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Tash tossed her head and tried to ignore the darkness in Mitch’s eyes. She reached up behind to scratch between her shoulder blades. ‘Is there anything else I need to know?’
He didn’t smile. The shadows in his eyes didn’t retreat. ‘Don’t go off on your own.’ He gestured to the coastal forest that surrounded them.
She tried to get the expression in his eyes out of her mind. He wasn’t some cute, roly-poly Labrador puppy she’d just kicked, but a grown man who’d screwed her over.
She puffed out a breath. She wanted—needed—him to keep his distance.
She scowled and glanced up into the never-ending blue of the sky. ‘We’re safe here, right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Some semi-deranged criminals aren’t going to come crashing through the undergrowth, are they?’
He widened his stance. ‘Practically guaranteed not to happen. Next to nobody knows about this place.’
‘Right, then.’ She dusted off her hands. ‘I don’t see why we can’t carry on as we planned to before all of this nonsense.’
Three frown lines marred his forehead. ‘I’m not catching your drift.’
‘You’d planned on a few days R & R out here, right?’
‘Right.’ He drew the word out.
‘Me, too. Well, not here, obviously, but I’d planned on spending a significant amount of this coming week on a beach.’ She’d planned to travel five or six hours further up the coast, but...whatever. ‘And for the rest of it I was planning to read a big fat novel or two, order takeaway pizza, eat too much chocolate and not do a scrap of work.’
After three years of working without a break, she deserved a holiday.
‘You’re suggesting we holiday together?’
‘Not together!’
His lips twisted. ‘Of course not. My mistake.’
‘But...’ If she wasn’t going to worry herself into an early grave...‘Yes, to the holiday bit.’
He shifted his weight again and it drew her attention to the long, clean lines of his legs. Her mouth dried. ‘Except—’ she suddenly pointed at him ‘—you’re not to go strutting around without a stitch of clothing on like you probably do when you’re here on your own. Skinny-dipping is prohibited.’
She shouldn’t have thought of Mitch naked. A whole host of illicit images pounded at her. Her cheeks started to burn. Very slowly a grin spread across his face. Eyes as warm as Mediterranean nights urged her to drop the attitude. Hands that, apparently, hadn’t lost their allure for her over the past eight years tempted her to let down her guard. And the combined scent of mint and citrus curled around her, making her mouth water and an ache start up low in her belly.
Her chest cramped. Her pulse pounded. Her hands clenched.
His grin hooked up the right side of his mouth in the most intriguing way and her heart started to hammer. He leant in closer, swamping her with heat and mint and citrus. ‘It’d be almost worth it just to see the look on your face. You might have a smart mouth and attitude to burn, Tash Buckley, but I have a feeling it’d be as easy as ever to unsettle you.’
It couldn’t be possible! She fell back a step. She couldn’t still want Mitch after all this time.
‘Do it and I leave.’ Fear made her voice tart.
He eased back and the tropical blue of his eyes hardened to chips of ice. ‘Then you’d be a fool.’
Maybe, but at least she’d be a fool with her heart intact.
‘We carry on exactly as we’d planned...separately.’
She turned and stalked back towards the cabin.
It was only for a couple of days, three at most, she told herself, storming into the bedroom where Mitch had deposited her suitcase. She flung it open and with as much speed as possible slipped into her swimming costume. All she had to do was keep things polite and pleasant. She might have to work at it, but...
Pleasant? She grimaced and pulled a shirtdress on over her head. Okay, pleasant might not be possible, but polite—distantly polite...very distantly—that should be manageable. For heaven’s sake. The man was only doing his job. She owed him some measure of gratitude whether she liked it or not.
Okay, well, obviously she didn’t like it, but she could be adult about this. She gritted her teeth. She would be adult about this.
She practised a smile. There wasn’t a mirror in the bedroom to tell her how well she’d pulled it off. It felt plastic, but it had to be better than a snarl, right? She slipped her feet into flip-flops and sauntered back into the main room. Mitch sat at the table, just...
She swallowed. He just sat there.
She recalled his attempt to apologise.
She recalled the way she’d spurned it, threw it back in his face and her smile started to slip. With a Herculean effort she slotted it back into place. ‘Mitch?’
He glanced up. He took in her bare legs and something flashed in his eyes. An answering tightness clenched her stomach.
She shook herself. ‘I, um...’ She frowned and leaned towards him. ‘If I weren’t here, what would you be doing?’
He shrugged. It seemed casual but something told her it wasn’t. She swallowed and suspected her smile had become a grimace. ‘Well, if I were you, I’d get on with it.’
Unless it was walking around naked or skinny-dipping.
‘I suspect my being on the beach might cramp your style,’ he drawled, his eyes hard in a way that didn’t fit her memory of him.
He could be right. ‘There’s room enough for the both of us on your beach.’
‘That’s not the impression I got.’
She knew she’d been churlish, but... She tossed her head. Given their history, the least he deserved was churlish. He sure as heck couldn’t imagine she’d be doing cartwheels about any of this.
She backed up a step. ‘I’m going to go for that swim.’ She didn’t wait for him to answer, but shot straight out of the door and down the track that led to the beach.
The headlands on either side pushed straight out to sea, the weathered rocks grey and smooth. In a storm or high seas it would probably be dangerous to swim here, but on a clear easy day like today curling waves rolled up to shore, set after perfect set. It was the ideal surf for body boarding. Not that she had a body board. She’d have to content herself with body surfing instead.
She dropped her towel to the fine white-gold sand and, refusing to turn around and glance back behind her, set straight off for the water.
She paddled for a couple of moments, the shock of cold water tightening her skin. Lifting her face to the sun, she relished the contrast between the cold and the heat.
