Читать книгу The Men In Uniform Collection - Barbara McMahon - Страница 19

THE GPS locator led them straight into trouble.

The signal came from dead ahead but a massive granite outcrop blocked their way, looming and treacherous in the moonlight. Romy knew her wild-eyed panic was not going to help matters but she struggled to contain the fear.

Clint scanned the trees around them. ‘This outcrop only goes for a few hundred metres but it marks a deep gully behind it. If we pick the wrong way we’ll have to backtrack. Lose a lot of time…’

She swallowed hard. ‘I don’t know we have that much time, Clint.’ She almost succeeded in keeping the quaver out of her voice.

‘We’ll split up. It’s the only way.’

His decisiveness was comforting but the thought of continuing alone terrified her. She felt so much safer with him by her side. She’d faced some dangerous situations in her lifetime but none that filled her with this kind of horror. The what if…

Her baby had to come before her pride.

‘Can we stay together, Clint? I don’t think I can do this alone.’ Her breath shuddered as she inhaled deeply. ‘I need you with me.’

That was a momentous admission and they both knew it. Regardless of what tomorrow would bring, regardless of what had just happened between them, right now in this moment she needed Clint by her side. Telling him felt less like an admission of weakness and more like a proclamation of strength. She frowned. In his eyes, triumph blurred with passion and something else.

He snaked his arm around her waist and pressed hot lips to her freezing ones. It was like a shot of air under water, filling her with strength and purpose. They would go on…together.

She looked to her left when he released her. ‘What’s that way?’

He cleared his throat. ‘The lowland dams. But it’s a hard scrabble in that direction. Let’s take the right. It comes out on higher ground near the cockatoo roost site. He’s more likely to have—’

Romy reeled back. ‘The cockatoos! Oh, Clint…he’s gone after the cockatoos.’ She filled him in on their bit of detective work earlier in the evening. ‘He’s been rattling on about undercover surveillance lately. What if he’s gone to check it out? He could be walking into anything…’

‘Then we’ll deal with it as it comes. It’s a good lead, Romy. And when we find him—’ not if ‘—you’ve been there so you should be able to find your way to the road and home.’

Home. With Leighton in her arms and Clint by her side. It was a bright, miserable dream. Except…

‘Alone? Where will you be?’

He turned her back towards him. ‘Romy, we don’t know what sort of situation we’ll find Leighton in. When the time comes, I don’t need you second-guessing my instructions. That will only waste time and put him at more risk.’ He took her chin and stared down into her eyes. ‘I asked you once before if you trusted me. Now I’m asking again. To do whatever I tell you, no questions asked. Can you do that?’

She nodded.

‘Say it out loud, Romy. You have to mean it.’

She took a deep breath. ‘Whatever you think of my expertise, I’ve never doubted yours, Clint. I’ll do whatever you say.’

The look he gave her would have crumbled the granite behemoth blocking their way. But there was no time to say more than a few words.

‘Let’s go get our boy back.’

Her throat was too thick to speak, so she nodded, blinking back tears. Crying is not going to get Leighton home. It was just like her father’s voice but softer. More feminine.

Her voice.

Maybe it always had been? She tugged her pack higher onto her shoulder, turned to her right and followed Clint’s courageous, broad back into the bush.

Within fifteen minutes, Romy’s instincts were proven. The two of them lay crouched in the low scrub, peering out onto the clearing of the cockatoo roosting site, staring at three men and two vehicles. The GPS told Romy they were right on top of her son, but where was he? The doors to a blue ute hung open, affording her a view clear through it. No Leighton. Either he was in the white sedan or he wasn’t here, only his backpack was.

She tried not to think about that.

Clint’s hand slid over hers as though he’d heard her thoughts. He squeezed it gently and she flipped hers over and laced her fingers firmly through his. His strength anchored her just as she was getting ready to tumble away into panic.

His other hand rose up to her lips, his index finger silencing her, his line of sight moving to where the men busied themselves at the base of a particularly large jarrah tree. It was the best opportunity they were going to get. Whatever they’d taken Leighton for, their attention was well and truly off the ball now.

