First Time Lucky?

by Natalie Anderson

  Out of the corner of his eye he watched her stare straight ahead as he drove her away from the house she’d loved.

  She didn’t even blink.

  Roxie didn’t say a word the entire drive to the airport. Her throat had seized. It was too much to hope he’d just drop her in the two-minute car parks right outside the terminal. Of course he didn’t. He parked in the expensive parks, insisted on carrying her bag in and even filled in a luggage tag for her while she checked in.

  She was going straight through the security clearance; she couldn’t delay getting away from him. She was about to lose it entirely. She folded her arms tight around herself, gripping her upper arms with her hands, holding all the agony inside.

  It hurt to see him so at ease about her leaving. Which was yet more proof it was the right call to have made. She couldn’t believe it when his expression warmed to tease-level as he cupped her face and tilted it up towards him.

  Yeah, thank goodness he’d said no to her last night. From this one touch now, she knew she’d never have been able to pull off a last night of nothing but passion. She’d have clung to him, begging for everything he never wanted to give.

  He’d meant the phone as a friendly gesture. It was kind of him. But she didn’t want kind or friendly. He was supposed to be her lover. It was supposed to have been once. Only it had been once every which way and then some. And there’d been the fun, the conversation, the laughter, the way he’d held her, that had all led to. something she couldn’t bear to define.

  But he was redefining them in a way that was even worse. Concerned and caring, wanting to stay in touch as a friend. It was humiliating when what she really wanted was.

  No.

  She knew—to her bones—that she couldn’t stay in touch with him. She was leaving this part of her life behind. If she really was going to live light and free, then she had to sever all connection.

  ‘Your lawyer will be in touch about the sales of all the assets,’ he said quietly. ‘But you know I’ll keep an eye on it for you too.’

  She nodded, mustered a slight smile to show her damn gratitude. Her throat was so tight with unshed tears she couldn’t speak.

  She looked for one last time into his beautiful almost black eyes. His teasing look gave way to a small smile that sawed through her nerves. She was a total block of wood, couldn’t kiss him back, could barely manage to take the sweetness of his light, gentle caress. Gripped her sleeves even harder to stop herself shattering into a thousand little pieces of nothing.

  ‘I hope it’s everything you want it to be,’ he whispered.

  She barely nodded because now she knew—uselessly—that what she truly wanted was right in front of her. She wanted him—to love her, to want her, to hold her and keep her … But he didn’t want to keep or be kept. And she couldn’t bear the inevitable hurt of his rejection and her loss.

  Motionless, she stared up at him. Stared so hard she could no longer focus. Her last sight of him blurred—he was that fuzzy outline she’d first seen in the bathroom that day. She blinked but it didn’t make it better. She couldn’t say a thing, her throat burning hot but, like the rest of her, paralysed.

  She heard his deeply drawn breath. Felt his hands hard on her shoulders. ‘Go.’ Forcefully he turned her away. Pushed so she took a stumbling step in the direction of security clearance. Her frozen cold feet automatically took the next step. And the next.

  She didn’t turn, didn’t raise a hand as she heard him harshly instruct her that one last time.

  ‘Go.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  THE flight lasted a lifetime. The droning engine hurt her head. The air-conditioning left her eyeballs even drier. The chilled blood in her veins made her stiff and cold. After a hell-on-wheels stopover and yet another long, frozen flight they began the descent, except the lights of London stretched for ever. And hard as Roxie tried, she couldn’t stop thinking about Gabe. Surely he’d seen it in her face? In that one moment her heart had been exposed, there for him to take. If he’d asked, she’d have stayed, she’d have literally fallen into his arms. Only he’d told her to go.

  So go she did—to all the tourist attractions: Buckingham Palace, The Tower of London, Madame Tussauds … And at the end of her first, miserable week, mad with herself for still feeling wretched, she queued for tickets at Covent Garden to see the Royal Ballet, as she’d dreamed of doing for almost two decades.

  The theatre itself was beautiful, the audience was beautiful, the ballerinas beautiful. But Roxie’s heart wasn’t in it. She watched the dancers—the incredibly talented dancers—and hated every second of it. In the interval she walked out through the well-lit foyer, out into the crowded, famous square. And that was when she drew up short, not knowing what the hell she was doing or should do or wanted to do. She was in the middle of a foreign city, utterly alone. Just as she’d thought she’d wanted to be.

