Yeah, he just had to ease up on the throttle. He was here for seven weeks more yet, though he’d planned to check out some other towns in-between to give Alex and Harly time alone, but still, he would be here most of the time.
Barging around like a bull in a china shop just wasn’t the way to do it. He could very well end up embarrassing himself and his friends.
Damn good sense. Even though he knew he was thinking correctly, he couldn’t help but be annoyed, not able to quite tamp down the impatience at waiting. Personally, he preferred the upfront directive - walk in, ask who Bree was, introduce himself and talk. This tip-toeing around was crap.
But he’d do it. Sighing, Nick started for the café. Damn it, he’d be subtle.
Dumb arse.
Determined to remain calm and directed, Nick spent the rest of the day helping Alex and Paul, finding the building
soothing. Certainly made a difference when the day was cool, the surroundings were green and he wasn’t worried about getting his head shot off.
Paul had the radio blaring rock songs, and the easy laughter of the carpenters and Alex was a soothing balm, helping to keep his mind off The Goodbye Girl.
The only thing that troubled him was the thought that while he was working, she could be packing and leaving town.
Squaring his jaw, he continued working.
By the time they knocked off work, he was dusty, sweaty and more than ready for a shower. Harly greeted them at the front door, Buffy at her side, Sunny waiting for him on the hallway table. Sunny took one look at the plastic bag in his hand and her whiskers quivered.
“Don’t even think it,” Nick warned her as she followed him into his bedroom and jumped on the bed.
Pepper, the ancient cat, looked up from where she was ensconced between the quilt and pillows, and he gave her a gentle stroke before grabbing clean clothes and going to the shower.
He could hear Alex and
Harly talking on the front veranda, the light sound of rain starting to patter down on the tin roof. The smell of roast wafted through the house, all so cosy and warm.
Standing in the shower, the water sluicing over him to wash away sawdust and sweat, Nick sighed. Man, he never wanted to leave. He wanted to stay here. Or maybe that was because everything seemed so nice, so far from what he remembered of his childhood and the Army.
Alex was a lucky man, that much he knew, and he was happy for him. But Nick found himself wanting the same thing, a warm home and a wonderful woman waiting for him to come home from work. To have someone care about him, worry about him, be glad to see him. To have someone he could confide in, share his dreams even if he wasn’t sure himself what they were yet, who would laugh with him, share her day, share her worries. Be there for each other.
Turning off the water, he grabbed the towel he’d slung over the rail. Moping wasn’t the answer. He was using this time to find out what he wanted, where he wanted to go with his life. And he still had to find the elusive Goodbye Girl.
Looking at his blurred reflection in the steamed-up mirror, Nick wondered just why he was so obsessed with her, why his thoughts were swinging so much. He wanted to see her, didn’t know the best way, was firmly directed one minute, uncertain the next, and had more mood swings on the idea than a woman PMSing.
Now that last thought was
scary.
Grinning, he rubbed his hair dry before flicking the towel behind him to dry his back. Whatever, tomorrow was a new day. He’d sleep on it and meanwhile, he had another friend of Harly’s to meet. She was coming to dinner tonight, and Harly had assured him that the date had been set awhile back and had nothing to do with matchmaking of any kind.
Who knew? Maybe Bree would come up in the conversation tonight and he’d have a chance to discover what she was like. Or maybe this woman would divert him enough that The Goodbye Girl would lose her shine.
With renewed energy, Nick dried off, wrapped the towel around his wai
st and went to his bedroom to dress.
By the time he’d finished dressing and picking up several books that Sunny had knocked off the bedside table, having to go on his belly and fish under the bed for one of them, voices were coming from the kitchen
. A peal of feminine laughter. The deeper tones of Alex followed by more laughter.
The guest had arrived.
Nick strode down the hallway and turned into the kitchen. His gaze was drawn to a generous derriere bent over the open oven. He’d know that generous derriere anywhere. When the woman straightened, shutting the oven door and tossing the oven mitts onto the sink, his gaze ran down her voluptuous form. Oh yeah, he’d know her anywhere.
She turned and saw him, her big eyes crinkling at the corners in amusement, eyes laughing, pink lips curving in a smile. “Hey.”