Clint drew her with him back into the trees. Her body resisted retreat even though her mind knew she’d promised to follow orders.

Hot lips pressed near her ear. ‘Leighton’s in the white sedan,’ he said, and her round stare flew to the larger vehicle. Sure enough, she could barely make out the top of a shaggy head in the back seat. Her heart leapt.

Clint held her back. ‘I’m going to create a diversion and you’re going let Leighton out and get the hell out of here,’ he whispered.

Romy’s eyes snapped back to his. ‘I don’t think I can—’

‘You can do anything.’ His focus held hers. ‘You can do this. I will be right behind you. I won’t let anything happen to either of you.’

The raw confidence in his expression infected her. She almost believed him. ‘Okay.’ She nodded. Then, more certain. ‘Okay.’

He kept speaking, softly into her ear. ‘Once you’re clear I don’t want you to look back. Keep moving until you reach home. Then lock yourself inside until help arrives.’

Help. Not until I come for you. But she’d promised not to question him.

He breathed in deeply, filling himself with her scent. To Romy, it was too close to goodbye.

He must have seen her refusal coming. ‘I’m holding you to your promise, Romy. I know I’m the last person on the planet you feel like trusting—and after the things I said earlier, I deserve that—but it means I’m also the last person you should be risking your son’s safety for.’

Lord, didn’t he know he was the only man she would ever risk her son’s safety for?

A muscle twitched high in his jaw and Romy realised how hard he was working to master his fear. She remembered something her father had said once, about courage. That it wasn’t the absence of fear, it was taking action in spite of it.

She’d never met a braver, better man.

She nodded, suddenly determined to put on a valiant face. For him. ‘We’ll be fine.’ She hoped her smile didn’t look as watery as it felt.

His gaze burned into hers. ‘I know. I can’t think of anyone I’d have more faith in. I believe in you, Romy. I’m counting on you to get Leighton safely home. It’s going to be scary but do it for me.’

Romy swallowed past the lump in her throat. As far as she knew, he was about to take on three potentially armed men with nothing but his bare hands.

I love you. She burned to say it. Knew she never could. Instead, she leaned forwards and kissed the corner of his mouth with her own trembling one. His eyes drifted shut and his hand crept up to cup her cheek. Then she smiled tightly, turned her focus onto her son and started moving.

Don’t look back. Of course that was never going to work; but when she did, at the edge of the clearing, the edge of no return, Clint had already disappeared. She crawled arm over arm along the dirt until she found herself in the shadow of the white sedan. Every part of her was shaking with uncontrollable tremors. She heaved in a breath and hoisted herself to a squatting position, peering inside the rear of the vehicle. Her little boy sat crouched in the seat, hugging his pack and peering at the men out the opposite window.

Romy blew out slowly to ease her trembling and tapped a whisper-quiet fingernail on the glass between them. Leighton turned his tear-streaked face towards her and she raised an urgent finger to her lips. His eyeballs bulged but he nodded and glanced nervously at the three men. So did she.

She remembered the game he and Clint had played down in Frog Swamp. She held up two fingers and made them walk along the edge of the window.

Can you run?

Leighton shook his head and lifted his feet. Oh, dear God. They were bound together with cable tie. She swallowed back the rage and bile and gave him a thumbs up so he knew she’d understood, then glanced around for any sign of Clint. It was like he’d ceased to exist.

Okay. Plan B.

She mimed turning a key and Leighton bounced enthusiastically and pointed wildly to the front of the car. She stretched over to peer in the driver’s window, glanced down at the ignition and saw the keys dangling there. Her eyes rolled heavenwards.

Thank you!

She gesticulated for Leighton to put his seatbelt on and she eased the driver’s door open, praying it didn’t have some kind of audible signal. It didn’t. She slid into the seat and fired the ignition in the same move. It turned over but failed to catch. The sudden noise drew six angry eyes in their direction. All three men started thundering towards her. Her hands shook so badly she nearly couldn’t turn the key over a second time but at the last moment it caught and all eight cylinders roared to life.

