Dreaming Of... Australia. Annie West

slid the ‘engaged’ knob into place as if it would save her life.

      Sam watched the little unisex toilet symbol flick from green to red and he sighed. Pretty appropriate, really. The little man represented him and the little woman represented Aimee. It only took one conversation to push the two of them from an amiable green to a cautionary red.

      Red for embarrassment. Red for anger. Red for incendiary.

      Take your pick.

      The two of them existed perpetually on the edge of an inflammatory zone. His pulse was still pounding. The chemistry between them hadn’t eased off since that day at the awards ceremony. He rubbed his thigh where it tingled from pressing against hers. All that unspent tension had to go somewhere.

      Even after weeks apart it was still live.

      Simmering. Just waiting for an excuse to flare up.

      Enough to rattle both of them. Enough that he’d forgotten himself and started a conversation that he’d have been better off not having. So why had he started it? Was he so desperate to forge a connection between them? Or was it because it was the only legitimate way he could relive that moment? The moment on the rock-face when Aimee went from being his patient to something more meaningful.

      Something she wasn’t asking to be.

      Something he couldn’t let her be.

      But he did enjoy riling her. The colour that flared in her cheeks … The glitter of her eyes … The defiant toss of her hair …

      He adjusted his position in the cramped economy seat as his body celebrated the image.

      Or maybe he just regressed to being nine years old in her presence and stirring her up was the equivalent of pulling her plaits to get noticed.

      Maybe he really was that lame.

      Either way, he needed to get a handle on it. They had three intensive days of promotion to get through, and they weren’t going to be any easier if he kept teasing her into hiding. They were both adults, and now colleagues. This was officially a work trip. Attraction or not, if he couldn’t count on his own best judgement then he’d have to count on his professionalism to get him through.

      He glanced at the little red symbol above the bathroom again.

      Assuming she ever came out.

       CHAPTER EIGHT

      AIMEE curled up in the comfy corner of the L-shaped sofa in her hotel suite at the end of their first long day in Melbourne and let her head fall back on a laugh. ‘Are you serious?’

      ‘Right in the solar plexus.’

      ‘And she was how old?’

      ‘Eighty-two. She had the bone density of someone two generations younger.’

      ‘Sam Gregory taken out by a great-grandmother.’ A frightened, bewildered great-grandmother, who’d had to wrestle with a young bag thief until Sam intervened. ‘Can’t you go anywhere without rescuing someone?’

      ‘She was doing a great job of holding onto her bag against a pretty big kid. I just evened up the odds for her.’

      ‘And got punched for your trouble.’ She laughed again. ‘You were supposed to be walking off the craziness of the day. Not hanging out in a police station making a report.’

      They’d both run from point to point like mad things since the moment they’d set foot in Tullamarine Airport that morning. Two school appearances, then out to a rescue centre at the foothills to have the same conversations, answer the same questions. To go over and over the events of that night on the A10 in excruciating detail.

      ‘Were you scared?’ one kid had asked.

      ‘Did it hurt?’ This from a young girl.

      ‘Was your car smashed to pieces?’ Always a boy asking that one.

      She was so grateful to have him by her side, but every time Sam told the story he used words like ‘standard operating procedure’ and ‘protocol’ and ‘training’. Depersonalising the entire incident. By contrast, her contribution was all about her feelings, her fears, how much difference Sam’s presence and support had made to her.

      Not unlike the whole day, really. And the two yet to come.

      As an exercise in public relations it was textbook. As a tool to remind her how everyday her situation had been for Sam—how not special—it was acute.

      ‘I just wanted to explain why I wasn’t at dinner,’ he went on.

      Reality still haunted her. ‘I don’t expect you to babysit me every minute.’

      ‘I know, but this is my city. My turf. I feel bad that I left you here alone on our first evening.’

      Our. As if they were a couple.

      ‘Don’t feel bad. I had Room Service soup and then a long, hot bath. It was blissful.’ It had soaked away some of her exhaustion, but not all. She squirrelled deeper into the sofa and got comfortable on a soft sigh. ‘Is that why you called? To apologise?’

      There was the slightest of pauses before he cleared his throat and continued. ‘Getting fresh air was only part of the reason I went out. Mel turns thirty next weekend and I wanted to pick her up something.’

      Aimee smiled past the little twang at the mention of his wife’s name. She was going to have to get used to those twangs. ‘I’m guessing the innercity constabulary don’t offer a lot in the way of fine giftware?’

      Her eyes flew to the adjoining wall as she imagined she heard his rich laugh clean through it. Until that moment Sam being next door to her in the hotel had hovered around her consciousness in a kind of abstract way. Talking by phone, he might as well have been across the country.

      But that laugh brought him into pulse-racing context.

      Right. Next. Door. Her heart kicked up a beat.

      ‘I have no idea what to get her,’ he said.

      Really? His own wife? ‘None at all?’

      ‘Flowers? Chocolates? Something expensive?’

      ‘Lord, don’t use price as your primary parameter …’

      ‘Don’t all women like expensive gifts?’

      Aimee smiled at the genuine bemusement in his voice. ‘Not if they’re in lieu of intimacy, no. We see right through those.’

      ‘My sister says lingerie, but—’

      Her stomach curled. Oh, God, don’t ask me about lingerie for your wife.

      ‘—won’t she think I have an expectation of seeing it on her?’

      Despite not wanting to have this conversation, Aimee frowned. ‘She’s your wife, Sam.’

      ‘Right, but … lingerie’s a statement. You know?’

      She blinked. What kind of marriage did they have?

      Before she could worry that particular bone further he went on. ‘In the same way that a toaster is a statement. Or slippers.’

      ‘Do not buy her slippers.’

      His low, rich chuckle down the line had its usual effect on her. Every hair on her body quivered. ‘I won’t. Even I know that much.’

      She blew out a breath. She owed Sam: bigtime. If gift advice for the wife she wished didn’t exist was what he needed, then so be it. She wouldn’t fail him. ‘Okay, so you want intimate, but not intimate.’

      ‘Right. Thank God we have this shorthand, Aimee.’

      That