His mystery woman.
Genuinely glad to see her, he grinned back. “Hey.”
Alex was leaning against the ‘fridge, a glass of iced coffee in his hand, his gaze switching from the mystery woman to Nick and back again, one eyebrow partly raised. His expression was inscrutable, but there was a keenness to his eyes, a sharp intensity that hadn’t been there since they’d returned from Afghanistan.
Interesting.
Nick looked back at the woman. What was it about her that had Alex watching her and Nick like a hawk?
Harly was
oblivious as she stood at the kitchen bench icing a cake. Looking over her shoulder, she said cheerfully, “Nick, this is Bree, my friend. Bree, Nick.”
Bree?
Nick blinked, his gaze sharpening, sweeping over her.
Bree? The Goodbye Girl? Could it be?
Bree strode across
to the floor to him and stuck out her hand. Eyes twinkling, she looked up at him. “Hi, Nick.”
“Hi.”
Taking her hand, he shook it gently. Her scent drifted from her, twining around him and entering his nostrils so that with every breath he drew he sucked her scent deep inside him.
He knew that scent. He’d smelt it on all her letters, faint but definitely discernable.
He knew that merry voice, had imagined it in his dreams.
Looking down into the happy face, the sunny smile, the sparkling eyes,
Nick didn’t know whether to laugh or groan.
The Goodbye Girl was his nutty mystery woman.
Looking up at Nick, Bree couldn’t help but wonder suddenly. While he smiled pleasantly, there was a definite flicker in his eyes. His hand around hers tightened a fraction, a discernable squeeze of strong fingers.
She’d guessed he was a soldier when Harly had told her he was a friend of Alex’s without actually saying where from, but she’d known for certain as soon as she’d seen him on the street, there was no missing the way he walked - confident, alert, nothing missing his attention. It was there in his bearing, the straight back, the quiet intensity, the way he studied people. The way he marched without realising it.
Hot. Totally hot. Not because he
was military, but because Nick was hot. How could a man just stand there and seem to fill the kitchen all at once with his presence alone? He smelled great, too, soap and all male. Tall - the top of her head barely grazed his shoulder - muscular, strong, handsome. Yummy.
Nothing like a bit of eye candy to ease the senses. Or put them into over-drive.
He didn’t let her hand go, however, not even when she gave it a little tug.
“We didn’t get properly introduced
.” That deep baritone washing over her. “I’m Nick Mason.”
Nick Mason?
Bree stilled. She knew a Nick Mason.
“I’m with Alex.”
“With Alex?”
“We’re both in the Fifth Battalion,” Alex said.
Fifth Battalion? Wait a minute, wait a doggone minute
. “You’re in the Fifth Battalion?” Head tilted back to enable her to look Nick in those intense green eyes, Bree felt a needle of suspicion.
Surely not
.
Nick nodded
, retaining hold of her suddenly limp hand.
“Afghanistan? Fifth Battalion?”
He nodded again.
Well, how about that.
This was Nick Mason, her most recent soldier boy, the one she’d just said goodbye to because he was coming home. To Whicha, obviously not to his own home. But home to Australia.
He was looking at her, gaze calm yet searching, studying her, and the suspicion bit deeper. Hang on, did he suspect?
And if he did, why didn’t he say something? Why didn’t he ask her straight out if she was the Bree who wrote him letters? He had to know she was in Whicha, he’d answered her letters.
Or was he scouting her out, seeing if he wanted to
acknowledge her?
That last thought had her eyes narrowing a little.
Maybe he hadn’t made up his mind yet.
Her fingers tightened
fractionally around his, and his fingers squeezed lightly in return.
Oh ho
.
Bree locked her gaze with his, saw the glint in his green eyes. He knew, all right. He
suspected who she was but he wasn’t letting on, and that was both intriguing and odd. To be fair, maybe he was still a little uncertain, after all, he didn’t know her last name, didn’t know what she looked like for she’d sent no photos of herself or Skyped. But her name wasn’t common, and that combined with her address and presence here just had to clue him in.
Unless he was that thick.
