Unconditional (7 page)

Heather and the tall guy standing beside her wearing a pair of bright-red pajama pants. The tall guy with muscles so exquisite my mouth began to water.

Hello, Brendon.

Brendon Osmond flashed a friendly smile at me, held out his hand and said, “G’day.”

I gaped up at him.

His smile turning into a grin, he took my hand—which I’d apparently extended to him. “Maci. How you going?”

“Good,” I said, finding my voice. What the hell was it with this country? Raphael Jones looked like a sexier Chris Hemsworth, and now here was a guy who looked like a sexier, blonde Robert Downey Jr. complete with Iron Man body and devilish glint in his blue eyes.

Brendon’s eyebrows rose. “American? Or Canadian? Sorry, I can never tell the difference with the accents.”

“American,” I answered. Damn, his fingers felt nice wrapped around mine. Warm and firm and steady. “I’m from Plenty, Ohio. But my dad was Australian, if that counts. I can even say g’day if you like. G’day.”

Brendon bent at the waist a little in a playful bow. “That wasn’t too shabby, Plenty, Ohio. Welcome to Oz.”

I smiled. “Thank you, Uni Fitness Manager.”

He chuckled. “Call me Brendon. Not such a mouthful.”

I grinned back. “Call me Maci. Not so geographically specific.”

He laughed, dropping my hand. “Done. So tell me, are you studying here or just visiting?”

“Studying,” I answered. Hmmm, I think I liked it better when he was holding my hand. “I’m here on a scholarship offered by my college to study the effects of global warming on native wildlife, specifically the koala population.”

“Koala population? That’s left of field for an American, isn’t it? Even one with an Aussie for a dad?”

I laughed. “I’ve never been one for conventional thinking.”

Brendon raised his eyebrows again. Opened his mouth and—

“There
is
no effect on the koala population,” a familiar male voice with its unsettling Australian accent said behind me.

My throat constricted, trapping my breath. My lips tingled as if they remembered just what the owner of that voice was capable of doing to them. My sex constricted, damn it.

“G’day, Raph,” Brendon said, offering his hand over my shoulder. “Haven’t seen you in the gym for a while.”

Another hand appeared beside my head, wrapped around Brendon’s in a firm grip and then withdrew. “I’ve been in Delvania. Family thing. Just got back today.”

The warm presence at my back told me Raph Jones was right there. Right behind me. So close I could feel his heat seeping into my body. So close I could feel the smooth skin of his bare chest brush the back of my shoulder.

For a giddy moment, my head swam.

Thankfully, Brendon laughed, the sound incredibly relaxed and calm. “The curse of family, ’eh? Forcing you to skip the country for a while and escape the madness of the media attention. Must be hell.”

“You could say that,” Raph’s voice rumbled from behind.

Beside me, Heather watched both guys, her gaze flicking back and forth as if she were watching a tennis match. I couldn’t help but notice there was an almost frenzied excitement in her eyes. Something was going on in her head. Something she found thrilling. I didn’t know whether to be suspicious…or laugh.

“So, Jones.” Brendon took a drink from the bottle in his hand—mineral water. What every good, muscular gym fitness manager drank, no doubt. Did I say muscular already? “Tell us why you think there’s no effect on the koala population due to global warming. You know much about copulating marsupials? I thought your major was in biology or animal husbandry.”

“I’m studying a Bachelor of Animal and Veterinary Bioscience,” Raph answered. “I grew up on a cattle station—what you Americans call a ranch—on which there is a very large koala colony. I can tell you firsthand, the global warming situation isn’t impacting their numbers at all.”

Unable to stop myself, I swung around to give him a narrowed-eyed stare. “Oh really?”

The look he gave me was steady. Condescending. “Really.”

“Then what is then?” I shot back.

“Human stupidity,” he answered.

“And on that note,” Brendon said, a hint of humored amusement in his voice, “it’s time to change the subject. I’m sure there’s a guideline that states politics and science can’t be discussed while dressed only in underwear.”

At my side, Heather giggled. “I’ve heard of that guideline.”

Raph’s stare didn’t leave my face. “But of course,” he continued, as if Brendon hadn’t uttered a word, “you, being an American, would be an expert on Australian native wildlife.”