  Only to find it sucked.

  She’d made the most massive mistake.

  ‘Roxie.’

  She turned. No one in this city knew who she was. No one in the world knew where she was. So who was calling out to her?

  Okay, now she was seeing ghosts—because there was a guy standing just by the theatre entrance who looked exactly like Gabe. But he couldn’t be a ghost because Gabe wasn’t dead, he was back in New Zealand. So she must be hallucinating. Delayed jet lag was sending her crazy.

  It was a pretty good hallucination, though, because now the Gabe-non-ghost was walking, his gaze trained on her. She blinked but he was still there, striding towards her, faster now, until he was almost upon her. And he was in the most gorgeous suit and clutching a glossy red programme.

  ‘You don’t like the ballet,’ she said when he got within earshot, because what else could she say to this unreal creature?

  ‘Yeah, but you do.’ He stopped a mere ten centimetres away from her, his expression searching. ‘Why have you walked out halfway through?’

  ‘I didn’t think it was realistic.’ Although it seemed she’d lost her grip on what was real altogether because here she was talking to a hallucination and, incredibly, it was talking back.

  His brows nearly hit his hairline. ‘A girl gets let down by a guy so she dies of a broken heart. Then she comes back as a ghost and protects that guy from other supernatural spurned women. Which bit’s not realistic?’ The corner of his mouth rose in the smallest of grins.

  Okay, so now she was sure she was dreaming. ‘You hate ballet, so how come you know the story of Giselle?’

  ‘Because I’ve sat through three performances already.’ His smile widened to rueful and he stepped just that bit closer.

  ‘Three?’ Her voice almost failed as she felt the warmth of his breath on her icy skin.

  ‘I’m sure the woman in the ticket office thinks I’m a stalker. Which I kind of am.’

  Roxie stared at him, her mind spinning. He really wasn’t a ghost. He really was here. Oh, Lord, why was he here?

  ‘So which bit did you think was unrealistic?’ he prompted her.

  She was shaking inside, outside, all over. ‘I didn’t like how she died of a broken heart just because that guy let her down,’ she whispered.

  ‘No, that wasn’t exactly brave of her,’ he agreed softly. ‘What should she have done instead?’

  Roxie was still digesting his appearance, so she didn’t answer. She just stared at him some more and tried not to think too closely about why he was here.

  ‘What would you have done?’ He waited for a while. Then offered an answer himself. ‘Should she have packed her bags and gone adventuring instead?’

  Roxie shook her head, spurred into a sturdier response at that. ‘No, she should have confronted him and told him what for.’ That was what she should have done. She should have told him what she really wanted—been honest and to be unafraid of the consequences.

  ‘Fair enough.’ Gabe’s eyes were fathomless inky pools. ‘But you know, I think you’d find the second half better.’
r />   ‘Why?’ Her throat had seized so tight again she could barely answer, and the trembles were graduating to shudders.

  ‘Because in that half she proves her strength,’ he answered, still quiet. Still unfathomable. ‘She does everything in her power to protect that guy because she loves him so much. And to be able to love someone that deeply, that passionately, is beautiful. It’s rare and it’s a gift.’

  Her heartbeats boomed like cannons. She refused to believe this might be what she wanted it to be. She wanted it too much—she was still too scared to be honest and to be unafraid of the consequences. So she tried to joke, just in case. ‘Are you saying you enjoyed the ballet?’

  ‘Well,’ he answered seriously, ‘I saw some parallels.’

  ‘I’m not about to die of a broken heart,’ she said, suddenly indignant. She hated him thinking she was weak.

  ‘I am so aware of that.’ His grin flashed, even his melt-inducing laugh sounded briefly. ‘That wasn’t what I meant.’

  Roxie couldn’t take much more without losing it. ‘Well, what did you mean?’

  ‘That you’re like her in that you have the capacity to love that deeply, that profoundly.’

  Oh, now she felt hurt—and so, so vulnerable. ‘What makes you think that?’

