by Kris Pearson
Anna Wynn opened her eyes again and set off across the road. He followed, not wanting to enrage her further, and very keen to smooth things out between them.
She rolled her shoulders back in a big stretch. “I so needed this.”
He watched her breasts rise and fall, and imagined a black lace bra to match the panties, creamy curves and rosy nipples. Geez! He wasn’t usually so distracted by a woman, especially one with such a sharp tongue. It must have been that view of her backside, because he never lacked for female company when he felt the need. Which was often enough, being thirty-two, single, tall, dark, and as constantly horny as any other man. He shook his head to clear it. “How long have you had holidays at Scarlet Bay?”
She looked back over her shoulder. Her blue eyes matched the sky. “Forever. So almost thirty years I guess. Not always at Christmas, but mostly.”
“I’ll get my stuff out of your room at lunchtime,” he offered, thrusting a hand back through his hair and leaving it standing on end. “There’s not much of it. I haven’t moved in. Just slept there a couple of nights.”
And suddenly she was the ice maiden again. As brittle as the bright diamonds that flashed in her earlobes. “Pleased to hear it. Thank you. I’d appreciate that.”
He fell into step beside her, hoping a change of subject might help. “What sort of work do you do?”
She surprised him with a quick grin. “Industrial design. I’ve just seen the prototype for my new metal shelving system. Totally unlike anything else on the market. That’s another reason why I stayed in Wellington. I wanted to see the real thing once Production had finished it.”
He nodded slowly, unsure how to follow that. Metal shelving? From a classy woman who wore high heels and lacy panties and strawberry nail polish? And diamonds at the beach? “You said you were here to work some more. What are you designing next?”
She walked a few steps further before saying, “I have an idea for an outrageous twin baby stroller, but I won’t be onto that until after New Year.” Then she fell silent again.
He pushed his luck by asking, “So you’re not really here to work?”
She turned those blue eyes in his direction again and snapped, “I absolutely am! It’ll be some of the hardest work I’ve ever done. I’ve made an offer to my family to curate a lot of the stuff from the house to preserve it.”
Jason thought about the dated - indeed dilapidated - state of the old cottage and its contents, and sent her a doubtful glance. “What sort of stuff? It looks a bit…” He shrugged.
“Past it? Yes.” She heaved a sigh, and his eyes shot to her breasts again. From this angle the neckline of her red top gaped enough to show him a luscious curve of creamy flesh at least as beautiful as anything he’d imagined earlier. And a glimpse of his hoped-for lacy black bra.
“But you want to save it?” he asked, hurriedly raising his gaze to hers again.
“Generations of my family have shared that house since my great-grandfather built it around 1910. The original piece, anyway.”
“More than a hundred years.” His family had no history like that. No heritage to pass from decade to decade. No money that hadn’t been poured down his father’s thirsty throat.
“Uncle James got the two last bedrooms added when we were kids,” she continued. “And my dad had the porch put on the back with the extra toilet and the shower for washing salt water off.”
Jason scuffed a boot in the sand. “Which those rocks damaged. I’d better see what I can do about it.” He pressed his lips together. The last thing he needed was a patch-up job. They were on a deadline, he had other jobs lined up, and he’d be damned if he’d go over the date he’d promised on this one. There was too much riding on it.
“It’s all the history,” she continued. “There are old model aeroplanes stacked on top of a couple of the wardrobes. Total works of art. My grandfather’s war medals are there somewhere in a shoebox, along with photos from Egypt where he fought. My grandma said she kept every street-day Anzac poppy she ever wore. Can you imagine what a montage of poppies and photos and medals would look like—all framed in a display box on the wall?”
He nodded, picturing it against his will.
“And embroidery that’s just about falling apart. Tablecloths stuffed into the backs of drawers. Samplers and serviettes that old cousins and great-aunts did. Beautiful things that should be framed and admired. I’ve promised the family I’ll sort through everything, save what’s best, and work out what to do with it.”