The glint in his eyes was accompanied by a slightly arched eyebrow.
N
ope, not thick, not thick at all. Intelligence shone in those eyes, his full yet masculine lips quirking a little at the corners.
But why wasn’t he saying anything? Asking her?
Her senses went on full alert. He was an Army bloke, there were unexplained lights and happenings in Whicha. Was the military behind this? Were they trying to hide something?
Guard
something?
Was she suspected of hunting the strange lights and thereby endangering some covert military operation with extraterrestrials?
Maybe some of her mother’s half-baked ideas weren’t all that wrong. Maybe her
earlier reasons for being careful not to put her last name on the envelopes wasn’t enough, maybe her drifting from place to place hadn’t clouded her tracks. Not that her drifting was meant to, it was how she and her mother had lived, looking for those elusive lights, but still, nothing was beyond belief. Hell, even Jackie had been able to track her to places. How, Bree had no idea, but then she half suspected Jackie wasn’t quite all human anyway.
And she thought she’d long ago shaken off some of her mother’s paranoia. Apparently bits still survived.
But that didn’t give her any insight on how to take this meeting with Nick Mason, her ex-soldier boy, who obviously suspected who she was,
knew
who she was, but wasn’t acknowledging it.
That just begged the question of why
?
“Do
you two know each other?” Harly queried.
The words broke the stretching silence between Nick and Bree, and she pulled her hand away, a quiver whirling deep in the pit
of her stomach when his fingertips trailed along her palm before he pulled his hand back completely.
“We met.” Smiling, she backed up to the kitchen bench to perch on a stool. “A couple of times.” Her gaze swung back to where Nick was leaning back against the
table, his jean-clad backside resting on the edge, his hands propped each side of his muscular thighs, long fingers loosely gripping the wooden tabletop.
Nick smiled easily at Harly. “
Last night and this morning.”
“Really?”
She raised her eyebrows at Alex, who was still watching Nick and Bree from over the rim of his mug as he took a long, slow sip of iced coffee.
Hmmm, maybe Alex wasn’t so innocent after all, both men were with the same Battalion. What if they were both here for a secret operation?
That spark of being on the edge of something big lit up inside her. Oh yeah, lights in the sky, unexplained crashing into the side of her van, the presence of two military men…this had conspiracy written all over it.
Possible conspiracy
, old girl. Don’t jump to conclusions. You left that behind, remember?
Meanwhile, it would be intriguing to see how far Nick was willing to go without acknowledging their letters
, whether she could trip him up.
Playing with fire
. Bree glanced over at him. Damn, he was handsome in a rough, tough, soldier way. And big. She could just imagine him in uniform, weapon in hand, catching her as she fled from the UFO scene, tying her hands behind her back, slinging her over his shoulder and taking her back to HQ, where he’d interrogate her her, make her scream in unrelieved pleasure as he brought her to orgasm again and again without mercy, demanding her answers.
Oooohhh boy
. Squeezing her knees together, she managed to maintain a calm expression.
Not fantasy time. Keep your wits about you. Things like that don’t happen in real life. He’d more than likely drag you back to a cell and throw you in there with the rats and spiders, and some military official would question you, beat you, torture you painfully until you confessed. Then you’ll be shot and your body will disappear.
Bree rolled her eyes. Good grief, she had to get a grip on her imagination.
Then again, with conspiracies, one never knew.
“Are you all right?”
Harly asked.
“I’m fine.” Picking a grape off a bunch that was sitting in a bowl, Bree bit it in half. “Sorry, my mind wandered a bit.”
And how!
Alex pushed away from the ‘fridge. “I’m going for a shower before dinner. Won’t be long.”
“No worries.” Harly smiled at him.
He dropped a kiss on her forehead as he passed her, his hand sliding along her waist in a caress that was both loving and warm.
Man, Harly was lucky. Alex was hot.
However, he didn’t unnerve her as much as the fair-haired man still perched on the edge of the table, his fingertips now tapping along the underside of the table as the heels of his hands continued to rest on the
surface, his fingers curling under. He was watching her with a faint quizzical expression as though he were trying to figure her out.
