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‘And…?’
‘And it’s true I’m looking at some aspects of our security—’ Romy turned to stalk off. A strong, wet hand wrapped around her elbow and drew her back. ‘But relax. I’m not doing you any special favours. Why would I? I hardly know you.’
Oh.
He might as well have slapped her across the face with a wet reality fish. Romy groaned inwardly and called herself all manners of idiot. She’d allowed her own complexes to totally feed off Simone’s skewed view of what was going on in the office after dark. He was right. Why would he help her out?
‘Why do you care, anyway?’ He lifted a towel from the tray of his ute and patted his face and neck dry. That was when she saw the tattoo, beautifully positioned on his left bicep. A sword surrounded by a garland of snakes.
‘Because I’m more than capable of doing any part of this job. I don’t need backup.’ Before he could open his mouth, she barrelled on. ‘So whatever you’re working on it might be smart to keep me in the loop so we’re not double-handling.’
He slung the towel over his shoulder. ‘It doesn’t matter—I’m nearly done, anyhow.’ Dismissed. His imperious tone got right up her nose. Reminded her of another man. An older man.
‘Going back into hiding for another twelve months?’ She could have bitten her tongue off the moment the bitchy comment slipped out.
He shook his head. ‘Are you always this unpleasant?’ His words were as cool as the water evaporating off his skin. They just begged to be challenged.
She took a deep breath. ‘I don’t buy this whole brooding, damaged act, you know. I’m sure it does great things for your reputation in town but it’s been a couple of years—don’t you think it’s getting a little old?’
His eyes narrowed to slits. ‘So now you’re familiar with my past and all? That’s a bit like me saying your high-and-mighty act is getting tired.’
A needle stabbed through Romy’s chest. High and mighty? Why that hurt particularly, after everything she’d been called in life…Yet her voice was tight when she responded.
‘You’ll have to do better than that, McLeish. I’ve had every name under the sun thrown at me and survived it. I’m resistant to sticks and stones, too. Too many calluses.’
He blinked slowly and considered her. ‘By who?’
Whoa. How did they get here? She only wanted to call him on the extracurricular night-school activity. She backed off, fists clenched tight. ‘I have to get on with the fence. Excuse me.’
‘You were out here working?’
She pointed to the fence line silhouetted against the glare at the top of the hill and he followed her gaze sceptically. ‘Relax, McLeish. I’m not stalking you. Why would I? I hardly know you.’
His own words flung back at him, he smiled. ‘You know how to string a fence?’
The doubt in his voice got her blood racing. ‘You think you’re the only one who gets to be capable? What is it with you military types?’
His rebuttal was soft. ‘The question is, what is it with you and military types?’
She glared at him. ‘That is none of your beeswax.’
Good one, Romy, you sound all of twelve years old.
Ignoring the amused sparkle in his eye, she tossed her hair back over her shoulder and powered on up the hill, swishing at the flies the whole way.
‘Let me give you a hand with that.’ Clint appeared behind her and held out a pair of gloves.
Having assured herself with a quick glance that he was fully dressed now, Romy focused on the wire in her hands. ‘I don’t need help, thanks.’
‘I know you don’t, but I’d like to…’
She squinted into the open sincerity on his face and made to thank him. Then he went and ruined it.
‘…and I’m the boss, so what I say goes.’
She tightened a smile around the retort she was dying to spit and turned back to the torturous fence. She saw Clint flick a glance at her broken wire strainers on the ground and the arrangement she’d rigged up by proxy with a screwdriver twisted into the wire. Thanks to her angry yanking, the ratchet had broken at the crucial moment, leaving her to tighten four strands manually in century-plus heat. Every turn of the screwdriver pulled the wire that bit tighter but it was a hellish way to do it.
One strand had taken her twenty minutes.
‘Go ahead,’ she relented, standing carefully and letting him into her place.
He squatted at the fence line and spoke from under his Akubra hat, getting a feel for the wire. ‘Can I ask you a question?’
Romy hesitated. Something told her it wasn’t going to be about work. ‘Sure…’
He twisted, once, twice, and then he retested the wire. The strength in the contoured triceps emerging from the sleeves of his T-shirt was distracting. He gave it two more twists until he was satisfied, then he levered the screwdriver free and turned to look up at her.
‘Where’s Leighton’s father?’
She stared at him. She preferred the direct approach to Simone’s whispered speculation but she wasn’t entirely ready for the question, despite dreading it half her life. Every clever answer she’d ever imagined abandoned her.
‘I don’t know.’ That was as honest as she could be.
The beat-up Akubra tilted curiously and the flash of green was disconcerting. ‘Doesn’t he see his son?’
‘No.’ Again, short but true.
‘You don’t want to talk about it?’ He balanced on his haunches as though he could sit there all day.
Not with you. ‘I’m not used to talking about it.’
‘No-one’s ever wanted to know? I find that hard to believe.’
Romy kicked the dust at her feet. ‘Most people would think it was a rude question to actually verbalise.’
His hat lifted slightly with his eyebrows. Was that a blush creeping up his throat? Her mouth curved at the realisation it simply hadn’t occurred to him not to ask. The hint of humanity made her more inclined to answer.
‘He and I…parted ways a long time ago,’ she said.
The understatement of all time. The spectre of the Colonel loomed. Whore. Worse.
Clint studied her, then spoke quietly. ‘Does he know he has a son?’