“No history in our family,” Jason said, kicking at a mussel shell and sending it sliding over the sand, immediately thinking of his sister who’d been nine when she was side-swiped by a woman in a white Honda Accord. He’d stood there alight with terror as Cathy had skidded along the road in a tangle of limbs and wheels, screaming with pain. And then never screaming again.
Part of his life had ended right there. It was his bike Cathy had been riding. He should have stopped her. He knew he should have stopped her, but no-one had bought her one of her own. She’d wanted a bicycle so much that sometimes he let her ride his, although it was far too big for her and she had to perch awkwardly on the bar. Even then she could barely reach the pedals.
It was totally his fault she’d died. His mother had said so; shrieked it at him, her eyes wild and staring and pouring with tears. She’d made him feel ten times guiltier, but there was no way he’d be telling Anna Wynn that.
They drew level with the mussel shell and he gave it a harder kick.
Again he saw Cathy skidding along the road surface as easily as the shell skated on the hard sand, and cursed his thoughts and tried to bury them. “Don’t know about the big wars, but my dad’s older brother fought in Vietnam. Hurt in a hunting accident soon after he came home. Which is pretty ironic for a man used to guns. He went to live in Aussie after that. Dad doesn’t talk about him.” He cleared his throat. “Dad doesn’t talk much about anything.”
She slanted him an assessing glance. “How do you work together then?”
Jason shook his head. “Not working together. Not any longer. I’ve been away from him for quite a while now, but his team wasn’t big enough when he bullshitted his way into the contract for both houses, and more good men were hard to find.”
He rubbed his chin and gazed out to the rolling breakers. “We split this job. It was the only way I was willing to do it.” He gave the mussel shell a final vicious booting and it cartwheeled away into the water. “I’ve set up my own company. He’s putting one house together and I’m in charge of the other. No crossover at all.”
He saw her nod, and sensed from the faint frown between her eyebrows that she had other questions. Well, it was her family’s money so he supposed he’d have to answer them. And sure enough…
“You don’t get on? You and your dad?”
He wouldn’t tell her about the drinking. Couldn’t do that to Trev in case it put the contract in jeopardy, but hell, he was tempted. “Not really. Not any longer. If we ever did. He’s a hard bastard.”
They walked on along the flat sand in silence for a few more minutes. It wasn’t a restful silence. The air fizzed with dangerous energy.
Seabirds flapped up out of the shallows as they approached, and settled again behind them. He mentally framed them up for photographs as a distraction. Framed Anna Wynn as well, with her long pale hair lifting in the breeze and her red top pressing against her small perfect breasts as she walked. Then he ripped his eyes away to a young mother with a toddler and a dog enjoying the small waves further up the beach. No point wanting what he couldn’t have.
“Family situations can be tough,” Anna Wynn said. “Especially business ones.”
Tough? She had no freaking idea. More than tough when your mother walked out, saying you were old enough now to stand on your own two feet, and leaving you with a dad you hated and feared.
He’d been fourteen, skinny, and a bare five-seven. No way old enough for anything much. Certainly not old en
ough to survive unscathed with a bitter drunk. Not old enough to have any confidence, any chance of rebelling, any transport or money to escape with even if he’d somehow found the spirit. He’d spent the next couple of years in agony.
Suddenly she surprised him by bending, sliding her feet out of her flip-flops, and suspending them from a finger. “Excuse me. I’m going to paddle too,” she said, jogging away from him, making sand and water sparkle in the sunshine as she ran.
Jason stood and watched her. That had been pretty curt, and his ‘spoiled little bitch’ description now seemed perfectly appropriate again. She’d suffered his company for only a few minutes and then dismissed him. Quickly and coldly.
She didn’t look back. Not that he expected her to. What interest would she have in a guy like him anyway? She was total quality from the strands of her streaky hair right down to her strawberry toenails, and he was as rough as guts. He glanced down at his dusty black singlet, barely long enough on his tall body, and spotted the state of his zipper. Cursing under his breath, he yanked it up. Yep - class all the way - that was him.
