Tempting as Sin

by Rosalind James

  Martin hadn’t. He’d handed Lily a boarding pass and said, “Pack a suitcase, get on the plane to Seattle when this says, and then relax.” She’d been met at Sea-Tac baggage claim by a smiling woman without a cardboard sign, who’d taken her suitcase over her protests, then whisked her to an executive-jet terminal. An offer of champagne—because it was always champagne—that she hadn’t accepted, and she’d boarded this absolutely beautiful white jet, owned by a production company Rafe had never worked with. “But, sweetie,” Martin had explained, “they sure do want him.” A stop in LA to drop one group off and pick another up, and they were on their way to Sydney, and from there, the pilot had told her, “just a hop” up to the Gold Coast Airport.

  None of it had been the least bit hard. The opposite, obviously. And she was tired anyway. Life catching up. She got up to figure out how to recline the chair into a bed, and halfway through, a flight attendant had folded it down in about three quick movements, then pulled out a sheet, an extra pillow, and a quilt, and made it up.

  Lily didn’t need luxury. Not anymore.

  Then appreciate it, she told herself, snuggling in and pulling her second pillow into her body, since she didn’t have Rafe’s warmth there.

  You couldn’t run away from problems, but she wasn’t doing that. She was taking a break.

  Lily was a little disoriented, despite the luxury of the transport, by the time she’d walked across the tarmac, collected her baggage, and submitted her passport. She didn’t have any idea, she belatedly realized, how she was getting to Rafe’s house. Why hadn’t she thought of that?

  A lurch of anxiety that was absolutely ridiculous, the result of more than thirty hours of travel, of waking up on the other side of the world with the sun in exactly the wrong place for your body clock, and most of all, of not directing her life herself for the first time in three years.

  She knew all the reasons, and she felt it anyway. The tightness in her chest, the clutch of fear. Then she walked through huge glass doors that opened with a pneumatic hiss, saw one of the only three people she knew in Australia, and something in her untwisted again.

  “Lily. Welcome to Oz.” Willow Sanderson, Rafe’s cousin, a tall redhead with pale, porcelain skin absolutely unsuited for the strong Australian sun, gave her a hug.

  “Hi.” Lily was laughing, and she was trying to pretend she wasn’t a little teary, too. “It’s so good to see you. I didn’t know you’d be here. I had this sudden, horrible thought that I was going to have to drive on the left without warning, in some very expensive car that Martin thought I needed.”

  Willow had hold of Lily’s suitcase already, was wheeling it toward the doors. Outside, Australia’s Gold Coast was all blue sky and sunshine even in winter. “No dramas,” she said, “not unless you want a car. If you do, give Martin a ring, and I’m sure he’ll get somebody to deliver one. If not, though, there’s a bike at the house you can use, and the shop and the caff just a hop, skip, and jump away. Heaps of food in the fridge as well, though, so you should be good.” She tossed Lily’s suitcase in the back of a white panel van with an ease that belied her slim frame and said, “Chin up. Forty-five minutes and we’re there. Rafe says you need a break, and there’s no place better for it. I’d tell you how many times I’ve used his place to escape some rotten choice of bloke and the disastrous consequences, but it’d be embarrassing.”

  Lily asked, “Did you drive all the way from Brisbane to get me, though?”

  “Yeah,” Willow said. “No worries, though. I don’t have a job until tomorrow.”

  “You’re a…I’m sorry,” Lily said. “I never found out.”

  “Caterer.” Willow merged onto the motorway. “Which is a flash way of saying ‘Cook.’ Never mind.”

  An edge there, surely. Lily focused on that, because it was always an easier place to put her attention. And because Willow, with her patrician looks and unexplained connection to her cousins, had been a puzzle even during the two days Lily had spent in Australia before. “Jace said you grew up with them,” she said. “Which sounds interesting. Challenging, too, maybe. A whole lot of personality between those two.”

  Willow smiled, passed a car going twenty kilometers an hour too slowly—probably tourists, clutching in terror, their first time driving on the left—and continued heading south, past a cluster of tall apartment buildings that didn’t look anything like Lily would have imagined in a coastal resort. So far, this didn’t look terribly different from Southern California, freeway and all, and she suppressed a pang of disappointment that was nothing but ungrateful.

