Was he still there? Would he stay to listen? She slid off the bed and positioned herself at the base.
God, what was she doing?
She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. Bludgeoning him over the head, that’s what. She could take her sex just as wild, hot and brief as he could. She bent, gripped beneath the base and gave a hard shove. The oomph that left her lungs added to the effect as the headboard slammed up against the wall. Another two mighty shoves and she was done. Gabriel might be quick, but he’d definitely delivered a punch.
A few more minutes, and she collected the small boxes of books from her office on her way down the stairs. She rounded the corner into the sitting room and froze at the sight of Jack seated in the armchair opposite Gabriel.
“What have you been doing up there?” Jack grinned at her. “Rearranging furniture?”
A hot blush heated her entire body. Her spine went weak and her arms collapsed, dropping the boxes onto her toes.
“Ouch! Freaking friggin’ ouch!” She hopped, gritted her teeth, and died a slow, slow death of shame.
Both men jumped up. Jack reached her first, swooping her into his arms and carrying her to the sofa. He hunched before her, lifting her feet onto his knees and sliding off her sandals. His fingers wrapped around her toes, applying pressure until the throbbing dulled.
Gabriel was gathering the books that had spilled out. “Do you need ice, Megan?”
“Yes,” Jack said.
“I’m fine,” she countered. She jerked her feet from his grip and pushed into a corner of the sofa, folding her legs beneath her.
“Ice,” Jack barked.
Gabriel jumped, and then hurried into the kitchen.
Megan squeezed her eyes tight. “I know what you’re thinking, Jack, and I don’t want to hear it.”
“What would that be?”
She opened one eye to peer at him. “Yeah, like I haven’t humiliated myself enough for one night.” She wanted to crawl under the sofa and never come out. “Just go, Jack, please.”
He stayed right where he was, gazing into her eyes. “I rushed over here to stop you.” His grin was absent, although the expression on his face still crinkled the edges of his eyes and softened the angles of his jaw. “I’ve spent most of the day being an over-confident jerk and it suddenly occurred to me that I might have pushed you into the arms of another man.”
A knot formed in her throat at the intensity of his gaze. The humble admission of his flaws to make her feel better about her own plucked a chord within her chest. The rare, and oddest, moments he chose to express vulnerability were precious arrows that burrowed deep. Right here, right now, reminded her of the day she’d grown to like Jack. Not simply lusted after him. Really, really liked him.
“Now I’ll go.” Jack pushed to his feet. His grin came out to play. “Be nice to Gabriel. I’ve grown rather fond of him.”
She pulled a face at him. “You met him five minutes ago.”
Jack shrugged. “He has excellent taste in cars.”
“And women,” she said with a smile, her mood thoroughly warmed up.
“Not that nice,” he growled and turned to go.
Early spring, last year
Megan hugged her coat around her, stamping her feet to ward off the chill. She glared heavenward at the threatening clouds. March had started off with the promise of glorious warmth, but two weeks later and it had turned mean. Splat. A drop the size of a hailstone struck her on the forehead.
She brought her head down and jumped back in alarm as a white hatchback Renault swooped to a halt alongside the curb directly in front of her. The passenger window slid down and a familiar crop of dark hair leaned across.
Even darker eyes met hers. “Hey, there, I thought that was you.”
“Jack?” She hunched forward, beaming a smile at him. Her day had just turned a shade brighter. “You weren’t due back this way until the summer.”
“I was getting cranky and needed a fix of civilisation.”
“New Zealand doesn’t have cities?” Not that she was complaining.
“Not the same.” His gaze heated her from the toes on up. It was a look that filled in the blanks with dangerous whispers of because you weren’t there and because I missed you.
Not just dangerous, Megan told herself bluntly, but insane. Point in fact: technically she’d known him for close on five months and out of that, he’d spent a total of five days in Corkscrew Bay.
Sure, there’d been all kinds of sparks shooting between them last Christmas, but sparks fizzled and spluttered into wisps of smoke. They didn’t haul a guy—especially a guy like Jack—across two continents.
