Читать книгу Dreaming Of... Australia: Mr Right at the Wrong Time / Imprisoned by a Vow / The Millionaire and the Maid - Annie West, Nikki Logan - Страница 17

‘NO! Definitely no.’

Aimee stood with Sam, deep at the heart of the beachside markets, the historic architecture in pronounced contrast to the modern, brightly coloured pop-up canopies littering the busy square.

Around them, buried beneath a surging crowd of tourists and locals, rows of stalls sold fine oils, organic produce, delicately hewn crafts, original artworks, timber knick-knacks and bright hand-woven beanies. They offered just about every gift imaginable.

But still Sam had found this.

He held up a twisted oddity made from forlorn-looking recycled cutlery. ‘It’s a spoondelabra. You put candles in it.’ He blinked at her lack of enthusiasm. ‘It’s clever.’

Aimeee smiled at the tragedy of his expression and prised it carefully from his fingers. ‘No, Sam.’

He frowned and picked it up again as soon as she’d placed it back on the display table. ‘I like it.’

Her laugh graduated to a full chuckle. ‘Then buy it for yourself, by all means. You are not buying your wife a spoondelabra for her thirtieth birthday.’

She’d taken to calling Melissa your wife as a defence mechanism. Not only did it serve as a healthy reminder to her not to get too entangled with Sam, but it helped to depersonalise Melissa, too. As long as she didn’t have a name, Aimee felt slightly less guilty about tiptoeing around with someone else’s husband on secret business.

Slightly.

A purple-haired woman dressed almost completely in hemp squeezed past them with a small goat trotting happily behind her on a leash. Sam’s free hand slipped protectively around behind Aimee as she pressed in closer to him to let the goat pass. She felt his heat and got a whiff of something divine under the wool of his jacket. Definitely not goat. Her eyes drifted shut.

Focus …

‘Fine.’ He handed the artwork back to its creator with a reluctant smile. The man shrugged and gave it a quick polish before replacing it on the table.

They moved off again through the thick crowds. ‘Seriously, Sam. We’re not going to get very far today if you buy every little thing that takes your fancy.’

Sam stayed close to her as they walked, shielding her with his body from the worst of the crowd and lowering his head to be heard. ‘Who says? Could work well … If she doesn’t like one gift I can whip out another.’

She laughed. ‘Right. She’ll never notice that.’

‘Well, what do you like, then? Since my ideas apparently suck the big bazoo.’

‘It’s her thirtieth, Sam. She’s not going to want a novelty anything. She’ll want something lovely. Something unique. Something that says you know her.’

His lips thinned. ‘I do know her and I’m still at a loss.’

Yeah? Why was that? She slid her hand around his forearm and squeezed. ‘Don’t worry, we have a couple of hours yet. We’ll find something this morning.’

But his eyes didn’t lighten. ‘Pretty sure I’m not supposed to need this kind of support team just to buy my wife a gift,’ he muttered.

Aimee was feeling sorry enough for herself without him adding his self-pity to the mix. She braced her fists on her hips. ‘Well, you can pout about it or you can get on with it. And you’ve dragged me out of a warm bed on our morning off, so if you’re going to pout I might just wander off and do my own thing.’

He stopped and stared as she was towed ahead of him by the crowd. She turned back against the tide and tipped her head in enquiry.

‘You reminded me of my mother just then,’ he said as he caught up with her.

‘Flattering.’

‘In a good way. She’s very no-nonsense like that. She wouldn’t tolerate self-pity either. I’m not used to that outside of my family.’

Aimee smiled as they set off again, feeling unaccountably light. ‘She and I would probably get on well, then.’

‘I know you would.’

She detoured physically—and conversationally—stopping in front of a stall with handcrafted silk scarves blowing like medieval banners in the breeze. ‘What about one of these? They’re beautiful.’ The soft fabric blazed rich colour in the mid-morning light.

Sam frowned. ‘What will she do with a scarf?’

