by Wood, Joss
Maddie teetered as dizziness rolled over her. She swayed and did not protest when Cale manhandled her to the grass and shoved her head between her knees.
Maddie tried to lift her head but Cale’s strong hand on the back of her neck kept it in position. His fingers radiated warmth into her skull as tears dripped onto the grass beneath her.
She sniffed loudly. ‘Let me up!’
‘Another minute,’ Cale soothed.
He crouched in front of her and Maddie scrubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. She looked down at her chest and saw the mangled remains of a very dead grasshopper. Oh, yuck. Its eyes looked up at her, reproachful in death. Part of its body had squished, like toothpaste, over her favourite purple shirt. It was missing a leg. Maddie felt nausea rise and struggled harder against Cale’s hand.
‘Let me go or I’m going to vomit over your feet.’ Maddie enunciated her words clearly, and eventually felt Cale’s hand lift.
Standing up slowly, because she really didn’t want to fall over, adding insult to injury, she carefully backed away from Cale. Keeping her eyes focused on her car, she shrugged out of her suit jacket, then slowly lifted her shirt and slid it over her head.
‘I think she cracked her head harder than we realized,’ Megan said.
Standing in her bra, her grey tailored pants and her bunny slippers, Maddie stepped closer to Cale and gestured towards her chest.
‘Get it off me!’
Megan wrinkled her nose in distaste. ‘Eeeew!’
Cale’s mouth kicked up in amusement. ‘What? Just because I’m male, I have to deal with the insects?’
‘If this is not off me in ten seconds I am going to kick you,’ Maddie threatened, ignoring the icy wind on her bare skin. True, he was bigger and stronger, but she had enough adrenalin kicking around her system to take on a buffalo.
Cale reached for the lower half of the grasshopper’s body and gently lifted it away. He tossed the carcass over his shoulder before reaching for a wing that was partly lodged under her bra. Amber eyes met navy as his short nail scraped under the wing to lift it away. Maddie could not believe she found the act of cleaning insect guts off her skin erotic; she obviously had severe concussion.
‘There’s a leg under here.’ Cale placed the tip of his index finger high on her right breast.
‘Get it out.’ Maddie shuddered and stood perfectly still as his index finger slid under the triangle to lift the material away and the fingers of his other hand dipped in to retrieve the leg. So near and yet so very far, indeed.
Cale flicked the leg away and rubbed his fingers on his jeans. ‘All done. Bit of sludge on your chest. You can put your shirt on now.’
Maddie shook her head. Whipping the shirt inside out, she showed him the other half of the grasshopper smeared on the silk. ‘I don’t think so.’
Cale sighed and removed his bulky white Aran sweater, his long sleeved T-shirt rising to give Maddie a quick glance of his flat, hard, Matthew McConaughey six-pack.
Maddie pulled his jersey over her head and instantly felt warmer before walking over to the Jaguar and assessing the damage. The right corner was crumpled and the radiator was history. Of course any damage was not good, but this looked repairable. Sam, an old friend and expert car restorer, would be able to fix it—but not, she was positive, without a huge lecture and a lot of cash.
Maddie walked back to Cale and Megan.
‘You drive like a lunatic, Madison. You nearly swiped my car,’ Cale said, picking up her suit jacket and returning to her car.
‘Let’s get back to the house and we can sort it all out,’ Megan intervened before Maddie could reply. ‘I think we all need a cup of tea.’
‘I think Maddie needs to retake her drivers’ test,’ Cale stated, lifting her briefcase and laptop bag off the car floor.
‘Cale,’ Megan warned, tucking her hand into Maddie’s arm. ‘Stop baiting her. You’re not helping.’
‘Oh, he is,’ Maddie assured her. ‘If I concentrate really, really hard on how much I want to slap him, I might not bawl like a two-year-old.’
Maddie lay in his arms on the big couch in his lounge, deeply asleep. A fire hissed and burped in the old fireplace and a glass of wine stood on the floor within easy reach. Except for the fact that Maddie had a purple bruise the size of a tennis ball on her forehead, and that she was soundly asleep, the setting would have been deeply romantic. Cale glanced at her head and winced.