  “You could say that,” Willow said. “Or you could say that they’re the best non-brothers a girl who loses her parents could hope for. I was twelve when I went to live with them. They were fourteen and seventeen, something like that. Jace was a bit scary even then, but he was kind. Think anybody at school gave me stick? Not once Jace looked at them, they didn’t. Rafe was something else. Rafe’s the reason I’m still single.”

  Lily had a sudden, horrifying image of Willow driving them both over a cliff. If I can’t have him, nobody can. Ridiculous, except Willow had said that. “He…is?” she asked faintly.

  Willow laughed. “Nah. Not like you’re thinking. No worries. He’s my cousin. I may have had a bit of a crush when I was a teenager, but that got weird pretty fast, and I got over it. It’s just that it’s hard for an ordinary bloke to measure up, isn’t it? Always there to listen, and he doesn’t just listen. He guesses, or he knows. He’s a freak. An empath, probably, whatever that actually is. Looking at you the way he does, too, like you’re what he cares about most. And looking at him isn’t exactly horrible.” She sighed, shot a laughing look at Lily, and said, “All right, I could still have a bit of a crush. It’s still weird, though. We’ll suppress.”

  “Oh,” Lily said. “Good. I probably shouldn’t have watched Fatal Attraction on the plane. I was trying to toughen up. Always a bad idea. I’m not tough.”

  Willow laughed again. She was like Rafe, Lily guessed. They both laughed more easily than they frowned, loved more easily than they hated, and swam through life like they were happy to be here and the water was fine. “No worries,” she told Lily. “I promise not to boil your bunny.”

  When they left the motorway and turned towards the coast, things started to get Australian. Wattle and frangipani and palms, tree ferns and figs, climbing vines and staghorn ferns. All of it lush and green even in winter, nothing missing but the flowers.

  “Beautiful,” Lily said. It was absolutely inadequate, and it was absolutely true.

  “Wait,” Willow said. A couple more miles, a few more turns, and she was driving to the end of a road lush with palm and fern, only some high wooden fencing and a few discreet rooftops betraying the houses behind, then hitting a garage-door opener and pulling the car into a two-vehicle garage, all you could see of the house that, Lily calculated, must face east, towards the sea, if this was—afternoon?

  It was definitely afternoon. The sun set in the west, and the sun was behind her. The house faced east.

  She still felt lightheaded from the trip, the change. When she stepped out of the car, she felt more so. Warmth and light and gentle currents of air. The call of birds, so many of them, she couldn’t pick out just one. Trills and sharper notes, and a peeping underneath.

  “Tree frogs,” Willow said. “Not tropical here, not like north Queensland, where we were before, but the subtropics are beaut, aren’t they?” Lily had pulled out her bag herself this time, and Willow used a keypad in a stone wall to open a gate, then headed up a winding path of crushed stone.

  It was nothing that Lily had expected. None of it. If she’d thought about Rafe’s house at all, she’d assumed it would be Malibu-style beach. All glass walls, shaded balconies, soaring ceilings, and too-large white spaces overlooking the ocean. Perfect, cold, and jammed up against its monstrous neighbor.

  “This is…what?” she asked Willow as she bumped her suitcase up the three wide steps to th
e wraparound veranda. Every single room opened onto it, because the house was only one story, and every single opening was an archway made of carved wood. Decorous and comfortable and elegant, and absolutely…pleasing. It was about materials and proportions and livability, and it worked.

  Willow opened the door with a keypad. “Seven-nine-six-four-one,” she told Lily. “Same as the gates. I wrote it down for you inside. Maps in there as well, and so forth. Do everything or do nothing, whatever suits. And the house? It’s a Queenslander. Built near Brisbane originally in the late 1800s, fell into some disrepair, and was moved down onto this lot maybe twenty years ago by somebody with more money than sense, although it’s lovely, of course. Rafe bought it four years ago. It had been done up, and he did more. He loves this house. He says he can breathe here.”

  It was airy, not stark. Warm and bright, not cold. And actually perfect. The floors were tropical hardwood restored to shining perfection, and the ceilings boasted arched details at every interior doorway, too, carved by an expert hand. A tropical cottage, a luxury villa, and an escape better than any spa.