Aimee blinked. ‘Wear it?’

‘On her head? Isn’t that a bit … nanna-ish?’

She dismissed the concern with a wave. ‘Think less nanna and more catwalk.’ She loosened one carefully from its tie point and caressed the cool, soft silk as it slipped through her fingers. ‘She can wear it like this …’ She looped it quickly around her throat in a fifties kind of knot.

‘Or like this …’

She twisted it into different styles to show Sam the many ways Melissa—his wife, she corrected herself—could enjoy a beautiful scarf without it being old-fashioned.

‘Or if she’s really keen she can wear it like this.’ She tipped her head forward and twisted the scarf into a hippy headband, pushing it up the line of her shaggy hair. Then she struck an exaggerated catwalk pose and threw Sam a two-fingered peace sign, smiling wide and free.

Blue eyes locked onto hers, entertained and glittering, and Aimee’s breath caught at the fire kindling deep in them. The fire she hadn’t seen since the careless, unmasked moment after she’d kissed him on the mountainside. Time froze as they looked at each other. But as she watched his smile dissolved, the flames flickered and extinguished, and two tiny lines appeared between his brows.

Her confidence faltered and she let her peace sign drop limply to her side.

‘Very Woodstock,’ Sam finally said, carefully neutral, but stopped her as she went to slide the scarf off, curling his warm fingers around hers. ‘Leave it. Freedom suits you.’

They stood like that—silently, breathless, his fingers coiled around hers—for dangerous moments.

Freedom did suit her. The year since taking charge of her own life had been the best of her whole life. And the hours she spent with Sam the best of those.

‘I’ll have to buy it,’ she murmured.

‘Let me.’ His wallet was open and the stall holder’s hand was outstretched before she could do more than squeak in protest. He finished the transaction: efficient, no-nonsense. Very Sam.

‘Thank you,’ she said, too unsettled by the gesture to protest. ‘Now we really need to get Melissa something.’ He slid a curious glance her way. She couldn’t help her fingers touching the scarf where it curled under her hair. ‘It’s going to be really dodgy if the only person you buy a gift for today is another woman.’ She laughed weakly.

He took his receipt and turned to face her, eyes serious. ‘You’re not another woman, Aimee. You’re you. This is to show my appreciation. For your help today.’

You’re you. What did that mean? Not worthy of ‘other woman’ status, or somehow outside of the definition? Genderless again. ‘We already had a deal. I help you with your gift and you help me with the interview. Quid pro quo.’

‘Today deserves extra credit.’

A rare, uncomfortable silence fell between them as they stared at each other but then Sam’s eyes drifted over her shoulder, flared, and his face filled with animation.

‘What about a kite?’ he exclaimed, and was off.

‘Men really are just little boys in big bodies, aren’t they?’

They sat at a weathered timber table beneath a canopy of fragrant flowering jasmine which defied gravity on the pergola over their heads, tucking into an early lunch of cheese, bread, pâté and something peculiar made of eggplant. Aimee dragged her eyes back off the two enormous kites sticking out of a recycled plastic bag and met the mock offence in Sam’s with a grin.

‘Kites are timeless,’ he pointed out. ‘Airborne works of art. And good for obesity.’

‘I know. I heard the sales pitch too.’ Though she’d never met a man less likely to have issues with obesity now or in the future than Sam. Or more comfortable with his inner nine-year-old. In truth, his passion for life and his willingness to let himself be open in front of her was dangerously appealing. He wasn’t endlessly talking himself up, like Wayne, or angling to get anything from her, or making himself look good. He was just being Sam.

And she liked Sam. She really, really did. Just exactly as he was.

More fool her.

She forced a smile to her lips. ‘Given you came up trumps for Melissa, I can hardly begrudge you a kite.’ He’d bought his wife the most heartbreakingly beautiful mirror, its artisan-made frame inlaid with luminous crystals and with intricately wrought iron vinework twisting through and around the whole piece. ‘Symbolic of both of us,’ he’d said when he chose it. ‘Melissa’s brilliance and my love of nature.’

