by Alison Kelly
His first impulse was to snap, Work it out for yourself! but that would have been childish and unwarranted. The guy on her left had spent most of the meal trying to keep Jason’s attention.
‘The outside one,’ he finally muttered.
‘Thank you.’
‘Any time.’
Determinedly he turned his attention back to his right. By the end of the night he would be fascinated by this blonde or dead from trying!
Later he told himself the only reason the blonde had diverted her attentions elsewhere was because he’d ignored her attempts at chit-chat during the address by one of the world’s foremost authorities on AIDS research. Now Natasha, or Natalia, or whatever the hell she’d said her name was, was draped over some guy on the dance floor. Unfortunately not the one who, a few feet from her, was draping himself over Jo.
‘All in all it’s been a damned successful night, don’t you think?’
The question drifted to Brett from the small group of people who were gathered at the end of the table chatting to Jason. In his own mind, while he imagined the organisers had raised a pretty respectable sum from the evening, in terms of personal success he figured he’d have had better luck trying to surf in the Antarc—
His self-pity stalled at the sight of Jo trying to convince her dance partner she wasn’t interested in an encore. Though she was smiling, her head was shaking very emphatically, and she was trying to tug her wrist from the Neanderthal’s grasp.
In an instant he was out of his chair.
‘I wondered where you got to,’ he said, as he reached her side.
‘Brett!’
There was something incredibly heady in the welcoming way she said his name. A part of him refused to accept his brain’s insistence that it stemmed only from the relief of being rescued.
‘Er...Brett, this is Peter,’ she said. ‘Peter, Brett McAlpine.’
The polite introduction was wasted since Peter didn’t even bother to lift his eyes from the front of Jo’s dress long enough to enable him ever to recognise him again. Which, Brett decided, would be a plus if he had to go in a police line-up for punching the jerk’s face through the back of his head. However, because he couldn’t count on all the potential eye witnesses to testify to temporary blindness, be very reluctantly pursued a less aggressive and far less satisfying tactic.
‘I believe,’ he said, taking Joanna’s arm and drawing her to him, ‘that this is my dance.’
‘Hey! Back off, mate! I’m not finished yet. A man deserves some reward for having to put up with a bunch of bores all night!’ Heads turned as the inebriated man’s insult carried.
Brett only had the luxury of grabbing the front of the guy’s shirt and jerking him forward before two impeccably dressed men appeared from nowhere to flank them. Brett recognised them as professional bouncers and friends of Jason’s.
‘Problem, Brett?’ the smaller man asked. His slight European accent triggered recall of his name.
‘Yeah, Stefan,’ he said, making no attempt to lower the drunk from his toes. ‘You guys got here too fast. My knuckles are still itching.’
‘Sir.’ The second bouncer addressed the drunk in a commendably respectful tone under the circumstances. ‘I think it might be time for you to leave.’
After appearing to be searching his inebriated brain for another insult, much to Brett’s disappointment he changed his microscopic mind and meekly nodded.
‘Um...Brett...’ the taller guy said, his voice deep and amused. ‘You’re going to have to let him go.’
He did so, with sufficient enthusiasm to cause the guy to stagger backwards. Fighting grins, the bouncers grabbed the guy’s elbows to steady him. Their grips, Brett noted with satisfaction, more than tight enough to thwart the attempts to shrug them away.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked, scanning Joanna’s face for signs of distress but seeing only bemusement.
‘I think so,’ she said uncertainly.
‘If you want, we could leave.’ The offer had her looking aghast.
‘Leave? Heavens, no!’
‘Are you certain?’
‘Yes—’
‘Don’t feel you have to be polite.’
I’m not—’
‘If you want to go home, say so. Because I really don’t mind’
‘Brett! I...don’t...want...to...go...home.’
It wasn’t the insistence in her voice that stemmed his words, but the fact she’d clamped her hands on his forearms to ensure his attention. Unfortunately, once she realised her action, she quickly let him go.
