The Men In Uniform Collection. Barbara McMahon

to that. If you can honestly tell me there’s no part of you that’s like him, then I’ll listen. I swear I will.’

      Her eyes were like dinner plates in her pale face. Clint thought about his time as an operative. The good men he’d pushed just short of breaking point. The things he’d seen…done. And the things he’d been unable to reconcile himself to. The military was deeply embedded in his soul and, even now, he struggled to remember he wasn’t about unit, corps, God, country, any more.

      He was nothing like Leighton’s grandfather…yet everything like him.

      And so he stayed silent. Even though every part of him wanted to fight to get back the moment they’d so very nearly shared. The moment when something fundamental had shifted in his universe. In his soul.

      Instead, he stared silently at her.

      She nodded sadly and turned for the house. ‘Goodnight, Clint.’

      Then she was gone. He slumped in the ute and slammed his hand against the aging dash. He’d spent a lifetime controlling his emotions but it took him more than a minute to get them under command now.

       Chapter Six

      ANOTHER damaged fence kept Romy busy. As fast as she patched them up, more breaches appeared. Not that being thoroughly occupied was a bad thing, but her already filthy mood wasn’t improved any by spending a second afternoon in the Australian sun straining wire.

      Stop your whining, girl, and get on with it. She heard the Colonel’s hard voice barking at her as though he were right there on the hill. Instinctively she sucked in her breath and straightened her spine. She yanked the final wire tight and stood back to examine her work.

      It was getting harder to imagine this was only kids sneaking onto the property for an unauthorised swim or a farmer helping himself to fruit. Simone told her they’d not had breaches like this before so why the difference now? Because she’d sealed up a regular access point when she first arrived? Maybe activity was on the rise? Or could someone be making life intentionally difficult for her? She glanced around. Whichever, she was determined to solve it. To prove herself to all the knockers who were waiting for her to mess up.

      She tossed her tools into the boot of her car.

      Who was she kidding; most of the WildSprings staff had already accepted her, even if one or two had taken a while to warm to her. There was only one person she was trying to prove herself to and he remained entirely oblivious to her strengths.

      She shook her head. Not surprising, really. It seemed as if all she’d done in Clint’s presence was confront him, disagree or wail like a banshee, all of which hardly engendered confidence. And then there was the kissing…

      Romy flushed anew remembering how she’d practically climbed inside his skin back in the tree house. On all of one week’s acquaintance. It had felt so right for those blessed moments before she’d come to her senses. The fact he’d responded wholeheartedly did not lessen her embarrassment. Maybe he just hadn’t been to the city for a while?

      She knew for certain he went the very next day.

      That was ten days ago now and she hadn’t so much as caught a whiff of him since then. He certainly knew how to lay low. But she’d not had the same success getting him out of her head. Even now she could still feel how his body moved under her touch. The hard, living shelf of flesh over his strong heartbeat, the gentle scrape of stubble across her cheek, the feathery silk of his lips on her skin as he whispered comforting sounds in her ear. And that smell…Her lids fluttered shut.

       Stop!

      She braced her hands on the hood of her car and took six deep breaths. Nothing good could come from revisiting the incident over and over. Clint McLeish was officially out of bounds.

      Despite what the hollow ache in her chest thought.

      Did she need a flashing red light to go off every time he got too close? The man was a risk-taker, ex–special services and had closed himself off from the world. He had more baggage than a 747.

      Takes one to know one, a tiny voice whispered.

      She shot forwards on the track in a spray of dust and sent dirt scattering behind her car. What was his baggage all about? All she knew was he’d been a Taipan. And they were at the precision end of encounters in some of the world’s hottest war zones. He’d told her himself he’d killed people, but in the context of his regiment maybe that meant he’d killed people.

      As in up close. Intensely personal. Impossible to forget.

      He certainly had the haunted look of a man who’d seen too much. And he’d left that world behind and dug himself an existence here in the forest. He called it somewhere to heal but Romy looked at it as a hole to lie down and die in.

      Just like any mortally wounded animal.

      Her heart reached out to that part of him. The part she’d glimpsed for barely a moment that night in his house. The part, she very much suspected, that was responsible for framing and mounting his service badge and commendation.

      You wouldn’t do that if you didn’t care. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t hurt so much. And the flashes in his eyes when she’d asked about it were most definitely pain.

      For the first time, she saw a glint of reason to the way the military trained its people. Especially in those kinds of units. You’d need a certain level of psychological shielding in order to strap on a weapon and take human lives. Otherwise, the enormity of the job you had to do might just eat you up.

      She frowned. That was how her father had trained. How he lived his life. How he tried to make Romy live hers. What happened to the people who couldn’t handle the discipline, who rebelled against the absolutes? Did they go out at seventeen and brand their bodies with vivid symbols of wild, rebellious freedom across their backs? Then get so blisteringly drunk in misery they’d fall into bed with the first person who showed them a hint of compassion?

      Maybe they did.

      Maybe other people failed the military test with equally spectacular results. She’d gone on to grow into a tough, resilient, capable woman. But that was in spite of her upbringing, not because of it.

      She crunched the gears on her vehicle. Family sure had a lot to answer for. And now she’d gone and got herself mixed up with a pair of brothers with territorial issues. Great.

      Romy didn’t share Clint’s confidence about his brother. Justin was a little too self-interested for her comfort, and his appreciation of the achievements of his staff was more to do with how that reflected on him. Still, she’d worked with his personality type before. The best strategy was to keep a safe distance and an open mind.

      Maybe he was just struggling with younger-brother syndrome. Trying to prove himself to a complicated and unreachable man.

      Romy laughed. Who knew they would have something in common!

      Still…a little judicious internet surfing wouldn’t go astray. A few subtle questions here and there. Just to put her niggling instincts to rest.

      ‘Does your mum know you’re here, Leighton?’

      Unlikely, judging by the sheepish shrug of little shoulders. Clint groaned inwardly. As if he and Romy needed any more angst between them. It was going to be hard enough to work together without becoming an accomplice in her little boy’s frequent misdemeanours. ‘Come on, I’ll walk home with you.’

      Curious grey eyes so like his mothers stared at the tree house. ‘Can’t I come in?’

      With the ghost of Romy still haunting his sanctuary, having Leighton in there was only going to double the uncomfortable rightness of it all. As though the house he thought he’d finished building a year ago was still waiting for the delivery of two finishing touches.

      A wife.

      A