Harlequin KISS November 2014 Box Set: Behind Closed Doors...Fired by Her FlingWho's Calling the Shots?Nine Month Countdown

by Anne Oliver

  ‘I want you to stay,’ she continued, but he heard a thread of silk through the steel. ‘At least until probate’s finalised.’ She hesitated as if weighing her words. ‘I need you.’

  The images those three words conjured. His erection quivered and strained against his fly, forcing him to shift position. The sultry glide of her flesh against his as she panted those words into his mouth. His lips sliding lower, driving her desperation higher as her panting turned to whimpers...

  Scowling into shrubbery, he avoided the hopeful, vulnerable look that had crept into her eyes, which reminded him his imagination was leading him down the path to self-destruction. He let out a long, slow breath. He could be here for four weeks. Twenty-eight long days. Twenty-eight endless, frustrating nights.

  ‘Think about it, Jack,’ she said at last, rising abruptly. ‘We’ll talk later.’

  He remained as he was—hard, frowning—watching the sway of her jeans-clad hips as she walked away. Her gold hair showered over creamy bare shoulders. For a moment he was tempted to follow, just to breathe in its scent again.

  He twined his fingers around a slim branch and inhaled the fragrance of the grey leaves instead. Then he rammed a fist against the tree trunk. Don’t be an idiot. How many men had fallen victim to those blue eyes and pouty mouth in his absence? His own father had left her his entire inheritance—didn’t that tell him anything?

  But his heart wasn’t paying attention to his head. The one girl he’d made off limits was the only girl who’d ever slipped beneath that barrier he’d erected around it.

  Damned if he wasn’t going to get some answers.

  FIVE

  Jack followed Cleo at a discreet distance. She headed to the shed at the back of the garage—her workshop, he remembered. He watched her take a key from her pocket, unlock the door and disappear inside. Was she going to fire up her soldering iron or celebrate her inheritance in private?

  The images invading his brain tore him to shreds. His father and Cleo. He was so preoccupied with the fist clenched round his gut he didn’t knock, but walked right in.

  The smell of metal and dust met his nostrils. He gazed at the mess. It was like being back in a war zone. Scrap iron and old pipes were stacked against a wall. Bicycle wheels littered the floor at one end, along with half a dozen metal sculptures—works-in-progress, he assumed, because they didn’t look like anything he’d ever seen before. A trio of bronze-forged lilies speared out from a metal cylinder.

  A goggled Cleo perched on a stool, head bent over a piece of wire, a snipper of some sort in her hand. She’d pulled on a pair of grey overalls over her clothes. They swamped her small stature and made her look vulnerable. We’ll just see. He dragged an overturned crate over the concrete floor, positioning it so he could get a good clear look at her expression, and sat down.

  ‘I’m behind in my orders,’ she said, without looking up. She reached for a small mallet and began pounding the metal.

  He studied her face. ‘Some people might wonder why Gerry Devlin left his house and entire life savings to you over his son.’

  The rhythmic thuds continued, but her expression barely changed. ‘Perhaps they’ll think it’s because Jack Devlin didn’t care enough to come home when it mattered. But no one’s going to wonder, because no one’s going to know. We’re going to sort it out before they do.’

  He watched her clever fingers manipulating the wire as the end took on a flattened oval shape. How clever would they be manipulating his flesh? Or his father’s? he thought, clenching his teeth. ‘You’re not blood kin,’ he continued. ‘You’re a young and available woman. People talk.’

  He saw her fingers tighten on the mallet, watched her jaw drop, her throat bob as she swallowed. And waited for her next response. One second, two. Three.

  With slow, deliberate movements she set the tool down, slid the goggles to the top of her head, and raised her eyes to his. Their blue fire arced across the space between them. No guilt, no guile. Just simple, honest-to-goodness fury.

  Right response.

  ‘What exactly do you mean by that?’ She spoke each word as if she’d snipped it off with her tin shears. Twin spots of colour bloomed on her cheeks, a stark contrast to the pallor of the rest of her stricken face.