They stood facing each other on the perimeter of the dance floor. To the left, people were chatting in groups and wondering in and out of the now sparsely populated tables. To their right, couples were dancing in semi-darkness to a Billy Joel song, and for the first time in his life Brett didn’t know what to say or do next.
Joanna Ford was the most puzzling, fascinating woman he’d ever encountered. She looked and dressed like a siren, yet she possessed a vulnerability and innocence that made her seem as if she belonged in another century. At times she got him so hot and bothered his sole urge was to find the nearest flat surface and make love to her until they were both unconscious; at others her naivety either drove him crazy or so enchanted him it produced the most overwhelming need to cherish and protect her.
Brett understood none of it. He’d believed his upbringing and having a twin sister had provided him with a far better insight into women than most men, but Joanna Ford had him completely bamboozled.
She was a twenty-two-year-old whose experience of life was negligible. He was a financially secure thirty-four-year-old who’d lived on every continent before he was twenty. Hell, there probably weren’t enough years in her future for her to experience everything he’d done in his past! Yet from the minute he saw her she’d tied him in knots, and ever since had been tugging those invisible strings tighter and tighter.
‘Dance with me.’ The words came from him of their own accord.
‘I...’ She darted a nervous glance towards the now crowded dance floor, then looked back to him. ‘I’m not very good at it I’ll probably embarrass you.’
Giving her no time to think, he pulled her into his arms and began to weave into the throng.
‘The good news is,’ he said, forcing himself to hold her in a discreet waltz position they’d been taught at school, ‘I don’t embarrass easily. The bad news—’
She winced, and faltered.
Instinctively he pulled her closer.
Tilting her head back, she met his gaze. ‘I take it,’ she said, humour tugging at her mouth, ‘that’s the bad news,’
He sighed. ‘Yeah. Sorry. You want to sit down?’
‘Do you?’
Let her out of his arms? She had to be kidding!
‘No,’ he said. ‘But then you’re not trampling all over my feet.’
‘You’re not that bad. You’ve only done it once.’
‘Maybe, but I think you should know the last woman I danced with was my deb partner. I hear she’s still wearing orthopaedic shoes.’
He felt her soft laugh vibrate all the way to his soul. ‘Oh, that’s nothing,’ she told him, her turquoise eyes bright. ‘The last man I danced with could barely stand up and had to be helped away by two fully grown men.’
Brett laughed. ‘And I thought it was because he was drunk.’
He felt the heavy hand land on his shoulder at the same instant Jo’s face lit up in an elated smile. ‘Steve Cooper! What are you doing here?’
‘Hoping to get a dance with you? Mind if I cut in, mate?’
Hell, yes, Brett minded! Who the devil was this guy?
Jo read his mind. ‘This is Steve Cooper—’
He’d guessed that much already! But what was he to Jo?
It wasn’t until Cooper frowned that Brett realised he was ignoring the guy’s outstretched hand. It was more reflex than good manners that eventually had him shaking it. He was also blaming good m
anners for the fact that the next thing he knew he was making his way back through the throng to his table and Jo was tripping the light fan-bloody-tastic with some guy who looked as if he bench-pressed Mack trucks for a living!
Brett turned instantly at the sound of her voice to find her hurrying across the room as fast as the narrow, sexy black velvet dress would let her. He grinned to himself. Cooper might have got to dance with her for the last hour and a half, but it was a one-man field as to who was going to be around to undo those fourteen little pearl buttons when she got home.
‘You ready to leave?’ he asked when she reached him.
‘Yes. But I wanted to know if you’d mind if I asked Steve back to the house for coffee? It’s just so great to meet someone from my past! And we’ve got so much catching up to do.’
Past! What past? She’d had a repressed upbringing in some unheard of minuscule country town! And the only time she’d tried to escape it she’d been taken for a ride by some married jerk called Andrew! After that she’d hightailed it to Sydney and to the best of his knowledge had been under his sister’s protective wing ever since. So where did this Cooper fit in to her so-called past?