A hundred black shapes launched like startled bats from the trees where the cockatoos had been sleeping. Romy floored the accelerator and swerved out of reach just as the first man got close enough to yank the back door of the car open. Leighton screamed and wriggled away from the gaping hole as the man tried to climb in. He kicked violently with his bound feet as the man got a hold of his ankles. Romy slammed on the breaks rather than risk Leighton being yanked out of a moving vehicle.

Out of nowhere a familiar shape crashed into the strange man and sent them both tumbling to the ground in a bruising tumble. Fists exploded in all directions.

Justin.

In her rear-vision mirror, she saw the third man disappear into the trees as though his legs were cut right out from under him by some silent wraith.

Clint.

And then there were none.

‘Hold on, baby,’ she cried as she slammed her foot to the floor, sending the sedan slewing sideways on the gravel track. She spun them around and headed hell for leather towards WildSprings’s admin centre, spraying tiny stones behind her and wishing wholeheartedly it was a shower of bullets and not loose rocks that peppered the filthy men who’d taken her son.

Neither of them spoke as the white sedan sped away from danger. Romy didn’t ease her foot off the accelerator until there was at least half a mile between them and the danger at Far Reach.

Then she glanced in the rear-vision mirror. ‘Are you okay, baby?’

Leighton started to cry, compounding his fear with embarrassment. Her own relief played out in an adrenaline dump to rival any extreme sport Clint might undertake. Her whole body trembled. She finally got an understanding of why he liked his leisure time on the risky side. That kind of natural high would be a tough habit to kick. And given what he’d done for a living for so long, his adrenaline rushes must have been a constant, addictive feed.

‘Shh…we’re fine now, L. It’s all over. You’re safe.’

‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ he wheezed between sobs. ‘I’m sorry…’

Romy slowed the car right down and looked at him in the mirror. She didn’t dare stop. She’d promised Clint. ‘We’ll talk about it later. I’m taking you home.’

His gaze bulged for the second time that day. He stared past her to the track ahead and shouted. Romy slammed on the brake, sliding to a stop metres from where two cross-parked police vehicles formed an ad hoc roadblock.

The cavalry!

She killed the engine and leapt from the car. She sprinted towards Steve Lawson and a uniformed stranger, who both stood tense and ready, their weapons drawn as she ran towards them. That fact barely registered as she shouted, ‘Clint! He’s—’

‘Romy, stop!’ Steve Lawson’s stern voice was barely recognisable. She skidded to a halt. Just then his partner saw the anxious, eight-year-old face peering over the back seat of the sedan and, without looking at each other, both officers carefully lowered their guns.

‘What the hell is going on, Romy?’ Steve asked, moving towards her and holstering his weapon. ‘I got a call from Customs—their agents will be here any minute. We’re the advance guard. Whose car is this and why were you driving it like a rally pro?’

‘Clint needs your help, Steve.’ Romy kept her hands out to her sides, suddenly uncertain because of the unfamiliar timbre of her friend’s voice—his police voice—but took another step towards him. ‘He’s outnumbered. His brother…’

It took longer than she meant to tell the story because she kept stumbling over a tongue thickened by adrenaline. But she got the important stuff out, including that Clint had walked into a deadly situation without a weapon.

And without knowing that she loved him. Anxiety made her dizzy.

‘Sarge?’ Steve’s partner called from beneath the lid of the sedan’s popped boot where he was carrying out a routine search. ‘You need to see this.’

Romy followed Steve to the back of the vehicle where both men stood staring into it. Nearly twenty light-bulb boxes lined a specially created holding case fitted in the bottom of the trunk. Forty more were stacked empty nearby.

Light bulbs?

Steve gently picked one up and cracked open the box. A clutch of black feathers sprung free. Realisation hit Romy in the time it took to suck in a shocked breath.

Cockatoos. Young ones. The men were not after Leighton when they chased the car. They wanted the living, drugged cargo loaded in the boot.

Leighton was just in the way.

Their escape replayed in her mind—the man grabbing Leighton’s ankle, not to pull him out of the car but to boost himself in. Clint’s brother taking him down—despite the precious cargo—because he thought Leighton was the target, too.

Oh, Justin…

Steve cursed. ‘Stay here, Romy.’

