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She bit her lip, her mouth already watering as she suddenly realised she was hungry. ‘Yes. I have a half a bottle of water. I’m willing to share if you are.’
‘Deal.’ He switched on the interior light, opened the glovebox and withdrew a well-depleted block. ‘Let’s see.’ He peeled back the wrapping. ‘Six squares. That’s two now, one each for breakf—’
‘Only six?’ She stared at him, incredulous. ‘How many were there?’
‘A lot more,’ he said with a rueful shake of his head. ‘I’m afraid chocolate’s my number one indulgence.’ He broke off a couple of squares, lifted them to her lips with a grin. ‘Shall we indulge together?’
Her mouth dropped open in shock and suddenly the air was thick with all the possibilities that conjured. The image smouldered in her brain and took hold. She just had to reach out to slip her hand inside the open neck of that disreputable shirt. To pop the top button and climb on top of him and lay her caramel-coated tongue along his collar-bone while he returned the favour with his hands. Inside her blouse, beneath her bra, then—No!
Panic-stricken, her eyes shot to his. The heated gleam in his dark gaze told her all she didn’t need to know—shared fantasy. Her nipples hardened, the pulse in her neck beat double time. Without thought, she ran her tongue around dry lips, drawing his gaze to her mouth. ‘You said one square each…’ It was a sultry voice she’d never heard before coming out of her mouth. ‘That’s two.’
‘It’s too soft to break further without making a mess.’ His voice was deeper, too, as he touched the chocolate to her lips. ‘Bite off your half.’
She did as he asked and couldn’t control the murmur of delight as the smooth creamy texture flowed over her tongue. Then she saw him pop the remainder into his mouth. His eyelids dipped and she heard his low growl of approval as he savoured the experience. The same way he might when being worked over by a lover…
Heat spread through her body and her mouth went dry. She swallowed, barely managed to say ‘water?’ as she withdrew the depleted bottle from the door’s pocket.
‘After you.’
She unscrewed the top, downed a self-conscious mouthful while he watched. Sucked in a breath while he watched her wipe the moisture from her lips with her fingers. She handed the bottle to him, careful to avoid contact because right now sparks were a high—and dangerous—possibility.
It was almost a relief when they’d both finished, he’d switched off the light and they’d settled an arm’s space apart beneath the quilt’s warmth in the semi-darkness. She couldn’t help the sigh that escaped.
‘Are you tired?’ Steve asked. ‘You can nap—I’ll keep watch.’
Yes, she was. But she doubted she could sleep even if she wanted to, and no way was she going to let herself succumb to unconsciousness with Steve watching. ‘I’m fine.’ Though it might be preferable to this silent awareness that surrounded them. Outside the wind whistled around the car, leaves swirled along the rough road, but inside their shared warmth beneath the quilt created an intimacy that bordered on pain.
‘Okay. So, I’ve admitted mine—what’s your weakness, Anneliese?’
His question caught her unawares and took her a moment to think past the first thought that flared in her mind—you—which was crazy, and not one she wanted to think about. Especially now, if ever.
‘Red shoes,’ she said finally. ‘And teddies…ah…not to be confused with underwear… I mean the soft furry abandoned kind. You know.’
A knowledgeable experienced smile played around his mouth. ‘I do.’
‘Yes. Well.’ She swallowed. ‘I can’t go past a second-hand or antique shop without checking if there’s one lying in a box somewhere wondering why they were abandoned…’
Her voice broke and she gazed at the windswept vista beyond the windows. Not something Steve Anderson needed to know about. With a deliberate throat-clearing, she brightened her voice, attempted a smile and turned to him. ‘I have sixty-seven at the last count.’
His brows rose. ‘Shoes or teddies?’
‘Teddies. You don’t count your shoes—that’d take all the enjoyment out of shopping for more.’
‘Shopping,’ he murmured, with something like contempt and the heat she’d seen in his eyes moments ago cooled. She could read his expression, could almost hear the words forming in his mind. Spoiled rich chick.
