Amy Andrews - Australian Escape

And yet he dragged out a chair and—blocking Ms Shaw’s view of the front door—sat down.

Luke not carving out time for a surf during his first time in the cove for years was one thing. But not knowing when a gorgeous woman wanted to get to know him better? Unforgivable.

And she was gorgeous. Her pale hair clipped neatly away from her face in some kind of fancy braid, eyes soft and sooty, lips slicked glossy pink, ropes of tiny beads draping over a black-and-white dress that made her look like a million bucks. If he ever needed a reminder she was not from here, that whatever spark was between them had no future...

Then she had to go and say, “Oh, you’re staying?”

And that was it. He was hunkered in. His voice was one notch above a growl as he said, “Nice to see you too, Miss Shaw.”

She pointed over his shoulder. “I’m actually—”

“Thrilled to see me?”

She swallowed, clearly undecided as to whether to admit why she was there alone. In the end she kept her mouth shut.

“Saw you sitting here all alone and figured it was the gentlemanly thing to rescue you from your lonesomeness,” he said, casually perusing the menu he already knew by heart. He put the menu down, and settled back in his chair, sliding a leg under the table, navigating Hull’s big body. Only to find himself knocking shoes with Avery. Her high-heel-clad foot slipped away.

“Really?”

“Hand to heart,” he said, action matching words.

Her eyes flickered to his hand, across his chest, over his shoulders, to his hair, pausing longest of all on his mouth, before skimming back to his eyes. And while he knew it was not smart, was traitorous even, he enjoyed every second of it.

“Is your dog even allowed in here?” she said, pointing under the table.

He lifted a shoulder, let it fall. “Not my dog.”

She leaned forward a little then. Her mouth kicked into a half-smile.

“Well, whoever’s dog he is,” that mouth said, “he’s sitting on my foot. And my toes are now officially numb. He’s enormous.”

“Huge,” said Jonah, lifting his eyes to hers to find them darkened, determined, as if making some kind of connection between man and beast. Enough that he had to fight the urge to adjust himself.

Wrapping her lips around her straw in a way that was entirely unfair, she asked, “So how did you and Hull meet?”

“Found him on the beach when he was a pup—a tiny, scrawny, shivery ball of mangy, matted fluff, near dead with exhaustion and hunger. Odds on he wasn’t the only one in the litter dumped. Probably tied up in a sack full of rocks and thrown overboard. He’s been crazy afraid of water ever since. Took him home, cleaned him up, fed him, and that was it.”

“You saved his life and that doesn’t make him your responsibility?”

“Never bought him, never sought him. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a great dog. And if he thinks you’re a threat to me, he’d like nothing better than to tear you limb from limb.”

“Me?” she said, flicking a quick glance at the now-snoring lump under the table. “A threat?”

Jonah shot her a flat look. She was the biggest threat he’d met in a long time.

By the rise and fall of her chest she got his meaning loud and clear.

Then, frowning, she slipped her fingers down the length of beads and stared at the little bits of pineapple bobbing on top of her drink. Most likely because of the elephant in the room. Or not in the room as he hadn’t showed up.

Rubbing a hand up the back of his neck, Jonah wished he’d simply called Luke and asked where the hell he was. Or at the very least what his intentions towards her were, if any. Hell, he’d done such a fine job avoiding the woman, for all Jonah knew she and Luke could have been dating for days.

That thought clouded his vision something mad, but didn’t put a dent in the attraction that rode over him like a rogue wave. The only right thing to do was leave. Walk away. Avoid more. At least until he knew where they all stood.

He quietly schooled his features, looked casually over the restaurant, towards the still-empty doorway. And set his feet to the floor as he made to leave her be.

When the waiter came shuffling up. “Oh, good, your company’s finally arrived. Are you ready to order now?”

Jonah glanced back at Avery to find her blushing madly now, nose buried in the menu.

“Um...he’s... I guess. Just... Can I have a second, please? Sorry!”

When she looked up at the waiter she shot him her sunshine smile, catching Jonah in its wake. The effect was like a smack to the back of the head, rattling his thoughts till he could no longer quite put them back in order.

“This is my first time here,” she said. “What would you recommend?”

Jonah jabbed a finger at the rump steak. “Rare.” Motioned to his friend under the table and said, “Two.”

“Make it three,” said Avery, picking out a pricey glass of red wine to go along with it.

When the waiter wandered off, she lowered the menu slowly, frowned at it a second, before taking a breath and looking up at him. Clearly bemused as to how they’d got there. Just the two of them. Having lunch.

He wished he knew himself.

Avery shuffled on her chair and said, “So, Jonah, did you always want to work with boats growing up?”

“Boats? We’re really heading down that path?”

“Boats. The weather. You pick!” She threw her arms out in frustration. “Or you can just sit there all silent and broody for all I care. I was perfectly happy to have lunch on my own before you came along.”

“Were you, now?”

She glared at him then, the truth hovering between them.

She grabbed her pink drink and slugged the thing down till it was empty. The fact that she thought she needed booze to get through lunch with him was actually kind of comforting. Then she licked her lips in search of stray pink drink. And Jonah had never felt less comfortable in his life.

He rubbed a hand over his jaw, hoping the prickle of stubble might wake him the hell up, but instead finding his cheeks covered in overly long scruff. The lack of a close shave was just about the only throwback to his old life. When the idea of lunch with a pretty girl was as normal to him as a day spent in the sea, not something fraught with malignant intentions and mortal peril.

He dropped his calloused fingers to his lap, so like his father’s fingers.

She wanted to talk boats? What the hell. “My father worked on boats.”

“Oh, a family tradition.”

Jonah coughed out a laugh. His father wouldn’t have thought so. As brutally proud as Jonah was of everything Charter North had become, he knew his father wouldn’t have understood. The types of boats, or the number. Karl North had only ever owned the one boat, the Mary-Jane, named after Jonah’s mother. And in the end she’d killed him.

“He was a lobster man,” Jonah went on. “A diver. Over the reefs. Live collection, by hand.” No big hauls, just long hours, negligible conversation, even less outward displays of affection, not much energy left for anything not on the boat.

Avery picked up on the “Was?”

“He died at sea when I was seventeen. He’d taught me a thing or two about boats before then, though. I could pull a boat engine apart and put it back together by the time I was fourteen.”

“You think that’s impressive? At fourteen I could speak French and create a five-course menu for twenty people.”

“You cook?”

“I created the menu. Cook cooked it.”

“Of course.”

She grinned. Sunshine. And when she slid her fingers over the rope of beads, this time he felt the slide of those fingers somewhere quite else. “And your mother?”

“She left when I was eleven. I haven’t seen her since. Hard being married to a man whose first love is big and blue. When the summer storms threaten to turn every boat inside out and upside down. When quotas laws changed, or the crops just weren’t there. He went back out there the next day and tried again, because that’s what men did.”