Barbara Hannay - In the Boss's Arms

Bob and Noreen King plied them with hot, sweet tea and thick corned-beef and tomato sandwiches and showed them to their guest accommodation—cute log cabins, separate as requested, down by a billabong.

It was there, once Liam was alone in his cabin—and he thanked God that he was alone—that he broke down, shaking violently, almost weeping with the shock of knowing how close they’d come. So close to death.

Again.

He knew from guilty experience how very fragile life was, had learned first-hand the heartless ease with which a life could be lost in one moment of recklessness.

All the images he’d tried to suppress came flooding back—the lifeless body and twisted metal. One careless split-second. That was all it took to measure the distance between existence and death. He’d learned that dreadful lesson years ago, when he was twenty-one, but still the guilt lived on.

So close. Today they’d come so terribly close.

The black horror of it crowded in, dragging him down, as it had so many times before.

Hauling off his clothes, he stumbled into the shower and let the warm water pour over him, let the familiar pinprick of fine needles heat his skin. He wasn’t sure how long he was there, sagging against the tiled wall of the recess, but at some point the voice of reason finally began to make itself heard.

The thought gradually sank in that on this occasion no lives had been lost. Today he’d actually saved lives.

He clung to that knowledge. But it still wasn’t enough to reassure him.

A knock sounded on the door of his cabin.

‘Be with you in a moment,’ he called as he shut off the water and reached for a towel. Hastily he thrust his legs into jeans and roughly towelled his damp hair as he crossed the room.

Alice stood on his doorstep, showered and changed into khaki shorts and a cute white top. Her eyes were huge in her pale face, and he realised with a slam of guilt that he’d been too self-absorbed to check how she was coping with the after-shock of their ordeal.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, eyeing his state of undress, his ruffled, damp hair. ‘I’ve interrupted you.’

‘Nothing important’s happening here.’ He flipped the towel over one shoulder.

Just the same, she looked uncomfortable. She lowered her gaze, as if his bare chest bothered her, and he tried to ignore the way the tiny shoestring straps on her top revealed the exquisite perfection of her collar-bones, the way the stretch material hugged her breasts.

She waved a vague hand at the billabong. Their cabins were set on its banks, giving them a pretty view of silky, tea-coloured water almost completely covered by pink water lilies. It was encircled by towering, shady paperbark trees and lush pandanus palms.

‘So what do you think of the guest accommodation on Redhead Downs?’ she asked him.

‘Fabulous setting.’ He watched a solitary white heron fish the opposite bank, its long beak probing beneath the lily pads. Then he stepped back, pushing his door wider open. ‘And the cabins are adequate. Why don’t you come in?’

She looked uncertain. ‘I just wanted to make sure you’re OK.’

‘I’m fine. Come on, come on in.’

It was only when she hesitated again that he remembered. ‘Whoa! Almost forgot. All the drama must have fused my brain. We’re keeping our distance, aren’t we?’

Whose idea had that been? His?

She looked up at him again and this time her gorgeous grey eyes were shiny with tears. ‘I haven’t thanked you properly,’ she said. ‘You were so amazing. I—I don’t know how you landed that plane. It was a very brave thing to do.’

‘That wasn’t bravery. I was working on pure adrenaline. Anyway, what about your first aid? You saved the pilot’s life. The flying doctor said as much.’

She shrugged. ‘My contribution wouldn’t have been much use if the plane had crashed.’ A tear trembled on the end of an eyelash, slipped down her cheek.

Liam reached over and caught it with the tip of his forefinger.

‘Sorry,’ she said, blinking hard and releasing more tears.

‘Don’t be. It’s natural to be upset after a shock like that.’ What a hypocrite he was, pretending to be the cool, nerveless hero.

Alice wiped her cheeks with her fingers and gave a little shiver, and then she hugged herself, rubbing her hands over her bare arms.

Watching her hands, he couldn’t resist asking, ‘You want me to do that?’

She stared at him, her mouth parted, her eyes damp, her lashes spiky and wet. ‘What?’ But then she looked down at her arms wrapped across her front. ‘Yes,’ she whispered so softly he only just caught it. ‘I—I need a hug.’

His breathing snagged.

Once more her eyes lifted, met his and signalled a silent message. Blood throbbed in his veins, pounded in his ears. There it was; the insane chemistry they’d felt on the night they met. The urge he’d been fighting ever since. Now it triggered a violent wanting in him, an echoing tremble in her.

‘Alice, come here.’

She needed no further invitation. She floated through the doorway and into his arms. With his foot he closed the cabin door behind them.

Her body seemed to merge into his, her arms linked around him and her mouth, her sweet, sweet mouth opened to him in a kiss that was one hundred per cent distilled passion.

Liam was already lost. Lost in the need to touch and to taste and to hold her.

‘I’m so glad we’re alive,’ she whispered as she pressed eager kisses over his face.

He knew their emotions were sweeping common sense aside. Alice was overwhelmed by relief and gratitude, he by his desire and his need to blank out dark memories. But as he framed her face with his hands, as her lips parted beneath his, inviting him into her, he knew that he was a mere man, and he’d wanted this woman, had craved her ever since the night they’d met and made love.

Today they’d come face to face with the cruel mystery of chance. They’d been courted by death and had escaped its claws. And now they needed to embrace life. They needed this assurance, this coming together of warm bodies, of wildly beating hearts.

The touch of Alice’s hands on his body made his heart jolt so fiercely it practically wedged in his throat. And her hands were merciless as they explored his shoulders, as her fingers made circles on his chest.

Then the flats of her palms slid down his sides to his hips, to the waistband of his jeans, and he gave up all attempts to justify this pleasure. This was OK. Very OK.

But just as he slipped his hands beneath her top, he remembered.

God help him, he remembered the one thing that couldn’t be overlooked.

‘Wait, Alice. Alice, wait.’ With an anguished groan he closed his hands around hers just as she reached the snap fastener on his jeans.

‘Wait?’ She sounded breathless and embarrassed and she buried her face into his chest.

‘I didn’t bring anything with me.’

Her head shot up. ‘I don’t understand. What are you talking about?’

‘Protection.’ He let out a deep, ragged sigh. ‘We weren’t going to do this. I gave you my word and I deliberately didn’t pack anything, so there’d be no chance of weakening.’

‘Oh.’ She wriggled her hands out of his grasp and pressed them to her bright pink cheeks.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

‘Actually, it doesn’t matter.’

‘Don’t be silly. Of course it does.’

Alice smiled at him. ‘Don’t look so worried, Liam. I’m safe as houses. We don’t need protection.’

What was she implying? That she was on the Pill?

‘I’m not going to get pregnant,’ she said and she forced a careless little laugh.

The brittle, offhand way she said this made her look and sound tough, but Liam could sense vulnerability lying just below the surface. He stepped towards her and reached for her hand.