Both officers ran for their respective vehicles. They fired them up and surged forwards, around the stationery sedan and beyond it. She sagged back against the sedan, relieved beyond words that help was on its way to Clint.

How could she have left him there…?

‘Romy.’

Her heart leapt and she turned towards the urgent voice as Clint emerged from the trees, breathing heavily and sweating. He slammed into her like a freight train, swallowing her into his arms and pulling her hard against him. His lips found the sweat-slicked skin of her hairline and glued there.

‘Are you all right? Leighton?’ His urgent words vibrated against her forehead.

‘He’s okay, he’s in the car.’ She tightened her hold around his waist. He hugged her back, nearly crushing her in his intensity. Her eyes squeezed shut. Home didn’t smell like muffins or look like her cottage or sound like an eight-year-old boy giggling. It felt…just exactly…like this.

Romy never wanted to let go.

He pushed some distance between them. ‘Romy, what happened?’

She stumbled several times, telling the story of their wild escape as briefly as she could. He looked at the car with narrowed gaze and then surveyed the contents of the trunk himself, never letting go of Romy.

‘Clint, are you all right?’ Desperate relief shook her voice. Every independent moment she’d ever fought for faded into insignificance compared to her sudden surge in awareness that he’d protected her. Protected Leighton.

That everything would be okay as long as he was around.

It’s what she’d been feeling—and fighting—from the very beginning.

She wanted him to be in charge. Not because she wasn’t capable of solving her own problems. She wanted it because he was so incredibly competent and she felt so treasured when he took care of her. When had she ever in her life been treasured? How was she going to walk away from that feeling?

Darkness crossed Clint’s face as he turned in the direction the police had left. She touched his arm. ‘Justin?’

‘Tied to a tree. They’ll find him.’

The air squeezed out of her. Clint hadn’t helped his brother. Hadn’t let him go. After everything he’d tried to do for Justin, it must have been like gnawing off his own limb.

She touched him again. ‘Don’t you want to be there?’

He swung blazing, certain eyes to her, slid his hands up to frame her face and leaned in to kiss her parted lips. ‘No. I want to be here.’

His mouth was warm and strong and tasted like safety. Her body sagged against his, the terror of the past few hours finally catching up with her. He moved quickly to support her weight.

‘I’m so sorry about Justin,’ she whispered.

Clint brushed her sweaty hair back from her face. ‘Don’t be. Justin is not your fault.’

‘He’s not yours either.’ Clint’s eyes dropped away. Romy pursued him. ‘Can you let yourself believe that?’

His lips tightened with his hold on Romy. ‘No. I don’t think so. Look at what he’s turned into. Willing to exploit the birds we’ve given sanctuary to for generations. That’s not the boy I remember.’

Never mind that he’d used his brother and their family property to effect his crime.

‘I can’t begin to imagine how much it must have hurt to see your own flesh and blood standing in that clearing…’

Bleak eyes turned back to her. ‘I guess he hasn’t been my little brother for a long, long time.’

A wailing siren drifted towards them on the evening air.

The birds…Romy twisted to look at the trunk.

He pulled her back around. ‘There’s nothing we can do until the authorities get here. They’ll be comfortable enough there in the cool until the wildlife officers can check each one properly and recover them from the tranquilliser.’

‘Why would Justin steal them?’

Clint’s lips tightened into a straight line. ‘Wildlife smuggling is big business. Every one of those birds could potentially bring $15,000 from foreign collectors who don’t know or don’t care how they’ve been sourced. To help pay off Justin’s debts. It’s a filthy, disgusting trade.’

Romy frowned. ‘Justin’s in debt?’

He sighed and nodded. ‘I imagine I’m not the only person he doublecrossed in his life and I’m sure he was being chased by more than the authorities when he left the US over those drug charges.’

Romy swallowed, imagining Leighton living with the kind of fear his brother must be. ‘Poor Justin.’

Clint stared at her, incredulous. ‘Poor Justin? Now you have empathy for him? After everything he did. I saw him go for Leighton in the back of the car.’ Disgust leached from his pores.

She pressed her hand to his heart. It beat way too hard to be good for him. ‘No. Not Leighton. He tackled that other man. He helped us get away, Clint.’

