Читать книгу The Outback Affair - Elizabeth Duke - Страница 9

THEY made one more stop on their way to Kakadu, to have afternoon tea at a rustic roadside café. Natasha chose an iced cinnamon bun from a selection of pastries and cakes, and a cup of tea. Tom surprised her by ignoring the cakes and buying a rosy red apple for himself.

As she watched him take a bite a question leapt out. ‘You’re eating apples now? You always hated apples. Chocolate bars were more your thing.’

She coloured, mentally kicking herself. Damn! Why had she reminded him of the past—their past together?

Tom shrugged, his lips curving in the kind of grin that had once melted every bone in her body. ‘I never realised how delicious apples were until I tried one.’

She twitched a shoulder and turned away, tightening her lips as she headed for a table, wondering who’d managed to persuade him to try his first apple. The woman he’d ditched her for? She set her cup down with a clatter, spilling tea into her saucer.

Tom didn’t join her at the table. ‘I’ll be out in the garden, stretching my legs. Join me when you’re ready.’

Her eyes followed him as he strode off. Maybe that was how he’d managed to trim down so much—by exercising instead of sitting around all day in a four-wheel-drive, or a helicopter before that. And by eating fruit instead of cakes and chocolates, and drinking water instead of beer and sugary soft drinks. Had his girlfriend teased him about his weight? Nagged him into changing his bad habits?

She heaved a wobbly sigh. She’d never complained about the way Tom had looked herself. She’d loved him just as he was. Perhaps she should have. He looked terrific. A brand-new man. He’d always been a sexy, impressive-looking guy, but now he looked fantastic—a thousand times fitter and sexier than he’d been eighteen months ago.

Interesting lines slashed his cheeks, where before they’d verged on chubby. His jaw, previously masked by a bushman’s beard, was square, strong and sharply defined. With his new streamlined frame, there was a new athletic swing in his step. A dynamic, virile energy—a revitalised energy—pulsated from him in waves.