘For the sake of the animals. I’m all for protecting rare and endangered wildlife.’
He had to smile. Even as he cursed her and surrendered to the inevitable. He didn’t want to make it home tonight. He didn’t want the trip to end, didn’t want to have to say goodbye to her. Not…yet. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘We should do our bit for wildlife conservation.’
‘I do like conviction in a man.’ She stretched languidly and sent him a smile that slid through him like a hot knife through butter. ‘How many rooms do you think we’ll be needing?’
‘One.’
They made it to the room without touching. He managed to get their bags in and the door closed before he reached for her. ‘Kiss me good morning,’ he muttered as her arms came around his neck, and her eyes grew dreamy.
‘I looked for you this morning, when I woke,’ she whispered as she brushed her lips across his. ‘I wanted your lips on mine. I wanted mine on you.’ She set her mouth to his and her kiss was deep, and drugging, and seemed to last for ever. ‘I watched you at the car museum and I wanted to kiss you then. Right the
re by the straight-eight Ford you fell in love with.’ Her fingers were at his shirt, unbuttoning it and smoothing it over his shoulders and he let her, helplessly following the flow of emotion that bound him to her. ‘I watched your gentleness with Mrs Wallace and wanted it for myself. I still want it.’ And then her lips were on his again and he was slowly drowning in her. He felt the edge of passion rip through him and fought to control it. Not yet. Mindless desire didn’t always rule him. He could be gentle, would be gentle. Because this time he needed to give as well as take.
So he slowed his hands as he slid them over her, slowed his movements as he drew her down onto the bed and took the time to savour what he held.
She sighed, shakily as he undressed her, his hands gentle and sure. There was passion in him, there always was, but this time he kept it leashed. Only his eyes gave him away for they blazed hot with every whimper he drew from her lips, every tremor he coaxed from her body.
She wove her hands in his hair and lost herself to sensation when his lips followed his hands to her breast and he sucked gently. Her nipples peaked for him and she arched against him, wanting more, craving more, but he wouldn’t be rushed. He took his time, with long, slow strokes of his hands and with hot, open-mouthed kisses down her body; he took the time to know her.
‘Tristan—’ She was trembling with the effort of holding her body in check. ‘Tristan, please—’
‘You want me to be more gentle?’
‘No!’ She didn’t know what she wanted. The passionate intensity he brought to his lovemaking could shoot her so high so fast she could hardly breathe. She’d thought to avoid that this time, she’d thought she wanted tenderness, but his tenderness was destroying her. ‘Yes,’ she whispered brokenly. She wanted it all.
