Dangerous Ground (Harlequin Presents, December 118)

by Alison Kelly

  When Flanagan had told her that he’d purchased a fourwheel-drive vehicle specifically for travelling from one remote shoot location to the next, she’d visualised it as one of the several ritzy Japanese models which had become as common in suburban Sydney as taxis. She certainly hadn’t anticipated the very basic, khaki-coloured Jeep-like thing that jerked to a halt in front of her.

  She might not know a lot about cars, but she knew enough to know that this one was old.

  ‘Good morning,’ she said pointedly when, after climbing out, he immediately reached for her luggage without sparing her a glance.

  ‘If you say so,’ he grunted.

  ‘I was simply being polite—’

  ‘Don’t bother,’ he advised. ‘It takes more than polished manners to impress me.’

  ‘Really? I’m surprised, since you’re obviously devoid of them.’

  ‘Look,’ he said, then heaved a weary sigh. ‘I can do without your sassy comments this early in the day. OK?’

  Jacqui didn’t have the verbal strength to bother arguing with him, but the look he gave her when she remained silent was a victory in itself. Funny, she’d never previously thought that designer stubble was all that sexy…Idiot, she mentally chided, you still don’t!

  ‘Careful with this one,’ she said, having seen how he’d dumped the three previous pieces of luggage into the vehicle. ‘It’s got my cameras in it.’

  ‘Oh? Planning on a bit of behind-the-lens work too, are you?’

  ‘If I get the chance. Is that a problem?’ she challenged, wishing he’d taken the trouble to shave so that she could have complained about his being late.

  ‘Not as long as it doesn’t interfere with your work.’

  ‘It won’t,’ she said. ‘I can assure you that I’m nothing if not professional.’

  ‘Good, because I won’t tolerate anything less.’ He stood back and motioned towards the passenger door.

  ‘Neither will I, Flanagan,’ she shot back, climbing into the Land Rover. ‘And remember what it says in our contract—if I don’t like any shot of me, it doesn’t go public.’ She flicked her hair over her shoulders and added, ‘I don’t care who your father was.’

  He closed the door the instant she was seated, and leaned in her window until his face was only inches from hers.

  ‘You know what?’ he said.

  This close, his eyes had the potential to melt her toes and pretty much every other part of her anatomy; she edged back, her action putting a half-smile on his mouth and a crease in one unshaven creek.

  ‘Wh-what?’ Her voice had all but deserted her.

  ‘That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.’

  Patric glanced down at the recently installed cassette deck as a loud click coincided with the ejection of the INXS tape which had been playing.

  One of his passions was rock music, but after three and a half hours of it he could have used a change of pace. Conversation would have done, but the woman beside him had nodded off within fifteen minutes of their pulling away from her house, and her eyes had remained closed ever since. No doubt, last night having been Saturday, she’d been partying until late at one of Sydney’s expensively trendy nightspots.

  He wished that he could blame his own lack of sleep on anything as deliberately self-inflicted as too much socialising, but the truth was that his mind had been too active to recognise his body’s need for slumber.

  Last night, after double-checking all his gear and packing it into the car, he’d crawled into bed at the very respectable hour of ten-thirty in preparation for his early start.

  But every time he’d closed his eyes he’d seen images of Jacqui on the insides of his lids. Yep, Jacqui. He hadn’t been able to think of her as Jaclyn since the night he’d seen the bracelet, and although it had been inscribed Jacko he felt the name too harsh—just as Jaclyn had suddenly seemed too…too fabricated.

  Of course, it didn’t make a scrap of difference what her name was because that wasn’t what was causing him problems. It was the intrusive image of the woman! It had happened on and off all week, but last night had been the worst.

  The minute his head had hit that pillow there she’d been— Jacqui walking into the restaurant, Jacqui standing at his front door, Jacqui emerging from the swimming-pool, Jacqui trying to back her way into the refrigerator!