Her heart had swollen with pain then—for the poetry in his words, for the sweet uncertain fear he felt about choosing the wrong gift for the woman he was sharing his life with, and for the truth his words revealed about their relationship. Now and again he’d say something that made her think that maybe things weren’t all roses at home, but those simple words spoke volumes about his real feelings for his wife. Her heart weighed heavy in her chest.

‘Sam, can I—?’ Her own judgement stilled her tongue.

‘What? Go ahead.’

She frowned at him and thought hard for the moments that ticked by, wondering if she should back out. ‘I want to ask you something, but I don’t want to offend.’

‘I’m having too good a day to take offence.’ He slid one big hand on his heart. ‘Ask away.’

‘It’s about Melissa.’

The hand faltered as he lowered it.

‘Is everything okay with you two?’

His whole body stiffened up. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘You’re so passionate in your defence of her, so considerate in meeting her needs, so proud and loyal when you speak about her …’

‘But?’

She took a deep breath. ‘But … your body language and what you’re not saying tells a different story.’

His nostrils flared. ‘What I’m not saying about her tells you more than what I am saying?’

‘This is what I do for a living, Sam.’

‘Are we in the interview now?’

She sucked back her instinctive reaction to the harshness of his voice. ‘See—that’s very telling to me. That you get so worked up on this particular subject.’

His cheek pulsed high in his jaw. ‘Mel and I are fine.’

‘Just fine? Not great? Not wildly, crazy in love?’ Although she knew the answer to that. If he were he wouldn’t have had such a hard time buying her a gift. And he sure as heck wouldn’t be sitting here with her.

His simmering eyes told her he was trying very hard not to be rude. ‘All marriages go through their rough patches.’

She took a breath, trusted her instinct. ‘How long has this patch been?’

He dropped his eyes to the table, and when he lifted them they were predatory. ‘I think we should talk about that kiss now.’

It was her turn to stiffen. ‘Don’t change the subject.’

‘Don’t avoid the subject. Why won’t you talk about the kiss?’

She leaned forward. ‘Why is it so hard for you to talk about your wife?’

He met her in the middle of the table. ‘Same reason it’s so hard for you to acknowledge kissing me. It’s personal.’ He blinked and his voice softened. ‘And terrifying.’

She sat back.

Terrifying. Sam Gregory—the man who seemed to be afraid of nothing—was frightened for his marriage. Everything he’d not quite said these past days, every ‘fine’ instead of ‘great’ came into crashing focus.

This changed everything.

And nothing.

The tightly reined emotion in his eyes said that he was raw and hurting and vulnerable to suggestion;

this was not the time to be careless with the knowledge she’d unexpectedly found herself holding. But she could lead by example and have some courage.

‘I kissed you before I knew you were married,’ she said.

His eyes flared, as if he hadn’t truly expected her ever to return to the taboo subject. Maybe he’d thrown it out there as a distraction, but she grabbed it with both hands.

Fair’s fair.

‘I’m not someone who would ever knowingly …’ Her father’s wandering eye had wrecked her family. But she couldn’t tell Sam that. That wasn’t the sort of thing you revealed over a casual lunch. Even her friend Danielle didn’t know the full story about her past. ‘I wouldn’t have done it if I’d realised.’

Talking about the kiss was somehow self-fulfilling, drawing her eyes to his lips unconsciously and reminding her of how they’d felt so warm and surprised against hers. Her mouth watered with the memory.

She forced her eyes upward only to collide with ones so intense and earnest they stole her breath.

‘You remember it. I was beginning to wonder.’

‘Of course I remember it. How many men in vehicle wrecks do you imagine I’ve kissed?’

‘Not as many as me.’

‘Wh—?’

‘Mouth-to-mouth,’ he said with a straight face, but couldn’t hold it. His smile undid all the tension of the past five minutes.

