by Amy Andrews
He’d personally designed, built and installed the kitchen where they were sitting and something grabbed at his gut to see her hand caressing his creation as she might caress a lover.
‘So,’ he said as their business concluded, and he got his head back in the game, ‘if you’re happy that everything has been done to your satisfaction, just sign here and here.’
Blake held out a pen and indicated the lines requiring her signature. Then held his breath. Tactile or not, Ava Kelly had also been demanding, difficult and fickle.
He wasn’t counting his chickens until she’d signed on the dotted lines!
* * *
Ava glanced at the enigmatic Blake Walker through her fringe. She’d never met a man who wasn’t at least a little in awe of her. Who didn’t flirt a little or at least try it on.
But not Blake.
He’d been polite and unflappable even when she’d been at her most unreasonable. And she knew she’d been unreasonable on more than one occasion. Just a little. Just to see if he’d react like a human being for once instead of the face of the business—composed, courteous, respectful.
She’d almost got her reaction this afternoon when he’d been on the phone and she’d asked him to shift his car. The tightening of his mouth, that eyebrow raise had spoken volumes. But he’d retreated from the flash of fire she’d seen in his indigo eyes and a part of her had been supremely disappointed.
Something told her that Blake Walker would be quite magnificent all riled up.
Charlie, the more easy-going of the brothers, had said that Blake had been in the army so maybe he was used to following orders, sucking things up?
Ava reluctantly withdrew her hand from the cool smoothness of the bench-top to take the pen. She loved the seductive feel of the beautiful wood and, with Blake’s deep voice washing over her and the pasta sauce bubbling away in the background, a feeling of contentment descended. It would be so nice to drop her guard for once, to surrender to the cosy domesticity.
To the intimacy.
Did he feel it too or was it just her overactive imagination after months of building little fantasies about him? Fantasies that had been getting a lot more complex as he had steadily ignored her.
Like doing him on this magnificent bench-top. A bench-top she’d watched him hone day after day. Sanding, lacquering. Sanding, lacquering. Sanding, lacquering. Layer upon layer until it shone like the finest crystal in the discreet down lights.
Watching him so obviously absorbed by the task. Loving the wood with his touch. Inhaling its earthy essence with each flare of his nostrils. Caressing it with his lingering gaze.
She could have stripped stark naked in front of him as he’d worked the wood and she doubted he would have noticed.
And for a woman used to being adored, being ignored had been challenging.
Ava dragged her mind off the bench-top and what she was doing to an unknowing Blake on top of it. ‘I’m absolutely...positively...one hundred per cent...’ she punctuated each affirmation with firm strokes of the pen across the indicated lines ‘...happy with the job. It’s totally fab. I’m going to tell all my friends to use you guys.’
* * *
Blake blinked. That he hadn’t been expecting. A polite, understated thank-you was the best he’d been hoping for. The very last thing he’d expected was effusive praise and promised recommendations to what he could only imagine would be a fairly extensive A list.
He supposed she expected him to be grateful for that but the thought of dealing with any more Ava Kellys was enough to bring him out in hives.
‘Thank you,’ he said non-comittally.
She smiled at him as she pushed the papers and the pen back across the bench-top. Like her concern earlier it seemed genuine, unlike the haughty can’t-touch-this smile she was known for in the modelling world, and he lost his breath a little.
The down lights shone off her now dry caramel-blonde hair pulled into some kind of a messy knot at her nape, the fringe occasionally brushing eyelashes that cast long shadows on her cheekbones. Her eyes were cat-like in their quality, both in the yellow-green of the irises and in the way they tapered down as if they were concealing a bunch of secrets.
Yeh, Ava Kelly was a very attractive woman.
But he’d spent over a decade in service to his country having his balls busted by the best and he wasn’t about to line up for another stint.
Blake gathered the paperwork and shoved it in his satchel, conscious of her watching him all the time. His leg ached and he couldn’t wait to get off it.