  At one point he’d sought to relieve the vice-like grip that such visions had on his loins by staring at the ceiling; unfortunately, it had been like switching from a television screen to a movie screen. And cinematography had made Jacqui Raynor’s liquid grace and soft-focus beauty the stuff of dreams. Except, dammit, he hadn’t been asleep!

  The roar of a lorry overtaking him made him glance at his speedo; he was doing only seventy in a hundred-and-ten speed zone.

  Annoyed that his concentration was less than it should have been, he mentally shook himself and, without taking his eyes from the road, reached for the case of cassette tapes sitting on the small seat dividing the driver from the passenger. An electric shock caused him to snatch his hand away and glance quickly to his left.

  ‘Sorry,’ Jacqui muttered.

  She was curled up against the door, with her legs tucked under her and her impossibly long hair draped about her like a shawl.

  ‘I thought you were still asleep,’ he said inanely, stunned by the effect her sleep tousled sexiness had on him. He forced his attention back to the road, determined to ignore her, but he couldn’t stop his peripheral vision noting the movement of her long, sensual fingers over the spines of the cassettes, or himself wondering how they would feel sliding over his spine…

  ‘Anything particular you’d like to hear?’

  Her words were husky from sex—not sex! He thumped the steering wheel with his fist ‘Sleep, you idiot! Sleep!’

  ‘Don’t call me an idiot!’ she snapped, punching his arm.

  ‘No, not you!’ he said hastily, mortified that he’d spoken aloud. ‘I meant me! I was talking to myself! Er…thinking out loud.’ Damn it, Flanagan, he thought; get a grip on your libido!

  She gave him a short, questioning look, then swung her feet off the seat, turning so that her back was to him. For the next half-hour neither of them spoke, and the cassette deck remained loudly silent. Patric went from feeling relieved to uncomfortable to downright guilty, which was stupid because he hadn’t done anything to feel guilty about!

  Spying a service station up ahead, he concluded that his uncharacteristic edginess was due to nothing more than a lack of breakfast, and decided to rectify the problem. He’d be fine once he got some coffee into his system.

  He eased his foot off the accelerator, signalled left and swung into the garage car park. Still his passenger made no comment. Rolling into a parking space, he switched off the ignition and turned to her.

  ‘Jacqui?’ She glanced at him and he sent her what he hoped was a placating look. Considering the force behind the punch to his arm, he wanted her calmed down before she got anywhere near hot liquids. ‘I’m sorry. I’m not such great company first thing in the morning.’

  ‘From what I’ve seen so far, Flanagan, the time of day has little to do with it!’

  Jacqui quickly escaped from the car, the need to put some distance between herself and her travelling companion suddenly overwhelming. Patric Flanagan was the moodiest damn man she’d ever met, and God knew she’d met plenty! He was—

  A loud wail invaded her thoughts at the same instant as someone grabbed her upper arms and hauled her backwards. The driver of the car, passing only millimetres in front of her, hurled a tirade of abuse questioning her vision and intellect.

  ‘Same to you, mate!’ she retorted automatically, seconds before the realisation of what had nearly happened dawned. Severely shaken, she offered no resistance when her rescuer turned her trembling body into a comforting embrace.

  Her brain, like her heart, was racing. One more mindless stride and she’d have ended up under the car’s wheels! She squeezed her eye
s against reactive tears and forced herself to take deep, slow breaths. In…out. In…out. In…out…

  Her next clear thought was of how good it felt being held like this, being able to rub her cheek against a firm male chest—Her eyes flew open.

  These days blue chambray shirts weren’t a rarity, but Jacqui knew, even without looking at the face of the wearer, exactly whose chest she was rubbing against. Her first clue was that her pulse had gone from registering alarm over the near-accident to registering sexual awareness. The second was the deep unusually accented drawl which now met her ear.

  ‘Jacqui, you OK now?’

  She lifted her head to look at him. The level of concern she saw in his eyes surprised her. She let her gaze drift to the dark stubble on his jaw, and discovered that the combination of concerned gentleness and hard masculinity did funny things to her insides.