Her relief bubbled over. He was making this easier for her. How was it possible she was laughing again so soon after the awkwardness of just a moment ago?

Because this was Sam. ‘That’s it,’ she said. ‘That’s what I was doing that night.’

He laughed. ‘Yeah, let’s go with that. Really good mouth-to-mouth.’

And just like that the awkwardness was back. At least for her. Sam didn’t seem the slightest bit affected. His eyes strayed to the large parcel that contained the mirror, and he took shelter in a new subject. ‘I just hope Mel likes it as much as you and I did,’ he said.

Wow—how much had changed that talking about his wife was safer territory between them? ‘She will. She’d have to be blind not to see how hard you’ve worked to get the perfect gift.’ No man had ever made an effort to please her as Sam was making an effort to please his wife. ‘She’s very lucky.’

Her breath sucked in on a tiny gasp at her accidentally spoken words.

Sam lifted his eyes. ‘Lucky?’

‘That you’re going to so much effort,’ she stumbled. ‘That you care enough to do … all of this … for her. You could have just gone with flowers.’

His lips twisted. ‘She has no idea.’

‘Then tell her,’ Aimee said, locking her eyes on his. ‘Every woman deserves to know she’s cherished.’

Sam frowned. ‘I can’t even imagine a conversation between us that would lead to that.’

Her eyebrows lifted. ‘You don’t talk?’

‘Not like that.’ He shook his head and his gaze flickered away. ‘Not like this.’

Again her breath tightened. So it wasn’t only she who found their time together easy and natural. ‘That surprises me.’

His eyes lifted. ‘Why?’

She shrugged. ‘The Sam I met dangling off that highway … That’s not a man I can imagine having difficulty communicating.’

‘Mel’s not really a talker.’

‘Have you tried?’

His eyes shaded over. ‘Repeatedly.’

She knew firsthand how frustrating it was to try and talk to someone who didn’t reciprocate. Except in her case it had been more a case of Wayne not being a listener. He just hadn’t stopped talking long enough for her to get a word in, and if she had, his reflex had been to disregard it.

Sam’s gentle voice drew her eyes back to his. ‘Has someone made you feel like that? Cherished?’ The blue of his irises seemed to have grown richer.

Her mouth opened and then closed again without answer. That wasn’t a question she could answer without embarrassing both of them.

Silent moments ticked by.

‘Is our friendship one-way, Aimee?’ he asked out of nowhere, shifting in his seat, not letting up with the eye-contact. Not angry, but rough enough that she winced—just slightly. ‘You can ask me personal things but I can’t ask you?’

‘I …’ That was actual hurt in his eyes. Or was she imagining it? Her pulse quickened. ‘I’ve … I must have …’

He leaned forward. ‘Everything I know about you I know from that one night on the mountain. Since then you haven’t … invited personal conversation.’

Her heart beat in her throat. ‘We just had one. About …’ The Kiss.

‘That wasn’t personal. We were both involved. I’d like to know more about Aimee Leigh, about what makes her tick. You told those kids yesterday more about yourself in one hour than you’ve told me since we met.’

Old scars pinched tightly. In her household personal discussions had been discouraged lest they led to … you know … actual caring. She didn’t do emotional risk. And opening up to this particular man would definitely be risky.

‘Why?’

The question seemed to anger him. ‘Because we’re friends, Aimee. Or at least I think we are. I don’t know.’ He threw his hands into the air. ‘Maybe we’re not?’

Her chest tightened. Friends. ‘We are. Of course we are.’ It’s all we ever can be.

‘Then open up. Let me in.’

She matched the lift in his voice, though hers was tighter. ‘I can’t.’

He pressed his palms onto the table. ‘Why not?’

‘Because you’re not mine to let in,’ she half-shouted, her chest fixed with the pain of where they were about to go, of what she’d just admitted.

Neither of them moved.

For entire moments.