Bang, right on the money. Instincts like that would have been wasted anywhere other than a specialist role. Commandos, maybe? Or Tactical Assault. She struggled to keep her anger in check as old hurts oozed up.
‘I doubt he even knew he’d had sex,’ she muttered grimly.
Those sea-green eyes flicked away for the barest of moments, then locked onto hers again. ‘Right. Next topic?’
She took a deep breath. ‘Yes, please.’
And just like that it was over. She’d shared her shame with someone. The absolute last someone she would have expected to be opening up to but he hadn’t sneered or even judged her. There was nothing but compassion in those twin depths.
‘Can I ask you a question?’ she risked.
‘Maybe.’
She perked up. ‘What branch of the military were you in?’
‘If I told you I’d have to kill you.’ His laugh was only half joking.
‘Seriously…’
He looked at her, his voice tighter than the wire he was straining. ‘Does it matter?’
She kept her gaze steady. ‘No. But I’m curious.’
‘Don’t be.’
A big part of her wanted to smack that hat right off his head. But she reined it in. ‘Hey, I’ve just stripped myself naked for you. The least you could do is drop one article.’
Those powerful hands stopped working entirely and a deep chuckle followed like a distant rumble of thunder. ‘You do have a gift for expression, Romy.’
Not deflected, she stared down into his broad shoulders until the silence grew tangible. He sighed and twisted up to her. ‘I was an operative with Strike Force Taipan. Tactical Assault and Extraction.’ His voice turned from grudging to irritated. ‘Why are you smiling?’
Taipans. It fit. She could see him slipping over the edge of a Zodiac all camouflaged at midnight. ‘Just revelling in the momentary pleasure of knowing everything. It happens very rarely.’
‘Is that right?’
‘I have an eight-year-old particularly gifted at pointing out when I’m wrong.’ He took after his grandfather.
He chuckled again, only this time she watched the grin spread over his face. It really transformed him, as if he wasn’t striking enough already.
In a kill-you-with-a-well-placed-thumb kind of way.
‘All done.’ He pulled off the gloves and wiped his hands on his jeans, then returned to his usual position, towering over her. Romy realised how accustomed she’d become to gazing up at him. Despite always being short, it was possibly the only time she’d felt…fragile. The thought had her scrambling away from him, her voice breathy.
‘Okay. Well, thanks. I guess I should be grateful nature endowed one of us with muscles.’
That smile again. ‘There’s more to life than brute strength. Besides, you virtually repaired this single-handed. I just got to swan in at the end and be the hero.’
At his own words, the light dimmed from his eyes. They clouded with something dark. He glanced towards his vehicle and then busied himself collecting the tools scattered across the ground. She joined him. When her toolkit was packed and there was no good reason to linger, she pulled her hat off and ran her fingers through sweat-dampened hair.
He hadn’t met her eyes for minutes now. ‘I guess I should get going. Thanks for the help…’
‘You’re welcome.’ Still no eye contact but critically polite. He collected up the broken strainer and turned towards his ute at the foot of the hill. Romy frowned. What had she said? Why did she even care? This man was nothing to her, only her employer.
But she did.
She sighed and turned away from him.
Clint felt the loss of her grey, almond-shaped eyes. It hadn’t been hurt simmering away in those smoky depths; she was too protected for that. It was caution. Confusion. And something else, something older that didn’t belong to him. But he felt like a heel, anyway.
‘I’m sorry, Romy. I’m not angry at you.’
‘Who are you angry at?’ Her whispered reply drifted to him on the warm breeze. Anxious. The playful spark in her expression completely absent. Yet another thing he’d killed in this world. It was a reasonable question but impossible to answer. Hadn’t he tried all these years to figure it out? Lord knows he’d had plenty of time. Somewhere along the line it got easier not to think about it any more.
He stared long and hard at her. ‘Do you swim?’
Her confusion doubled. ‘Why?’
‘If you swim, don’t do it in the dams around the cottage. Come here. This is the best for swimming.’
‘I’d already gathered that.’
‘Swim here.’ Why was he obsessing on this?
She straightened. ‘That sounds vaguely like an order.’
‘Will that have more impact?’
‘I’d prefer you to ask me.’
He shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his board shorts. ‘Ah, sorry. Occupational hazard.’
‘You can take the man out of the corps…’
‘What do you know about the corps?’
‘Unit. Corps. God. Country,’ she said. ‘Doesn’t leave much room for being human.’
He squinted. ‘You know the code?’
‘I lived with the code.’
Her simple grimace was telling. He knew only too well the personal price soldiers paid for honouring that ideal. Family came in a poor fifth right behind your unit. The men who kept you alive, who had your back.
Or were supposed to.
For all those big, beautiful eyes seemed to know about loss, he doubted they knew squat about betrayal. The things he’d seen, things he’d done. The things others had done that he’d never been able to reconcile. She didn’t have a clue. Romy Carvell was like a fresh set of combat camos: unsullied, crisp at the seams. The sort of thing you could slip into and feel clean, just for a moment until the sand leached in.
‘I’m asking you, Romy. If you or Leighton swim, please make it here. Okay?’
She considered him long and hard. Then she shrugged. ‘It’s your property.’
Something deep inside him staggered with relief. ‘What are you doing this evening?’
She blinked at his rapid change of direction. ‘Uh…Helping Leighton with a science project.’