‘It’s a girl thing,’ she said in her defence. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’
‘Here’s something I don’t understand,’ he said slowly with that same remote detachment. ‘Tell me why Dr Marcus Duffield’s only daughter is so set on leaving her father when he needs her most and driving to Surfers Paradise.’
Anneliese swallowed over the ball of pain that lodged in her chest, expanded and crept up her throat. She curled her fingernails into her palms till she was sure they’d draw blood to stop herself from the urge to slice into him the way he’d so neatly and precisely sliced into her. ‘That’s none of your business.’
‘I called on your dad last week. Apart from the grieving process, he’s worried about you, and I don’t think his own health’s a hundred per cent.’
‘I’m—’
‘He doesn’t need the added stress and it concerns me.’ He steamrolled ahead. ‘He gave Dad a new life. He’d still be alive if not for the accident.’ His voice remained low-pitched and reasonable. ‘Marcus doesn’t deserve what you’re doing.’
Steve the expert, laying the guilt at her feet with exasperating calm. ‘So you’re an authority on other people’s family business now?’ She shook her head, the tears she’d been fighting blurring her vision. ‘You know nothing about it.’
‘Then tell me. Explain why you’re so obsessed about inanimate objects like stuffed toys and shoes when you should be directing your concern towards your father at this time.’
‘Because my mother left me, that’s why!’ The anguished words left her lips before she could call them back.
‘Your mother passed away, Anneliese, she didn’t—’
‘Stop!’ Slamming a fist on her knee, she bit down hard on her lip, furious with herself for the momentary lapse. But the truth was out there: Patricia Duffield wasn’t her mother. For twenty-four years Anneliese had been lied to. Kept in the dark. Cheated. Pain hammered through her veins with every beat of her heart.
Suddenly the air inside the car was thick, confining. She wrenched open the door.
She wasn’t Anneliese Duffield.
Her birth name was Hayley Green and she was adopted.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘ANNELIESE…’ Steve reached for her but she was already out of the car, yanking off his vest. She left it where it dropped and began running.
He cursed himself as he watched her. But as he reached for the door, he held back, fingers tightening on the handle. Give her a moment.
His eyes narrowed but remained glued to her receding figure. Perhaps he shouldn’t have gone so hard on her; she was obviously distressed. His fault, damn it. The instinctive urge to offer support overrode other concerns—such as her anticipated resistance to him.
He climbed out, retrieved his vest from the road and started after her. ‘Anneliese, wait!’
She picked up pace at the sound of his voice; he saw her ankle crumple in those damn impractical shoes. ‘Leave me alone,’ he heard her snap. He couldn’t see her face so he couldn’t read her expression, but he heard the struggle, the dismay behind the steel in her voice.
‘No.’ He reached her in less than thirty seconds, felt the tension tremble through her as he turned her around. Her eyes, wide moist pools, looked up at him, vulnerable yet defiant, momentarily stirring emotions he reserved only for his sister. The chill night breeze lifted her hair, bringing her fragrance to his nose.
‘Here.’ He laid his vest around her shoulders. Again. She shrugged at it, at him. ‘I told you to leave me al—’
‘And I said no.’ He held the vest firm but not too firm, his hands easily gripping her slim shoulders. ‘Not until I know you’re all right.’
‘Of course I’m not all right. You!’ She pushed at him, self-disgust colouring her voice. ‘You make me say things I’d never say in my right mind.’
He couldn’t help the smile that tugged at his lips as he said, ‘There’s your answer, then.’ He tugged the zip on his vest up, taking care not to notice as his fingers brushed the swell of her breasts. ‘And I’m not leaving you alone till you are all right.’
He waited till the fight drained out of her, then drew her shivering body against his. Her warmth curved into him, her sigh drifted across his neck. He didn’t know what to say so he waited and said nothing while the trees whispered and something scuffled in the roadside vegetation.
Only Anneliese would see her mother’s death as some sort of betrayal. Something that hadn’t gone her way for once. But she was hurting, and bringing all the emotion to the surface was his fault.
‘Come back to the car,’ he said to the top of her head.
She leaned back a fraction and looked up at him, her face pale and shadowed with fatigue. A strand of her hair blew across her face and caught against her lips.