And then she surveyed the surf. She’d never swum at a deserted beach before. Even though she was a strong swimmer she preferred the safety of a patrolled beach. Today, though, knowing Mitch would undoubtedly be watching from some hidey-hole, she moved forwards into the water, greeting the waves and finally diving beneath one. She caught a couple of waves and in less than five minutes she gave herself up to the joy of being in the water.
And every time thoughts of Mitch or Rick and the threat to her wellbeing intruded, she pushed them right back out again.
She practised handstands until waves knocked her over. She caught waves until she was worn out. She floated, relishing the sense of weightlessness and the cool water enveloping her.
‘Tash!’
The shout came from the shoreline. She started and gulped a mouthful of water, remembering in a rush that someone wished her ill. She turned to find Mitch waving her in.
Why?
Could this whole nightmare be over already?
With a queer twist in her abdomen, she headed for the shore. She took the towel he handed her. ‘What’s up?’
‘You’ve been out there for an hour and a half. Don’t you think it’s time for a break?’
An hour and a half? She blotted moisture from her skin and tried to appear unfazed and unflustered.
She had nothing to be flustered about.
Except for the way Mitch’s eyes kept flicking to her legs...and her hips.
He jerked away. ‘And beyond time to top up the sunscreen.’
She squeezed water from her hair, towelled off as best she could and then pulled her dress back over her head. She did her absolute best to ignore him, but it wasn’t easy when he paced a few short metres away, back and forth, back and forth, on those strong tanned legs of his.
She tore her gaze away to slap a sunhat to her head and spread her towel out. She collapsed on it and then pulled a tube of sunscreen from her bag. She reapplied it to her face, and then her arms and legs. She finally donned a pair of sunglasses.
He didn’t say a word.
His silence irked her. ‘Any news?’
He stopped pacing and shook his head. ‘No news.’ His face softened slightly. ‘But I thought you might be hungry so I made lunch. Only sandwiches and fruit.’
She didn’t want his face to soften when he looked at her! She didn’t want her belly softening when she looked at him! She didn’t want him looking out for her, bossing her around or telling her what to do!
‘I don’t need you doing things for me or telling me what to do. I’m capable of deciding when I need to put on sunscreen and I can make my own lunch!’ The words rocked out of her with too much force.
He stiffened and his eyes flashed. ‘I think you meant to say, “Thank you, Mitch, for going to the trouble”.’
Ha! ‘You, at least, are being paid to be here, being paid to make lunch, being paid to keep an eagle eye on me, while I’m supposed to just submit and say “Thank you, Mitch”?’ She let fly with a loose laugh. ‘As if that’s going to happen.’
He threw the picnic basket to the sand. ‘You want to quibble about money when your life is in danger?’
She hated the way her pulse leapt at his wide-legged stance and flashing eyes.
He wheeled away. ‘If you think I’m going to keep taking this crap from you, Tash, you’re sorely mistaken.’
He wheeled back and she leapt to her feet. ‘What are you going to do about it,’ she shot at him, slamming her hands to her hips. ‘Throw me in a police cell?’
‘The NSW Police Force is doing everything it can to keep you safe! Would it seriously hurt you to show some gratitude?’
‘If it were any other officer here then there’d be no problem on that head. Get another officer down here today and I’ll show all the gratitude you want!’
His face twisted and his voice rose. ‘It’s school holidays. Summer. There isn’t another damn person available unless I call Peters in from her holiday with her kids. Is that what you want?’
She almost said yes, but in all conscience couldn’t.
He slashed a hand through the air. ‘Rick has timed this perfectly!’
It was as if he’d hurtled her back eight years—back to the confusion, the pain and the rage. The helplessness. The realisation of what she’d done. The realisation of what he’d done. ‘Rick is innocent you block-headed idiot!’ she screamed as loud as she could.
His eyes blazed like blue fire. ‘You’re the idiot—the blind idiot—where Rick is concerned.’
Every muscle bunched and tensed until she shook with it, frustration a murderous black bile in her blood. She not only knew how to disable, but how to make a person scream with pain while she did it. And she wanted to make Mitch howl. Her hands clenched and her temples pounded with such force she thought her head would explode.
She clenched a fist...raised it...
And then her father’s image rose up in her mind and she went cold all over. She took a step back, her hand falling to her side, her chest rising and falling and burning. ‘I have never loathed anyone in all my life with the intensity I hate you, Officer Mitchell King.’
He paled.
‘I do not want to be here with you.’ She’d almost struck him! ‘What are my other options?’
‘There’s a safe house in Hornsby. You’d need to remain inside at all times, hidden.’ He swung away, raked a hand back through his hair. ‘I remembered how active you were—how much you hated being cooped up—and figured you’d prefer being out here.’
She swore and sat, rested her head in her hands for a bit. They couldn’t go on like this. She’d almost hit him! The thought of being cooped up in a hot sweaty suburb didn’t appeal one bit, though, either.
What on earth had happened to polite distance?
She lifted her head. She dragged in a breath. ‘What kind of sandwiches did you make?’
‘Ham and tomato.’
Her favourite. She reached into the basket and took one. ‘Thank you.’ But it came out stilted.
He sat then too, but he kept the basket between them. Wise. Very wise.
‘I’m sorry.’
She didn’t want an apology. She wanted him gone. You can’t have that. Get over it.
‘If I have this wrong and you’d prefer the safe house just say the word.’
She considered it. Seriously considered it. She stared at the beach, the surf, the sky. Eventually she shook her head. ‘This,’ she gestured to the beach, ‘is better.’
A heavy silence descended.
Would you like to clear the air?
She set down her sandwich. Would it help?