  Now he saw the pain warring with the anger in her gaze. He had his answer. Relief pumped through him, but he kept his cool, on the outside at least. And made his decision. ‘Exactly what it sounds like,’ he replied smoothly. ‘Another reason for me to stick around. Quell any speculation.’

  ‘That’s obscene.’ She glared at him for a full five seconds until he had to glance away. ‘The people who knew Gerry and who know me would know that’s obscene, and they’re the only people who matter. Everyone else can go jump.’ Her fingers clenched the hammer again. ‘That includes you. Money’s one thing, but what you’re sugges...’ Her free hand paused halfway to her goggles. ‘Another reason to stick around?’

  ‘I’m staying till everything’s finalised.’

  A heavy beat of silence. The only acknowledgement was a curt nod. Snapping her goggles in place, she picked up the wire and attacked it with a vengeance.

  Jack couldn’t move. He’d hurt her, insulted her, compounded her grief. He slid damp palms over his jeans, curled his guilty conscience into fists against his thighs and swallowed the apology he owed her. If he moved so much as an inch closer, if he let slip one iota of his emotions right now, he’d be lost. He’d have that stiff-as-a-post, overall-covered body against his so quick she’d never know what happened.

  ‘I don’t need an assistant,’ she said, tossing the mallet down and snatching another. ‘And if you don’t leave in a matter of seconds, I won’t be responsible for what I do with this hammer.’

  Without looking at her again, he pushed up and made his way into the fresher air outside. His throat was parched, his chest too tight, his skin damp and prickly. He leaned against the shed wall and took a steadying breath before starting slowly back to the house.

  Cleo needed her hammer and hot sticky workshop to sweat out her emotions. In his current medical condition how was he going to sweat out his own?

  In the family room he stretched out on the familiar brown leather couch, now covered with a buff throw-over and buttercup cushions. When they were younger, he and Cleo had spent time together in this room, watching videos, playing computer games, listening to music.

  He punched a cushion, stuck it behind his head. Responsibility wasn’t something he’d had to think about for a long time. He wasn’t sure how it fitted on his shoulders. But when it came right down to it, the solution was a perfectly simple three-point plan.

  Stay for the next few weeks.

  Help Scott tie up his father’s affairs.

  And walk away.

  Oh, yeah, simple. As a distraction, he reached for the TV remote on the coffee-table in front of him and channel-surfed till he found the cricket. Australia versus the West Indies.

  The next thing Jack was aware of was the phone ringing. By the time he’d got his brain working and his backside off the couch, Cleo had answered it. He glanced at his watch. Two hours had passed.

  He almost groaned. Great. She’d have seen him zonked out in front of the TV, a flaw she’d never failed to point out. He crossed the carpet square and rifled through the neatly shelved books for something to read, but found nothing he could put his mind to. Not that he could put his mind to any damn thing.

  A sliver of sun slanting through the window reflected on a gilded hand-decorated box tucked against the wall beside a stash of old vinyl LPs.

  Curious, he pulled it out and set it on the coffee-table. Couldn’t be personal or it wouldn’t be here, he decided, and lifted the varnished découpage lid. In side he found a photo album. Gold lettering spelled ‘Twenty-First’ across the front. His heart missed a beat and
the old yearning kicked in.

  He’d hated missing Cleo’s entry into adulthood, even though she’d looked entirely adult enough on her sixteenth. On a spur-of-the-moment thing, he’d sent her an anonymous bouquet of roses for her special day; the only contact he’d ever made. Some comfort that now he could see how she’d celebrated it through another photographer’s lens.

  ‘You’re awake. Oh...’

  He looked up to see Cleo’s startled eyes glued to the box. At least she seemed to have worked off her mad. ‘If it’s personal...’

  She shook her head. ‘I brought it down the night after Gerry died. It’s been in my room since I put it together.’ She lifted a shoulder. ‘No one’s ever seen it.’

  ‘Not even Dad? Why not?’

  She folded her hands together at her waist, and he could see the white-knuckled grasp as she twisted them together. Her face was pale, devoid of make-up as she raised her eyes to his. ‘I wanted you to be the first.’