Megan stepped back from the impact of his gaze in order to gain some much-needed perspective.
He glanced around her. “Are you waiting for someone?”
“My mother.” She uncurled her toes, ordered her hormones to behave and waved a hand at the Daily Food Store behind. “She’s buying up enough ingredients to bake ten dozen fairy cakes for the spring fair tomorrow and I’m the lucky elf she’s enlisted to help.”
He grinned at her lacklustre enthusiasm. “This car doesn’t have much horsepower, but then your mom will be on foot. Wanna make a run for it?”
“Don’t tempt me,” she groaned. His grin had pressed that dimple into his cheek, reshaping dark, brooding features into rugged charm. Another fat raindrop landed on her cheek. She lifted a hand to wipe it away, then got distracted by the butterflies fluttering at her pulse and behind her knees.
“Megan, darling…” Her mother’s voice yanked Megan back from the edge of oblivion and she realised she’d been staring. “I still need to pop into— Hello there,” she said, her gaze flickering between Jack and Megan.
“Mom, this is Jack Marlin,” Megan introduced with a resigned sigh. The glint of curiosity in her mom’s eyes didn’t bode well. “Jack, this is my mother.”
His grin reduced to a pleasant smile. Hmm, so he knew exactly how to regulate that charm wattage and he’d dialled it up for her.
“How do you do, Mrs. Lane,” he said.
“Oh, yes, Mr. Marlin’s nephew, right?” She turned to face Megan. There appeared to be flint in her eye. Please God, not a wink. “You must call me Jean,” she went on to insist enthusiastically. “Megan has spoken about you so much, I feel as if we already know each other.”
Jack gave Megan a look she had no wish to decipher.
“It wasn’t that much and only because everyone kept asking,” she assured him hurriedly. “Your uncle’s something of an enigma around here and you know what this place is like.” Which he probably didn’t. Portraying herself as the town crier wasn’t doing her any favours either. “Anyway, you must be eager to see your uncle,” she blabbered. “Don’t let us keep you.”
“Actually, I’m heading for the beach and a long walk.” Jack rolled his shoulders in the cramped interior. “I’ve been travelling for thirty-two hours straight. My joints feel as if they’re glued together.”
“It’s a beautiful day for a walk on the beach,” exclaimed her mother. The rain had picked up, and the drops weren’t getting any smaller. “Megan, why don’t you go along? I’ll manage fine without you.”
Megan hadn’t needed anyone arranging her play-dates for almost two decades. She gave her mother a hard look along the lines of: I love you dearly, but I may still have to strangle you later. “I’m sure Jack doesn’t—”
“I wouldn’t mind the company,” Jack cut in. “If your mom can spare you.”
“Of course I can.” Her mother shuffled her shopping bags into one hand and prodded Megan forward. “Go on, darling.”
Resistance would have been futile, not to mention churlish. Besides, who knew what would come out of her mother’s mouth next if she didn’t get Jack away?
“Okay, mom, thanks.” She opened the passenger door. Jack retreated to his side of the car as she slid inside and pressed the button to slide the window up on a hastily uttered, “I’ll stop by
later.”
She didn’t draw breath until they’d turned off the main road into Windigs Lane. “Sorry about that,” she groaned. “What is it with parents and boundary issues?”
“I don’t know,” Jack muttered as he navigated the roundabout. Once he’d taken the exit for the main beach, he glanced her way with a frown. “I mean… I’m not criticizing your mother. I really don’t know. My parents died when I was seven and Frank’s never been one for interfering much.”
“Jack, I’m so sorry.” Her face crumpled in sympathy.
“A plane crash.” He shrugged, looking away. “Their Cessna went down over the Atlantic.”
Goodness. Seven years old? Goosebumps prickled her arms.
She must have made a sound, because he shot her another look. “That’s generally the next question on everyone’s minds, whether they ask it or not.”