A skirmish broke out in eyes dark with pain. His throat worked frantically. His chest heaved.

She touched him again, more because she wanted to feel him. ‘He couldn’t have known that Leighton would get involved. I think…I think he came good, Clint, when it mattered.’

Heavy lids hid his eyes and he kissed her temple, threading his fingers through her hair. ‘This is all my fault. I should have seen it, Romy. If I wasn’t so blinded by my own guilt…if I hadn’t buried myself away from every living thing, then I would have been more on top of what was going on in my own property. None of this would have happened.’

She pushed him away, looked him hard in the eye. ‘No. If Justin had made different choices, then none of this would have happened.’

‘I endangered you both with my blind loyalty. The two people that I—’ He stroked the hot skin of her shoulderblades under her sweater. Trembles butterflied down her spine. ‘That was a choice I made, Romy. I chose badly. Again.’

‘No. You saved Leighton. You saved me. I could never have done that without you. Justin may have been a thief but he wouldn’t have hurt Leighton. Or me. I believe that.’

And somehow she did believe it. He was Clint’s brother. Malice just couldn’t run through the veins of anyone who shared McLeish DNA.

Tears sparkled in green anguish-filled eyes. She took a breath. ‘Did you hurt him, Clint?’

After a silent moment filled only with the sound of ever-increasing sirens, he nodded.

Oh, my poor love…She swallowed. ‘Badly?’

He cleared his thick throat. ‘He didn’t fight back, Romy. He didn’t take his eyes off mine. He just stood there and took it until he couldn’t stand up any more. Like he thought he deserved it.’

How long would it take Clint to recover from that? As if he didn’t carry enough guilt.

Leighton suddenly shoved his flushed little body in between them, his feet unbound now and his glasses knocking sideways as he wedged himself, puppylike, between the two most important people in his world. Romy tucked him safely to her and held on.

Clint squatted next to the tearful boy. ‘Hey, buddy. You’ve had quite an adventure, huh?’

The shaggy, auburn head nodded and Leighton wiped his running nose on his sleeve. Clint smiled gently. ‘Why did you run away, champ?’

Silence.

Clint didn’t let up. ‘Leighton, why did you leave the house at night without permission? You know that’s against the rules, right?’

The tiny ‘Yes, sir’ almost disappeared on the breeze. Romy was struck by how different this encounter would be if her father were undertaking the inquisition. Clint was taking no prisoners, just like the Colonel, but his methodology was every bit as gentle and compassionate as Romy would have been herself. Possibly more so.

As if he knew something about being a young boy who made mistakes.

The thought of a man Clint’s size ever being a small boy made her smile. Then hard on its heels came another thought. About what kind of a boy they might make together. She shut down the tempting thought. Tonight’s dramas would change nothing, long-term.

Clint’s hand dwarfed her son’s shoulder, sympathy and understanding in his eyes. ‘Did you run away, Leighton?’

The tiniest of head shakes. Relief tightened Romy’s chest. Believing her boy had been unhappy enough to run away had been weighing on her since she found his bed rumpled and empty and the window wide-open. Fearing that she had made him feel that way. How many times had she wished of doing the same thing when she was his age?

‘Then, what? Why did you leave the house?’ Clint gently persisted.

His words were almost a whisper.

‘Out loud, Leighton. Your mother needs to hear this.’

Leighton dragged tragic eyes up to her. She itched to bend down to him but Clint’s warning gaze held her back. Now was not the time to treat her son like a child.

‘I wanted to help, Mum. I wanted to catch the bad guys. To make you happier. To make you smile again.’

Not pulling her baby to her breast took all her strength. ‘I’m not unhappy, Leighton. You should never put yourself at risk for me.’

‘You’ve been so sad. Since we came. I heard you crying…’

A surge of heat raged up her throat. She glanced at Clint, whose eyes burned intently. It looked like anger but why would he care whether she cried her heart out in the darkness? She crouched next to her son and wrapped both arms around him. ‘That doesn’t matter now. I’m just so relieved everybody is okay.’ She pulled Leighton into her body, kissed his head and flicked her eyes up to Clint’s. ‘There’ll be no more crying, I promise.’