  ‘Jacqui? Are you OK?’ he asked again. She smiled, feeling ridiculously thrilled that he’d stopped calling her Jaclyn.

  ‘Yeah, I’m fine.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Certain.’

  ‘Well, be more bloody careful in future!’ he said, physically lifting her arms from around his hips. ‘I don’t fancy working with a model with a tyre-tread embedded on her belly!’

  Well! So much for thinking his concern was personal, Jacqui thought, embarrassment at how she’d clung to him surging through her body. Oh, Lord, she wanted to die! Maybe if she laid down in front of the nearest petrol pump the next car driving in would do her the favour of not missing.

  Suddenly Flanagan’s comments about the tyre-tread on her belly prompted her to consider something which had slipped her mind. Oh, no! The Press would really have a field-day with that! And she could imagine how caustic Flanagan’s comments would be. Good thing she was a dab hand with make-up, because there were some things she wasn’t about to bare to anyone.

  ‘C’mon, Jacqui, stop daydreaming!’ she was ordered. ‘I’ve planned this trip to a schedule and I don’t plan wasting any more time on pit-stops than is absolutely necessary.’

  She was tempted to point out that this ‘pit stop’ had been all his idea, but she didn’t. Instead she threw him a snappy salute and, this time checking to see that no cars were coming, scurried across the driveway to the door marked ‘Ladies’.

  Five minutes later, wearing a baseball cap, and with her hair secured in two long plaits, she entered the café. After ordering a cup of coffee and two slices of raisin toast she visually scouted the room, trying to spot Flanagan. He wasn’t at any of the occupied tables, so she moved to the nearest empty one and sat down.

  The raisin toast was a burnt swimming-pool of butter—the way she liked it; the coffee was the instant variety and weak. One out of two wasn’t bad. Nibbling the toast, she looked out of the glassed wall beside her at the activity going on in the driveway.

  Four leather-clad bikers were grouped around a Ducatti bike, and the concerned looks on their faces told of a major mechanical problem.

  Automatically she glanced to where the Land Rover was parked and again she puzzled over its appearance. She’d have expected Flanagan to go for luxury rather than durability and practicality, and as for the trail-bike attached to the back… Well, discovering that he had a penchant for motorbikes was downright scary!

  A minibus emblazoned with the name of a junior cricket club opened its doors to let loose a rowdy group of boys and two bedraggled-looking adults, and behind it a tourist coach full of pensioners pulled up. Instantly the noise level in the until now practically empty restaurant rose as the travellers entered. Defensively she turned a little in her seat, putting her back to the growing throng.

  While it was unlikely that anyone would recognise her in worn jeans and a plain sleeveless top, with her hair plaited and tucked beneath a cap, it had happened before; Jacqui could just imagine the ribbing she’d get from Patric if his travelling schedule was delayed because she was obliging people with autographs.

  ‘Where’s mine?’

  She turned, startled by the softly drawled question. ‘Pardon?’

  ‘My coffee,’ Flanagan said. ‘Where is it?’

  She pointed to the counter, now concealed by a crowd of elderly people from the tourist bus.

  ‘Ah, swell! Thanks a lot! Why couldn’t you have gotten it when you got yours?’

  ‘I didn’t think of it,’ she replied honestly.

  ‘Do you ever think of anyone but yourself?’

  He was being totally unfair, but she couldn’t be bothered to waste her breath saying so. ‘I’d stop whingeing and queue up if I were you, Flanagan; otherwise you’ll jeopardise your precious schedule.’

  He moved off, muttering under his breath, unaware of the drooling glances of two teenagers sitting at a nearby table and the double take of a middle-aged waitress filling a serviette dispenser.

  Fools, Jacqui thought. You’re thinking with your hormones and letting a taut backside, a muscular physique and drop-dead good looks cloud your common sense. The man is a judgemental rat with a bad attitude! And until sex appeal becomes personality Patric Flanagan won’t have one!

  About ten minutes later the man in question returned, carrying a tray which held two cups of coffee and a plate of half a dozen doughnuts.