Not an accusation. His voice betrayed nothing. She tried to imagine a much younger Jack, a little boy, having this conversation and couldn’t. Although he must have, a hundred times, a thousand times, until the explanations had eroded all emotion to the bone. “So, your uncle stepped in to raise you?”
“I guess you could say so.” In profile, his jaw clenched as he turned into the parking lot. He pulled up into a spot at right angles to the sandy beach and switched the engine off.
The rain was coming down harder now, splattering the windshield. Jack’s eyes remained on the blurred ocean straight ahead.
The silence stretched until she thought the conversation was over. From the little she knew of Mr. Marlin, she wasn’t surprised at the lack of enthusiasm in his response. That man wasn’t capable of raising anyone, let alone a lost, heartbroken seven-year-old boy.
But then the tension in Jack’s jaw loosened. She heard him release a breath softer than a sigh.
“There was no one else to take me in.” An edge hardened his tone. “My parents’ will had every ‘i’ and ‘t’ crossed when it came to securing their wealth into my trust fund, but they never made the time to bother with appointing a guardian. Frank felt he had no choice in the matter. He stepped up to his familial obligation and there was no one else to offer him a reprieve.”
Megan put a hand on his arm. Biceps bunched beneath her touch, then relaxed. “I’m sure they would have, Jack, if they’d known they were…” Few people have prior warning. Most people prepared a little better, especially when kids are involved.
That hard edge was bitterness, she realised. He blamed his parents for being so careless with his young life. She had nothing against Frank Marlin personally, but she’d never put the love and caring of any child of hers into that man’s grumpy hands. “That couldn’t have been easy for you, living with your uncle. He’s very…stern and, um, gruff,” she decided was a good euphemism for ‘somewhat depressing.’
He turned to her. The scowl, she assumed, was aimed at his childhood memories and not at her. “Frank’s wife left him when the courts appointed him as my guardian. She didn’t fancy the idea of an instant family not of her making. The irony is, he didn’t know what to do with a child, so he sent me to boarding school straight away. Once I settled in, it was a pretty good deal.”
Jack’s brow cleared. “He took on his responsibilities as best he could, and he ended up alone because of it. I think I got the better end of that stick.” The way he said that, it was the truth. Or at least, he believed it was the truth.
The edge left his voice. “Frank doesn’t say much, but he’s not a bad guy.”
He looked into her eyes, the angles of his face softening slightly. His openness, his sincerity, his obvious tender instincts for his uncle, made her reconsider the man behind the roving lifestyle.
“I’ll make more of an effort,” she found herself promising, not even sure if Jack was asking. “Drag him over for a cuppa now and then.”
“Thank you.” His gaze stayed on her for the longest moment, wrapping around her like a warm blanket, pulling her in, keeping her close. “Frank’s getting on, and I’m making an effort to get back here more often, but it’s reassuring to have someone closer looking out for him.”
So, he hadn’t crossed two oceans just for her. Megan smiled. She hadn’t really believed he had and she didn’t mind. He loves the old man. She didn’t know why Jack didn’t spend more time here himself. Maybe growing up in boarding schools had left him too restless, maybe he didn’t know how to make any house his home.
Jack was a wanderer with bad-boy attitude and the rugged good looks to match.
But he was more. He had a gentle heart beneath that hard shell and he was sufficiently comfortable—or confident—in his life-worn soul to bare himself, to express vulnerability in a manner that didn’t invite pity.
She hadn’t even registered exactly when, but at some point, he’d also completely wiped out the residue of her embarrassment. Her mother was in for the biggest hug ever when she saw her next.
The complexities didn’t end there. He clearly resented his parents for leaving him in his uncle’s care. Whatever he said, Mr. Marlin must have been a difficult old bugger to put up with, even for short holidays at a time. Is that why Jack felt the urge to run and run and never stop?
Jack’s eyes creased into his grin just before he pulled his gaze from her to outside. “So, when last did you get drenched on purpose?”
“Seriously?” She squinted through the windshield, tried to remember she was an adult, but the thought of feeling the rain on her skin, the sand between toes, took over. She kicked off her shoes, peering sideways at him as she bent forward to roll up her jeans. “You’re out of luck if you were joking.”