  Willow took Lily down a hallway to the back and opened a door onto a bedroom. It wasn’t huge, and it wasn’t over the top. It was just…wonderful. A wood ceiling painted white in beach-cottage style, and those shining wood floors. A huge bed covered in spotless, crisp white linens and all the pillows you could ever want. Two enormous white towels rolled into cylinders and crossed over each other at its foot, with a pink orchid laid on top like a blessing. A window seat made for dreaming, upholstered in soft fawn, and windows covered only by natural linen shades, drawn up to the top. A couple oversized framed photos on the walls, one of a lighthouse and the sea, nearly night, the light still glowing, turning the water a blue you wanted to wrap yourself in. The other of a rainforest track, winding into the corner of the picture like it was inviting you to step in and explore.

  The photos were signed, and she stepped closer and looked.

  Willow.

  “You’re not just a caterer,” she told Willow. “You’re a photographer.”

  “Aw, well,” Willow said. “Everybody’s a photographer. Flattering that Rafe likes my stuff, though.”

  Lily didn’t answer, because she’d gone to the glass doors and opened one. “Folds back,” Willow said, demonstrating. The doors did fold, accordion-style, onto themselves until the entire wall was open to the veranda outside. “Rafe screened the veranda out the back,” Willow went on, “which isn’t so usual, but it’s bloody nice at twilight when the mozzies come out, let me tell you.”

  It was paradise out there, beyond the ultrafine mesh screens that cast the view beyond in a hazy light, like a soft-focus picture. A retreat of trees, plants, and birdsong that looked unplanned, plucked out of the rainforest, and was anything but. A long, rectangular pool sparkling with crystal-blue water. And beyond it, a path that led temptingly into the trees, much like in the photo. Surely, it led to the east. To the sea.

  “Track to the beach,” Willow said, seeming to enjoy Lily’s speechlessness. “You need to use the same code to get back in through the gate, so it’s good to remember it. Go down there at sunset and you’ll be gobsmacked, and sunrise could be even better. Nowhere in the world, for my money, more beautiful than Byron Bay, but I could be a wee bit prejudiced. Swim in the pool, though, not the sea. The salt water’s the same, but the rips and jellies are conveniently missing. There are books in the library, food and wine in the fridge, and a steam shower in the ensuite bath that’ll take the travel aches away. Use the aromatherapy. It’s awesome. The cleaner’s stocked some bath products for you, too. Rafe told her you liked florals.” She smiled, then didn’t. “Did I say something wrong?”

  Lily tried to laugh, but couldn’t. She’d choked up all the way, and the insistent tears had sprung to her eyes. “It’s just…” She waved a helpless hand. “Too beautiful. And things have been a bit…hard. Lately.”

  Willow’s face softened. “Loser ex. I saw that. Never mind. He didn’t deserve you, but now you’ve got Rafe, and he’s the best.”

  “He is,” Lily said. “I never knew there were men quite like that.”

  Willow gave her a hug, and Lily let herself be wrapped up. Just for today. “There aren’t,” Willow said. “But there’s Rafe. Somehow. I may have to boil the bunny after all.”

  Two hours later, and two in the morning in Montana, and Lily was standing on a gentle curve of white-sand beach. The wind had picked up, the clouds piling up on themselves over the sea, and she pulled her sweater around her and let the air wash her clean.

  The sky was pink and azure blue, soft as a baby’s blanket, and even as she watched, it deepened. The pink grew bolder, the blue shaded into purple, and gold tinged the clouds. Changing every second, until the sky was a blaze of rich color. A painting, except that no painting and no photo could possibly capture this. The crash and hiss of foam-crested waves against a white-sand beach that curved out of sight, stretching for miles, like you could never walk it to the end. The salt of the sea kissing your skin and the wind taking your hair, playing with it like a lover. Gentle, and wild, too, just under the surface. Whatever you wanted it to be, because that was the kind of lover you had. Because you were so very lucky.