‘Jo,’ he said, in a painstakingly reasonable tone, his fists clenched in his pockets, ‘you’re more than welcome to invite guests to the house. However, do you think Stan—?’
‘Steve.’
‘Right. Do you think he really wants to drive all the way up to Whale Beach at this time of night? It’s a good fifty-minute drive one way.’
‘That’s what he said.’ She sighed.
Brett fought down a smug grin.
‘Oh, well...’ She shrugged, wearing a resigned smile. ‘I guess we’ll just do what he suggested and stay the night at his grandmother’s place.’
CHAPTER NINE
ARRIVING at the pub fifteen minutes before he was due to meet his cousin, Glen, Brett made his way through the eclectic Saturday afternoon crowd to the bar and ordered a beer. In summer the air-conditioned coolness of the beach-side pub was a haven for sun-burned surfers from the heat; in winter it was equally popular as a venue to watch football or horse-racing on the big-screen TV. His cousin’s suggestion they meet here and spend a while ‘catching up’ before Brett joined him and his family for dinner had worked out well. After four hours spent listening to the hard sell of assorted real-estate agents, Brett was ready for some down-time, and the informal ambience of the pub suited him just fine...
At least it did until he turned from the bar and encountered the heart-stopping smile of a raven-haired angel.
‘Hi,’ she beamed. ‘What are you doing here?’
The question, an echo of the one which had flashed through his mind, albeit behind, Where the hell have you been all day? would have been his opening line had he not been distracted by her snug, but flesh-concealing sweater. While the change of clothes indicated she’d finally gone home at some stage today, it also refreshed Brett’s nagging curiosity as to where she’d been and how’d she’d got out of the dress she’d worn last night. A thought which immediately had him ignoring her question and scanning the nearby area for that Cooper guy she’d gone home with.
‘Brett...’
‘I’m meeting someone.’ The ridiculous, light-headed relief he felt at not seeing the man anywhere made it easier to answer her question than to try and formulate an intelligent one of his own; he sure as hell couldn’t ask what she and Cooper had got up to last night while they were at his grandmother’s! He realised she didn’t necessarily have to be here with him, but in the absence of any apparent competition hovering nearby Brett wasn’t about to waste time asking for answers he didn’t want to hear.
When her puzzled expression made him realise he’d been grinning at her like an idiot for several silent seconds, he said the first thing that popped into his head. ‘I’m supposed to meet my cousin, but I’m early.’
She nodded, then turned her smile down a few thousand watts as she swung it to the barman and ordered an OJ. ‘In that case,’ she said, ‘if you’ve got a few minutes could you help me out with something?’
He wondered if she’d used that same appealing tone to coerce Cooper into undoing the buttons on her dress—yeah, right! Like any guy with a pulse would’ve needed to be coerced into that!
‘What?’ he asked, more sharply than he’d intended, paying for her drink before she could get her fingers in and out of the pocket of her impossibly tight jeans.
Thanks.’
‘I haven’t said I’d help you yet.’
She grinned. ‘I meant for the drink.’
Dismissing her gratitude with a shrug, he guided her towards a small high table with two vacant bar stools. ‘These seats okay?’
She nodded. ‘Yeah, we’ll get a good view of the TV.’
The only thing Brett wanted a good view of was her. The closer the better; for as long as possible. And, as much as he’d been looking forward to seeing Glen, he started fervently hoping his cousin, a renowned punctuality freak, pulled a flat tyre on his way here so he’d have more time with Jo. The chances of her being here alone were slim to nothing, but he’d take what he could get; be sure wasn’t about to jog her memory of who might be waiting for her by opening a conversation by asking how she came to be here. But nor could he casually ask what she’d done today, since that would also eventually lead her to the same reply; so for what seemed a decade they sat in a tension-laden silence in a pub bustling with noise.
‘It’s nice here,’ she said eventually. ‘Er...do you come here often?’