Even the birds around them held their breath. ‘Opening up means something to me, Sam. I’m programmed to …’ She shook her head. ‘It means something.’

Her parents had cloistered her so tightly she didn’t even know how to take a risk. How to dare to.

He leaned in. ‘Aimee, I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be obtuse. I truly do not understand what you’re saying.’

Her face pinched, and she recognised somewhere far away, deep inside, that this was not one of her finest moments. Her breath fluttered. ‘I don’t … open up … easily. But if I did it would be because we meant something to each other. And we don’t have that kind of relationship.’

He squinted his confusion. ‘You do mean something to me, Aimee.’

She groaned her frustration. ‘I’m not talking about friendship, Sam.’ Lord, could he not hear her?

He shook his head, as though it might rattle all the pieces together into an understandable shape. ‘Are you saying that you only open up with someone if you’re in a relationship?’

She just stared at him.

‘What? So I’m either in or I’m out?’ he grated. ‘There’s nothing in between?’

‘You’re not someone I could let in just a little bit, Sam.’ Please understand what I’m saying.

Please.

He blinked at her. ‘I don’t want to be out.’

So innocent in its utterance, so painful in its intent. ‘But you can’t be in.’

And finally it dawned in his eyes. What she was trying so hard not to say. He sat back and took a deep, slow breath. ‘This is about Melissa.’

She flung her hands in the air. ‘Of course it is.’

‘You’re keeping a distance because of her?’

‘I’m keeping the distance you should be keeping, Sam.’

That hit him hard. The colour fled from his face. But he didn’t make excuses. He didn’t defend himself. And his next words surprised her. ‘What have they done to you?’

Two seconds ago he had been under examination. Now he was turning the spotlight on her again. ‘Who?’

‘Your family. The men in your past. They’ve made you this all-or-nothing woman. A person who can’t even have friendships without rules. Is that truly the world you come from?’

‘They’ve done nothing.’ Though that wasn’t strictly true. Wayne had run off most of her male friends and dressed it up as his great devotion and focus on just being with her. And her father had been the same with her mother up until the day Lisbet Leigh threw his belongings out in the street. Both of those men and the lessons they’d taught her had had an impact on her. ‘I still have values, Sam. They haven’t changed just because I’ve struck out on my own.’ If anything they’d crystallised.

‘You pursued this friendship, Aimee.’

She sighed, because it was true. She had opened the door for all of this that day at the awards ceremony. It had seemed so doable at the time.

‘But you’re saying it can only be one-way?’ he went on. ‘Or superficial?’

God, how could such an intelligent man be so blind? Damn him for making her explain. ‘You have a wife, Sam.’

He threw his palms up again. ‘I’m not suggesting anything illicit, Aimee. There are degrees. Friends have a different level of intimacy. A different role.’

Aimee surged to her feet and slapped her fists on the table, leaning across it. ‘Not for me. If I let you in then you will be in. Do you understand me? Is that a complication you want?’

Sam stared at the dignity and passion in her eyes. He almost chased the conversation to its natural conclusion, followed the white rabbit deep down into the hole, because for one blazing second—yes—he did want that complication. Very much. But Aimee was right: getting closer to her emotionally wasn’t going to do either of them any favours. He should be admiring the strength of her character, or cursing the lack of his own, but all he could think about was that this amazing human being was apparently off-limits to him.

And, God help him, he wanted to be in.

‘So that’s how this has to be? A careful distance between us?’ he said.

‘Don’t you think that’s wise?’ Aimee slumped back onto her side of the bench and into the shaft of dappled light streaming down through the tangle of flowers overhead. It made her mop of blonde hair shimmer like a halo, like some angelic being. But all that did was make him feel more like playing the devil.

‘No. Not if it means I can’t get to know you.’ She flinched, and he regretted causing it, but Aimee was fast becoming one of the important people in his life and her opting out was not on the cards. ‘I like you, Aimee. I like how you think so differently to me in many ways but on the essential things we’re in tune. I don’t like being told that I can’t be friends with you just because of Melissa.’

