“Investigative reporter? Something tells me I should know you.” He had far too much presence to be an ordinary everyday person.
“You don’t,” he assured her briskly. “Anyway, we’re not adversaries. Are we?”
“I hope not, Mr Thompson. It’ll be a whole lot safer to be on your side.”
“You amaze me,” he offered freely. And she did.
“You amaze me,” she admitted in wry surprise. “I hadn’t bargained on more than a brief introduction. Are you always like this with strangers?”
“You’re not a stranger,” he said, with a dismissive shrug of his powerful shoulders. “I hadn’t bargained on liking you either.”
“Ah, so I wasn’t wrong. I could feel the hostility when you first arrived.”
“You assumed that,” he corrected.
“No. It’s true.”
“All right,” he shrugged. “For a few moments you reminded me of someone I used to know.”
“Someone no longer in your life?” At his expression her smile faded.
“Exactly.” The brilliant dark eyes became hooded. “Anyway, apart from a few similarities you’re not like her at all.”
“That’s good. You had me worried until you smiled.”
“That’s it? A smile?” he questioned, with a faint twist of his mouth.
“Yes,” she said simply, almost with relief. She didn’t add that as a big man he was in such possession of the space around him. Necessarily the dominant male. Colin had lacked this man’s presence, for all her husband’s arrogance and physical attributes. How she wished her life had gone otherwise.
Poignancy left its imprint on her face. Women like her always made a man protective, Evan thought. “Well, I’ve got an hour or two to kill,” he found himself saying. “Would you like some help picking out furniture?”
“You mean you accept me as your neighbour?” Her eyes lit up.
“I accept that in some way you’re very vulnerable.”
“You’re accustomed to vulnerable people?”
“I’m not a doctor. I’m not a psychiatrist or a rocket scientist either. But I know a lot about people in pain.”
“Then you know too much,” she said quietly.
That contained emotion caused him to make a further offer. “How about lunch?” He, Evan Thompson, the loner! “Then we look at furniture, if you like.”
“You’re being kind, aren’t you?” Kindness was there, behind the brooding front. People mattered to him. As they did to her.
“Kind has nothing to do with it,” he said crisply. “I’m hungry.”
“Okay, that would be very nice.” She walked towards him as he rested his powerful body against the doorjamb. “Why don’t you call me Laura?” She gave him a spontaneous smile that would have had Colin enraged. Her normal smile, or so she thought. Uncomplicated.
Evan found it captivating. “Then you must call me Evan.” He held out his hand. After a slight hesitation she took it, her hand getting lost in the size of his.
It was warm and firm, but never hurting.
“There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” he asked, one eyebrow raised. “You didn’t really think I was going to crack your fingers?” He turned her hand over, examining it. “Delicate, but strong. Are you any good as a pianist?”
The effect of his skin on hers was the most electrifying thing that had ever happened to her. She couldn’t pull away. It was as though she was held by a naked current. “People seemed to think so.”
“Conservatorium trained?”
“Wh-a-t?” It was so hard to concentrate when every nerve seemed to be jumping.
He released her hand. “I asked if you were Conservatorium trained?”
“I graduated. I’d begun studying for my Doctorate of Music.” She managed to speak calmly.
“So what happened?”
“Life.”
“An unhappy love affair?” Something had overwhelmed her.
“Desperately unhappy,” she admitted. “But that’s all you’re getting out of me.”
“There are worse things than unhappy love affairs,” he said.
CHAPTER THREE
IT WAS market day in the town. A day to be enjoyed. Street stalls sold their produce: fruit and vegetables, all sorts of pickles, home-made pies and cakes, the town’s excellent cooks vying with one another to come up with some surprises. Stall after stall featured crafts. The town’s two cheerful little coffee shops, one hung with red gingham curtains, the other with ruffled pink and white, were crowded.
“Let’s get some sandwiches and have a picnic in the park?” Evan suggested. “Would you like that?” He glanced down at her as she stood at his shoulder. No, not his shoulder. A way down from there. More like his heart. Hell, if he wanted to he could pick her up and put her in his pocket.
“Why not?” She smiled at him as if she were treasuring every moment. “Koomera Crossing is such a pretty place. I didn’t expect it to be so peaceful and picturesque. The pure air! It’s on the edge of the desert, yet lovely warm aromatic breezes are spiraling around us. It’s like a thawing of the heart.”
“Your heart needs thawing?” he asked, dipping his dark head to her.
“Well, I’m relaxed and comfortable here.” she said, looking towards the park, where small children were playing with the balloons they’d been given at the road stalls. “The bauhinia trees are lovely. They’ll protect us from the sun while we eat.”
“So shall I be mother?” Humour lit his fine eyes. “We don’t want to give people too much to talk about.” A trained observer, he already knew tongues had been set wagging at their appearance together.
“You know the town better than I do,” she conceded, happy when the passing townsfolk nodded to her and Evan in their friendly Outback fashion. “Besides, I might get you something you don’t like.”
“Would that matter?”
She was conscious of his penetrating glance on her. “Some people are very hard to please,” she said by way of explanation.
“Like the boyfriend?” After years of dodging bullets and destruction she seemed too young, too innocent, too unseasoned, to survive.
“We’ll have to agree not to talk about him.”
“Right. You stay here and soak up the healing sunlight. I’ll get the sandwiches and some coffee. Black or white?”
She considered sweetly. “Cappuccino, if they have it.”
“Look, you can have a cappuccino, a latte, a mini-cino, a Vienna, a short black, a long black—”
“Thank you. I get the message.” She smiled. It was the most incredible thing to be at peace with a man. For all his height and breadth of shoulder, the dark smoulder, he was surprisingly easy to warm to.
“Won’t be long.” He strode away, glimpsing the town sticky beak, Ruby Hall, peeking through the window of the general store.
He lifted a sardonic hand to wave, but instead of waving back she unsuctioned her nose from the glass.
Dr Sarah Dempsey had come a long way from when she was a girl helping her widowed mother run the store,