  ‘A hangover from my time in the States,’ he explained, sitting down opposite her and pushing one of the steaming coffees towards her.

  Jacqui looked from the cup to him.

  ‘Peace offering,’ he said. ‘I figure we’d best make an effort to get on since we’ll practically be living in each other’s hip pockets for the next three weeks.’

  She gave him a sceptical look. ‘That’s a lot to expect from one coffee.’

  ‘OK, you can have a doughnut, too.’ The grin that followed his words had no trouble in drawing one in return.

  No doubt about it, she decided, picking up a sugar-coated ring, good looks and charm had been working for men and against women since time began, and Patric Flanagan had inherited more than his share!

  ‘You sure this won’t stuff up your schedule?’ she teased.

  He grinned. ‘The schedule isn’t carved in stone.’

  ‘Your father’s always was.’

  ‘I told—’

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ she interrupted. ‘You’re not your father.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘So, how come you hate him so much?’

  ‘I don’t hate my father.’

  ‘You could have fooled me.’

  ‘Probably. It sure seems like Wade did.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Just that your blind adoration of the man is based on limited knowledge of him.’

  ‘I’ll have you know that Wade and I were extremely close!’

  ‘And this sounds like we’re extremely close to another argument.’ He lifted one eyebrow. ‘Want to see how long we can skirt around it?’

  She frowned, pretending to give the suggestion deep thought. ‘The subject of Wade, or arguments in general?’

  ‘Arguments in general and specifically Wade.’

  ‘OK,’ she agreed cheerfully. ‘And if we can manage that tomorrow we’ll try walking on water.’

  Amusement sparkled in his eyes. ‘Think it’ll be that hard, huh?’

  ‘Probably.’ She grinned. ‘Let’s face it, Flanagan, our track record pretty much shows that there’s no common ground between us.’

  He shook his head. ‘Not true. The problem isn’t common ground, it’s dangerous ground.’

  His look challenged her to deny his words. Jacqui took a deep breath, planning to do exactly that, but the intended lie was choked off by the thickness of the atmosphere.

  She was unable to look away from his perceptive and penetrating gaze, and the way her blood was warming had nothing to do with anything as innocuous as rage. She wished she could honestly claim that she didn’t know what he meant, or at least come up with some witty remark, but she couldn’t. And remaining mute wasn�
��t helping the situation any.

  ‘I have a rigid rule of keeping my dealings with photographers strictly professional,’ she told him. ‘So if you’re worried that I’m suddenly going to let my hormones start ruling my brain—don’t be.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  Well, that makes one of us at least, she thought.

  ‘All I’m saying,’ he continued, ‘is that the pressure of this…this sexual thing between us is causing us to argue, not the fact that we have nothing in common.’

  He helped himself to a doughnut and Jacqui found herself almost groaning as she watched his even white teeth bite into it. What would it feel like to have those same teeth nipping at her bare skin? She closed her eyes against the desire such thoughts provoked, only to open them and realise from his expression that possibly it wasn’t the doughnut that he was mentally tasting.

  He groaned and ran frustrated fingers through his hair. ‘Look, we’re adults,’ he said firmly. ‘And since you readily admit that you’re too professional to let an affair complicate your work—’

  ‘Affair!’ She hadn’t even mentioned the word. She deliberately hadn’t mentioned the word!

  ‘—and since, on principle, a model is the last woman I’d ever consider getting personally involved with, I don’t think there’s any need for us to be so defensive with one another. Why don’t—?’

  ‘What’s your hang-up with models?’ she cut in, wondering why he’d sounded so disparaging towards them.

  He opened his mouth to reply, then shut it in the wake of obvious second thoughts.

  ‘Well?’

  He frowned. ‘Why do you ask? You’re not about to launch into a heartfelt defence of the profession, are you?’

  He looked so bothered by the idea that she couldn’t help smiling. ‘No. I’m curious, that’s all,’ she replied honestly. ‘What caused your anti-model attitude—a bad relationship with one? What?’

  ‘Let’s just say that I don’t want the mother of my children to be a model.’