Awkward tension zinged between them. Romy opened her mouth to speak and then let it close again. The wailing of sirens grew suddenly closer.

‘Saved by the bell,’ Clint said, his eyes as vibrant as Leighton’s green tree frogs. ‘Unless we want to be caught here for hours yet, we should get moving. Leave the authorities to it. Steve will know where to find us when they’re ready for a statement. Let’s go home, Romy.’

They disappeared into the darkness of the bush long enough for three official-looking vehicles to drive past them on the road. Then they clambered back up to the roadway and walked the long way home. At every turn, Leighton thought of yet another aspect of their daring escape to comment on excitedly. Romy knew there wouldn’t be too many times that she’d hear the words awesome and Mum in the same sentence as he got older. She enjoyed the rare moment.

‘Who’s the hero now?’ Clint murmured, swinging a finally flagging Leighton up into his arms.

They walked along in silence, Leighton drifting in and out of awareness. Conversation was almost impossible when so much needed to be said.

‘You were amazing,’ Romy finally said after Leighton had fallen into a deep sleep in Clint’s arms. ‘To put yourself at risk like that for Leighton, for us…Thank you.’

She burned to kiss him. Properly. Words just felt inadequate. ‘You must have been extraordinary in the field,’ she persisted, thinking of the way that man in the clearing had just…ceased to exist. ‘A massive asset in combat.’

He adjusted Leighton in his arms, avoided her eyes. ‘Every asset has an expiry date. After today I don’t think I’d be as effective an operator.’

‘Why not? It didn’t look like you’d lost any of your skills.’

He stared at her, his focus burning even in the dim moonlight. ‘I seem to have lost my heart for it.’

Her own heart started to pound again and this time not from the rush of survival chemicals. This was fear, pure and simple. Opening this door just felt unsafe. She swallowed.

Courage was fearing it but doing it, anyway.

‘I wanted to say…for you to know…that I saw tonight how important your training must be when you’re in real combat. The way you knew exactly what to do—’

He stopped and turned to her. ‘This was real combat, Romy. Just because it wasn’t in a war doesn’t make it any less dangerous. It was worse than warfare because Leighton wasn’t some target to be extracted, just a name on a document. This was personal. This was our Leighton. I was struggling as much as you were to stay objective. That’s why I lost it.’

‘I think I understand now. It’s not a choice you make. To turn the military on or off. It is you. It’s in everything you do, every thought you have. It’s ingrained as strongly as any value I try and teach my son.

‘I’ve seen how you are with him,’ she went on. ‘I’ve seen the positive impact you’ve had on his behaviour. He respects you and your natural authority, Clint, and more importantly, he responds to it. It doesn’t hurt him, it makes him stronger.’ Her feet skidded to a halt as the ground seemed to shift under them. ‘Oh, Clint, what if I’ve made him weaker?’

Clint turned back to where she stood rooted to the earth. ‘Don’t judge yourself like this. You’ve done a fine job raising him entirely alone, with no support. There is nothing wrong with loving your son and not wanting to see him hurt.’

‘Yes, there is. He needs to save me.’ She sought out his eyes desperately. ‘He put himself in danger tonight because he feels responsible for me. I was trying to protect him and instead I’ve made him think his mother is defenceless. That an eight-year-old boy has to protect his mother.’

The shock realisation doubled her over, the breath punching out of her. ‘I did this to him, Clint! After everything I survived with my father, I’ve forgotten how to be strong.’

He lifted her face with powerful fingers. ‘You’re the strongest woman I know, Romy Carvell. You didn’t want to raise your son the way your father raised you. That’s entirely understandable. Everybody has a weakness. Forgive yourself that.’

‘You don’t. You’re made of rock.’ One hundred percent reliable, bombproof granite.

Disgusted breath hissed out of him. ‘Nowhere near, Romy. I wallowed in guilt for a decades-old mistake, I ran to the army to avoid my parents’ self-combusting marriage, I ran from the army when it got too ugly, I ran from death, and now I’m running from you. From what you and Leighton represent. It’s what I do, Romy. I run. That’s my weakness.’

