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The air bristled with static energy that prickled her skin as if a storm was brewing, but with not a cloud in the sky she knew that wasn’t the reason.
On the edge of the garden, the bushes stirred between the villa she and her friends rented, and the one next door. She started to shake. Why had no one put in fences? They helped keep people out.
Stop!
This is what he wants. Don’t give him the satisfaction. A few deep breaths in out, in out, that’s it. Calm down and find the courage you took to the party last night. He can’t scare you if you don’t let him.
The next-door neighbor’s cat, Mimzie, sauntered out of the bushes, tail high. It looked straight at her, as if to say, “It’s only me.”
Only him. She wanted to believe that desperately.
But the creepy sensation she got when she felt him watching her hadn’t gone. And to pretend that it had would be a cop-out.
“Everything all right, Maria?”
Her eyes lost their focus as her thoughts turned inward. Someone was walking up the driveway; he wore a white T-shirt and dark blue jeans. Not Randy, thank heaven. It was one of the young guys from a house down the street. “My car won’t start…Tony, am I right?”
He reached the top of the driveway and moved into the shade of the carport. One hand pushed a lock of straight surfer-blond hair from his eyes. His smile was cocky. “That’s me, Tony Cahill, the one and only. What happened? Wouldn’t that huge screwdriver scare the motor into submission?”
“I thought the problem might be the battery leads. I was going to try tightening them up with this.” She waved the screwdriver at him. “Or if that didn’t work, take the wooden handle and knock off all this verdigris that’s growing out of it.” She turned around and looked at the engine.
He was tall, which meant he had to duck to fit under the hood. “Let me have a look.” He moved in close, his shoulder brushing hers. “You’re right, it does look a bit of a mess.”
Maria flinched as his arm snaked round her back. His arm sweated on her bare skin as his hand skimmed the underside of her breast and lingered before he reached under her arm for the screwdriver. “Let me see what I can do.”
Maria was trapped, but she wouldn’t let go of the screwdriver, What if she needed it to defend herself? She elbowed him in the ribs. “Creep! I think you’ve done quite enough. You can go now. Your kind of help I can do without.”
Franc had parked on the road. He could see Maria and some lanky kid bending over the open hood of a car, arguing. Urgency lengthened his stride. “Is this a private tussle or can anyone join in?”
The kid jerked his arm away from Maria and a huge screwdriver bounced off the chrome bumper of the outdated Ford and onto the concrete paving, where it lay humming like a tuning fork.
Maria recovered quickly and literally threw herself into his arms. Not that he minded or needed reminding how she’d felt in his arms last night. “Franc! I thought you were never going to get here.”
So they were into playacting. “Sorry, sweetheart, time got away from me.” He took a chance and stole a kiss.
She moved into it like a true drama queen that had just heard “Lights, camera, action,” but the sigh and the flutter of her eyelashes weren’t put on. She was glad to see him. “My car won’t start.”
“I was trying to help her but she wouldn’t let go of the damn screwdriver.” The kid shook his head. His tow-hair shadowed the disgust in his eyes as he moved away from the car. “Women.”
“Thanks for your help, but I’ll take over now.” Franc narrowed his eyes and gave the kid the once-over as he held out his hand.
Hesitating under the scrutiny, the kid stuck out his fist and took Franc’s, saying “You’re welcome.”
As if to confirm the hours he’d spent in the gym weren’t wasted, Franc firmed his grip. “See you around.”
Tony rubbed his palm on the side of his thigh as he started moving away. “Sure, I got somewhere to go.”
As soon as the kid turned his back, Maria laid into Franc. “You actually—” her voice shook as gave what for her passed as a growl “—thanked him!”
“Did I have any reason not to?”
“Tony touched my breast.”
A curse not meant for women’s ears ripped out of his throat. “I should have broken his arm!”
From the bushes he watched them as he stroked the cat.
Watched Jellic’s hands on her as he held her close then turned her back toward the car he’d taken such care to disable.
A new player in the game added excitement, but two was too many. If the young one came back he’d have to make an adjustment.
He almost smiled at the thought.
And at the same time he might use the modification to make sure Jellic didn’t get too close to her. He’d recognized him straight away and knew his competition would be a force to be reckoned with.
Such care and attention Jellic took of her, as if she was fragile. But only he knew how truly fragile Maria was. Ten years hadn’t changed that, or removed her look of innocence.
The innocence he’d taken for his own.
Half an hour later when the jump leads from Franc’s battery to hers made no difference, he threw in the towel. In fact, he screwed it up in a ball and chucked it in disgust. “We’re going to have to get the car towed.”
“Marvelous. It’s Christmas Eve, no one’s going to want to know. How am I going to get home?” Maria knew she sounded selfish after all Franc’s efforts, but she’d been looking forward to a couple of nights at home with the family, the one place she knew she’d be safe from Randy Searle.
“Leave it to me,” he said. “I know a garage.”
Franc was as good as his word, as far as it went, but even he couldn’t get her car fixed on Christmas Eve. Close on an hour slipped away as if made of water as they waited for a tow truck.
Business was obviously too good.