But he didn’t like that he’d referred to the woman he’d married as ‘just’, either. And he really didn’t like the resentment that had started oozing through the moment Melissa had become an obstacle between him and getting to know Aimee better. He frowned internally. He’d been working so hard on managing that ugly, unreasonable side of himself, but apparently it was alive and well.

Aimee lifted one prosaic brow and the corners of her mouth tightened. ‘It’s not actually your call, Sam, whether I’m friends with you or not, or what kind of a friend I am. If that’s what you’re expecting, then …’

She leaned down for her own shopping bags and her reach had a tremor in it. Ugh, idiot! She was breaking away from under the controlling thumb of her family and here he was going all caveman on her. He rushed in to undo his damage.

‘I respect you, Aimee.’ That stilled her fingers just as they started to pull on the handles of her bags. ‘And that goes for whatever decision you choose to make about this. About us.’

She straightened up and brought her green eyes back to his, and he hated the caution he saw there. Partly because he’d caused it, and partly because he knew she was never going to tell him who’d put it there in the first place. One of a thousand things he’d never get to know about Aimee Leigh if she got her way.

He folded his arms in front of him on the table and leaned towards her. ‘Keeping our friendship shallow feels like a crime against nature. But I’m not about to force the issue. I know you well enough to know that you’ll walk if I do. Like it or not, you’re a part of my life now, Aimee, so I don’t want you to do that.’ He wasn’t about to look too closely at why. Not today at least. He smiled and hoped it seemed genuine. ‘So, even though I don’t agree with you, I’ll take whatever you’ll give me.’

Her eyes darkened and dropped briefly, but when they rose they were flat. ‘I like and respect you, too, Sam. But you have a wife. She’s where your emotional investment should be.’

She was right. Of course she was. And Lord knew if ever a marriage needed emotional investment it was his and Mel’s.

But he still hated it.

He shook off the growling doubts in his stomach, stood when he should have been reassuring her, and waved a hand towards the bright fabric sticking out of his bag. ‘Come on. How long has it been since you flew a kite?’

Kites were superficial. Harmless and pretty. She couldn’t be suspicious of a bit of recreational fun, right?

But her eyes could.

‘I’ve never flown one. I think my mother was afraid of friction burns on my hands.’

A long-dormant part of him deep inside roused, lifted its slumberous head. Aimee had been so protected from life … The things she must not know … The things that he could teach her …

If she was his to teach.

But all he said was, ‘Come on. Time to add a new life-skill to your repertoire.’

Sam’s heart was simultaneously warmed and saddened by the enjoyment Aimee got from her lesson. His urge to protect her clashed headlong with his anger at the selfishness of her parents—raising her in an over-cautious bubble and robbing her of simple childhood joys.

Like flying a kite.

She set off again, in a long-limbed gallop across the open parkland, with the fuchsia fabric eel trailing behind her, lifting higher, flirting with the current. This time it caught and held, and she jogged to a halt and looked back at him across the foreshore, with triumph in her whole body as it climbed.

‘It’s up!’ she cried in astonishment, bouncing on the spot, returning her eyes to the feminine kite wavering and folding in the air high above her.

‘She’s like an alien,’ Sam muttered as he jogged across to her, his own yellow and black kite in his hands. A big-brained alien who existed on learning new things.

‘If she starts to drop,’ he called out, ‘pull on the line. If she veers left, you pull right …’

In under a minute Sam was by her side, staring up into the electric blue above the park, his hawk kite dominating the sky, expertly keeping his strings from tangling in Aimee’s.

‘You’re good!’ She laughed as her eel tumbled momentarily.

Sam reached one hand over on top of hers and showed her how to moderate its altitude. Her hands were warm and soft and fitted perfectly in his. He had to force himself to let go. ‘I flew kites as a kid. It’s like riding a bike. You never really forget.’