Catching the silky strands, robbed of their glorious colour in the night’s light, he rubbed them between thumb and forefinger before smoothing them back into place behind her ear. He left his hand there, wanting to feel her skin against his palm. Wanting to tell her everything would be all right. That he was here.
So it seemed natural to lean down and touch his lips to hers. To reassure, to soothe. But as he skimmed her mouth and tasted the tears she hadn’t allowed him to see and the sweetness that bloomed through the salt he wasn’t reassured. Or soothed.
Beyond the casual flirtations, the odd romantic weekend getaway, he didn’t get involved with women. He didn’t allow himself to be suckered into their problems or their plans. Not any more. He’d learned the hard way.
But somehow his arms were around Anneliese and hers were on his chest and she was kissing him back, and not getting involved was history. There was an urgency in the way she grabbed fistfuls of shirt and clung. A passion fuelled by anger and hurt and heaven knew what else.
His own passion flared, fuelled not by anger, but by the sensation of her body as it moved up against his, and those little buttons on her blouse… It sparked along his veins as he urged her mouth to give a little, an enticing hint to the secrets within. The taste of caramel, her own rich texture as his tongue slid briefly against hers.
She released his shirt to spread her hands over his chest, every fingertip touching. Tantalising. Then something changed. Her lips remained locked with his but she pushed at him as if she were engaged in some sort of war with herself.
His arms tightened around her a moment more before he willed them to go slack. If only other body parts would follow suit as easily. He remained perfectly still, giving her the option to pull away when she chose. Perfectly still, because any movement was likely to cause pain or embarrassment, or both, and this was about her, not him.
She pulled back, pressing her lips together as if to deny what they’d done, but even the night’s shadows couldn’t dim the heat of their brief but passionate encounter in her eyes. ‘Why did you kiss me? I’m not one of your… I’m not your kind of woman.’
No, she wasn’t, but the way she’d responded had left him breathless. ‘It wasn’t a one-way street, Anneliese. You kissed me, too.’
She took another step back, hugging his vest around her, and if it had been daylight he knew he’d have seen the blush on her cheeks. Then, to his surprise, she looked down and made a point of staring at the bulge in his jeans. ‘What were you going to do? Lay me down on the road and do it?’
Her graphic accusation stunned him. Even if his imagination had run away on its own course. ‘I can’t control my body’s response,’ he said tightly. ‘You’re an attractive woman. If you think I’d take advantage of your distress you don’t know me at all.’
‘I don’t. Know you. Except as Cindy’s brother.’
‘Ah, yes.’ And that was beginning to annoy him. ‘Because you make a habit of disappearing whenever I come home.’
‘That’s not true.’ But they both knew it was. It was there in her gaze as they eyed one another. She cleared her throat. ‘I apologise, I shouldn’t have said that.’
Yeah, he thought, it cost her to say that. ‘Accepted.’
‘Even if it was true.’
With the evidence in his jeans what could he say that he hadn’t already said? He shrugged, looking away to the low hills in the distance, freeing himself from the spell her eyes seemed to cast over him. ‘So we shared a kiss—no big deal—don’t beat yourself up over it. In fact, forget it, if it makes you feel any better.’
‘I already have. It never happened.’ Liar, Anneliese admitted to herself, her lips still throbbing with Steve’s taste. His scent was imprinted on her brain.
That single solitary kiss would keep her awake and edgy for the next century. Just as he’d said three years ago: You’d just spend the rest of the night awake and restless and wishing formore than just a kiss. Oh, she remembered, word for word. Worse, Steve knew it. She knew he knew it.
‘I’m going back to the car. It’s freezing out here. Are you coming?’ He turned around and began walking.
Anneliese watched him stride away, his shirt flapping in the wind. He hadn’t even checked to see if she was following. How could he be so casual when they’d just shared such a mind-blowing kiss?
Except that was the kind of man he was; he probably had forgotten about it. So she did not want to be some place alone and relive it, she was not going to think about Steve that way at all.