“I need to ring home. Maybe one of my brothers can spare the time away from the wife and kids to come and get me,” she said as Franc drank his second cup of coffee.
She’d punched in the area code and the first two digits, when a shadow fell across her and loomed large on the wall. Habit sent a shiver to ice her spine, and she knew there was no way she could stay here tonight alone with only her fears to keep her company.
A glance was enough to dispel them for now. Franc filled the door frame with his shoulders, bracing one against the jamb while his hand gripped the frame overhead. “Leave that for now. I have a better suggestion. Let me run you home.”
“That would be an imposition. I couldn’t do that to you the night before Christmas. I don’t even know why you turned up here in the first place, but I am grateful you did.”
He tapped his shirt pocket. “Damn! I didn’t return your glasses. I see now there wasn’t a rush. In fact, the ones you’re wearing look pretty cute. They’re the kind that prove you can look like a librarian and still be sexy.”
In the narrow hallway the atmosphere hummed with tension left over from the night before. It licked up the back of her neck in a way that made her head spin. It was all she could do to give him a sensible answer. “I keep telling you, I’m not that kind of librarian. I’m a researcher.” The husky murmur she achieved was less than sensible, but she couldn’t take it back.
He quirked an eyebrow at her to ask, “Does that mean you’ll save me the research and tell me where you want to go?”
But it was his crooked smile that had her saying, “The family vineyard is on the other side of Matheson’s Bay. It normally takes about two hours from Auckland, but tonight the roads will be jammed with traffic both ways.”
No matter how much she wanted to get home, she had to warn him, “If you give me a lift, I can’t see you getting back to Auckland much before midnight.”
“No worries, I’m a night owl. Besides, didn’t you say your brothers have kids? I’d feel bad about them missing out on all the fun, of hanging stockings and setting out the presents.”
Franc had just flicked the off switch on her original idea. She couldn’t take her brothers away from their children on Christmas Eve, no matter how much she dreaded spending a night in the house alone. “You’re right. It wouldn’t be fair. I accept your offer, but I hope you don’t regret making it.”
“What’s to regret?” He made a joke of it. “I’ll do anything if it gets me an extra three hours with my favorite woman.”
Maria’s eyes widened a moment then fluttered closed, leaving Franc with a picture of bruised violets crushed underfoot to tug at his conscience, because there was an element of truth in what he’d said.
“I know you’re teasing since we only met last night, but I can’t take you from your family on Christmas Eve, any more than I could take one of my brothers away from his family.”
His family? Hell, his sister was the only member of it he’d met up with in years.
“That’s because you’re judging my family by your standards. We’re all pretty much loners. Or we used to be. My sister got married last year, so you can count her out, but my brothers will be working through the holiday. She’s the only one of us who’s married, the rest of us are married to our jobs.”
Drago, the eldest, would be up to his neck in his latest book on the wines of New Zealand. As for the twins, just above Franc in age, Kurt would be hip-deep in work on the lodge he would open next year at Aoraki, Mount Cook National Park, not far from Queenstown, a tourist resort that had two busy seasons, winter for the skiing, and the rest of the year for the tourists.
The other Jellic twin, Kel, could be anyplace on the Pacific Rim, investigating drug trafficking, as if he lived his life in a movie. But in his case, the danger was real. And so secret he hadn’t contacted Franc when he’d been in town a few weeks ago. Kel had been in Auckland only last month and hadn’t even given him a call.
“And tomorrow, what are your plans?”
“Much of them revolve around kicking back on my own, watching the Sports Channel and eating the giant turkey-and-cranberry pizza I have stashed in the freezer.” Now that he’d said it out loud, he guessed it didn’t sound like anyone’s idea of a perfect Christmas, but after a year spent slogging his guts out, it had been his notion of hog heaven.
“Let’s make a deal then. I’ll let you drive me home if you will stay the night.” Maria raised twin arched eyebrows over eyes that brought his protest stuttering to a halt. “You wouldn’t want me sleepless through worrying if you made it home safely?”
Franc wasn’t about to contradict her. The only way he wanted her sleepless was in his arms, in his bed, moaning because she couldn’t get enough of him…
A sensation that prickled like a warning crept through the short hairs at the back of his neck. It followed the thought, But would he ever get enough of her?
What the hell was the matter with him? He’d been given about two weeks out of his usual routine. Twelve days max to indulge in a lighthearted fling, with one of those days already struck off and another well on its way.
With a flick of his wrist he checked his watch, reading the time past the scratches on the glass. For all it was gold, its slightly battered condition usually raised a few eyebrows until he mentioned it had been his father’s. The nods of understanding this engendered always wanted to make him laugh. The timepiece wasn’t worn to remind him of his father, its job was to remind him not to follow in his footsteps.
His father had crossed the line for money, but Franc would far rather be an honest jerk than a dead one like his dad.
“Isn’t it a bit late to expect your parents to put up a stranger for the night.”
“You don’t know Mamma. For her, nothing is impossible. Please say you’ll stay, then I can call and tell her you’re bringing me home with a clear conscience.”
“Okay, I guess one night couldn’t hurt.”
