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Far, far away from the histrionics he’d endured as a kid, both before and after his hypersensitive mother had decided that being his mother was simply too hard. Leaving him to the mercy of whichever relative had had the grace to take him that month and increasing the drama tenfold. Every one of them had expected him to be volubly and effusively grateful they’d taken on such an encumbrance as he. The telling of it had become a daily litany. But that had been nothing compared with the horrendously uncomfortable drama that rocked each household the moment the inhabitants realised that they were not, in fact, as altruistic as they’d imagined they were.
Then they’d each and every one whispered behind half-closed doors, perhaps it wasn’t their fault. His own mother had given him away after all.
A flash of something appeared out of the corner of Bradley’s eye, slapping him back to the absolute present. He sat forward, leant his elbows on his knees, and ran his hands hard and fast over his face in an effort to rub the prickly remnants of memory away.
Then all thought fled his mind as he realised what the flash had been. Hannah. Dashing from the bathroom into her bedroom. Naked.
He slowly turned his head to look at the empty spot where the vision had appeared. Piece by piece it slipped into his mind.
A wet female back, a pair of lean wet legs, and a small white handtowel covering nought but what must have been wet naked buttocks.
Hannah. Naked. And right at that moment behind that door, towelling down with something about the size of a postage stamp.
From nowhere a swift, steady heat began to surface inside him. An unmistakable heat. The kind he’d usually invite with open arms.
He dragged his eyes back to the front and stared hard at a pink quilted lamp covered in so many tassels it made his eyes hurt. Better that than focus on the image seemingly burned into the backs of his eyes.
Hannah was hard-working, meticulous, with a reserve of stamina … He stopped when he realised he was repeating himself to himself.
A loud bang came from Hannah’s room, after which rang out a badly muffled oath and what sounded like hopping.
He found himself coughing out a laugh. Relief flooded through him, and the unfortunate heat brimming inside him dissipated, somewhat. That was the Hannah he knew. Hard-working, meticulous, and singularly likely to snap him out of the labyrinth of his mind right when he needed it most.
At that moment Hannah came bounding out of her room. Fully dressed. In fact she appeared to be wearing a grey blanket as she dragged a big black suitcase behind her.
He managed to pull himself from the clutches of the soft couch to stand, just as she plonked her suitcase by the door and turned to face him. Lips parted, breathless. From the suitcase? The hopping? The exertion of running to her room wet and naked?
He gave himself a mental slap.
‘You made yourself coffee?’ she said, staring at the coffee table.
‘Sonja.’
‘Oh. Oh!‘ Her eyes opened unnaturally wide, then flicked to the room into which Sonja had disappeared. ‘Did she …? Did you …?’
He raised an eyebrow.
But she just shook her head, a new pinkness staining her cheeks and a telling kind of darkness in her eyes. It was the kind of look that told a specific story without need for words. It was the kind of look, when added to the image of naked female flesh, that could turn a man’s blood to hot oil.
Though it was far more likely he simply hadn’t fully moved on from the ‘flash’ after all.
You’re a man, he growled to himself, not a rock. Don’t be so hard on yourself.
Suddenly Hannah held up a finger and headed over to the small round table behind the couch, flicked through a bunch of papers.
Ignoring him completely. He gave his head a short, sharp shake.
As she moved, Hannah’s voluminous blanket—which turned out to be some kind of poncho—shifted, revealing that in lieu of her usual filmy, elegant work number she wore dark skinny jeans tucked into cowboy boots, and a fitted black and red striped, long-sleeved top. Truly fitted. Giving him glimpses of the kind of gentle curves that her filmy, floaty, elegant work numbers had clearly never made the most of.
Curves he’d glimpsed naked, with no embellishment. Curves he could almost feel beneath his hands.
Gritting his teeth, Bradley leant his backside against the edge of the couch and waited. And watched. With the early-morning sun streaming through the old window behind her she looked so young, so fresh. Her nose was pink in the morning cold, her cheeks even pinker. Her lips were naturally the colour of a dark rose. She had a smattering of freckles across her nose he’d never before noticed. And her usually neat, professional hair was kinky and shaggy, as if she’d come from a day at the beach. As if she’d just rolled out of bed.
She glanced up to find him staring. After a beat she smiled in apology. ‘Two seconds. I promise.’
He cleared his throat. ‘If I didn’t know better I’d think you were purposely delaying getting moving.’
She blinked at him, several times, super-fast. Then shook her head so quickly he wondered if his sorry excuse for a joke had actually hit its mark. But he knew so little about her outside of how well she did her job he couldn’t be sure.