He was almost free. She was almost out of his life for good.
He picked up the satchel and rounded the bench-top, his limp a little more pronounced now as stiffness through his hip hindered his movement. He pulled up in front of her when she was an arm’s length away. He held out his hand and gave her one of his smiles that Joanna called barely there.
‘We’ll invoice you with the final payment,’ he said as she took his hand and they shook.
She was as tall as him—six foot—and it was rare to be able to look a woman directly in the eye. Disconcerting too as those eyes stared back at him with something between bold sexual interest and hesitant mystique. It was intriguing. Tempting...
He withdrew his hand. So not going there. ‘Okay. I’ll be off. I’m away for a month so if you have any issues contact Charlie.’
Ava quirked an eyebrow. ‘Going on a holiday?’
Blake nodded curtly. The delicate arch of her eyebrow only drew his attention back to the frankness in her eyes. She sounded surprised. Why, he had no idea. After three months of her quibbles and foibles even a saint would need some time off. ‘Yes.’
Ava sighed at his monosyllabic replies. ‘Look, I’m sorry,’ she said, picking up her glass of wine and taking a fortifying sip. Something had passed between them just now and suddenly she knew he wasn’t as immune to her as she’d thought.
‘I know I haven’t exactly been easy on you and I know I can be a pain in the butt sometimes. I can’t help it. I like to be in control.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s the business I’m in...people demand perfection from me and they get it but I demand it back.’
Ava paused for a moment. She wasn’t sure why she was telling him this stuff. Why it was important he understand she wasn’t some prima donna A-lister. She was twenty-seven years old—had been at the top of her game since she was fourteen—and had never cared who thought what.
Maybe it was the gorgeous wooden bench-top he’d created just for her? The perfection of it. How he’d worked at it and worked at it and worked at it until it was flawless.
Maybe a man who clearly appreciated perfection would understand?
‘I learned early...very early, not to trust easily. And I’m afraid it spills over into all aspects of my life. I know people think I’m a bitch and I’m okay with that. People think twice about crossing me. But...it’s not who I really am.’
Blake was taken aback by the surprise admission. Surprised at her insight. Surprised that she’d gone through life wary of everyone. Surprised at the cut-throat world she existed in—and he’d thought life in a warzone had been treacherous.
In the army, on deployment—trust was paramount. You trusted your mates, you stuck together, or you could die.
‘Of course,’ he said, determined not to feel sorry for this very well-off, very capable woman. She wanted to play the poor-little-rich-girl card, fine. But he wasn’t buying. ‘Don’t worry about it. That’s what you pay us for.’
Ava nodded, knowing that whatever it was that had passed between them before was going to go undiscovered. Clearly, Blake Walker was made of sterner stuff than even she’d credited him with. And she had to admire that. A man who could say no to her was a rare thing.
‘Thanks. Have a good holiday.’
Blak
e nodded and turned to go and that was when it happened. He’d barely lifted his foot off the ground when the first gunshot registered. A volley of gunshots followed, slamming into the outside façade of Ava’s house, smashing the high windows that faced the street, spraying glass everywhere. But that barely even registered with Blake. Nor did Ava’s look of confusion or her panicked scream.
He was too busy moving.
He didn’t think—he just reacted.
Let his training take over.
He dived for her, tackling her to the ground, landing heavily on the unforgiving marble tiles. Her wine glass smashed, the liquid puddling around them. His bad leg landed hard against the ground sucking his breath away, his other cushioned by her body as he lay half sprawled on top of her.
‘Keep your head down, keep your head down,’ he yelled over the noise as he tucked her head into the protective hollow just below his shoulder, his heart beating like the rotor blades of a chopper, his eyes squeezed shut as the world seemed to explode around him.
Who in the hell had she pissed off now?
TWO
Everything slowed down around her as Ava clung to Blake for dear life. Her pulse wooshed louder than Niagara Falls through her ears, the blood flowing through her veins became thick and sludgy, the breath in her lungs felt heavy and oppressive, like stubborn London fog.
