by Ally Blake
He shook his head and pressed the oars deeper into the water.
It more than paid off. Had Zach Jones just asked her for advice? She was shocked it had come so easily. But boy, was she ready to—
Who the heck was Felicia? Another woman in Zach’s life? Meg wrapped her fingers around the bench to stop from tipping right off. ‘Felicia is…?’
‘The nanny.’
She all but laughed with relief. When Zach’s eyes narrowed, she babbled, ‘I had a nanny once. I told her I was adopted. She told a friend, who spilled the news to the press. Wow, I’d completely forgotten about that. Mum was so upset. And my father…’ She shook her head to clear that image before the rest of the memory filtered through. ‘Let’s just say no more nannies came through the place.’
Zach’s eyes widened a fraction. He really had no clue that young girls were as much about sugar and spice as they were about snakes and snails and puppy dogs’ tails. It only made her more determined to make him see.
‘Don’t get me wrong. Other kids adored theirs,’ she continued on. ‘Tabitha still sends hers cards on Mother’s Day. Does Ruby get on with Felicia?’
He waited a beat then nodded. ‘She taught at Ruby’s school for over twenty years. She’s seen it all. I poached her earlier this year when Ruby came to live with me.’
‘Well, that’s great, then,’ she said, her finger fiddling with her bottom lip as she frantically thought through what tack to take next. ‘A girl needs firm boundaries as much as she needs her space.’
And then it hit her. Ruby hadn’t always lived with him.
Where had she been? With her mother? Had they divorced? Had they never married? Had they been in love but couldn’t live together? Was he still in love with her now? Was that where his innate darkness sprang from? There was no denying her heart hurt just thinking about it. It hurt for Zach. For Ruby. It was much easier letting it hurt for them than in any way for herself.
Now Meg needed to know the whole story so badly she could taste it. She held her breath.
‘That’s enough,’ Zach said, and Meg’s finger stilled. ‘I have no idea how we started talking about this in the first place.’
Enough? They’d barely begun! She didn’t have half the information she wanted—no, required—in order to help.
‘You brought it up,’ Meg shot back.
‘I—What?’ His oars paused mid-air.
‘If you’d been sensible enough to ignore the fact that I happened upon your backyard, then we might never have had to have this conversation.’
‘Why do I get the feeling you’re used to getting your own way?’ he growled.
‘Ha! I have no idea because it certainly ain’t true. I have three bossy older brothers and a father who thinks everything I do is a complete waste of time.’
Meg’s eyes slammed shut and she bit her lip, but it was far too late. She’d said what she’d said. Somehow he’d done it again—given her all the rope she needed to hang herself.
She opened one eye to find him sitting ever so still, the oars resting lazily in their slips, dripping lake water over the bottom of the old wooden boat.
He was quiet for so long Meg could hear the sound of wings beating in the forest, the soft lapping of water against the side of the boat, and her own slow, deep breaths. Then he put the oars back where they were meant to be and pushed off.
He said, ‘Ruby attends a local weekly boarding school.’
Meg could have kissed him. Right then and there. She had no clue why he’d let her off the hook when she’d been pressing herself into his personal life with barely concealed vigour. All she knew was that if he looked her in the eye rather than at some point over her shoulder she would probably have gone right ahead and kissed him.
‘Where Felicia used to teach,’ she encouraged, her voice soft, her words clearly thought out before she uttered a single word.
The muscle beneath his left eye twitched. Then as he pulled the oars through the water he said, ‘It’s barely a ten-minute drive from here. The same one she was attending before her mother passed away a few months ago.’
And there it was.
Meg’s hands clasped one another so tight her fingers hurt. Ruby’s mum had been gone only a few months. Oh, that poor little creature. No wonder he wanted to keep Ruby wrapped up in cotton wool. The fact she was able to go back to school at all was amazing. As for Zach…
She opened her mouth to ask how he was doing, when he cleared his throat and pushed the oars deeper into the water, sending them spearing back towards shore.