‘I never learned that, either.’ She squealed as the eel cut to the left sharply, but she’d already started correcting it.

‘You have good instincts.’ He smiled.

‘I’m not exactly tearing up the sky.’ She laughed. ‘I’m too scared to move out of my safe little orbit.’

‘You just need the right motivation. Watch out.’ A flick of his wrist turned the sharp-winged hawk back towards the eel and he cut it back and forth on her tail like a predator toying with its prey. Its two long ribbons streamed like twin vapour-trails behind.

‘Quit it!’ Aimee grumbled, laughing.

‘Make me.’

She kicked into top gear then, weaving her kite ahead of his, trying to anticipate whatever stunt he’d pull next, her frown pronounced as she concentrated on besting him. She wasn’t bad, but half an hour’s experience was never going to beat a lifetime love of the skies, and he had plenty of easy time to glance back at what the eel’s pilot was doing.

A light sheen of sweat glistened on Aimee’s golden forehead and determination blazed in her heaven-lifted gaze. His eyes dropped to her full mouth. Lingered.

‘Does biting your lip help?’ he teased.

The guilty lip sprang free and she smiled, broad and brilliant, but didn’t take her eyes off his hawk. ‘Yes. It improves my aerodynamics.’

Immediately his mind was filled with thoughts and images that she’d have been horrified to know he harboured. He shook them loose and disguised them with a laugh. ‘Interesting technique.’

Above, Sam wound his hawk in tight circles around the eel, trapping it in the spiral of the twin-tails, but she broke free and let herself soar high above him, before circling back around and down to meet him from the side. He dodged away and twisted back, to race the eel through the sky.

The two of them moved in parallel, tightly synchronised, and Sam’s glance ping-ponged down to see what Aimee’s hands were going to do next before shooting back up to watch his hawk respond.

Where she ducked, he dived. When she turned he was right there with her, mirroring her every move.

Her radiant gaze grew large as the beauty and sensuality of the airshow overtook her. Her lips fell open and she sighed. He felt it in his gut more than heard it. Sam took his chance, tightening his strings and bringing the headstrong hawk back under tight control, curling close around the eel but never quite tangling with it. The two kites danced in dreamy synchronicity across the blue canvas sky.

Wild, open, limitless. A place where anything, any future, was possible. His breath grew short.

For one brief moment he raced the hawk ahead of her, hovered in space as her eel caught up, and then twisted in freefall to touch it in a slow-motion aerial kiss before falling away in a showy controlled dive.

Beside him, Aimee gasped.

He steered the hawk back into an ascent and his focus flicked to her, met her gaze head-on. Wide-eyed. Flushed.

Utterly dismayed.

He fumbled his climb, and the strings were yanked meanly from Aimee’s hands as the two kites tangled, tipped, and plummeted in a twisted mess to the hard ground in the distance, their sensual skirmish terminally interrupted.

I’ll take whatever you’ll give me.

That was what he’d said back at the little cafeteria, and he’d meant it to be kind. Some sort of compromise between what he wanted—to really get to know her—and what she needed—to keep a safe emotional gulf between them. But all it did was hurt and mirror her own patheticism back to her. Not even a real word—but it summed her situation up perfectly so she was going with it. She was taking whatever he would give her.

How had she found herself in this situation—again? She marched resolutely back towards the car, her chest balled tight around her anger and pain.

Anger at herself.

Pain because he’d never be able to touch her for real.

What was she prepared to give him? Everything. But she wanted everything in return. Not a friend. Not a shopping buddy. She wanted someone she could curl up with at night, see the wonders of the world with, and whose brain she could mine for useless information. She wanted someone to admire and appreciate and get jealous over. She wanted someone to wander the markets with or sail a boat or fly a kite. Or cheer for at an awards ceremony. All perfectly legitimately.

She wanted someone like Sam. She deserved someone like Sam. And it was a bit of a first in her life to be thinking that way. But all those things were way, way more than he was free to give.