  Her choice of words sent heat spiralling through his lower body. He clenched his jaw at the disturbing image of her spread beneath him, slender limbs gleaming in the moonlight, silver hair tangled in his fist, her breath warm against his neck.

  Of course his mind was playing tricks. Reading something into her words that wasn’t there.

  Or was it?

  Was there something deeper in that clear gaze? They’d always been close, until she’d grown overnight into the leggy teenager he’d barely recognised. Suddenly he hadn’t understood her, hadn’t understood himself. The brotherly affection had morphed into something much more dangerous. He’d spent more time with his mates and girls his own age and made a heroic effort to treat her like a kid sister, or, worse, as if he were some sort of father-figure.

  She seemed to pull herself together and straightened. ‘It’s not my twenty-first album, Jack. It’s yours.’

  His. The breath stalled in his lungs. She’d kept a part of him close all these years. In the sudden stillness that enveloped them he swore he heard his heart beating in time with hers.

  He shifted, shaking off the too intimate feeling. ‘Why would you do that?’ he demanded. ‘I’d’ve thought you’d’ve burned it by now.’

  ‘Don’t think I haven’t considered it. I naïvely thought you’d come home.’

  All this time he’d imagined her relief that he was finally out of her life. He’d made her existence hell: an older brother’s duty. And she’d returned the favour in spades. In fact she’d dug the hole and buried him.

  Had he misunderstood her hostility towards him? But he remembered the devastation on her face when he’d kissed her that night. Her mouth swollen and trembling, her eyes filled with shocked horror.

  ‘I’m not so naïve now,’ she said. She crossed the room to sit beside him. The heat of her thigh burned through his jeans as she leaned closer to lift out the album.

  The first page was a full-sized photo of the three of them. Dad, and a starry-eyed young Cleo gazing up at a younger Jack Devlin. A tumult of emotions washed through him. How many times had he wished he could go back to that point in his life and start over?

  ‘He was like you,’ Cleo said, looking at his father’s face. ‘Quick to butt heads.’

  ‘Yeah.’ But Jack wasn’t thinking about his father. As she turned the pages he found her time after time, looking too much like a woman for her sixteen years, her heavily made-up eyes sparkling, smile radiant.

  Smiling at him.

  How had he missed that? Because he’d been too busy keeping his own libido in check to pay attention. Something else had been going on beneath that don’t-give-a-damn attitude. She’d seen something worthwhile in Jack Devlin.

  He’d kissed that goodbye when he’d walked away. For her own good. She might be all grown up now, but a relationship was still impossible—for different reasons. Family and commitment. Her words echoed in his head.

  He wasn’t ready for either. For those reasons alone, no way would he start something with Cleo he didn’t intend to finish. Nor was he sure he didn’t carry his father’s violent genes. How many fights had he got into protecting Cleo? He’d prefer burning in hell to hurting her.

  He squeezed the hand lying on the album. ‘It’s a fine record, Goldilocks. Thank you.’

  ‘I didn’t do it for you,’ she replied, her voice cool. She pulled her hand away. ‘I did it for me.’

  Beneath the album at the bottom of the box he saw a newspaper clipping, birthday cards, and the single yellow rose he’d given her on the night, carefully pressed.

  ‘Photos were all I had left of you,’ she said. The anger he might have expected, and would have preferred, dissipated beneath a kind of resigned acceptance as she replaced the album in its box and set it on the table.

  ‘Cleo, there were reasons...’ None of which he wanted to share, he realised as soon as the words were out.

  Folding her legs beneath her, she slid one elbow along the back of the couch and faced him. ‘I’m listening.’

  He hesitated. How to answer? She wasn’t ready for the truth so soon after the old man’s death. He wanted to stand up, shift away, put some space between them because at that moment he didn’t trust himself not to take what his father had accused him of taking that night.

  Also preferable to the alternative of looking into those expectant eyes while he concocted a half-truth that might or might not satisfy her. He made a vow then and there that she’d never hear the whole truth from his lips.