  His expression softened. ‘You showed it in the way you cared for your grandparents. You did everything and anything you could for them.’

  ‘Nothing anyone else wouldn’t have done.’ She tried to minimise it; she was no saint.

  He shook his head. ‘You give, Roxie. You give everything.’

  She didn’t say anything to that. Couldn’t.

  He leaned nearer, bending slightly so their faces were almost touching, whispered, ‘Aren’t you going to ask me why I’m here?’

  ‘Should I have to ask?’ she basically wailed, her nerves finally shredded. ‘You don’t just want to tell me?’

  ‘I shouldn’t have let you down.’ He too suddenly sounded rougher round the edges.

  ‘You’ve never let me down.’ Every cell inside her hurt from the effort of trying to stop trembling. To stay standing. He’d been wonderful to her in all the ways he could.

  He closed his eyes. ‘Yes, I have.’

  Did he mean that final night when he’d refused her stupidly desperate advances? ‘You were allowed to say no to me.’

  ‘No.’ His eyes flashed open, his gaze pinning her. ‘I let you down, and myself down, when I let you leave without telling you how I felt. I should have told you, but I was proud. And hurt. Now I’m just so miserable I’m prepared to grovel as much as I have to.’

  Roxie’s shaking became uncontrollable. ‘G-g-grovel?’

  ‘You asked if I’d really had to fight for something. That if I had, I’d know when a fight was worth the effort. Well, I’m fighting now. You know what for?’

  She shook her head. The boulder that had just gotten lodged in her throat prevented her answering verbally.

  ‘I’m fighting for you.’

  Gabe watched the colour wash out of her face—leaving her paler than when she’d first seen him walking towards her. ‘I didn’t want you to go,’ he said roughly. ‘I should have told you that, but I didn’t want to stop you from going. I didn’t want to stand in your way and I didn’t think you wanted—’ He broke off. She was still staring at him as if he were an apparition or something. He’d been holding back, not wanting to overwhelm her but it wasn’t working. And he needed to hold her. He put his hands on her waist, about to pull her close, but she put her palms on his chest. Defensively. And, worse, she still looked disbelieving.

  ‘I know you, Gabe,’ she said, her voice harsh. ‘You’re a healer, not someone who hurts other people. You hate the thought of hurting someone. But I’m strong, I’m not like Diana, I’m not going to crumble.’

  ‘You know, I bloody wish you would,’ he said, tightening his grip on her and pulling her closer despite her hands blocking him. ‘I wish you’d open up and tell me how you’re feeling. It’s okay to admit to being upset. It’s okay to ask for help. It’s okay to need something from someone.’

  From him. He wanted her to want everything from him.

  But she shook her head. ‘When you were a kid you looked after the orphan lambs. I don’t want to be another orphan lamb for you.’

  ‘Roxie, you’re not listening to me. I know how strong you are. The strongest person I’ve ever met. You’re all steel, able to make whatever sacrifice necessary. So I don’t feel sorry for you, I feel sorry for me having to try and match your courage. I don’t think you’re some orphan lamb who needs rescuing. Quite the opposite.’ He was determined to prove it to her—even if it took him the rest of his life to wear her down enough to accept what he had to give. ‘You’re brave and terrifyingly independent. You learned how to load syringes so you could administer pain relief to the people you loved most. You cared for them, helped them, fought to give them the best chance. You grew that massive garden, filled with wonderful goodness, made all that food with such love. You put your own dreams on hold for so long and I know you did that gladly. And I know you said this was your time now—to have your adventures and fun. And I don’t want to hold you back. I don’t want to stop you doing the things you want to do. But I do want a place in your life and I’m going to fight for it, Roxie. I think you’re blocking yourself from the biggest adventure of all, with me, and that’s not true to you. You’re an all-giving person.’

  He could feel the constant tremors racking through her. Could feel her trying to stop them. To resist.

  ‘I don’t want to be,’ she whispered.

  And he heard the fear.

