Christy McKellen - Mills & Boon Showcase

She frowned. ‘Yes?’

He’d been unforgivably ill-mannered not to shake her hand just to avoid physical contact. So what inexplicable force made him now lean towards her and lightly brush his thumb over her mouth where it was stained that impossibly bright pink? He could easily tell her what he had to without touching her.

His pulse accelerated a gear at the soft, yielding feel of her lips, the warm female scent of her. She quivered in awareness of his touch, then stood very still, her cheeks flushed and her eyes wide.

He didn’t want her around. Didn’t want her warmth, her laughter, falling on his heart like drops of water on a spiky-leaved plant so parched it was in danger of dying. A plant that needed the sun, the life-giving rain, but felt safe and comfortable existing in the shadows, living a half-life that until now had seemed enough.

‘Sandy....’ There was so much more he wanted to say. But couldn’t.

She looked mutely back at him.

He drew a deep, ragged breath. Cleared his throat. Forced his voice into its usual tone, aware that it came out gruffer but unable to do anything about it.

‘I don’t know if this is the latest city girl look, but your mouth...it’s kinda pink in the middle. You might want to fix it.’

She froze, then her hand shot to her mouth. ‘What do you mean? I don’t use pink lipstick.’

Without saying a word he walked around to her side of the counter and pulled out a drawer. He handed her the mirror his aunt always kept there.

Sandy looked at her image. She stared. She shrieked. ‘That’s the ink from my niece Amy’s feather pen!’

It was difficult not to grin at her reaction.

Then she glared at him, her eyes sparking, though she looked about as ferocious as one of the stray puppies his mother fostered. ‘You! You let me go around all this time looking like this? Why didn’t you tell me?’

He shrugged, finding it hard not show his amusement at her outraged expression. ‘How was I to know it wasn’t some fashion thing? I’ve seen girls wearing black nail polish that looks like bruises.’

‘But this...’ She wiped her hand ineffectively across her mouth. ‘This! I look like a circus clown.’

He shrugged. ‘I think it’s kinda cute. In a...circusy kind of way.’

‘You!’ She scrutinised her image and scrubbed hard at her mouth.

Now her lips looked all pouty and swollen, like they’d used to after their marathon teen making out sessions. He had to look away. To force himself not to remember.

She glared again. ‘Don’t you ever, ever let me go out in public again looking weird, okay?’

‘I said cute, not weird. But okay.’ He couldn’t help his mouth from lifting into a grin.

Her eyes narrowed into accusing slits. ‘Are you laughing at me, Ben Morgan?’

‘Never,’ he said, totally negating his words by laughing.

She tried, but she couldn’t sustain the glare. Her mouth quirked into a grin that spilled into laughter chiming alongside his.

After all the angst of the morning it felt good to laugh. Again he felt something shifting and stirring deep inside the seized and rusted engine of his emotions. He didn’t want it to fire into life again. That way led to pain and anguish. But already Sandy’s laughter, her scent, her unexpected presence again in his life, was like the slow drip-drip-drip of some powerful repair oil.

‘C’mon,’ he said. ‘While the rain’s stopped let’s get you checked into the hotel. Then I have to get back to work.’

As he pulled the door of Bay Books closed behind him he found himself pursing his mouth to whistle. A few broken bars of sound escaped before he clamped down on them. He glanced to see if Sandy had noticed, but her eyes were focused on the street ahead.

He hadn’t whistled for years.

CHAPTER SIX

SANDY SAT IN her guest room at Hotel Hideous, planning a new list. She shivered and hugged her arms to herself. The room was air conditioned to the hilt. There was no stinting on luxury in the modern, tasteful furnishings. She loved the dolphin motif that was woven into the bedcover and decorative pillows, and repeated discreetly on the borders of the curtains. And the view across the old harbour and the bay was beyond magnificent.

But it wasn’t a patch on the charm of the old guesthouse. Who could have believed the lovely building would come to such a tragic end? She shuddered at the thought of what Ben had endured. Was she foolish to imagine that he could ever get over his terrible losses? Ever be able to let himself love again?

She forced herself to concentrate as she turned a new page of her fairy notebook. The pretty pink pen had been relegated to the depths of her handbag. She didn’t have the heart to throw Amy’s gift in the bin, even though she could never use it again.

She still burned at the thought of not just Ben but Kate, Ida and who-knew-who-else seeing her with the hot pink stain on her mouth. It was hardly the sophisticated image she’d thought she was putting across. Thankfully, several minutes of scrubbing with a toothbrush had eliminated the stain.

But maybe the ink stain had, in a roundabout way, served a purpose. Thoughtfully, she stroked her lip with her finger, where Ben’s thumb had been. After all, hadn’t the stain induced Ben to break out of his self-imposed cage and actually touch her?

She took a pen stamped with the Hotel Harbourside logo—which, of course, incorporated a dolphin—from the desk in front of her and started to write—this time in regulation blue ink.

1. Reschedule birthday celebrations.

No.

Postpone indefinitely.

Was turning thirty, with her life such a mess, actually cause for celebration anyway? Maybe it was best left unmarked. She could hope for better next year.

2. Congratulate self for not thinking once about The Wedding.

She scored through the T and the W to make them lower case. It was her friends who had dramatised the occasion with capital letters. Her so-called friends who’d gone over to the dark side and accepted their invitations.

She could thank Ben’s aunt Ida for pushing all thoughts of That-Jerk-Jason and his lucrative trip down the aisle out of her mind.

Or—and she must be honest—was it really Ida who’d distracted her?

She realised she was gnawing the top of the pen.

3. Quit chewing on pens for once and for all. Especially pens that belong to first love.

First love now determined not even to be friends.

Which brought her to the real issue.

4. Forget Ben Morgan.

She stabbed it into the paper.

Forget the shivery delight that had coursed through her when his finger had traced the outline of her mouth. Forget how he’d looked when he had laughed—laughed at her crazy pink ink stain—forget the light in his eyes, the warmth of his smile. Forget the stupid, illogical hope that sprang into her heart when they joked together like in old times.

She slammed the notebook shut, sending glitter shimmering over the desk. Opened it again. She underscored the last words.

Then got on to the next item.

5. Visit Ida and get info on running bookshop.

She had to open Bay Books tomorrow and she didn’t have a clue what she should be doing. This was scary stuff.

She leaned back in her chair to think about the questions she should ask the older lady when the buzzer to her room sounded.

‘Who is it?’ she called out, slamming her notebook shut again in a flurry of glitter.

‘Ben.’

In spite of her resolutions her heart leaped at the sound of his voice. ‘Just give me a second,’ she called.

Her hands flew to her face, then smoothed her still-damp-from-the-shower hair. She tightened the belt on the white towelling hotel bathrobe. She ran her tongue around suddenly dry lips before she fumbled with the latch and opened the door.