Maria shrugged as she put down the receiver. Her mother had sounded odd when she asked if Franc could stay the night. The inquisition she’d expected had been glaring by its absence. Instead, she’d caught a hint of relief in the brisk no-nonsense acceptance that Maria was bringing a friend home—for the first time. Although, it might simply be gratitude that Papa wouldn’t have to drive all that way to fetch her.
“Point me in the direction of your bag and I’ll carry it out while you make sure the house is secure.”
“I was going to change first.”
His gaze traveled from the tips of her toes to her face, trailing a flush of color in its wake where the blood rushed under her skin. “I don’t see what’s wrong with what you’re wearing, but give me a whistle when you’re ready.”
This was the type of treatment her brothers dished out, they were as protective of her as Mamma and Papa. “If you insist, but my case really isn’t that heavy.”
The house was a Victorian villa with a shotgun hallway that ran from front to back. Like a lot of others on Northcote Point it had been built long before Auckland Harbour Bridge had been a twinkle in the designer’s eye. She dashed into her room, grabbed her clothes from the wardrobe then dived across the hall into the bathroom, locking the door behind her. It wasn’t that she had any reason not to trust Franc, quite the opposite. But the business with Randy had made her look at every man in a new light.
So, where were your senses this afternoon when you gave Tony a chance to paw you?
After changing with the speed of a catwalk model, she whistled for Franc as instructed and discovered he hadn’t gone far when he appeared almost immediately, striding down the hall as if he owned the place. Some men carried an aura with them that made them at home anywhere. She guessed Franc was one of them.
She pushed back her bedroom door and pointed. “That’s my case on the bed. As you can see it’s quite small.”
His eyebrows shaped a V above the high bridge of his nose. “Are you sure you could get everything you need in there? We won’t drive halfway and discover you’ve forgotten something vital that means we have to turn around and fetch it?”
Franc’s question was a big giveaway to the type of women he was used to dealing with. For sure they weren’t like her. If she forgot anything, she was the one who had to go back for it. “Don’t worry. I keep a lot of casual gear at home. Most of my clothes here are strictly for business.”
Franc’s breadth made the bedroom walls close in on her. It was hard to be nonchalant about his presence beside her bed when what she wanted to do was quickly dodge past him to check that the windows were locked. She flicked a sideways glance at him from under her lashes, but his attention wasn’t on her. Following his gaze, she was mortified to see a pale pink lace chemise hanging out of the top drawer of the dresser, next to the bed.
She was usually so tidy, tucking everything in place the way the nuns had taught her at boarding school. Franc’s presence in the house must have flustered her.
And now her secret was out. Compared to the rest of her everyday wardrobe, her lingerie was hot.
It hadn’t seemed to matter that no one knew as it meant no one saw the scars her beautiful silk scanties were too small to hide.
Maria had been careful not to get into a situation that meant a man would expect to see her body, though the need to hide her scars hadn’t bothered her until now. Until Franc.
“Nice…” She heard the grin in his voice though his face never twitched.
She shaped her lips into a fierce grimace that only broadened his grin. “You never saw that,” she told him as she tucked the pink lace back where it belonged. “My mother would have a fit. She’s inclined to be old-fashioned.”
“When it comes to daughters, most mothers are,” he answered, yet his eyes said more. Touched more. He was doing it to her again, taking her libido on a journey it had never traversed before. Something shifted inside her, a need, a wanting, an ache.
She did her best to ignore it.
Franc studied her single bed as he picked up her case to leave. Neat and virginal, with family photographs on the nightstand; under its flower-sprigged quilt was hardly the place to conjure steamy dreams in the middle of the night. Unlike in his bed last night. Dreams stymied until he confronted Maria and his bed in one and the same place.
It didn’t seem to matter any longer that he’d first met her while she was looking for Randy. The last few hours made him certain that associating with Randy had done nothing to taint the innocence she exuded. How would it feel to have Maria surrender that innate innocence to him?
For Franc Jellic, it would be an unmistakable first.
Maria reached up to check the catch of the old-fashioned sash window closest to her bed. It was undone.
Newly formed ice, at odds with the temperature inside the room, slicked over her skin as she swiveled the small lever into place. Her gaze landed on the drawer she’d divested of its lacy adornment. She never treated her clothes that way or left her room untidy. Her training was too ingrained.
Her eyes searched the garden, focusing on the bushes Mimzie the cat had disturbed, unmoving now as if weighed down by the heat. Had someone been in her room? Randy?
Or was her imagination working overtime?
Wasn’t her journal farther over on the nightstand than she could easily reach from in bed? She grabbed it and put it in her purse. Hurrying to leave before Franc came back to look for her, she glanced over her shoulder, scanning the room, remembering the position of every ornament, every picture frame.
No matter how terrifying the prospect, she just had to know if anyone came into her room and touched her things while she was away. Then, on an impulse, she turned back, reopening the drawer to scoop up an armful of silk and lace underwear. Quivering, she tossed every last piece into the laundry basket.
Whether anyone had gazed at her ultrafeminine garments with lust in their heart she had no way of knowing, but the thought of it made her wonder what would happen if she told Franc. Would he help her see that Randy Searle got what was coming to him?
Or would he put it down as a flight of her imagination.
