Date with a Single Dad. Ally Blake

It didn’t help.

      Maybe if she’d lived down to his expectations and been the ditzy powder puff he’d fully assumed she’d be, that’d be the end of that. Instead he couldn’t let go of the fact that despite her reputation she’d been out there at six in the morning with no entourage, no make-up, no airs and graces, no expectation of special treatment.

      A woman who hid a sharp tongue behind her soft lips. A woman whose wickedly intelligent eyes could make lesser men forget themselves.

      Zach pushed till his muscles burned.

      Forgetting himself was not an option. It would mean forgetting a little girl who had no one else left in the world to protect her bar him.

      His daughter. A daughter only a handful of trusted people even knew about.

      No one else could know. Not yet. Not now.

      She was so very young. Her life so recently upheaved. It was all he could do to keep her safe.

      To do that he had to keep her from those in the media who would carelessly make bold, loud assumptions about her future before she ever had the chance to find her footing in the present.

      He knew full well how even the most innocent of comments at that age could influence how one thought about oneself. He’d met more than one person in a position of power who’d taken some kind of sick pleasure in telling a lonely orphan kid that he was nobody and would grow up to be even less. Decades on he still remembered each and every one.

      He’d never forgive himself if that happened to her because of her relationship to him. And that meant keeping her identity concealed from those for whom Meg Kelly was their most prolific source of sustenance.

      Eyes on the horizon, he ran until his shins ached, his heels felt like rock, and his body was drenched in thirty-five-degree sweat.

      He ran until the ugly faces from his past became a blur.

      He ran until it no longer mattered how long he’d now been in lock-down in this middle-of-nowhere place trying to make his round life fit into a square hole.

      He ran until he was too exhausted to be concerned that he was trying to be a father when, having never had one himself, he had no real clue what the word meant.

      He ran until he could no longer quite remember the exact mix of colours it took to make up the most bewitching pair of feminine blue eyes he’d ever be likely to see.

      CHAPTER THREE

      POST-BREAKFAST, post long hot shower, make-up done, hair coiffed, and changed into a vintage pink designer sundress—the exact kind of body armour she’d have preferred to have been wearing when meeting the likes of Zach Jones—Meg’s skin still felt all zingy.

      Not good zingy either. Uncomfortable zingy. Miffed zingy. It didn’t take any kind of genius to know it was all his fault.

      Standing in front of Waratah House she held the resort map in front of her, turning it left ninety degrees, then right. Rylie and Tabitha thought she was taking a nap, as they were. All the zinging made that absolutely impossible, so she’d snuck out.

      ‘Excuse me?’ she said to a passing couple. ‘Do you happen to know which way’s north?’

      The gent pointed without even thinking. Amazing. Then his hand remained outstretched, his mouth agape even after she’d hit the bottom of the wide steps and was heading north towards the bulk of the resort, her ballet flats slapping against the stone path.

      Her calves were so tight she winced with every step. The blisters on her heels stinging as if they were teaching her a lesson for not wearing high heels.

      Message well and truly heard, she wasn’t going to push her luck by going the week without her beloved caffeine as well. She was going to find something sweet and dark and rich and bad for her if she had to hike down the mountain, flag a passing truck and barter her shoes for some at a local milk bar.

      The fact that what she craved sounded a heck of a lot like Zach Jones only made her walk faster.

      It really was the strangest thing. She was used to people bending over backwards to get her endorsement, to have her wear their product, mention their charity, look sideways at whatever they were touting. Not that she ever agreed unless it was something she’d advocate even without being asked.

      Zach Jones, on the other hand, had all but suggested he’d really prefer it if she and her friends would just clear off. To Las Vegas, no less. As far, far away from his resort as possible seemed to be his main point.

      Far, far away from him.

      Yet there was no mistaking the zing of electricity when he’d touched her. No denying the way the tension vibrating throughout him had melted away when she’d made him laugh. No confusing the way he’d taken his time getting to know her body when she’d unthinkingly told him to take his fill.

      And absolutely no doubting, whatever beef he had with her, it was very very personal.

      She was nice, for Pete’s sake! She worked her backside off. She was kind to small animals. She gave everyone a fair go. Why shouldn’t she expect to be treated the same way?

      It was as though the guy had been given a torch and a map pointing him right towards her Achilles heel—a terminal relic of a childhood spent doing whatever it took to get even a hint that her father cared. That heel couldn’t be soothed with antiseptic cream and Band-Aids.

      ‘Grrrrr!’ she shouted to the wide-open sky.

      When she glanced down a group of guests in matching pale green Juniper Falls Rainforest Retreat brand tracksuits doing t’ai chi on a mound of grass were looking her way. From nowhere one of them pulled out a mobile phone and took her picture.

      It shouldn’t have surprised her. It happened every day.

      But being on holiday she’d been silly enough to let down her guard. Enter one tall, dark, handsome businessman and her usual cool had gone up in smoke. She had to pull herself together quick smart.

      The kind of attention that followed a down-and-out It Girl was far worse than for one who went about her business with cheerful grace. Not only would that adversely effect the family—God, the horror of ever being on the end of that conversation—the one part of her life that was truly her own, her one beautiful unspoiled secret, her time volunteering at the Valley Women’s Shelter, would be gone.

      Zach Jones was a very lucky man. They both seemed to want the same thing—for this next week to be drama free. She’d just have to keep Rylie away from Zach, Zach away from Tabitha, and herself aware of the whereabouts of all three so that she could relax. Ha!

      Meg picked what felt, and tasted, like birdseed from between her teeth. If she was looking for a reason to really not like him she realised she had one. It was his fault her belly was full of nothing bar raw oats bathed in pale soy milk, bite-sized chunks of some mysterious organic fruit and a green drink so thick and speckled it looked as if it had been scooped out of primordial ooze.

      She needed chocolate. And coffee. And bad.

      She pulled herself together and waved cheerfully to the group. ‘Good morning, all!’ she called out.

      A few people waved back. Several more mobile phones went click-click before the wellness facilitator clicked his fingers loudly and reminded them it would be best to leave their mobiles in their rooms while working towards a mind free of distractions.

      Then she skipped up the path as fast as her sore muscles and flat shoes would carry her.

      Skirting the eastern edge of the resort grounds, Meg passed an array of cosy guest bungalows peeking out of the edge of the rainforest. One was completely covered in creepers, the next had been built on stilts above a bounty of ferns. Another bungalow had obviously been built around an existing tree. Each was more charming than the last. But unless the gingerbread house from Hansel and Gretel appeared next she wasn’t slowing.

      Coffee,