She stared up at him, not caring if her heart was on her sleeve. Blood pumped, pure and hard, through limbs almost numb with cold.

‘You’re freezing. We should keep moving.’ If it wouldn’t disturb her sleeping son she knew Clint would have given her the shirt off his very back. They picked up the pace in an effort to warm them both up. Romy’s heart burned like a furnace even as her extremities turned a light blue, and her lips, anaesthetised with cold, couldn’t seem to stop moving.

‘I should have waited before acting when I realised Justin was involved in the smuggling. I should have spoken to you first. I betrayed our…’ What did they have…a relationship? A bond? A friendship? ‘I betrayed you. I’m so sorry, Clint.’

‘You owe me nothing, Romy. If anything I owe you.’ He shook his head. ‘You and Leighton have given me more than you’ll ever know these past months. You let me into your family for a little while and I’ll never forget that.’

You don’t have to forget it, she wanted to scream. Ask me and I’ll stay. With Justin gone, Leighton would be safe. She wanted them all to be safe. Together. She held her breath, waiting for the tiniest sign from the granite mountain beside her that he wanted her to stay. Wanted her. The night crickets and frogs chirped and croaked around them.

Endlessly.

Finally, her body forced her to breathe and the arctic inwards rush ached all the way to her soul as she realised—

He isn’t going to ask.

She felt a strange warmth on her cheek and realised that the warmest part of her slowly dying body was her tears.

Romy barely felt the steps under her numb feet as she climbed up to the house. The warmth of familiar safety soaked into her chilled bones. Clint carried Leighton upstairs to his attic and Romy slipped his little shoes and glasses off and pulled the thick quilt up over her half-frozen son.

Leighton’s soft hands came up to snag her sweater, pulling her closer. ‘I’m sorry, Mum. I put you in danger.’

Oh, Lord…like father, like—

She realised the horrible mistake of her subconscious and shut the thought down. Clint McLeish was not her son’s father and never would be. After the dramas of the night were over they’d still be where they were at the beginning of it.

Two damaged people who couldn’t be together.

She took Leighton’s chin in her fingers and stared fiercely into his eyes, hoping the emotion of her response would disguise the true origin of the tears that suddenly pricked. ‘I would go into any danger for you, Leighton Carvell. Anywhere. Any time. Do you understand? That’s what people who love each other do. No matter what.’

He smiled shyly and buried himself in her shoulder again for a final hug. Then he looked up at Clint, still half asleep. Painfully innocent. ‘You came into danger for me, too, Clint.’

Romy’s heart haemorrhaged for the blatant hope in the guileless statement. Her son adored this man. Probably as much as she did.

Her chest squeezed. Oh, there were going to be two very sore hearts when this was all over.

Clint stared long and hard at Leighton, the muscles in his jaw working overtime. His mouth opened, then shut wordlessly. He looked at Romy, deep and pained, and then something in his eyes shifted. As though someone had lit a lamp in a dusty, disused room and revealed treasures beyond belief. They widened as she watched.

He shifted his attention back to the drowsy boy below him. ‘That’s because I love you, too, champ.’

Leighton abandoned his death grip on his mother and threw himself against Clint. It was exactly what she wanted to do, but fear kept her motionless. Clint kissed the top of Leighton’s shaggy head and then looked up at Romy.

She stared at Clint in taught agony and hissed, ‘That’s not something you say just because you think someone wants to hear it.’ She nodded towards Leighton. But she was talking about herself. ‘He’s eight years old, Clint.’

‘I know.’ He kissed Leighton’s head again. ‘I do love you, kiddo. I will be right by your mother’s side if you are ever in any kind of trouble and need me. Forever. I swear.’

Romy frowned her confusion through a pulsing headache. Right by her side. But that sounded decidedly not like forever.

It sounded like forever apart. ‘You can’t do this, Clint.’ The ache hummed in her whisper. ‘He won’t understand.’

‘He understands more than you know, Romy.’ He shifted his eyes to her as he spoke, thick and husky and pained. ‘I love you both. Very much. And whenever you need me, I will be there for you both. No matter where you are.’