“I never joke when it comes to getting a girl to remove items of clothing,” he drawled.
“You are such a flirt,” she snorted, then ruined her indignation with a laugh that started in her belly.
“I’m such an idiot.” The grin turned downright wicked as he pulled off his jacket. “Why didn’t I suggest swimming instead?”
He was out the car first, backing away onto the caramel sand, his arms thrown wide and his hands beckoning her to come out and play. Within seconds, the rain had plastered his hair to his scalp, to his cheekbones. His soaked T-Shirt clung to his body, defining rippled muscles at his chest and a lean abdomen.
Megan felt the effect all the way down to her bare toes. Her pulse ticked a little faster, heat pooled low in her stomach and a shot of fun, crazy energy bubbled warmth in the vicinity of her heart. She wasn’t just half gone on steaming hot desire for the guy next door. She really, really liked him.
Chapter 7
Megan had been up since the crack of dawn, roused by the light streaming in past curtains she hadn’t drawn properly the night before. She’d slunk lower beneath the covers, determined to snooze until a decent hour, when the solution to her heroine’s dilemma had popped into her head. The delicious anticipation of ruffling the Earl of Canwick’s feathers had charmed her out of bed.
“I’m duty-bound to provide you with an heir and a spare before I seek pleasure outside our marriage.” Elizabeth met the storm roiling in his eyes with a resolved tilt of her chin. She refused to flinch as she delivered the finale. “You’re an honourable, fair man, James. Surely you don’t mean for me to wither into old age without ever having known the comfort of a lover?”
She swore she heard bone crack as his jaw clenched.
“Am I to understand, madam,” he pushed out through gritted teeth, “that you have the audacity to confront me in my own library—in our house—with your intentions to seek out a lover?”
A vein ticked at his temple. Her husband was on the edge of an apoplexy. Elizabeth suppressed a smile and, despite the uneven tattoo of her daring heart, gave a careless shrug. “Honestly, James, I didn’t think you’d mind.”
His mouth opened. And snapped shut again. The scowl riding his brow darkened his entire face. His gaze went from her to the vast expanse of lawn outside the library window. The silence stretched, and her pulse beat a little m
ore erratically with each passing second. What if this didn’t work? Good Lord, what if he actually sent her out to procure a lover so he could continue to remain faithful to a woman dead and buried a decade ago?
“I do not mind,” he said at last, stamping each word with cold detachment, “other than in the obvious context.” That iciness settled into his eyes, turning ocean blue to polar arctic. “I will not tolerate a bastard heir.”
Got you! Megan leaned back in her chair, grinning at the document opened on her screen. This was why she loved her job so much.
Her eyes went from the screen to the wall and her thoughts went to the man behind it. She rolled her eyes on a sigh. The rules of getting a man into bed were so much simpler in the eighteen hundreds.
At least she was reaping one reward from her recent spate of outbursts that had ended in that debacle of utter humiliation last night. Her spiking hormones seemed to have settled somewhere between resignation and a drop of optimistic hope. Jack hadn’t rushed over to prove himself right. He’d come to stop her.
Huh! Maybe this century wasn’t all that different from Elizabeth’s.
Still, this was Jack and he didn’t need an heir. God, he’d run a mile at the suggestion of pregnancy.
But she was done with tormenting herself. Since he’d returned, she’d been walking around like one big exposed nerve-ending and it was both painful and exhausting.
All tingling, overheating and melting was officially on hold until Jack decided what he wanted. And if it never happened, well, maybe that was okay. Anything with Jack was strictly temporary. She was driving herself nuts over something that would be over almost as soon as it started. She’d never be immune to Jack, but she didn’t need to fall apart around each corner either.
She returned her attention to a world where happy-ever-afters were guaranteed until the chimes of her doorbell sounded. She stuck her head out of the window. “Hello...?”
Jack stepped back from the narrow balcony overhanging the porch and looked up at her. “Hey there. Are you working?”
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