If it was possible—and until then I didn’t think it was—I narrowed my eyes even more. “Me being an American?” My heart kicked up a notch. Or maybe it was my ire. Yeah, it was pretty much up there. “Because it’s not remotely conceivable an
American
could have knowledge on something as precious to you Aussies as koalas? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Actually—” Brendon stepped a little closer to us both, filling the right side of my peripheral vision with his towering, sculpted form, “—now that I think about it, that guideline isn’t a guideline, it’s a rule. Strict one.”

“I’m saying—” Raph’s stare turned to a frown, and once again, he acted like Brendon hadn’t made a sound, “—it’s typical of you Americans to think you know all the answers about the—”

“Koala facts,” I said, cutting him short. I was keeping my cool. Honestly. Well, sort of. “There are fewer than eighty-thousand koalas in the wild in Australia today, possibly as few as forty-three thousand, compared to the millions thought to exist before European settlement. In 2012, on advice from the Threatened Species Scientific Council, the koala was listed as a threatened species.”

Raph opened his mouth.

“Since 1788,” I continued without letting him say a word, counting off my second point on my finger, “when Australia was first settled by Europeans, nearly sixty-five percent of the koala forest in Australia has been cleared, over 116 million hectares. The remaining thirty-five percent, approximately forty-one million hectares, remains under threat from land clearing for agriculture, urban development and unsustainable forestry.
All
contributing factors to global warming.”

Raph’s frown turned black. He obviously didn’t like being argued with. Or stood up to in public.

“Koala populations are also being decimated by chlamydia,” I went on, index finger pressed to the tip of my ring finger, “a disease exacerbated by stress. Koalas are increasingly under stress due to habitat loss and destruction.”

The frown grew darker.

I rammed my index finger to my pinkie finger, refusing to blink in the face of that menacing glare. “Habitat loss is the greatest problem facing koalas today. Habitat loss caused not only by land clearing, but by the rise in bushfires due to the increasing number of electrical storms. Storms that are growing in intensity and number due to the planet-wide changing weather patterns and rising temperatures, not to mention diseases like dieback in eucalyptus, which causes the trees to die. Dieback, by the way, is on the rise due to warmer climates in Australia, a symptom of…” I raised my eyebrows, waiting for him to provide the answer.

He didn’t. Heather did. “Global warming?” she offered.

“Global warming,” I echoed, giving Raph a humorless smile. “And last fact of the night, but most definitely not the argument, Australia has one of the highest land-clearing rates in the world. Over eighty percent of koala habitat has already been cleared, reducing the viable mating and living areas. A forest can only have a certain number of koalas living in it, referred to as a forest’s carrying capacity. Most koala populations are now in a dire state. The Australian Koala Foundation estimates that as a result of the loss of their habitat, around four thousand koalas are killed each year by dogs and cars alone.”

I paused and crossed my arms over my Victoria’s Secret-covered boobs. Glowered back at him. “Want to know anything else?”

“How do they mate?” Heather piped up.

Brendon sounded like he snorted into his bottle of water.

Raph curled his lip.

“Simple,” I answered, hoping Raph could see my disdain. “When a koala is sexually mature, it leaves the safety of its home range and the protection of its social group and goes in search of a new area beyond its territory. If there are no new areas due to habitat loss, a sexually mature koala can’t find a new mate, or will risk injury encroaching on an existing social group. Once again, can I point out one of the contributing factors to koala habitat loss is global warming’s effect on the environment?”

“They can’t bonk because it’s too hot?” Heather paraphrased. “That sucks.”

“It does,” I agreed.

A muscle in Raph’s jaw bunched. If it wasn’t for the fact I was pissed at him, I would have gladly acknowledged—to myself, at least—how wonderful that jaw had felt under my palm earlier that day.

“Thank you for the school project,” he said.

Damn, his voice was steady and level and smooth and deep and… Wait, I was pissed at him. I had to concentrate on that, not the way his voice sounded. Focus, Rowling, focus.

“Now, would you like me to offer a counter argument to every point you just made?”

“What she’d like,” Brendon’s strong voice—just as deep and smooth and Australian—sounded at my side as he wrapped warm, firm fingers around my hand, “is a drink that doesn’t have an umbrella in it, isn’t that right, Maci?”