And as the gunfire continued she realised she couldn’t breathe.
She couldn’t breathe.
Her pulse leapt as she tried to drag in air, tried to heave in much-needed oxygen. She tried to move her head from his chest, seek cleaner air, but he held her firm and panic spiralled through her system. Her nostrils flared, her hands shook where she clutched his shirt, her stomach roiled and pitched.
Then suddenly there was silence and she stopped breathing altogether, holding her breath, straining to hear. A harsh squeal of screeching tyres rent the pregnant silence, a noisy engine roared then faded.
Neither of them moved for a moment.
Blake recovered first, grabbing his leg briefly, checking it had survived the fall okay before easing off her slightly. ‘Are you okay?’
She blinked up at him, dazed. ‘Wha...?’
Without conscious thought Blake undertook a rapid assessment. She had a small scratch on her left cheekbone with a smudge of dried blood but that wasn’t what caused his stomach to bottom out. A bloom of dark red stained her top and his pulse accelerated even further.
‘Oh, God, are you hit?’ he demanded, pushing himself up into a crouch. He didn’t think, he just reached for her hoodie zipper and yanked it down. Just reacting, letting his training taking over. The bullets had hit the building high but they’d penetrated the windows and in this glass and steel interior they could have ricocheted anywhere.
‘Did you get hit?’ he asked again as her torso lay exposed to him. He didn’t see her red bikini top or the body men the world over lusted after; he was too busy running his hands over her chest and her ribs and her belly, clinically assessing, searching for a wound.
Ava couldn’t think properly. Her head hurt, her hand hurt, she was trembling, her heart rate was still off the scale.
‘Ava!’ he barked.
Ava jumped as his voice sliced with surgical precision right through her confusion. ‘I think it’s...my hand,’ she said, holding it up as blood oozed and dripped from a deep gash in her palm, already drying in sludgy rivulets down her wrist and arm. ‘I think I...cut it on the wine glass when it smashed.’
Blake allowed himself a brief moment of relief, his body flooding with euphoria as the endorphins kicked in—she wasn’t hit. But then the rest of his training took over. He reached for her injured palm with one hand and pulled his mobile out of his back pocket with the other, quickly dialling 999.
An emergency call taker asked him which service he wanted and Blake asked for the police and an ambulance. ‘Don’t move,’ he told her as he awkwardly got to his feet, grabbing the bench and pushing up through his good leg to lever himself into a standing position. He could feel the strain in his hip as he dragged his injured leg in line with the other and gritted his teeth at the extra exertion.
‘I’ll get a cloth for it.’
Ava couldn’t have moved even if her life depended on it. She just kept looking at the blood as it slowly trickled out of the wound, trying to wrap her throbbing head around what had just happened. She could hear Blake’s deep voice, so calm in the middle of the chaos, and wished he were holding her again.
He returned with a clean cloth that had been hanging on her oven door. He hung up the phone and she watched absently as he crouched beside her again and reached for her hand.
‘Police are on their way,’ he said as he wrapped the cloth around her hand, ‘So’s the ambulance.’ He tied it roughly to apply some pressure. ‘Can you sit up? If you can make it to the sink I can clean the wound before the paramedics get here.’
‘Ah, yeh...I guess,’ Ava said, flailing like a stranded beetle for a moment before levering herself up onto her elbows, then curling slowly up into a sitting position. Her head spun and nausea threatened again as she swayed.
‘Whoa,’ Blake said, reaching for her, his big hand covering most of her forearm. ‘Easy there.’
Ava shut her eyes for a moment concentrating on the grounding effect of his hand, and the dizziness passed. ‘I’m fine now,’ she said, shaking off his hand, reaching automatically for the back of her head where a decent lump could already be felt. She prodded it gently and winced.
‘Got a bit of an egg happening there?’ Blake enquired. ‘Sorry about that,’ he apologised gruffly. ‘I just kind of reacted.
