Jo Leigh - Men In Uniform - Taken By The Soldier

‘I specialise in unpacking.’

His eyes narrowed to slits. ‘You move around a lot?’

Romy swallowed, cursing herself for opening that particular door. ‘Not any more. I wanted to get us settled in so Leighton can wake up to a fully furnished house.’ She’d have to work late into the night to pull it off, but since her dance card was conveniently blank…

Moving house at all went against everything she’d ever wanted for her child. Uprooting him from school, dragging him three hundred kilometres away into the forest. But the chance to get him away from the rotten neighbourhood they lived in—and his grandfather—had been too good to resist. Even if it brought back uncomfortable memories of being dragged from base to base.

‘Did you find the air con?’ Clint’s sceptical glance at her appearance made the question redundant.

They had air conditioning? That would have been good to know two hours ago. Romy stretched her sweaty back and ran a self-conscious hand through the damp thickness of her hair. ‘I wasn’t really warm enough to go looking.’ Liar. ‘Where’s the controller?’

He pulled his considerable bulk out of her dining chair and crossed to a small door beneath the stairs, the storage area she’d earmarked for all her packing boxes. He opened it and bent to reach inside, then emerged with a cream remote in his hand.

‘I installed it in here to keep it out of sight.’

‘ You put the air-con system in?’ He didn’t strike her as the handy sort.

Most likely to survive on a deserted island with three beans and a paperclip…Without doubt.

He pointed the remote at a tiny red LED in the ceiling that Romy thought was a fire sensor and pressed it. Magically, a gentle hum resonated through the entire house and icy air wafted out of subtle vents to cool her damp skin.

‘Awesome! Air con!’ Leighton’s delighted cry drifted down from upstairs.

‘Thank you. I have a feeling that’s going to save us when summer fully hits.’ She took the remote he passed her and returned it to its hiding place under the stairs, bending forwards into the cupboard and peering around in the dim light for the cradle.

‘It’s on the facing wall.’ Deep male tones suddenly sounded right over her shoulder.

Romy backed out to look at the panel mounted by the door and accidentally knocked against a pair of tree trunks. Clint’s legs. His hands caught her hips to stop her reversing any further into him and a live current gnawed along her skin from where his warm hands rested. She choked an apology and then studied the air-con controls intently to give her scorching cheeks time to settle.

Another great moment in first impressions. Backing, butt-first, into your boss’s thighs.

She didn’t need sexual experience to know how bad it must have looked from his perspective. There was a new shadow in his expression. Her stomach dropped. Maybe he’d seen her tattoo…She tugged her tank top down and swallowed hard against her gut reaction to his unspoken criticism.

The kettle singing out gave her the perfect escape. She crossed into the kitchen and poured them both a coffee, her mind racing for something diverting to say. Inspiration completely failed her.

Clint finally ended the silence himself. ‘Do you need a hand shifting anything? Mattresses? Large furniture?’ The offer seemed genuine but he sounded annoyed that he was making it. Like his lips were working against his will.

Romy glanced around the remaining boxes and her search fell on Leighton’s three vivariums. His posse of pet tree frogs currently hung out in a temporary transport tank but she knew he’d love to get them into their regular accommodations. Seeing the five frogs settled was the fastest way to get Leighton settled, and hefting sixty kilos of glass up two flights of stairs single-handed was not high on her list of activities to look forward to.

Practicality won out over pride. ‘If you could help me upstairs with L’s frog tanks I’d really appreciate it.’

‘He keeps frogs?’ Clint took a big swallow of coffee, then moved towards the tanks to check them out.

‘Since he was about six.’ She still got the feeling he was helping her out against his better judgement. If they weren’t so awkward and the stairs not so steep she would have told him not to bother.

Bulging biceps or not.

‘That’s pretty specialist. For a kid,’ he said.

‘He’s pretty special…for a kid.’ She wiped her damp hands on her shorts. The air con was doing its job but having Clint in her house was making her plain nervous. This stilted conversation wasn’t helping any.

They bumped and heaved and lurched the first tank up the stairs like poorly partnered dancers until, finally, they crossed the threshold into Leighton’s A-frame attic bedroom. They placed the tank down gently.

The room was ideal for a young boy with a wild imagination. A single large window looked out over a tree-packed gully behind the house like a living landscape painting, and there was plenty of ceiling space between the rafters for posters and an entire wall free for the vivariums to hold Leighton’s five best friends in the world.

Lucky Leighton wasn’t quite tall enough yet to bang his head on the low end of the A-frame rafters. Romy vaguely recalled the man who’d fathered him was of average height himself—average in every way, in fact—which was why she couldn’t remember much about him nine years after the solitary night that had changed her life forever. If he’d been a behemoth like Clint McLeish, chances were Leighton would be rubbing a bump on his forehead right now.

She hauled in a breath.

His eyes flicked over the sci-fi models, reptile posters and mountain of books waiting for a yet-to-be-assembled bookshelf and turned to her. ‘You’ve done well in here. It looks…’

Again with the reluctance? If he didn’t want to speak to her why did he keep starting conversations?

‘…different to when it was my room.’

Leighton’s bright face snapped to his. ‘This was your room? Cool!’

He dropped to his haunches. ‘I grew up in this attic. Then I lived in the cottage for the past two years while I built my house on the other side of the valley. After I got back from the—’ he seemed to catch himself ‘—overseas. I always preferred the view from this room.’

The enticing flash of Clint stretched out under the A-frame roof on a hot summer’s evening draped in nothing but moonlight immediately put Romy in a bad mood. And he’d built his own house, too…

How very GI Joe.

‘Sorry?’ The glint in his eyes told her maybe she’d said it aloud.

She squared her shoulders. ‘We should get the next tank in.’

His glare almost certainly matched her own as they trundled downstairs for the second trip. There was no doubt she’d ticked him off by pointing out all the security failings in his expensive wilderness retreat, but fortunately he seemed to have put the needs of his business ahead of his colossal personal ego in agreeing to hire her. Another military flow-on, she’d bet. Corps before self, every time.

In fact, it was corps before pretty much everything, including family. Wives, girlfriends…and sad, lonely little daughters.

In the living room, he waved her help away, lifted the second tank solo and mastered it up the staircase with a great deal more ease than when the two of them had failed to coordinate their efforts. Romy followed with an aluminium tank stand in each hand, doing her best to ignore the way his muscles shifted under his T-shirt and the power in the arms that spanned the metre-long tank.

Eventually all three tanks were in place and even GI Joe was puffing slightly from the effort. She tried to visualise how she might have accomplished the same on her own. It would have involved hours of straining and a good deal of swearing. Clint did it in less than five minutes. The affront to her feminine pride and the way her traitorous body was responding to the pheromones he was pumping out in his sweat only dirtied her mood further. She plucked her tank top away from her damp skin and forced the tingles to heel.