And she thought family situations could be tough? He clenched his jaw at her preposterous statement. She had no idea from her privileged vantage point.
She didn’t know he was the result of a drunken party. The unwanted child of a couple ill-equipped for parenthood.
She didn’t know he’d loved art and music, got good grades at school, but was still seen by his father only as cheap labour. That he’d been dragged out to work on building sites at every opportunity - and permanently, the minute he’d been old enough to legally leave the education system.
Trev Jones was a hard-drinking, hard-bodied bully whose wife had staged a sudden secret departure while he was out with mates on an all-day fishing trip. These days Jason could see Cheryl had left her husband rather than her son, but, desperately unconfident at fourteen, he’d been convinced it was his fault his mother had gone.
Left with no option except to tag along with his father, he’d listened, learned, grown nine inches taller, and packed on muscle with the punishing physical work. Slowly the balance of power between them had levelled. As Trev drank more, Jason took up the slack until he was out from under his father’s callused thumb. It wasn’t a ‘family situation’ he’d wish on anyone.
*
Anna ran until she was knee-deep in the splashing waves. She hadn’t meant to dash away from him like that, but he had a presence that rattled her. So damn tall, yet no beanpole. Long, strongly-muscled arms, shoulders like a surfer, and a chest she still needed to check out in detail because she couldn’t stare when she was standing in front of him. Wanted to, but couldn’t. She just knew it was good. Also knew she’d see his mouth quirking in that maddening way that confirmed he’d seen her looking. And liking.
She jogged along, churning up the water until she was gasping for breath and the edges of her white shorts were damp from the sea. Why did she always push herself so hard? Couldn’t she simply have enjoyed a walk on the beach like anyone normal?
Finally she slowed and turned. From here she had a good view of the two new houses now occupying the elevated land to the rear of the old cottage. The wild areas where she and her sisters and cousins had played as children were gone, but the wide water views should certainly bring good prices for the Wynn-Harwood Family Trust.
She lowered her gaze. The builder was walking away from her, but he must have waited for a while because he hadn’t gone too far.
She watched his legs. His work shorts were comfortably loose, and finished above his knees. On a shorter man they’d probably have that laughable ‘clown’s pants’ look, but on him they revealed a few inches of powerful thigh and then the long sweep of his lean muscular calves. Her designer’s brain appreciated his proportions for sure. Her woman’s brain appreciated a lot more besides, even though her inbuilt taste rebelled at the thought of lime green underpants.
You need to get him out of those pants, Anna. She shook her head and smirked. And into something better, she amended quickly. As if that was ever going to happen in the next million years.
She splashed back through the shallows, keeping her attention on him in case he looked back and she needed to tear her gaze away. She was just a little piqued. Surely she deserved a backward glance or two?
Why had he accompanied her, anyway? He’d said he wanted to ‘clear the air’, but they hadn’t discussed anything of consequence. A bit of work stuff, and some of the old house’s history; nothing too confrontational there.
And yet there was something between them. Something that had pulled them together, even after their ridiculous meeting over sausages at mid-morning and her ill-tempered demand that he vacated the bed she’d intended for herself.
It hung in the air, shining and shivering, a challenge and a distraction. His dark gaze had meshed with hers time and again. Suggestive. Not restful. Yet she couldn’t pinpoint a single thing he’d said directly to her that had been less than polite.
She should have averted her eyes from his much sooner on several occasions. Like when he’d described his father as ‘a hard bastard’ and really stirred her interest before clamming up… when he’d talked about his uncle fighting in Vietnam all those years ago… when he’d stayed unnervingly silent after she’d said family situations could be tough.
Plainly he’d led a harder life than her. Only to be expected when she was a judge’s daughter and he worked with his hands, but still….
She’d never stood beside a man who made her feel so delicate and somehow delicious. Sure, he was physically overpowering, but it wasn’t just his size. It was something in his eyes. The way he inhabited his own space with such unnerving certainty. She wanted to look at him. Wanted to know more about him.