That made two of them. She couldn’t figure him out either
, but she would, no doubt about it.
“So, Nick,” she drawled, “
have you been back here long?”
His gaze intensified, zeroing in one her face. “I arrived last night.”
“Ah. From the Army base?”
He nodded.
“Staying long?” She delved a bit deeper. “Do you live here?”
“No, I don’t live here. But I’m considering it.”
“Really?”
Huh
.
“And you?” he queried. “Been here long?”
“Long enough.”
“Long enough for what?”
“Long enough to know that I like the place.”
“She’s thinking of buying a house here.” Harly turned the oven off. “It’s great. She’s a wonderful hairdresser.”
“You work in the hairdresser’s?” Nick asked.
“No, the poodle parlour.”
He blinked.
“Don’t tease,”
Harly admonished. “Yes, she works at the local hairdresser.”
“But I could work at a poodle parlour,” Bree said. “There’s no dog groomer in this town. I could corner the market.”
“Seriously?” Harly stared at her.
“Maybe. Both kinds
can bite.” Laughing, Bree picked off another grape.
Nick’s head angled slightly. “You’ve been bitten by customers?”
“Of the human variety? I still carry the scars.” She waved one hand in the air.
Harly grabbed her
wrist and bent down to study the scar at the base of her thumb. “Really? You were bitten by a customer?”
“It’s a dangerous job, people just don’t realise it.”
Nick’s eyebrow arched up. “What happened?”
“Rabid kid. Screaming like a banshee and I had to cut his hair. That kind
of stopped when he succeeded in biting me and his mother fainted at the sight of blood.” Bree shook her head. “They don’t make mothers like they used to.”
“Oh, you poor thing,”
Harly commiserated.
Nick laughed.
“Nick!”
“I’m sorry. It just sounded…” He
wiped the grin off his face but his eyes still laughed. “I apologise.”
“
I can see it’s heartfelt.” Bree winked at him.
His eyes crinkled engagingly at the corners.
The sound of rain on the tin roof suddenly got loud, making Bree glance upwards. “It’s really setting in.”
“Don’t worry, you can sleep over,”
Harly said.
“Are you kidding me? And leave
Sheba and Bast all alone?”
“Did you leave food and water? Clean litter tray?”
“Of course.” Bree plucked another grape off the bunch.
“Then they’ll be fine.”
“Harly, a bit of rain never hurt anyone.”
“This isn’t just rain, it’s bucketing down.”
“Pshaw. This is nothing.”
Harly levelled a look at her.
Bree flipped the grape into the air, tipped her head back and caught it in her mouth. Titling her head back down, she chewed and swallowed before saying airily, “Rain is good. Don’t knock the rain.”
“I’m not. But you driving in it? That I’m knocking.”
“Sorry, sweetie, rain or not, I drive home. Trust me, I’ve driven in much worse.”
“
She drove in last night’s storm,” Nick stated from where he still perched on the edge of the table.
Harly glared at Bree. “You didn’t!”
“Told you.” She smiled.
“If I have to hog-tie you, you’re not going out in that
storm.”
“You and what Army?”
Harly pointed at Nick. “Sergeant Nick Mason.”
“Ohhh.” Bree faked a shudder. “I’m so scared.”
“I’ll bring you down,” he said conversationally.
She eyed him derisively. “Got a tank?”
“Honey, I don’t need a tank to bring a woman down.”
“Is that so?”
His smile was slow but sure, curving that gorgeous mouth to show even, white teeth. His fingers stopped tapping on the underside of the table surface.
Whoa, was that a bit of the Big Bad Wolf peeking out from those gleaming eyes?
“Yeah,” he drawled. “That’s so.”
“Big talk.” Let’s see if she could ruffle his feathers. “You ever bring a woman my size down?”
His smile just got wider, his eyes sliding down her body in a decadent sweep that had her tingling in all the wrong - or right, depending on the definition - places. When his eyes met hers again, they were - holy crap, they were decidedly carnal. “It’d be my pleasure to do it.”
Mentally fanning herself, Bree leaned both elbows
nonchalantly back against the kitchen bench. Unfortunately, that movement had her already impressive bosom thrusting out further.