Rebecca Winters - A Groom For The Taking

‘Evidently,’ he drawled into the painful silence, ‘until this moment I wasn’t aware just how deeply the issues run between your mother and you.’

She ran her fingers through her hair, needing to shake off the crazies. ‘Well, now you are.’

Suddenly Hannah felt very, very tired. As if her years in the city, working her backside off, building an impeccable professional reputation, creating a life for herself from nothing, doing her best to forget the period of her life at home after her dad died, were catching up with her in one fell swoop.

With a groan, she let her head fall to the bar with a thunk.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Bradley’s fingers fiddling with the room key. Maybe one good thing had come from her pyscho rant. Maybe he was realising the level of drama he’d be subjecting himself to by standing anywhere near a Gillespie girl in full flight. Maybe he was thinking of leaving her and her mad family in peace.

She lifted her head and swept her hair from her eyes. He was looking into the middle distance, the expression in his eyes pure steel. Whatever he was thinking there would be no talking him out of it.

She breathed in deep and waited.

Finally he turned to face her, and said, ‘I’m coming to your sister’s wedding.’

She moved to let her head thunk against the bar again—only this time he saw it coming. He took her by the shoulders, holding her upright. She wobbled like a marionette.

She must have looked as pathetic and wretched as she felt because his hands slid to cradle her neck, to slip beneath her hair, his thumbs touching the soft spots just below her ears. He had to be able to feel her pulse thundering in her neck at his gentle but insistent touch, but he didn’t show it.

He just looked her right in the eye—serious, determined, beautiful. ‘By the sound of things you’re walking into a lions’ den this weekend, with no back-up. It wouldn’t be showing you any kind of thanks for having my back all these months if I just walked away and let that happen. Especially after exacerbating the problem. I’ll be your wing man.’

His hands dropped to her shoulders, and then away.

Hannah wondered if a person could get jet lag from a one-hour flight. Because, blinking slowly at Bradley’s mouth, that was just how she felt—woozy, off-kilter, slipping in and out of a parallel universe. Surely the fact that Bradley Knight had just offered to be her wing man was a hallucination.

She glanced at her drink. It was still three-quarters full.

‘Hannah—’

She closed her tired eyes and held up a hand. ‘I’m thinking.’

‘About?’

About the fact that she couldn’t twist his offer to mean anything other than what it meant. There was no punishment for rhinestone comparisons at play. By offering to throw himself in the path of the drama tornado, for her , he was being nice. Thoughtful. Selfless. Things she’d taken pains to remind herself he was not.

She took a deep breath and said, ‘It’s a really nice offer, Bradley. Truly. But this holiday is not all about my family. It’s about taking a break from work … and those I work with.’

She glanced up at him with one eye open.

Taciturn, stoic, unreadable as ever, he said, ‘Meaning me?’

She opened the other eye and nodded. ‘You. And Sonja. And dealing with prima donnas all day. And Spencer following me around like a lovesick puppy while I’m trying to work. And sixty-hour weeks. And no sleeping-in—’

‘Okay. I get it. I hadn’t realised you found your job such a hardship.’

Grrr! That one man could be so smart one minute and so dumb the next …

Hannah shuffled on her stool. ‘Don’t be daft. I love my job. More than anything else in my life. Truly. But in order to do it right I need to recharge. This weekend is my chance.’

Finally, after such a long time she wondered if he’d heard a word of what she’d said, he nodded. ‘Fair enough.’

Then, after an even more interminable silence, he said, ‘But I know how even the most … thorny of families can have the kind of pull over you nothing else can. And that doesn’t mean you have to take their crap. Not alone, anyway. If that’s a concern in your case, my offer stands.’

She let out a great fat sigh. And, whether it was from the shock of his little insight, or a masochistic streak she was becoming all too familiar with, she threw her hands in the air and said, ‘Fine. Okay.’

‘Okay?’ He perked up. As if he was finding himself quite enjoying playing the hero.

It was irresistible. He was irresistible. And he was going to be her plus one at her sister’s wedding.

She was in mounds and mounds of trouble.

He took her hand, slipped it into the crook of his elbow and helped her off the stool.

‘Come on, kiddo, let’s go see what’s so amazing about the suites in this place.’

‘Prepare to have your socks literally knocked off.’

Glancing up at him as they walked through Reception, arm in arm, her blood fizzing more and more every time her hip bumped against his, she saw an ever so slight curve to his mouth.

Mounds and mounds and mounds of trouble.

THE lift doors opened to reveal a line of people outside the Gatehouse’s basement nightclub. The doof-doof-doof of the beat echoing from behind the bouncer-manned double doors thundered in Hannah’s chest.

It didn’t help that she was overly aware of the big warm man standing so close behind her she could feel the brush of his jeans against her backside every time the line moved.

‘Stop fidgeting,’ Bradley said, his breath brushing her chandelier earring against her bare neck. ‘You look fine.’

‘Thanks,’ she said dryly. But she could hardly tell him the fidgets were all his doing.

The doors opened. Lights flashed over their faces. The line moved forward. Hannah took her chance and arched away from him. The doors closed. Doof-doof-doof.

‘I was serious when I said you should get a guide to take you out for a night tour of Cradle Mountain rather than coming along to this pre-wedding party thing.’

‘I’m fine.’

‘Look,’ she said, leaning back so she could drop her voice in case any of the bouncy young things in line were from Elyse’s wedding party, ‘it’s just going to be a bunch of locals, all of whom will pinch me on the cheek and remind me they were there the time I took off down Main Street naked. You’ll be bored out of your mind.’

When he didn’t answer straight away she looked up at him, surprised to find his jaw was clenched. He asked, ‘You took off down Main Street naked?’

The husky timbre of his voice gave her pause before she cleared her throat and explained, ‘I was two, and not overly keen on having a bath that evening.’

The slightly haunted look in his eyes disappeared. ‘You were a tearaway?’

‘Hardly. I was the perfect first child. Studious, polite, a pleaser. I took singing and dancing lessons for four years because Mum wanted me to—even though I’m tone deaf with two left feet. In compensation, when I did have my moments, I made the most of them—usually in front of the entire town.’

‘Coming in?’ the bouncer asked.

Hannah looked up to find they were at the front of the line. And she was still leaning back against her boss as though they were in the middle of a crushing crowd.

She pulled herself upright, rolled her shoulders and said, ‘You betcha.’

The bouncer smiled. ‘Knock ‘em dead.’

Hannah gave him a bright smile, feeling for the first time that night as if maybe she could. As if she was no longer the naked two-year-old, or the gawky, soccer-playing tomboy kid of the local beauty queen. ‘You know what? I’m going to do just that.’