The Complete Red-Hot Collection. Kelly Hunter

would I.’

      ‘Brode—mate—please!’ Scott said.

      ‘You are so uptight—I’m not at all sure I shouldn’t try to cut you out with Red,’ Brodie said.

      ‘You can try,’ Scott said, and then he laughed.

       CHAPTER TWENTY

      KATE COULDN’T DRUM UP any enthusiasm for the sailing lesson, but she was waiting at the jetty on the dot of eight o’clock, with a fake smile worthy of Scott himself pasted on.

      Because it wouldn’t do for Brodie to report back to Scott that she was looking wan and miserable.

      She climbed aboard and darted a look around the deck. Half expecting… Maybe hoping just a little…?

      ‘He’s not here, Kate,’ Brodie said.

      She looked at him as the hope died. ‘You know?’ Short, unhappy laugh. ‘Of course you do. Best friends, right? You don’t have to badger confidences out of him.’

      ‘Are we going to talk about it?’ Brodie asked.

      ‘No,’ Kate said, and heard the dangerous wobble in her voice.

      ‘Okay, then.’ He took her bag, stowed it. ‘Remember I said we were sailing down the coast and going swimming when we got there?’ He gestured to her long cotton pants, her long-sleeved T-shirt. ‘You got your swimmers on under there?’

      ‘Yes,’ she said.

      ‘Then we’re off.’

      Kate tried to recapture some of the joy of her first sailing lesson, but that sense of freedom, of escape, was elusive. She was just so…so heartbroken.

      Nevertheless, she threw herself into it—and if Brodie was a little less didactic this time around she wasn’t going to complain about getting special treatment. He was that kind of guy—the kind who read anguish and allowed for it. Not the kind to tell a girl she was a piece of tail…even if she was.

      Hours passed, and Kate started to wonder if they were going to turn around any time soon—because at this rate they wouldn’t make it back to Sydney before Sunday morning. But they finally stopped at a calm, protected inlet for lunch.

      Slowly Kate started to relax. But with relaxation came those horrible, useless, helpless tears. She hurried over to the bow of the boat, away from the others, trying to stem the flow. But it was no use. They welled in her eyes, clogged the back of her nose. Thank heaven she was wearing sunglasses, so Brodie wouldn’t see.

      But almost before the thought had formed Brodie was there, standing just behind her. She knew it, but she couldn’t turn. Just couldn’t move. Because the tears were flowing freely.

      ‘He’s not good with words,’ he said. ‘Not the important words.’

      Kate covered her face with her hands, dislodging her sunglasses.

      Brodie turned her, took off her sunglasses, hugged her. ‘At least he didn’t punch you. That’s what he did to me the first time I told him I loved him.’

      Kate started laughing then—and it was the weirdest thing, mixing laughter with tears.

      Brodie tilted her face up. ‘You going to give him another chance?’

      ‘No. That doesn’t happen in my family.’

      ‘Well, at least you gave him one chance, I guess,’ Brodie said. ‘It’s more than his own family gave him.’

      ‘Oh, God. Don’t say that.’

      ‘It’s true. He needs a family, Kate. A new one. A real one.’

      She was crying again.

      ‘And he’s over there on the shore, waiting for you to be it.’

      Kate, stunned, turned to look.

      And there he was. Tall and bulky, in jeans and T-shirt and aviator sunglasses, hands jammed into his pockets. Waiting for her.

      Waiting…for her…

      But waiting for what?

      Kate didn’t even notice when Brodie took his arms from around her. Barely heard him call to one of the guys on the boat. Dinghy… Something about a dinghy…

      Next thing she knew she and her bag were in the dinghy, heading towards the shore. Scott took off his sunglasses as she got closer, flinging them away as if he didn’t care what happened to them.

      And then she was there, and he was reaching for her, helping her out of the dinghy, holding out his hand for her bag, wrapping her in his arms, holding on to her, holding tight. It felt electric—like a massive, hungry jolt—so different from the calm comfort of Brodie’s embrace.

      And she knew it would always be like that with Scott. Because he was it. The only one for her. It was a thought that scared her so much she almost couldn’t breathe. Because it meant that without him she would be alone—forever. And she didn’t want to be alone any more.

      But being alone was better than loving a man who didn’t love her back.

      She took a deep breath, pulled out of his arms. ‘Scott, I meant what I said.’

      ‘Kate, please—just bear with me, okay? You’ll see.’

      Without waiting for her to respond, he took her hand, led her away from the water, up to the road.

      He opened the door of a nondescript car—where was his Mini?—and helped her in.

      ‘Where are we going, Scott?’ she asked tiredly as he got behind the wheel, started the car.

      ‘Don’t ask, Kate. I’ll stuff it up if I talk.’

      So Kate simply sat as Scott drove—a total mess, almost ill from the way her heart was hammering.

      He parked, got out of the car and came around to her side to help her out. He took her in his arms again and she couldn’t bring herself to pull away. She felt him shaking. Like a leaf.

      ‘Scared, that’s all,’ he said with an embarrassed shrug as she looked up at him.

      ‘Why?’

      Short half-laugh. ‘You’ll see,’ he said again, and led her off the road towards a patch of scrub.

      Her eyes widened. ‘In there?’

      Scott winced. ‘Yep. In there. God help us.’

      He led the way in until the thick scrub morphed into sparsely vegetated dunes. She could hear the roar and rush of surf, and then it was there. A tiny jewel of a beach, waves breaking in a constant sucking stream.

      ‘A surf beach?’ she said, poised on top of a dune.

      ‘Yeah, a surf beach,’ he said, grimacing, and trudged with her down onto the sand.

      ‘It’s beautiful,’ Kate said, trying to understand the grimace—trying to understand something. Anything. ‘And not a soul here except for that one surfer. Amazing.’

      ‘It’s a local secret,’ he said. ‘And apparently a little dangerous for swimming.’

      ‘So why are we here?’

      Scott screwed his eyes shut and blushed. ‘From Here to Eternity,’ he said.

      Kate’s mouth dropped open. It took her a moment to find her voice, but at least by the time she did Scott had opened his eyes.

      ‘Is this a joke?’ she asked icily.

      ‘No.’

      ‘Who told you?’

      ‘Brodie.’