He really admired her, on so many levels. Sure, he had a problem with how much she worked, but she was so good at it. Her suggestions were creative and her work ethic was impeccable. She was doing a stunning job and he should tell her so, but every time he opened his mouth to compliment her he felt as gauche as a thirteen-year-old boy, slightly in awe of the woman she’d become.
She was successful, ambitious, funny, smart and gorgeous. And some time in the near future she was leaving. He did not enjoy the thought of not having her in his life… and the notion of being single made him feel physically ill. Not that he wasn’t single now—technically he was—but the idea of going back to dating various vacuous screwed-up women made him feel ill.
He would measure them against Maddie and they’d fail. He just knew it. Because none of them would be as bright, as smart, as vivacious…
Or as dazzling. He would never, ever forget how sexy she’d looked today, standing in her pink bra, her whisky-coloured eyes criss-crossed with concussion and anger.
The door opened and Alex stepped in and quietly closed the door behind him. After examining Maddie at his rooms he’d promised to check up on her after he’d finished his rounds at the hospital, and here he was.
Alex crouched on his haunches next to Cale. ‘She okay?’
Cale nodded. ‘She fell asleep about fifteen minutes ago.’
‘She’ll have a headache for a day or two.’
‘You sure she doesn’t need to go to the hospital?’ Cale asked, his throat tightening at the thought. He was phobic about hospitals. People went there to die.
Alex shook his head. ‘What she needs is sleep. This girl is running on fresh air and emotion. She told me she’s been averaging around three or four hours a night for the past three months. Nobody can function on that little sleep for that long. It’s been a couple of hours since the accident, so I think it’s fine for her to sleep. Don’t be surprised if she passes out for the balance of the day and night.’
‘You sure?’
Alex laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘She’ll be fine, Cale. Check on her a couple of times during the night and call me if you can’t wake her up.’
Alex poured some wine into Cale’s empty glass and sat on the coffee table next to him. ‘You two seem to be getting pretty involved.’
Cale managed a small shrug. ‘Neither of us wants a serious relationship. We’re just friends.’
‘Sharing some hot sex?’ Alex added.
Cale frowned at Alex’s choice of words. That didn’t sound right. ‘Something like that.’
Alex saluted him with the almost empty wineglass. ‘So, when you’re done being friends can I have a crack at her?’
‘Sure.’ Cale smiled thinly at him. ‘If you want your head ripped off and stuffed up your—’
Alex’s snort of laughter interrupted Cale’s threat.
‘Go away, Alex.’
Alex downed the rest of the wine and stood up. ‘Just let her sleep, Cale. Trust me—I’m a real doctor.’
Alex just laughed when Cale threw a pillow at him.
CHAPTER TEN
THE next morning Maddie, short of a car and with a nasty bruise on her forehead, had the perfect excuse to take it easy. She’d woken up in Cale’s bed with a headache and feeling disorientated. She dimly recalled Cale carrying her up the stairs and helping her into one of his T-shirts at one point, and shoving pills down her throat at another. On a chair across from the massive double bed there was a pile of women’s clothing. Megan’s clothes, she assumed.
After a lo
ng shower she felt like a new person. Maddie headed into Cale’s study, expecting him to be at his desk. But the room was empty… messy, but empty. Maddie stepped through the doorway at the end of the study into a square room with huge windows that looked onto a scruffy garden. Three leather couches dominated the room, and half of the jewel-toned cushions were on the floor. Cale’s leather jacket lay across the back of one couch, and a newspaper was anchored by a blue and white plate that held biscuit crumbs and a few wrinkled grapes.
Crossing over to the window, she looked onto the rambling, semi-wild garden. In the reflection of the window she saw the wistful expression on her face and shrugged. She had always loved this house, from the moment she had stepped into it so many, many years ago. It was exactly what she had always felt a family home should be. Large, with wooden floors and big windows. Enough room for a couple of dogs and kids and a rabbit or two. Huge fireplaces and windowseats for cats or lovers to curl up on…
Maybe she had bumped her head harder than she’d thought. She had to get out before she started imagining herself sharing this house with its owner. Maddie sighed, remembering that, despite the fact that he wasn’t the player he’d used to be, Cale wasn’t ‘settling down’ material. Neither, she told herself, was she. She had a demanding career and there wasn’t a place in her life for a full-time man—even if he didn’t have commitment phobias of his own.