‘Chocolate.’ He broke the last four squares in half—without crushing them—and offered her two. They were back in the relative warmth and comfort of the car. Steve had taken the driver’s side, leaving Anneliese with the edge of the quilt that still held a hint of his residual heat, the lingering scent of his aftershave—not good for her decision not to think about him.
‘I thought that was breakfast,’ she murmured.
‘Take my share—I’ve had more than enough today. Comfort food,’ he reminded her when she made no move to take it.
She nodded, appreciating the simple gesture since there was nothing else till they found a roadhouse, wherever and whenever that might be, and held out her cupped hand. ‘Thank you.’
‘Okay,’ he said slowly, when she’d finished. ‘Have you discussed how you feel about your mum with your dad?’
Dad. The memory of him standing on the veranda this morning, looking smaller, frail, as if he’d shrunk somehow. Dad. The man who saved lives, the man who’d given her every opportunity to experience her own life to its fullest. The father who loved her.
The father who’d lied to her.
Not her father.
‘No.’
‘Don’t you think you should have?’
‘It’s personal. Besides, what would that do to his stress levels?’
He looked at her, his gaze incredulous. ‘You’re going to Surfers Paradise—alone—you don’t think that’s adding to it?’
She sucked in a lungful of air. Her sister lived there. Her biological sister. She’d had a sibling for twenty-four years and had no idea what she looked like, who she was as a person. And, no, she wasn’t going to open up to Steve, no matter how badly she wanted to unburden her secret. Especially not to Steve. She didn’t want to be any more vulnerable to him than she already was.
‘You’re not pregnant, are you?’ His tight voice dragged her back, and she looked into a pair of razor-sharp eyes. Eyes that held definite traces of anger, bitterness and old hurt.
A half-laugh bubbled up, then sobered. Did he have a child out there somewhere from one of his affairs, someone he wondered about? ‘Not that it’s any of your business but, no, I’m not pregnant and I wouldn’t be careless enough to get myself in that situation. There are enough unwanted kids out there,’ she finished with her own bitter thoughts of the mother who hadn’t loved her enough to keep her.
Her life was in such turmoil, how could she bring another life into the world and give it the happiness it deserved? But if she was… Oh, to have someone that came from your own flesh. To belong. And she was travelling halfway across Australia to find that blood connection. Yet she hadn’t replied to the woman called Abigail Seymour she’d found on the Internet adoption site and who worked in a boutique hotel in Surfers Paradise.
And wasn’t that the ultimate irony? She couldn’t bring herself to take that step. To cross the boundary between Anneliese and a girl called Hayley.
She became aware of Steve’s silent scrutiny. And the narrowing of his eyes, the tightness around his mouth. Then he looked past her, his gaze clouded and dark. ‘Are you saying a child of yours would be unwanted? That you’d do whatever it took to be rid of the problem?’
‘I don’t think that’s relevant since I’m not pregnant. This trip’s important,’ she said into the silence. ‘It’s something I have to do.’
His gaze swung back to her. ‘And you’ve chosen to do it away from any kind of support network. Your father loves you and you’re pushing him away.’
At his words, she felt the shivers ripple through her and hugged her arms around her middle, closing her eyes to hide the tears threatening to spill over. ‘Butt out of my business, Steve.’
But Steve heard the desperation behind the tough talk and couldn’t not touch her. He shifted sideways, slipped his arm around her shoulders…and felt an overpowering need to protect. That protective instinct had cost him his happiness once before, but he didn’t let himself think about that now.
For the short time they were here, he cleared his mind of old mistakes and focused instead on Anneliese. On the texture of her hair against his hand, her fragrance, the way she held herself stiff and rigid against his arm. ‘Relax. I’m not going to jump you.’ But that kiss was still smouldering in his mind…and other parts of his anatomy.
‘I know that.’ She rolled her shoulders, leaned a little more loosely against his arm, but her voice came out slightly strangled, as if she was only half convinced.
Her head fell back against his arm, exposing her smooth white throat. ‘I know how you feel…what you think about me.’
Think? Maybe. Feel—that was a different matter altogether. ‘And what do I think?’