He said, ‘This isn’t the first time since she moved in with me that she’s had a sore throat, a finger that twitches so hard she can’t write, a foot so itchy she can’t walk. So far all she’s needed is a day at home and she’s been right for another few weeks. So all in all I think we’re doing okay.’
Doing okay? He cared. He considered. It was important to him to be a good father. In her humble opinion Zach was doing everything in his considerable power to do right by his little girl. And just like that all sorts of bone-deep, neglected, wishful, hopeful feelings beat to life inside her.
‘Zach, I had no idea,’ she said as she tried to collect herself. ‘Truly. I’m so sorry about your wife—’
He cut her off unceremoniously. ‘Ruby’s mother and I knew one another for a short time several years ago when I was visiting with a view to building this place. I didn’t even know Ruby existed until after Isabel died.’
‘So you weren’t—’
So you’re not still in love with her, was what she was trying not to ask.
‘We weren’t,’ he said, insistent enough Meg had the feeling he’d heard all too clearly nonetheless. ‘I was in Turkey when my lawyer contacted me with the news. After much legal wrangling I met a social worker here, at the house. And I met Ruby. She had one small suitcase and carried a teddy bear wearing a purple fairy dress under one skinny arm. I never expected her to be so small—’
Zach came to an abrupt halt, frowned deeply and glared down into his lap.
The backs of Meg’s eyes burned. It took her a few moments to recognise it was the sharp sting of oncoming tears.
She never cried. Ever. Never sweated, never blushed, never cried. The moments she’d let herself succumb to her emotions were the times she’d been most deeply hurt—by careless whispers of envious types, by stories of horrendous depravity at the Valley Women’s Shelter, even by herself. But this guy tugged shamelessly at hidden parts of her that didn’t know the rules.
She blinked until the sensation went away.
‘We’re both trying to get used to our new living situation. To each other,’ he went on, his voice raw, his eyes staring at some point on the bottom of the boat as it drifted steadily on. ‘The last thing we need at this point is for her existence to come to the attention of the press. You obviously do know what they can be like. She needs to find her feet without constantly looking over her shoulder. She’ll trip. She’ll fall. She’ll be hurt even more.’
He lifted his dark eyes to hers. There was a newfound lightness within them that came with getting everything off his chest. But the second he remembered he’d been divulging his story to her, it was gone.
‘Meg,’ he said, his voice rough, beseeching.
She breathed deep to calm her thundering heart and said, ‘I know I haven’t done much to make you believe this, but you really can trust me. I’m exceptionally good at keeping secrets. You have no idea how good, which only proves my point. I’ll not breathe a word.’
‘I truly hope so.’
She smiled. He managed to do a shadow of the same. And in that moment of silent communion something rare and magical was forged between them.
It felt a lot like trust.
CHAPTER SIX
THE boat bumped against solid ground.
Meg flinched, her flat shoes slipping on the wet wood, but she caught herself in time. She’d been so engrossed in Zach, in his story, in the man, she hadn’t even noticed the head-high r
eeds encroaching.
Zach tied them off. He threw the cooler onto the wooden deck, then leaned over and held out a hand.
She took it, the loaded silence of the lingering moment of amity still making her feel all floaty and surreal.
Once on the jetty she took off his hat, ran a quick hand through her messy curls and handed it to him along with his blanket. He wrapped his hands around both, but didn’t tug. Meg looked up into his dark eyes.
Her heart felt heavy in her chest. Her body felt heavy on her legs. The only thing about her that felt light was her head. Which was probably why she said, ‘Now that I know everything there is to know about you, are you finally going to give in and stop stalking me?’
His dark brows rose. His voice, on the other hand, deepened. ‘Is that what I’ve been doing?’
She said, ‘Either that or fifty acres really isn’t quite as much room as it sounds.’
From nowhere his head rocked back and he laughed. The sexy sound reverberated deep in her stomach, leaving it feeling hollow. As it faded to a smile in his eyes it left a new kind of warmth in its place she wasn’t sure what to do with.