‘Sonja is clueless about paying bills,’ she went on. ‘It’s too cold a winter for me to risk her getting the heating cut off—even though I can think of a dozen reasons why she might deserve it.’
He found himself stepping over a line he didn’t usually breach as he asked, ‘Why do I get the feeling there’s some other reason you’re avoiding heading out that door?’
‘I—’ She swallowed. Then looked him dead in the eye for several long seconds before offering a slight shrug and saying, ‘It’s not that I don’t want to go back home. I love that island more than anything. I’m just bracing myself for what I am about to encounter when I step across the Gatehouse threshold.’
‘The Gatehouse?’
‘The hotel.’
‘Regretting your choice?’
That earned him a glance from pale green eyes that could cut glass. ‘You truly think I would organise for my only sister to get married in some dive?’
‘I guess it depends if you like your only sister. How long did you say it’s been since you’ve seen her?’
Her cheeks turned pinker still: a bright, warm, enchanting pink as blood rushed to her face. But she chose to ignore his insinuation. ‘The Gatehouse, I’ll have you know, is a slice of pure heaven. Like a Swiss chalet, tucked into a forest of snow-dappled gumtrees. A mere short hike to the stunning Cradle Mountain. A hundred beautiful rooms, six gloriously decadent restaurants, a fabulous nightclub, a cinema, a state-of-the-art gym. And don’t even get me started on the suites.’
Her eyes drifted shut and she shuddered. No, it was more like a tremble. It started at her shoulders and shimmied down her form, finishing up at her boot-clad feet, one of which had lifted to tuck in tight behind her opposite calf.
Sensation prickled down his arms, across his abdomen, between his thighs. He could do nothing but stand there, grit his teeth, and hope to high heaven she’d soon be done and he could get away from this crazy pink boudoir before it fried any more of his brain cells.
Hell. Who was this woman, and where had she put his trusty assistant?
If it were not for those wide, wide, frank pale green eyes that looked right into his, not the tiniest bit intimidated by his infamy, bullheadedness or insularity, he’d be wondering if he was in the right apartment.
That would teach him to try and do something nice for somebody else. Another lesson learnt.
Her foot slid down her calf, and as though nothing had happened she went back to the pile of papers.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I think we can safely assume Sonja will survive till Tuesday.’ She ruffled a hand through her hair, and it ended up looking even more loose and carefree and sexy as hell. ‘I’m ready.’
She ruffled a hand through her hair, and it ended up looking even more loose and carefree, and sexy as hell.
His hands grew restless, as if he wasn’t quite sure where to put them. As if they wanted to go somewhere his brain knew they ought not.
So he gave them a job and grabbed the handle of her suitcase. One yank and his stomach muscles clenched. ‘What did you pack in here? Bricks?’
A hand slunk to her hip, buried somewhere deep beneath acres of grey wool, temptingly hiding more than they revealed.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I have filled the bag with bricks—not, as one might assume, a long weekend’s worth of clothes, shoes and under-things that will take me from day to night, PJs to wedding formal. Have you never been to a wedding before?’
‘Never.’
‘Wow. I’m not sure if you’ve missed out or if you’re truly the luckiest man alive. While you’re trekking through some of the most beautiful scenery in the world—bar Tasmania’s, of course—I’ll be changing outfits more times than a pop singer in a film clip.’
Bradley closed his eyes to stop the vision that throwaway comment brought forth before it could fully manifest itself inside his head.
‘Car’s downstairs,’ he growled, hefting the bag out through her front door. ‘Be there in five minutes or your—’
Underthings that will take you from day to night.
‘Your gear and I will be gone without you.’
‘Okey-dokey.’
With a dismissive wave over her shoulder she went looking for Sonja to say her goodbyes.
Feeling oddly as if a small pair of hands had just unclenched themselves from the front of his shirt, Bradley was out of that door and away from all that soft velvet, stifling frills and froufrou pink that had clearly been chosen specifically in order to scramble a man’s brains.
To the airport, up in the plane, drop her off, thanks gifted—and then to New Zealand he and his research crew would go. He, his research crew, and a juvenile intern who could spend half the day discussing ‘underthings’ and not affect his blood pressure in the slightest.
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_0d5e1d37-11cf-5f76-b0f0-479f47b3fba9)
HANNAH stood in the doorway of the Gulf-stream jet.
Place? Launceston, Tasmania.
Time of arrival? Mid-morning.