And so Sam playing kissing-kites had done nothing but mess with her head and cut her deep down inside where she never let anyone go.

‘Aimee … Stop.’

‘Someone will steal your kites,’ she threw back over her stiff shoulder, picking up pace as the park got smaller behind them.

‘They’ll have to untangle them first.’

Her smile stretched her skin tight. Even his sharp wit got up her nose. Why couldn’t he be an egotist? Or as thick as two planks? Was he not even the slightest bit muddled by what had just happened back in the skies? By that little aerial seduction?

Did he not even have the decency to be vaguely rattled?

‘Aimee. Please.’

Her feet slowed. Shuffled. Stopped. But she didn’t turn around. Either he’d see how mad she was or he’d see the confusion in her eyes, and she didn’t want either. She clenched her fists. ‘I’ve got somewhere to be, Sam. I’m not at your disposal all day.’

‘You’re angry with me.’

Her eyes drifted shut and she turned slowly, marshalling her expression. ‘I’m not angry with you. I’m just angry at …’ The universe. The timing. ‘… this whole situation.’

‘It was nothing. It wasn’t supposed to be anything.’

That meant he knew it was something. Her mouth dried up.

He lifted his hands either side of him. ‘I just wanted you to have the chance to fly a kite.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you never have. That seems wrong.’

‘Why is it your job to fix the ills of my past?’

He frowned. ‘Because …’ But his words evaporated and his shoulders sagged. ‘I don’t know, Aimee. I just wanted to see your face the first time you got the kite up. I wanted to give you that.’

She stared at him. It was a nice thing to do, and it was just kites. But then it wasn’t. ‘So what was with the kite foreplay?’

It was a risk. She watched his face closely for signs of total bemusement, for a hint that this was all in her head and totally one-sided and she’d just made a complete fool of herself. Or for the defensiveness of a man caught out.

She got neither.

‘I don’t know,’ he murmured, frowning and stepping closer. ‘It just happened. And it was kind of …’ She tipped her head as he grasped for the right words. ‘Beautiful. Organic. It didn’t feel wrong.’

It had been beautiful and it had started so naturally, but it was wrong. It had felt too good so it had to be wrong. She shoved her hands deep into the pockets of her sweatshirt and took a deep, slow breath. ‘This is how we’re always going to go, Sam. Even something ordinary like flying a kite becomes—’ loaded ‘—unordinary.’

He ruffled long fingers through his hair and stared at her. ‘So maybe that’s just us? Why don’t we just … allow for it?’

Allow for it? ‘How?’

He stopped in front of her, looking down with deep, calm eyes. ‘It is what it is, Aimee. Neither one of us is going to act on it, so do we really need to stress about it? We could just accept that there’s an … attraction … between us, and then just move past it.’

Her lips twisted along with the torsion in her gut. ‘You make it sound so simple.’

‘I’m sure we’re not the first two people who have accidental chemistry.’

Except it wasn’t just chemistry for her. Her mind was involved. Her heart. And that made it very complicated.

‘What just happened with the kites …’ he started. ‘I feel comfortable around you, Aimee. Relaxed. It just happened. I’ll be on my guard from now on so that it doesn’t happen again.’

Her chest hurt. ‘What kind of friendship is that going to make? If we’re both constantly guarding our words and actions?’ Our hearts.

His broad shoulders lifted and fell, but she couldn’t tell if it was a shrug or a sigh. ‘Our kind.’

Sam’s defeat was contagious. Her eyes dropped to the ground.

‘Come on. We have an hour before we’re due back. Let’s go rescue the kites and then go back to the café for that interview.’

The interview. Did either of them believe that excuse any more? But the pages of her book were already established neutral territory between them, so it was good to have it to retreat to.

Just accept the attraction …

Aimee shook her head. He was so easy to believe. He was so certain that this was a good idea. Sam had no doubt that he could put aside whatever this was simmering away between them, and maybe he could.

But could she?