She had a life to live, goals to reach. Talking of which… She hauled out her mobile and looked up Dennis’s number.
‘Where are you?’ she demanded, hearing the racket in the background.
‘Club in the Bronx. We just finished work.’
Maddie glanced at her watch. ‘At just after midnight?’
‘I told you that we work crazy hours,’ Dennis shouted. ‘Listen, I was going to call you! You definitely made the shortlist.’
Maddie’s heart plummeted in disappointment. Wait, that was wrong! She should be ecstatic. She was ecstatic. She would be happy if it killed her! ‘That’s great! What’s the next step?’
‘Interviews. But not for a couple of weeks. They are determined to find the right person so they aren’t rushing the process,’ Dennis told her. ‘So—see you in New York soon, sweet cakes.’
‘Soon,’ Maddie echoed, and disconnected. She stared down at her mobile, her bottom lip between her teeth. Disconnected. That was a good description of how she felt at the moment. Slightly disconnected from her job and her dreams, emotionally disconnected from Cale, totally disconnected from her parents.
Maddie brushed a tear away and struggled not to let any more fall. She furiously wiped them away and straightened her shoulders. She was just headachy, tired and emotional.
It would pass, she reminded herself. Everything always did.
Cale found Maddie on the veranda and, as always, the view of the ocean sucked his breath away. Especially on mornings like this, when the air was so clear he could see for miles up the coast. Maddie lay in the free-standing hammock, the bump on her head black and blue, her eyes shut and a cup of coffee in her hand. Megan sat cross-legged on the couch, a newspaper folded on her knee and a pencil clutched in her hand.
‘Seven letters—direction. Help me, Maddie, stop being so useless,’ Megan demanded, peering at the crossword.
‘Tangent.’ Cale withdrew his hands from his pockets and lifted them in greeting.
Maddie sat up, looked at him and flopped back down again, shutting her eyes.
‘Well done, Cale.’ Megan pencilled in the letters. ‘Want some coffee?’
‘I’d love some.’ Cale nodded, helping himself to a banana from the bowl of fruit on the table.
Megan went inside and he indulged in eying Maddie’s reclining form. She wore tight battered jeans and a rust jersey that brought out the gold of her eyes. Her hair was pulled back from her face in a messy knot and she looked grumpy and sultry. He thought he should just pick her up and take her to bed.
Cale swallowed abruptly.
‘Thanks for letting me stay here last night,’ Maddie said, and he heard the self-pity in her soft voice. She had a frightened rabbit-caught-in-the-headlights-of-a-car look whenever she caught his eye.
He turned when Maddie swung off the hammock and clutched her head as her feet found the floor. Instinctively Cale grabbed her arm and helped her stand, ignoring her efforts to shrug him off.
‘Stop it!’ She flapped her hands at him until he backed off, then clutched her head.
‘You are such a whiner, Shaw. I’ve had worse bumps racing.’
Immediately her spine straightened and her eyes glinted with determination. His girl had spirit, thank God.
‘That just tells me you are fit. And stupid.’
She also had a smart mouth.
‘At least I’m not a melodramatic drama queen.’
‘Stop picking on me! I have a headache and my car is crumpled,’ Maddie said in a small voice.
Cale swallowed his grin. ‘Your headache will get better, the bump will go down and your car is repairable. In the meantime you can borrow mine if you need transport.’
‘You’re so unsympathetic! And you drive an ugly tank.’
‘Sympathy isn’t going to make it better.’ The eyes that looked back at him were the warm colour of aged whisky and ringed by dark lashes. What made him push away a strand of hair falling over her bump and tuck it behind her ears? Why did he want to protect her, look after her, cosset her?
He was no closer to an answer than before. Cale took her hand and led her to a chair at the wooden dining table.
‘Breakfast. Eat something,’ Cale said roughly, gesturing to the cereal and yoghurt on the table.