‘I like you better this way,’ she admitted.
‘What way?’
‘Not bossing me around. You should try that more.’
He gave the blanket and hat a tug. She shuffled forward a step before letting go and he threw them lazily onto the cooler.
He looked back at her. The earlier glints in his dark eyes had been mere imitations of the glints glinting at her now. The kind of glints she now wished she’d not wished for. They were dazzling, they were blistering, they were completely incapacitating.
His voice rumbled, low and deep. ‘By that logic if I continue that way you’ll only like me more.’
‘You can’t argue with logic,’ she said, trying to sound pithy; instead she sounded as if she was flirting. Which, of course, she was.
How could she not? He was glinting and smiling, and somehow, whether by her brilliant psychological tactics or by his choice alone, she’d been allowed to see a little of the man behind the mask.
What she saw there she liked.
And by the look in his eyes what he saw in front of him right at this moment he liked right back.
Meg licked her lips. His hot gaze trailed slowly down the curves of her face until it landed square upon her mouth. His eyes turned dark as night and he breathed out. Hard.
Despite knowing that what was about to happen was reckless and pointless and born of nothing more concrete than the ephemeral connection of confidences shared, Meg just stood there, her entire body vibrating in anticipation.
Zach slid his arm gently around her back, with such little pressure she had time and room to curl away.
She knew she should. She thought to the very last she would. She was always the one to back away first before anything truly serious came to bear. But her toes curled into her shoes and she held her ground.
Zach’s brow creased for the briefest of seconds as though he was surprising even himself before a small smile eased onto his mouth. Hers lifted in its image.
Then he pulled her in close. The warmth of his sun-drenched body pressed through her dress until every inch of skin, exposed and concealed, felt as if it had begun to glow.
Her hand fluttered up to rest against his chest to find it hard, fit, unyielding, everything she’d thought him to be. Only now she knew that beneath the tough exterior beat the heart of a man whose primary goal was the protection of a little girl.
He leaned down and moved his lips over hers. He tasted like chocolate muffins. She was toast.
The kiss was slow. Dreamy. As if he had no intention of missing out on experiencing every single nuance.
It took about three and a half seconds before Meg slid her arms around his neck and pressed up onto her toes to get closer to him. Sinking against him. Soaking up every bit of him that she possibly could.
With a groan that reverberated through her body like a little earthquake, his strong arms wrapped so tight around her he lifted her off the jetty as though she weighed nothing at all.
The kiss deepened. And deepened again.
His tongue eased into her mouth, caressing the edges of her teeth, sliding over the tiny chip in her front tooth, sending delicious shivers through her, touching her tongue for the briefest of moments before it was gone.
She was breathless and hot. Her skin hummed. Her insides ached. Her toes curled. Her lungs burned. And the kiss continued as beautifully indulgent and unhurried as it had begun.
Until her flat shoes slid from her feet, landing on the jetty with a soft slap, leaving her feet bare, and leaving her feeling exposed. Completely at his mercy. And finally her senses came swarming back.
She pulled away. Ever so slightly. But he felt it. Slowly, gently, he placed her back on the jetty. And they uncurled their limbs from around one another.
Only once there was enough space for a summer breeze to slide between them did Zach say, ‘I’m not sure where that came from.’
‘I am,’ she said, her cheeks pinking the second the words left her mouth. But it was the truth. She’d wanted to do that since the moment she’d first seen him.
It got her a slow, easy smile and a nod. The moment of accord, of finally admitting to each other what they both felt, was even more formidable than the kiss itself.
‘I’d better go,’ she said. ‘My posse will be moseying back to camp any time soon.’
She reached out and rested her hand on his arm. His skin was so warm, the energy coursing through him so vital, her heart rate rose in direct response.
‘I’m really sorry about Isabel,’ she said.
