Literally, it seemed, as he tried to ignore the soft heat of the woman in his arms.
Clearly the universe was trying to tell him something. He’d learned to listen when that happened. Storm’s a coming: head to shore. A woman gets it in her head to leave you: never follow. Dinner at the seafood place manned by the local Dreadlock Army: avoid the oysters.
What the hell he was meant to learn from sitting on a beach with an unconscious American in his arms, he had no idea.
* * *
Avery’s head hurt. A big red whumping kind of hurt that meant she didn’t want to open her eyes.
“That’s the way, kid,” a voice rumbled into her subconscious. A deep voice. Rough. Male.
For a second, she just lay there, hopeful that when she opened her eyes it would be to find herself lying on a sun lounge, a big buff cabana boy leaning over her holding a tray with piña coladas and coconut oil, his dark curls a halo in the sun...
“Come on, honey. You can do it.”
Honey? Australian accent. It all came back to her.
Jet lag. Scorching heat. A quick dip in the ocean to wake up. Then from nowhere, cramp. Fear gripping her lungs as she struggled to keep her head above water. A hand gripping her wrist: strong, brown, safe. And then eyes, formidable grey eyes. Anything but safe.
Letting out a long slow breath to quell the wooziness rising in her belly, Avery opened her eyes.
“Atta girl,” said the voice and this time there was a face to go with it. A deeply masculine face—strong jaw covered in stubble a long way past a shadow, lines fanning from the corners of grey eyes shaded by dark brows and thick lashes, a nose with a kink as if it had met with foul play.
Not a cabana boy, then. Not a boy at all. As his quicksilver eyes roved over her, Avery’s stomach experienced a very grown-up quiver. It clearly didn’t care that the guy was also frowning at her as if she were something that had washed up from the depths of the sea.
So who was he, then?
Luke? The name rang in her head like an echo, and her heart rate quickened to match. Could this be him?
But no. Strong as the urge was to have her teenage crush grow up into this, he was too big, too rugged. And she’d had enough updates about Claude’s family friend over the years to know Luke had lived in London for a while now. Worked in advertising. If this guy worked in an office she’d eat her luggage.
And as for nice? The sensations tumbling through her belly felt anything but. They felt ragged, brusque, hot and pulsey. And oddly snarky, which she could only put down to the recent oxygen deficit.
On that note, she thought, trying to lift herself to sitting. But her head swam and her stomach right along with it.
Before she had the chance to alter the situation, the guy barked, “Lie down, will you? Last thing I need is for you to throw up on me as well.”
While the idea of lying down a bit longer appealed, that wasn’t how she rolled. She’d been looking after herself, and everyone else in her life, since she was sixteen.
“I think I’m about done here,” she said.
“Can I get somebody for you?” he asked. “Someone from the resort? Luke?”
Her eyes shot to his. So he wasn’t Luke, but he knew him? How did he know she knew him...? Oh, my God. Just before she’d passed out, she’d called Luke’s name.
Heat and humiliation wrapped around her, Avery untwisted herself from Not-Luke’s arms to land on the towel. She scrambled to her feet, jumbled everything into a big ball and on legs of jelly she backed away.
“I’m fine. I’ll be fine.” She pushed the straggly lumps of hair from her face. “Thanks again. And sorry for ruining your swim. Surf. Whatever.”
The brooding stranger stood—sand pale against the brown of his knees, muscles in his arms bunching as he wrapped a hand around the edge of the surfboard he’d wedged into the sand. “I’m a big boy. I’ll live.”
Yes, you are, a saucy little voice cooed inside her head. But not particularly nice. And that was the thing. She’d had some kind of epiphany before she’d gone for a swim, hadn’t she? Something about needing some sweet, simple, wholesome, niceness in her life compared with the horror her mother was gleefully planning on the other side of the world.
“Take care, little mermaid,” he said, taking a step back, right into a slice of golden sunlight that caught his curls, and cut across his big bronzed bare chest.
“You too!” she sing-songed, her inveterate Pollyannaness having finally fought its way back to the surface. “And it’s Avery. Avery Shaw.”
“Good to know,” he said. Then he smiled. And it was something special—kind of crooked and sexy and fabulous. Though Avery felt a subversive moment of disappointment when it didn’t reach his eyes. Those crinkles held such promise.
Then he turned and walked away, his surfboard hooked under one arm, his bare feet slapping on the footpath. And from nowhere a huge dog joined him—shaggy and mottled with deep liquid eyes that glanced back at her a moment before turning back into the sun.
Definitely not Luke. Luke Hargreaves had been taller, his hair lighter, his eyes a gentle brown. And that long-ago summer before her whole world had fallen apart he’d made her feel safe. To this day Avery could sense the approach of conflict as tingles all over her skin, the way some people felt a storm coming in their bad knees, and Mr Muscles back there made her feel as if she’d come out in hives.
She blinked when she realised she was staring, then, turning away, trudged up the beach towards the road, the resort, a good long sensible lie-down.
“Avery!”
She glanced up and saw a brilliantly familiar blonde waving madly her way from the doorway of the Tropicana: navy skirt, blinding blue and yellow Hawaiian shirt, old-fashioned clipboard an extension of her arm. Claudia. Oh, now there was a sight for sore eyes, and a bruised ego and—
Avery’s feet stopped working, right in the middle of the street. For there, standing behind Claudia and a little to the left, thumb swishing distractedly over a smartphone, was Luke Hargreaves—tall, lean, handsome in a clean-shaven city-boy kind of way, in a suit she could pin as Armani from twenty feet away. If that wasn’t enough, compared to the mountain of growly man flesh she’d left back there on the beach, not a single skin prickle was felt.
With relief Pollyanna tap danced gleefully inside her head as Avery broke out in a sunny smile.
A car honked long and loud and Avery came to. Heat landed in her cheeks as she and her still wobbly legs made their way across the road.
She wished her entrance could have been more elegant, but since in the past half an hour she’d near drowned, passed out, woken up looking into the eyes of a testosterone-fuelled surfer who made her skin itch, she had to settle for still standing.
Avery walked up the grassy bank to the front path of the resort where Claudia near ploughed her down with a mass of hugging arms and kisses and relieved laughter. When Avery was finally able to disentangle herself she pulled back, laughing. Compared with the stylishly subdued Mr Hargreaves, Claudia with her bright blue eyes and wild shirt was like sunshine and fairy floss.
“What happened to you?” asked Claudia. No hellos, no how was your flight. The best kind of friendship, it always picked up