Megan deposited a pot of coffee on the table. ‘The monsters have had breakfast and they are itching to get to the beach, so I’m going to skip breakfast with you. Take care of yourself, Maddie, you gave us quite a fright.’
‘Thanks for the loan of the clothes,’ Maddie said, and rested her arms on the table and stared out at the amazing view.
She approved of eating on the veranda—eminently sensible since it caught the best of the warm morning winter sun. In front of her there was just sky and sea. The sky was a hue that could only be found on a perfect African day: a blue so vivid, so sharp, she felt she could lift her hand and push through its thickness. The sea was mirror-flat and a cerulean blue. Perfect, sunny winter days like these normally preceded a wet, wild, windy cold front, and she wondered if one was on the way.
She turned back to the table and sighed. Her wish for a greasy breakfast of bacon, eggs and fried bread remained just that, and she listlessly stirred yoghurt into her muesli and wrinkled her nose.
‘Eat it—it’s good for you,’ Cale said, without lifting his eyes from his newspaper.
Maddie looked at him and swallowed. Showered, dressed in jeans and a fleecy navy hoodie, with two-day-old stubble and his slightly hooked nose, Cale looked simply delicious.
‘But it tastes like cardboard!’
Cale took a spoonful of her muesli and sampled it. ‘It’s fine, Madison. Your tastebuds are shot because your idea of a balanced diet is a chocolate bar in one hand and a bottle of red in the other.’
Unfortunately he wasn’t even wrong.
Pride had her finishing her muesli, and Cale topped up their coffee cups. She dashed some sugar into her coffee, deliberately adding more just to see Cale’s pained expression.
Maddie placed her chin in her hand. ‘Can we talk work just for a minute?’
‘It’s Saturday morning—’ Cale’s head whipped up. ‘It’s Saturday!’
‘Ye-es? So?’
‘Don’t you have weddings and functions and stuff?’
Maddie bent her knees and placed her heels on the seat of the chair. ‘One wedding and it’s a small one. I asked Thandi to handle it.’
Cale reached over to take her temperature. ‘You must have hit your head harder than I thought.’
‘Ha-ha. About the race… I’ve updated the website. It’s far bri
ghter, splashier and a lot more interesting. I’ve put on accommodation establishments, restaurants and places of interest, and linked the site to relevant websites.’
Maddie caught the approving glint in his eyes, decided that a flirty reaction would be dangerous, and persevered with the subject at hand.
‘I’ve also put a facility on the site so people can donate to the fund directly via the website.’
Cale finally looked impressed, and Maddie refused to acknowledge the little glow burning somewhere in the region of her belly button.
‘Entrants to the celebrity teams are flooding in—especially since I managed to convince the producers of Tops and Trainers—’ Maddie saw Cale’s confusion ‘—it’s that new TV lifestyle programme that’s grabbing attention. Everybody—except for you and me, obviously—is watching it. Anyway, they are doing a segment every week on a different celeb team, watching them train.’
‘How on earth did you manage to persuade them to do that?’
‘I did the executive producer’s wedding. She loved it. I could ask for the moon and she’d get it for me.’ Maddie grinned. ‘But my big news is that I’ve secured a sponsor for the pre-race charity dinner, and sourced a whole lot of items to auction to raise funds for the race and the charity.’
‘What?’
‘Well, since I lost you one sponsor—’
‘I lost that sponsor,’ Cale corrected her.
‘Whatever.’ Maddie raised her hand. ‘We lost Lousy Liam’s money, so I thought I’d make it up to you. Tickets are already flying out the door. The main prizes up for auction are a skiing trip to Austria, five days in the Maldives and a date with Gigi. We’ve already covered our costs and made some money. At least as much as that rat weasel was offering in the first place.’
Cale nearly choked on his coffee. ‘My Gigi? How the hell did you manage that?’
Maddie narrowed her eyes. ‘Your ex Gigi. I know her agent. I twisted his arm.’
Cale laughed. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about this?’
Maddie looked at the sea. ‘I didn’t know if I could pull it off, so I just worked quietly on it when you weren’t looking.’