His mouth quirked, but he didn’t smile. And she wondered if he’d been hoping the kiss would wipe everything else from her mind. She wasn’t about to tell him how close it had come.
Instead, she squeezed his arm again, and said, ‘But I’m not worried about Ruby. I have no doubt she’s in good hands. She’s really lucky to have you.’
She lifted her hand in a small wave, then gathered her shoes and jogged up the jetty, her mind already playing over the fib she’d have to create for Rylie and Tabitha to explain where she’d been, what she’d been doing, and why she was floating an inch off the ground but couldn’t quite remove the frown from her forehead at the same time.
Later that night, once Rylie and Tabitha were snoring lightly in their rooms Meg lay on her bed, wide-awake, her mobile phone warm in her palms.
She’d been tossing it from hand to hand for a good couple of hours, ever since she’d got off the phone from saying goodnight to Olivia and Violet, Brendan’s girls.
They’d sounded bright, cheery, happy. What had she expected? They were seven and four, and they had ponies, ballet lessons, piano, rock climbing, Chinese and French lessons, summer trips around the world with their grandmother, twenty-year-old nannies who spoilt them rotten, and a dad who clearly wrestled with the amount of time he spent at work while they grew up without him there to see it.
But as she lay back on her bed, the pale summer moon spilling light through the far window creating a hypnotic play of light and shadow on the ceiling, the fairy dust cleared from her eyes and Ruby’s small face looked back at her instead.
She’d seen so much of herself in the kid’s mutinous streak. That spark could be so easily deflated. Or worse, it could spin out of control. She hoped not. With all her might. Not just for Ruby. But also for Zach.
Big, bad, daunting, noble, solid Zach Jones.
Growing up in her family, the only kind of masculine strength she’d understood till she met him had been overt. Overpowering. Uncompromising.
Zach’s strength came from somewhere much deeper. A place he didn’t feel compelled to proclaim to the world. The fact that she’d been allowed to witness it in the revelation of how he’d changed his life for his little girl made it that much more compelling. It was like seeing a fireman rescue a kitten from a tree.
She’d hat
e to see all his good work go to waste. But since Zach’s parenting skills were now obviously nothing like her father’s, Ruby might not need the intervention her adolescent mutiny necessitated after all. She struggled with deciding what to do.
One thing she knew had been a bad decision on both their parts had been that kiss.
Her fingers lifted to stroke her lips as they must have done a few dozen times that afternoon. She could still taste his sweetness, sense his warmth all around her, feel his hardness imprinted on every inch of her body as if it had happened mere moments ago.
Soft, dreamy, luxurious, deep, unguarded, magic.
And indefensible. Because Zach Jones had a child.
When she’d ruled out any chance of having kids of her own, kids who—just because they were hers—would never live up to her father’s expectations of them, it had never occurred to her that she might one day meet a man who came with kids of his own. Her usual types were never that proactive.
Then Zach had to come stomping into her life, shaking loose old choices she’d never thought she’d have to revisit again.
But no. Her nieces were living proof of why she’d done the right thing.
They seemed fine, now. But they were little kids. They ought to wear gumboots and get into mud-pie fights, not wear dresses and tights and patent leather shoes when playing in the backyard.
The pressure for them to live up to her father’s unwavering ideal of what a Kelly had to be was mounting. And soon they’d be old enough to feel it. Soon they’d be old enough to know.
There was no way she’d wish that pressure on any child. Not by blood, and not by association. Because she knew the consequences.
She threw her phone across the room and it landed with a thud on a couch in the corner.
She tried humming Stevie Wonder to clear her head, but it didn’t work. Zach’s deep voice rang louder still.
She liked the guy. She adored how he kissed. She was smitten with his efforts to do right by Ruby. And she was in his debt for letting her get away with the unforgivable slip about her exceedingly private dealings with her father.
But she wasn’t any good for him any more than he would be good for her. He might not see it yet, but he had the natural inclination to be some kind of dad. He’d want more kids down the line, and with her insides the way they were she could never give them to him.