  You could run, and she did. You could forget about your sweater and your problems and your life. You could stretch your arms out into the wind, let your feet take wing, and run like the wind could pick you right up off the sand until you were sailing in the sunset sky, part of the water and the sky and the approaching night. Until you were soaring under the pale white light of a fingernail moon, steering by the pinpricks of the Southern Cross, guided there by the twin blue and white beacons of Alpha Centauri and Beta Centauri. The horse-man, set in the sky by Zeus and free at last. Just like you.

  You could ride, your hair mingling with the centaur’s, and let him take you away. You could set yourself free.

  Rafe sat bolt upright in bed, his heart galloping like he was on a runaway horse. Like the hounds of hell were after him. Or like the woman he loved was riding in front of him, about to go over the edge.

  That had been the dream. She’d been on that nearly-white mare, riding across the meadow, and he’d been riding after her. She hadn’t looked ecstatic this time. She’d been running away. Running from something bad, something wrong, and he wasn’t sure if it was him. He was trying to catch her, or he was trying to catch up with her, to turn her from the danger. He didn’t know which. He knew she was in trouble, and he knew that he was the only one who could save her, but he didn’t know if she knew. If she’d even let him.

  He groped for his water glass, drank the whole thing down, felt the sweat standing out on his body like rain, and made himself breathe.

  Lily was fine. She’d texted him from the Byron Bay house hours ago. The soft chime had woken him, and the words had been there in a bubble on the screen, reassuringly solid.

  It is so beautiful. I can’t tell you. I love you. I appreciate you. I know you’re asleep. I just had to tell you.

  He’d texted back, No worries, baby. I’m glad it’s making you happy, had thought about calling her, and had resisted. This was her getaway, her chance to gather herself again in the quiet, to think it through. To come to terms with what she’d left behind, and what she was taking on. With Antonio, and Bailey.

  And him.

  That knock straight to the chest again, so hard that he put his hand to it, trying to control what couldn’t be controlled.

  You’re dreaming, mate, he told himself. Literally. Leaving’s still weeks away, and she’s not going anywhere. You are.

  In less than two weeks, he had to be in New Mexico. The fact had lain there for the past week, merciless and solid, right under the surface. Swimming under you like a shark, its cold eye on you, knowing it would have its chance. That the moment was inevitable.

  Nothing’s inevitable. You make your own luck.

  He believed it. Except at two in the morning, sweating from a
nightmare, missing Lily. And sensing the shark.

  Rafe was chopping wood in the afternoon warmth, getting the work in ahead of another summer storm that had the breeze picking up and the clouds roiling over the mountain. He was keeping Chuck a safe distance away from the axe, and he was working out the demons.

  He’d come back from his run an hour earlier, after pushing it harder than ever. No excuse, now, not to get the pounds off, not with Lily gone. No beer and no bread. Heaps of veggies and lean protein, and a focus on cardio and functional fitness that would shape the body he needed. Muscle, long and lean, and a face and frame and soul fined down by hours and days and weeks in the saddle, eating and sleeping when you could. Not enough softness, not nearly enough love, and too many hard things done and witnessed. Deciding the right and wrong of a thing for yourself, and trusting that decision.

  A hard man in body and soul, but a man committed to justice who couldn’t walk away and couldn’t back down. A man who had some tenderness still, at his core, that hadn’t yet been burnt away in the fires. Hidden even to himself, but growing, in the right soil, with enough light and enough attention and the water from a woman’s tears, from a seed to a sprout, until, finally, it sent that first tentative leaf up through the surface. Still alive after all.

  That was the idea, anyway.

  If he were meant to be a harder man, a tougher man, in about ten days? Maybe he was getting there and maybe he wasn’t. Right now, for example, he felt nothing but uneasy. The dream two nights ago had only been the start of it. Today, on his run, he’d felt the threat more strongly than ever. Unseen, and unnerving. The shark again, its cold black eye unblinking, waiting its chance.

  Or the black dog, more like. That’s what Jace had called it during one of those dark nights after he’d come back from war, when the only person he would let near him was Rafe. The weight of the world sucking you down into darkness. Or, possibly, the weight of something much more straightforward. Of a woman who hadn’t rung you for two days. A woman you’d sent away to think things through, in your arrogance, like she was bound to choose you.