  ‘You can’t be any other way, and I want it for me.’ He cupped her cheek and looked into the beautiful blue eyes that were filled with a hurt he ached to ease. If only she would give him the chance. ‘And you deserve someone to give it all back to you too. That would be me.’ He smiled. ‘You’re not meant to be alone. I felt the way you held me, Roxie, I felt that need in you and I hope like hell I’m not delusional on that. You know I never wanted to commit, never wanted to compromise. I thought I had my life plan perfect. But then I met you. And now? I’d do anything for you. So be with me. Lean on me. That’s what people who love each other do.’ He bent his head nearer, his heart hurting for hers. ‘I’m sorry you lost your family. But you can’t protect yourself from loving any more. That’s not living. You, more than anyone, are supposed to love. You need your connections, your history. You need your home and I’m sorry if being with me there spoilt that place for you. Is that what happened?’ He’d had the awful fear that he’d somehow ruined it for her.

  ‘Oh, no,’ she breathed, her eyes full of distress. ‘I just couldn’t bear it any more—everyone I loved I lost in that house.’ She bit on her lip, then whispered, ‘Including you.’

  ‘You never lost me.’ He lifted her face with gentle fingers. ‘But don’t leave me in the wilderness now, Roxie. I want you. I want everything with you.’

  He swore he could see her heart reflected in those pure blue eyes—glistening, vulnerable, beautiful. And as he watched the smallest curve to her lips grew and she blinked—her gaze suddenly stronger, direct, true.

  ‘Everything?’

  That hint of undaunted tease, of Foxy Roxie, made his bones liquefy.

  ‘The works,’ he promised.

  She moved closer, snuggling right against him. Gabe’s blood fizzed as her fingers curled into his shirt. Holding him close now—she clutched as if she was never going to let him go. She rose on tiptoe, her heart bursting, and whispered, ‘But you know I’ve got quite an imagination, right?’

  ‘I can’t wait to see what you’re going to add to my list,’ he breathed, bending to brush her lips.

  ‘You have a list?’ Her lips curved against his.

  ‘Come with me now and I’ll show you it,’ he invited, then swooped.

  Roxie’s spirit soared to the heavens like a cork fired from a bottle of champagne. She lifted her hand
, feeling his warm jaw with her cold fingers, holding his head to hers. Deep, yearning, passionate. Her tired eyes closed as he filled her senses, pouring warmth and love into her cold bones. She did as he’d invited—leaned on him, drawing on his heat and strength and heart. His arms tightened all the more around her, pulling her closer and closer.

  ‘Please don’t ever let me go again,’ she muttered.

  ‘Never.’ He kissed her fear away. ‘Come on, let’s get some place else before we get arrested.’

  He kept her close, tucked in right beside him as they walked to flag a cab. She wasn’t letting him go either, one hand still curled into his shirt. ‘Shouldn’t you be helping the team prep for the next game?’ she asked, once they’d gotten in the back of a taxi. Suddenly she was nervous of the future that only seconds ago had seemed easy and perfect. ‘It’s only early in the season.’

  ‘I’ve got this one covered but, you’re right, I can only stay a few days unless I resign.’ His arm tightened around her shoulder as she tensed in rejection of that idea. ‘I know you want to travel and I don’t want to stop you doing that. So maybe I could come over every couple of weeks. Even for just a few nights. I can meet you wherever.’

  Every couple of weeks? She vehemently shook her head. ‘You can’t fly all this way and back again all that often. You’ll get too tired and it costs too much.’

  He opened his mouth to argue but she pressed the backs of her fingers against it. Because no way was she being apart from him for that long.

  ‘Maybe we could travel together for a while when the season ends.’ She smiled when she saw his frown, pushed her fingers more firmly against his lips when she felt them move. ‘I could come back and dance for the rest of the season. Even as just the substitute. I feel bad for running out on Chelsea.’

  His eyes widened and the rest of him went very still.

  ‘I want to come back with you,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t want to do this trip on my own. I want to go to all the fun places, but I want to do that with you. I’m not letting you go either.’

  He pulled her back into a tight embrace. She felt his face, hot and hard pressed against her neck. He said nothing for a while. Didn’t kiss her. Just held her close. The way she needed to be held. His muscles bunched. What she’d just said meant something to him. As she began to understand that he really meant it. That he loved her and wanted her. And, scared though she was, the beauty and magic of it overruled that fear.