And the sooner he removed his gear from her room, the better. Maybe then she’d be able to banish him from her mind and concentrate on what she’d come to the old cottage for.
But… somehow she didn’t like being ignored like this. The ‘spoiled little bitch’ tag rankled. She wanted his attention. Wanted to prove she wasn’t some privileged child who took a family trust and a beach house in a beautiful part of New Zealand for granted.
She left the water and trailed him back along the damp sand. As he started the slight climb above the high tide line, he thrust both hands into his pockets, and the fabric pulled taut around his narrow hips. The high sun lit the rhythmic flexing of his very fine butt as he propelled himself up the slope. Suddenly Anna didn’t care what colour his undies were. In fact commando would be just fine, and she found herself imagining giving him a helpful push up the slope to get her hands on his high quality flesh.
Which was never, ever, ever going to happen.
CHAPTER 2 – FIRST AID
Jason turned as he reached the beach road. Further out, the rollers Scarlet Bay was famous for heaved and broke with crashing power. Come lunchtime he’d be riding them, whether Ms Frosty approved or not. He had an overwhelming urge to work off the restless twitching threaded through his body. Needed to pit himself against something elemental and challenging.
He stood for a few more seconds, feeling on edge and dissatisfied.
Her red top and bright white shorts were now too close to ignore. If he walked away it could be interpreted as rudeness to a client, so against his will he called, “Want to check out the new house?”
Her head jerked up as though he’d surprised her, but he knew from cautious glances over his shoulder that she’d been tagging along, keeping her distance. Her gaze had burned the length of his body as he walked. Laser-sharp, tingling, hard to dismiss.
She shrugged, apparently indifferent. “If you don’t mind?”
He breathed out hard, and waited until she drew level. “It’s your house.”
“I wish. It belongs to the Trust. Well, strictly speaking a big chunk of it belongs to the bank at this stage. But once it’s sold…”
“Then you’ll be rolling in it.”
Her br
ows drew together. “Of course I won’t.”
“No skin off my nose. It’s given me work for a while.”
“Do you actually know how a family trust works? I don’t mean to be rude, but it sounds like maybe you don’t.”
Jason fumed at her high-handedness… and at his own lack of knowledge. “I don’t come from the sort of family that needs to hide stuff in a trust. And you’ll want safer shoes before you come on site.”
She tossed the flip-flops onto the sand and he held out an arm to steady her so she could push her feet into them to cross the baking road. To his surprise, she accepted his help. Her hand clamped around his wrist. A small, soft hand with short, smooth fingernails painted a startling sea-green. Far too easily he pictured it wrapped around his cock.
“A trust doesn’t hide anything,” she said, looking up at him with those sky-blue eyes and lashing him with her tart correction. “It’s perfectly legal. Protecting is more accurate. Protecting a family home for instance, if a business venture fails.”
Protection. Shit – thinking about that, now, too…
“So the tradespeople don’t get paid out,” he insisted, lowering his arm with reluctance as she pulled her hand away.
Anna shook her head. “So the family still has somewhere to live. And a lot more beside, but I’m not in the mood for a complicated legal discussion. You can have that with Aaron when he arrives. Or Bree or Jossy.”
They crossed the road in silence and she let herself into the house. “Ordinary flat shoes okay?” she asked over her shoulder. “I didn’t pack my steel-capped boots.”
He refused to take the bait. “As long as you’re safe. Can’t have the boss’s daughter stubbing her pretty toes. I’ll meet you out the back.”
He heard her phone ring as she turned away and closed the door. Who the hell was Aaron? Or Bree? Or Jossy? All lawyers?
He stomped around the house and inspected the rock damage while he waited. Not even rocks from his own site. Several big chunks had been dislodged from the piece of land his father was building on and cannoned down to splinter the timber walls of ‘his’ porch. Fat chance anyone from there had been willing to try removing them. But maybe it was something he could take his frustration out on. He gave one of them a shove with his boot. Wedged tight. Grabbing what he could, he tossed the smaller pieces over toward the hedge while he waited several more minutes. How long could her phone-call last?