He raised a teasing eyebrow. ‘Not a very original pick-up line, Jo. It’s the female version of “What’s-a-nice-girl-like-you-doing-in-a-place-like-this?” Which, you’ll notice, I’ve refrained from asking.’
She groaned and rolled her eyes. ‘I was being serious. Besides,’ she added, her expression coy, ‘my opening line was to say hello and ask for a favour, it can’t have been too bad because you’ve already bought me a drink.’
‘Then I guess we’re at stage two...’
‘I guess so.’
Her elegant hands nervously grabbed at her water-beaded glass and she took a sip of juice through the straw. There was an air of uncertain reticence in her actions which intensified Brett’s feeling that what she was preparing to ask him was something she considered personal, something that would affect his opinion of her. Perhaps alter the current footing of their relationship. Though he fought down the temptation to let either his imagination or libido second-guess her, he couldn’t help thinking, No hard feelings, Glen, mate, but two flat tyres would be a godsend for me about now.
‘So, what is it you want to ask me, Jo?’
A shy blush rose in her cheeks, but her exotic eyes lit with an excitement that could only be labelled illicit.
‘This will probably shock you,’ she cautioned. ‘And it’s totally out of character for me to be considering this...but I know what I’m doing. I mean, doing it once doesn’t mean I won’t be able to control my impulses in future.’
Brett felt his hopes, not to mention other parts of his anatomy, bolstered fractionally, but he could hardly blame them. She was gazing intently into his eyes, and keeping a lid on his emotions wasn’t made any easier by the way she leaned close to him with an intimacy suggesting her words shouldn’t be heard by anyone’s ears but his.
‘I want you to—’ she whispered, then broke off, glancing away.
His throat tightened in anticipation. ‘You want me to what?’ His voice was scratchy and uneven, and he was torn between watching the battle between uncertainty and resolution on her face and the rise and fall of her breast as she took a deep breath.
‘I...I want you to put a bet on a horse for me. I want to try gambling.’
Brett waited for disappointment to kill him. It didn’t. It did, however, make him feel fifty kinds of fool. And then some. Afraid he’d incriminate himself if he tried to verbalise his feelings, he took a long, settling swallow of beer.
‘Ex
cept,’ she said, ‘I don’t know how to do it. Would you show me how to do it?’
He took another, longer swallow.
‘The horse I want to back is called Lust ‘n’ Laughter.’
Brett drained the glass. And just barely refrained from taking a bite out of it and gulping that down too.
She wanted to bet on a horse. A horse called Lust ‘n’ Laughter, of all things! He didn’t know whether to laugh, cry or immediately have himself neutered. Then again, given the way his mind, and body, seemed to assimilate everything on a sensual level whenever he got within sight of this woman, the latter was probably the best option. Where the hell was Glen?
‘I’ve already got a TAB ticket.’ She shifted on her stool to pull it from the back pocket of her jeans. ‘But I didn’t know how to fill it in. Until I saw yon I was going to ask the barman to help me.’
Oh, great, the poor bloke behind the bar was sixty if he was a day; he’d have probably had a stroke from the excitement if she’d phrased her proposal to him the way she had to Brett.
Scrambling to get beyond the stupidity of his frustration, and the frustration of his stupidity, he took the ticket and looked at it. ‘You want to take a quinella?’
‘What’s a quinella?’
He sighed. ‘It’s when you pick the horses that will finish first and second.’
‘But I don’t want to pick two horses. I only like Lust ‘n’ Laughter.’
Brett gritted his teeth as irony again hit him with a sucker punch. ‘Then you need a different ticket.’
‘Okay, I’ll go get—’
He clamped a hand on her arm when she would have bolted from the table. ‘Stay put. I’ll do it.’ And get myself another drink while I’m at it, he added silently, a desperate glance at the entrance revealing no sign of his cousin. Terrific. Of all the times for him to break the habit of a lifetime and be late!
‘How much do you want to bet, and do you want to bet it each way or only for a win?’ His question produced total bewilderment on Jo’s beautiful face.