I swung my gaze up to him, my heart rate still as charged as my ire. What was it about these goddamn Australian guys thinking they could tell me what to do? But at the sight that greeted me, I bit back my angry tirade before it could begin.

His lips were curled in a relaxed grin; honest mirth danced in his eyes. The expression instantly put me at ease and piqued something a little more…
adult
inside me.

“Something tells me,” he said, leaning a little closer, his gaze playing with mine as he plucked the alcoholic concoction from my fingers, “that you’re more a mineral-water kinda woman.”

I laughed. I know, right? What are the odds of laughing at that point given how angry Raphael Jones had made me? But there was something about Brendon…something calming. Warm and friendly. Nice. And it had nothing to do with his impressive body. Well, not much. “Mineral water
is
more my style,” I answered.

He winked. “Thought so. C’mon, let me get you one.”

Before I could say another word, before Heather could say another word—can you believe that?—and before Raph’s glower finished turning his face to a Greek tragedy mask, Brendon smoothed his hand over the small of my back and steered me away.

“Was that your way of saving me from an argument?” I asked with a grin as we weaved our way through our fellow partygoers.

Laughter dancing in his blue eyes, he affected an expression of mock surprise. “God, no. I just want to hear more about koalas without all this party noise.”

I raised my eyebrows.

Brendon chortled. “Okay, you’re right. I was doing my bit to protect the Australian-American relationship. Wouldn’t want your country going to war against ours over copulating koalas.”

An image of two koalas mating in the middle of a smoke-filled battlefield filled my head and I giggled.

“Besides,” Brendon continued, directing me to a door leading to what looked like Mackellar House’s backyard. “We’d kick your arse if we did. Go to war, that is.”

Once again, I raised my eyebrows. “Really now?”

He nodded, pausing only long enough to snatch a bottle of mineral water from the large plastic pail loaded with ice and other drinks next to the open door. “Of course.” He twisted the lid from the bottle and handed it to me. I couldn’t help but notice the way the muscles in his arms, shoulders and chest coiled and flexed with subtle strength. I have to admit, it was rather delicious to watch. “We’d only have to let loose our wildlife and you’re all screwed.”

I took the offered mineral water with a chuckle. “American soldiers attacked by post-coitus koalas? Is that what you’re saying?”

He raised his own bottle to his lips. “Something like that.”

The cool kiss of night air on my bare skin told me we’d exited the building before my brain registered it. I stopped on the top step of a smallish deck and lifted my attention to the black sky above me.

The stars were completely different. Completely. No Cassiopeia, no Orion. Nothing familiar at all. It was then, more than at any other moment, that I realized I was far from home.

My stomach knotted. My throat grew thick. I missed my mom. I missed the smells of Plenty. I missed the stars.
My
stars.

“It messes with your head a little, doesn’t it?”

I blinked and flinched a little at Brendon’s soft statement. Swinging my gaze back to his face, I frowned. “What does?”

He flicked a glance up at the sky. “The stars. How different the stars are. I remember the first time I went to the States. I was all, ‘Hey, I’m down with all this, I’m not a tragic tourist’, and then I saw the stars on my first night and kinda lost it a little. The absence of the Southern Cross…” He drew closer to me, bending down until his head was beside mine as he pointed up to the sky at the crucifix-shaped constellation represented on the Australian flag, “That one, well…not seeing it up there, where it always was…my head couldn’t process it. It’s a weird habit of mine to find the Southern Cross in the sky every night, but those weeks I spent in LA…” He chuckled, the sound a soft tickle in my ear that sent a tight little shiver through my body. “It’s stupid, I know, but I missed the stars. My stars.”

His words, an echo of my own thoughts, sent another tight ripple through me. My belly fluttered. My nipples turned to hard peaks. I swallowed, shifting on my feet. I wanted to move away from him in case he sensed the unexpected way I was reacting to his words. And his heat. And his relaxed, friendly presence. I also
didn’t
want to move away. Not at all.

It was a seriously confusing sensation, especially on the heels of my thoroughly carnal and emotional reaction to Raphael Jones. “When were you in LA?” I croaked.