Temperature? Freezing.
She breathed in the crisp wintry air though her nose. Boy, did it smell amazing. Soft, green, untainted. She could actually hear birds singing. And the sky was so clear and blue it hurt her eyes. A small smile crept into the corners of her mouth.
She hadn’t been sure how she’d feel, stepping foot back on Tassie soil after such a long time in Melbourne. How parochial the place would feel in comparison with her bustling cosmopolitan base.
It felt like home.
A deep voice behind her said, ‘What? No “welcome home” banner? No marching band?’
‘Oh, Lord,’ she said as she jumped. Then, ‘I’m going, I’m going! You can get on your way. Go back inside. It’s freezing.’
‘I’m a big boy. I can handle the cold.’ Bradley threw the last of a bag of macadamia nuts into his mouth as he looked over her shoulder. ‘So this is Tasmania.’
She looked out over Launceston International Airport. One simple flat-roofed building sat on the edge of acres of pocked grey Tarmac. A light drizzle thickened the cold air. Patches of old snow lay scattered in pockets of shade, while the rest of the ground was covered in little melted puddles.
As far as first impressions went it was hardly going to ring Bradley’s adventure-savvy bell.
‘No,’ she said, ‘this is an airport. Tasmania is the hidden wonder beyond.’
‘Get a move on, then. I don’t have all day.’
She shook her head. ‘Sorry. Of course. Thanks. For the lift. But, please, I don’t need one back. I’ll see you Tuesday.’
With that she gave him a short wave, before jogging down the stairs—only to see the pilot had her bags plonked on the Tarmac next to another set of luggage that looked distinctly like Bradley’s.
‘What’s he doing?’ she asked. Then turned to find Bradley was right behind her.
Instinct had her slamming her hands against his chest so as not to topple onto her backside. Her hips against his thighs. Her right knee wedged hard between his.
Hard muscles clenched instantly beneath her touch. Hot, hard, Bradley-shaped muscles.
All she could think was that, God, he felt good. Big. Strong. Solid. Warm. All too real. She blinked up into his eyes to find glinting circles of deepest grey staring down at her.
‘You’re shaking,’ he said, glowering as though she had somehow offended his sensibilities.
She curled her fingers into her palms and hid them beneath her poncho as she took a distinct step back, her body arching towards him even while she dragged herself away. ‘Of course I’m shaking. It’s barely above zero.’
He looked out across the Tarmac, as though for a moment he’d forgotten where they were. Then his hand hovered to where her hands had been against his chest. He scratched the spot absent-mindedly. ‘Really?’ he rumbled. ‘I hadn’t noticed.’
Truth was, neither had she. For, while the wind-chill factor had probably taken the temperature below zero, she was still feeling a tad feverish after being bodily against a human furnace.
Hannah took another step back. ‘Why has James deposited your luggage beside mine?’
‘I’m researching.’
‘What? The difference between Tarmac in Tasmanian and New Zealand airports?’
Humour flickered behind his eyes. It made her senses skedaddle and a purely feminine heat began to pulse. Then he slid his sunglasses into their usual hiding place and she had no chance of reading him.
‘Less specific,’ he said dryly. ‘Try Tasmania.’ Then he sauntered on past.
‘Wait!’ she called. ‘Hang on just a minute. What am I missing here?’
‘You sell yourself short on your PR abilities. You sold me.’
‘Sold you what?’
‘Tracts of wild, rugged, untouched beauty. Jagged cliffs. Lush forests. Roaring waterfalls. Lakes so still you don’t know which way is the sky. Sound familiar?’
Sure did. One of her many effusive speeches about her gorgeous home.
He continued, ‘It got me to thinking. So it’s decided. The team know what to do in New Zealand. They’ll go that way, while I do a solo recce of this area this weekend.’
So that was what they’d been cooking up in the back of the jet. She’d been busy playing holiday, so as not to get caught up in office stuff—sipping on a cocktail, reading a trashy magazine and listening to the music blaring from her iPod—and she’d blissfully let it all go by.
She must have been gaping like a beached fish, because he added, ‘Don’t panic. I have no intention of invading your holiday. Spencer’s hired me a car and planned me a course.’
Hannah snapped her mouth shut. The fact that he was staying was still beyond her comprehension. But mostly she was struggling with the intense sense of envy that the one time she’d cut herself off was the one time she could have proved her producer potential. Sure, Spencer was great with an online map, but nobody in Bradley’s circle knew the island, the detail, the most TV-worthy spots of her home island more than her.
