While he’d made the decision to remain cemented in Crescent Cove for the rest of his natural life, emotionally he would always be a nomad. It was in his blood. Passed down from his flighty mother. His voyager father. To all intents and purposes he’d been on his own since before he was even a teen. Walked himself to school. Lived off what he could cook. Skating. Surfing. Nothing tying him to anything, or any place, except choice.
When Rach had sashayed into town he’d been twenty-three, living like a big kid in his father’s house on the bluff, life insurance on the verge of gone. She’d been this sophisticated outsider, come from Sydney for a week, and he’d done everything in his power to win her over. The life might not have been enough for his mum, but if this woman could stay, to him it was incontrovertible proof that his was the best life on earth.
She’d moved in with him after three days, and stayed for near a year.
Inevitably, she’d grown bored.
And when she left he’d been left completely untethered. Banging about inside the old house like a bird with broken wings.
After his disastrous move to Sydney with its noise, and smog, and crush of people—he’d taken control of his life. Delivering on the promise of his father’s hard work.
He might not have time to connect with the better parts of his old life—with the sun, and the sea, and the big blue—but he felt otherwise fulfilled. Better, he felt redeemed.
And he wasn’t willing to risk that feeling for anything or anyone. No matter how kissable.
* * *
Avery was in such a red-hot haze she couldn’t remember how she made it back to the resort. But soon the white steps were loud beneath her high heels as she made her way into the lobby.
Mere days before she’d been delighting in her ability to say no to the guy, as if it were some kind of sign that with a little R and R under her belt she might have the wherewithal to say the same to her folks one of these days. But no. One touch, one deep dark look, and she’d practically devoured him.
She lifted fingers to lips that felt bruised and tender, knowing that not being able to say no and wanting to say yes were two wholly different things, but it was hard to think straight while she could still feel those big strong arms wrap tight about her, his heart thundering beneath her chest, his mouth on hers.
Suddenly feeling a mite woozy, she slowed, found a column and banged her forehead against the cool faux marble. It felt so good she did it again.
“Avery.”
Avery looked up, rubbing at the spot on her head as she turned to find Luke Hargreaves striding towards her in his lovely suit with his lovely face and that lovely way he had about him that didn’t make her feel as if she were being whipped about inside a tornado.
Her invitation to lunch had been casual. An honest-to-goodness catch-up. Nothing more. As picture-perfect as he appeared she’d struggled to whip up the kind of enthusiasm required to campaign for more. Yet maybe this whole thing had been a sign. That she needed to up her game.
“Luke!” she said, leaning in for an air kiss.
“Don’t you look a million bucks.” He looked her up and down, making her feel...neat. If Jonah had done the same she’d have felt stripped bare. “Don’t tell me today was meant to be our lunch date.”
Yeah, buddy, it was. “Not to worry! I bumped into Jonah.” Argh! “So he sat with me, and we ate. Steak.” Oh, just shut up now.
“Was it any good?”
“I’m sorry?” she squeaked.
“The steak.”
“Oh, the steak was excellent. Tender. Tasty.” Please shoot me now. “If you get the chance to eat there, try it.”
Nodding as if he just might, Luke ran a hand through his hair leaving tracks that settled in attractively dishevelled waves. Even that didn’t have her hankering to run her fingers in their wake. Yet every time she saw a certain head full of tight dark curls it was a physical struggle not to reach out and touch.
“You know what? What are you doing right now?” he asked.
Trying not to make it obvious that my knees aren’t yet fully functional after your friend kissed me senseless. You?
He glanced at his watch, frowned some more. “Miraculously I have nothing on my plate right this second, if you’d like to grab a coffee.”
“No,” she said, rather more sternly than she’d intended. But Avery was a Shaw. And Shaws didn’t know the meaning of giving in. Look at her mother! She softened it with a smile. Then said, “Dinner. Tomorrow night. A proper catch-up.” A proper setting to see if something nice can be forged.
“Perfect.” He smiled. “Catch you then.” It was a perfectly lovely smile. Her blood didn’t come close to rushing; in fact it didn’t give a flying hoot.
Avery made to give him a quick peck on the cheek, but instead found herself patting him chummily on the arm. Then he headed off, always with purpose in his stride that one. Unlike Jonah who, even as he got things done, had this air about him as if he had all the time in the world.
With a sigh Avery didn’t much want to pick apart, she looked up and caught the eye of young Isis behind the reception desk. The girl waggled her eyebrows suggestively.
If only, Avery thought. Even Pollyanna gave a little yawn. By the time Avery slipped back to her room she collapsed on her bed and had the first nap she’d had since she was a kid. All it took to finally find the limit to her exhaustion was making a date with one man while the kiss of another still lingered on her lips.
Jonah sat at the small backstreet pub the tourists always seemed to miss—probably because it wasn’t suffocated by a surfeit of palm trees and Beach Boys music. Self-flagellation being a skill he’d honed during the long months spent in Sydney, he’d invited Luke to join him.
“Thanks for filling in at lunch with Avery today, mate,” Luke said.
And there went Jonah’s hopes for a quiet beer.
Frosty bottle an inch from his mouth, Luke added, “I bumped into her in the lobby after I finally extricated myself from one of Claudia’s presentations. All cardboard signs and permanent markers. She has a dislike for PowerPoint I’ll never understand.” His eyes shifted Jonah’s way. “So how was lunch?”
“They do a good steak,” Jonah rumbled, then chugged a third of his beer in one hit.
“So I heard.”
He and Luke might only see one another once every couple of years these days, but they’d been mates long enough for Jonah to know he’d been made. Dammit.
He held his ground, counting the bottles of spirits lining the shelves behind the bar. Luke shifted on his chair to face Jonah. Until, thumb swishing over the face of his phone, Luke said, “In fact we have dinner plans for tomorrow night. Avery and I.”
Jonah gripped his beer, even as he felt his cheek twitch in a masochistic grin. He tipped his beer in Luke’s direction as he caught his old friend’s gaze. “You’re going, right?”
Luke pushed his phone aside, a huge smile creasing his face. “Any reason I shouldn’t?”
“You stood her up once before.”
Luke’s smile fell. “Hardly. She’d told me she was having lunch at the Punch if I was around.”
“Luke. Man. Come on. She thought it was a date.”
“I