Ava blinked. Blake Walker had been magnificent. ‘I’m pleased you did. I didn’t know what was happening for a moment or two. Was that really gunfire?’
Blake stood, using the bench and his good leg again. ‘Yep,’ he said grimly. A sound all too familiar to him but not one he’d thought he’d ever hear again. Certainly not in trendy Hampstead Village. He held his hand out to her. ‘Here, grab hold.’
Ava didn’t argue, just took the proffered help. When she was standing upright again, another wave of nausea and dizziness assailed her and she grabbed him with one hand and the bench with the other. She was grateful for his presence, absorbing his solidness and his calmness as reaction set in and the trembling intensified. His arm slid around her back and she leaned into him, inhaling the maleness of him—cut timber and a hint of spice.
She felt stupidly safe here.
‘Sorry,’ she murmured against his shoulder as she battled an absurd urge to cry. ‘I don’t usually fall apart so easily.’
Blake shut his eyes as she settled against him. Her chest against his, their hips perfectly aligned. She smelled like wine and the faint trace of coconut based sunscreen. He turned his head slightly until his lips were almost brushing her temple. ‘I’m guessing this hasn’t been a very usual day.’
Her low shaky laugh slid straight into his ear and his hand at the small of her back pressed her trembling body a little closer.
‘You could say that,’ she admitted, her voice husky.
And they stood like that for long moments, Blake instinctively knowing she needed the comfort. Knowing how such a random act of violence could unsettle even battle-hardened men.
The first distant wail of a siren invaded the bubble and he pulled back. ‘The cavalry are here,’ he murmured.
Blake stuck close to Ava’s side, his hand at her elbow. ‘Watch the glass,’ he said as a stray piece crunched under his sturdy boots. Her feet were bare, her toenail polish the same red as her bikini.
He could hear the sirens almost on top of them now, loud and urgent, obviously in the street. He flicked on the tap and removed the cloth. ‘Put it under,’ he instructed. ‘I’ll go get the door.’
* * *<
br />
An hour later Ava’s house was like Grand Central Station—people coming and going, crossing paths, stepping around each other. Uniformed and plain-clothed police went about their jobs, gathering evidence. Yellow crime-scene tape had been rolled out along the wrought-iron palings of her front fence and there were enough flashing lights in her street to outdo Piccadilly Circus in December. They reflected in the glass that had sprayed out onto the street like a glitter ball at some gruesome discotheque.
And then there was the gaggle of salivating paparazzi and the regular press who’d been cordoned off further down and none too happy about it either. Shouting questions at whoever happened to walk out of the house, demanding answers, calling for an immediate statement.
Safely inside, Ava felt her head truly thumping now. They’d been over what had happened several times with several different police officers and her patience was just about out. Her agent, Reggie Pitt, was there—a pap had rung him—to protect her interests, but it was Blake she looked to, who she was most grateful to have by her side.
‘Is there anyone you know who’d do this to you or has reason to do this to you?’ Detective Sergeant Ken Biddle asked.
Blake frowned at the question. The police officer looked old as dirt and as if nothing would surprise him—like one or two sergeant majors he’d known. But Blake had felt Ava’s fear, felt the frantic beat of her heart under his and didn’t like the implication.
‘You think there’s any reason to shoot up somebody’s house and scare the bejesus out of them?’ he growled.
The police officer shot him an unimpressed look before returning his attention to Ava. ‘I mean anyone with a grudge? Get any strange letters lately?’
Ava shrugged. ‘No more than usual. All my fan mail goes to Reggie and he hands anything suss on to you guys.’ Reggie nodded in confirmation of the process.
Blake stared at her. ‘You get hate mail?’
Ava nodded. ‘Every now and then. Pissed-off wives, guys who think I’ve slighted them because I didn’t sign their autograph at a rope line, the odd jealous colleague. Just the usual.’