The whole cottage lurched at her feet and her surging heart leapt painfully in her chest. She tipped her chin up and eye-balled him. Took a chance. The instinct to protect herself was almost overwhelming, but she forced the words from her cold lips. ‘Why? Where are you going?’

He frowned. ‘Nowhere. But after what I said earlier tonight…’

‘You still want us to leave?’

‘No! But—’

Her heart pounded. ‘You want us to stay, then?’

His blazing eyes said desperately, but his voice was less sure. ‘I’ve given up the right to hope for what I want.’

Thump, thump, thump. ‘What if I want it, too?’

Everyone in the room seemed to hold their breath. Including Leighton. Romy stared into Clint’s green eyes. She’d never seen them so naked. So brave. In the space between one blink and the next, she decided it was time she demonstrated some of that McLeish courage.

Screw fear.

‘I want to stay.’ The words wobbled, then grew more sure. ‘With you.’

Nobody moved. Romy’s heart beat hard enough to bruise her ribs. Then Clint gifted her with a brilliant, unrestrained smile and she was lost. She launched herself forwards, finding Clint’s lips with her own across the top of a squashed Leighton.

‘I love you.’ Kiss. ‘I love you.’ Kiss. ‘I love you, Clint McLeish.’

He kissed her back as though she was the very air he breathed, his mouth hot and hard and so, so gentle. Then his hands came around the top of her body and dragged her half across to his side of Leighton’s bed. ‘I’ve loved you since the moment you handed me all the things you stole from my shop,’ he said, pressing his lips to her face, her hair, her mouth. She bit his bottom lip gently. Her voice was breathy, her laugh choked with tears.

‘I’ve loved you since you completely missed me stealing them.’

He opened his mouth to protest and Romy took the advantage, covering it with hers and diving her tongue in deep for a hint of the heaven she’d been dreaming of since the night of the fundraiser.

‘Eeeww, Mum.’ Leighton pushed ineffectually against Clint’s body. ‘Gross!’

Getting out of her child’s bedroom became a necessary priority. She needed to be alone with Clint. They tucked him back in hurriedly and then tiptoed down the stairs. Clint kept one hand on her the whole time. Her shoulder, her back, her nape, her hip.

When his hand slipped up higher than her hip and his long fingers curled up around her rib cage as her feet touched the bottom step, she spun into his embrace. Into his waiting kiss. If the world ended now, Romy would go into eternity knowing she’d been loved. And more important, that she’d been able to love.

They both emerged breathless, laughing. Her body zinged with the same rush that flushed his.

‘You asked me why I didn’t want to go back out into the field.’ He kissed her, slow and hard. ‘I’ve got too much to lose now. Too much to get home to.’ He kissed her again; she pressed herself to him. ‘And I don’t think I could stand to see that look on your face again.’

‘What look?’

‘When you thought you might not see me again. When I feared you were right. That’s not somewhere I want to put you ever again.’

‘You won’t. I won’t let you.’ She kissed him, pulling him down after her onto the couch and leaning into him. ‘I will never let you go.’

He smiled. ‘Hey, enough of the stalker talk. You’re creeping me out.’

She slapped him gently, then nestled in closer, looking at him steadily. ‘Any time you doubt your bravery, I’ll remind you how you risked your life for the people you loved.’

‘And right behind that, I’ll remind you of your blazing brilliance as you rescued your son.’ He kissed her soundly, then looked at her seriously. ‘And rescued me.’

‘You?’

‘You have no idea the darkness and sorrow of the place that I’ve been, Romy. The day you walked into my shop it was like a beacon went off, bright and unmissable in the sky, and I’ve been guided by it ever since.’

‘I wish I could give you a medal for what you did tonight. You deserve another flaming star.’

‘Romy Carvell, I would rather just one of those glorious, lusty looks from you than all the valour commendations in the country,’ he said.

‘This look?’ She threw her best movie-star come-on at him.

‘Nope.’ He kissed her until they were both breathless and then he slid his hand unapologetically up under her sweater. She flushed three kinds of hot and blazed back at him.

‘Oh, yeah,’ he murmured. ‘That’s the one.’