  ‘After the party, Dad “requested my presence” in the study to discuss...you.’ It had been close on dawn, he remembered.

  ‘Oh...’ He saw the flush rise up her neck to stain her cheeks. ‘He was pretty mad, I know, but he’s never once mentioned that...moment on the stairs...’

  Jack knew it had looked bad for him. ‘I told him it wasn’t what it looked like.’ Close enough, though. He’d wanted her so bad he’d ached. ...be out of my sight or I won’t be responsible for my actions... The memory of that defiance, that girl-woman who’d rocked his existence, still haunted him.

  ‘Dad was sloshed and angry with it. We argued. He told me if he saw me again it’d be too soon.’

  Right before his iron fist had landed Jack on the floor. Come on, Jack, boy, fight back like a man. Closed windows and drapes, low voice. No one ever heard Gerry Devlin raise his voice in anger. Jack had been too busy trying to breathe. By the time he’d managed to half crawl, half stagger to the phone and call Scotty for help, his father had been sleeping it off in his room.

  Cleo hesitated as if trying to reconcile what Jack said with the Gerry she knew. Then a brittle laugh shot from her mouth, shattering the sudden stillness. ‘Don’t give me that. You and I both know it was the booze talking. You could’ve waited or come back when he’d slept it off—when you’d both slept it off and cooled down. Why didn’t you?’

  ‘Trust and respect, Cleo. Dad gave me neither.’ Then he lied when he said, ‘I packed and caught the first available flight to Sydney.’

  ‘You know something, Jack?’ She leaned towards him, her subtle fragrance filling his nose. Her eyes flashed, an electric-blue charge that seemed to sizzle through the air and along his bones. ‘There’s more to this than you’re telling me.’

  He’d been right about not wanting to look at her. She was far too perceptive. He had to look away. ‘So now you’re a psychologist.’

  ‘No, I’m a woman.’

  No argument there. He had a sudden insane urge to give in to his temptation. To absorb all that female energy shimmering from her, to taste it on his mouth, to feel it beneath his palms. Instead he smiled with intended cynicism. ‘A man doesn’t stand a chance against such powerful logic.’

  The air cracked as she slapped an open palm on the couch between them. ‘There you go, making fun of me, still treating me like I’m only sixteen.’


  ‘You were never only sixteen.’ And that had been the crux of the problem.

  ‘How would you know? You barely gave me the time of day except to snap and snarl.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean I didn’t notice you.’

  ‘You notice a toothache. What’s more, you do something about it.’

  ‘I did do something about it—I removed myself from the source.’ And suffered the pain of loss as keenly as a death. ‘It wasn’t about you,’ he said. ‘It was about me.’ But he saw the same suffering in her eyes.

  Without thought he reached out. He could handle her anger, but not her pain. ‘I never meant to hurt you.’

  Cleo stared at him, her eyes stinging. The gentle pressure of his fingers, warm, rough-textured as they touched hers, did nothing to ease the ache that gnawed at her heart. Nor did the dark, impenetrable eyes, the musky scent of masculine skin. How could an intelligent, female-savvy man be so dense? ‘You really don’t get it, do you?’

  Or was he playing dumb, refusing to acknowledge what a blind man would recognise when she looked at him? Ignoring her because, let’s face it, she was no glamour puss. It was too mortifying to contemplate. And if she didn’t do something—anything—she’d dissolve in a puddle of frustration or self-pity. She’d sworn she wouldn’t let him make a difference this time—with her head. Her heart wouldn’t cooperate.

  She forced herself to straighten, pushed up off the couch and away from that male warmth and moved to the door.

  ‘What do you want from me?’ she heard him growl behind her.

  Gathering what little emotional strength she had left, she turned back. Afternoon sun spilled through the window over his shoulders, a burning aura against the dimness of his face. In his black T-shirt he was the dark fantasy of her dreams.

  But unlike in her dreams, he didn’t smile and hold out his hand. He looked hard and remote, his lips pencil-thin, the groove cutting between his knitted brows deep and shadowed.