The Loner's Guarded Heart. Michelle Douglas

      ‘I beg your pardon?’

      ‘People who come here. They like to bushwalk.’

      ‘Oh. OK.’ She liked walking. She walked on the beach back home. She didn’t know her way around here, though. What if she got lost? Who’d know she was missing? She didn’t trust Kent Black to notice.

      ‘There are some pretty trails through there.’ He pointed at the forest of gums. ‘They lead down to the river.’

      Trails? She brightened. She could follow a path without getting lost.

      ‘Take Molly with you.’

      ‘OK. Thank you,’ she called out after him, but she doubted he’d heard. His long legs had already put an alarming amount of distance between them in a seriously short space of time.

      She turned her gaze to the shadowed depths of the eucalypt forest and made out the beginnings of a path. A walk? She leapt up, glad to have a purpose.

      Kent swung around as an almighty screech pierced the forest. Birds lifted from trees and fluttered away. He glanced at his watch and shook his head. Fifteen minutes. She’d lasted fifteen minutes. Not that he’d deliberately followed her, of course. He hadn’t. He’d just taken note of when she’d set off and down which path, that was all.

      He’d chosen a different path, an adjacent one, and it wasn’t as if he was keeping an eye on her or anything. He had business down this way.

      Yeah, but not until later this afternoon, a voice in his head jeered

      He ignored it.

      No more screams or screeches or shrieks for help followed. She’d probably walked into a spider’s web or something. But then Molly started up her low, mournful howl. Kent folded his arms and glared. With a muttered curse, he unfolded his arms, cut through the undergrowth and set off towards the noise.

      He almost laughed out loud when he reached them. Josie clung to a branch of a nearby gum and a goanna clung to the main trunk of the same tree, effectively cutting off her escape. Molly sat beneath it all, howling for all she was worth. He chuckled then realised what he’d done.

      ‘Enjoying your walk I hope, Ms Peterson?’

      She swung her head around to glare at him over her shoulder. The branch swayed precariously. He readied himself to catch her if she overbalanced.

      ‘What do you think?’ she snapped.

      ‘I think you enjoy scaring all the wildlife on my side of the hill.’

      ‘Scaring? Me?’ Her mouth opened and closed but no sound came out. She pointed an accusing finger at the goanna then clutched the branch again as it started to sway. ‘Move it.’

      He glanced at it. ‘Nope, not touching it.’

      ‘So, you’re scared of it too?’ she hissed.

      ‘Let’s just say I like to treat our native wildlife with a great deal of respect.’

      ‘Oh, that’s just great. Of all the wildlife in this God-forsaken place I had to get a…a dinosaur rather than a cute, cuddly koala, huh? Any wildlife wrestlers in the neighbour-hood by any chance?’

      ‘Not much call for them out here.’

      ‘How am I going to get down?’

      Behind her bluff he could see she was scared. He had a feeling she hadn’t stopped being scared since she’d scrambled out of his clothes-line yesterday. ‘Jump,’ he ordered. ‘I’ll catch you.’ She wasn’t that high up. In fact, if she hung from that branch by her hands, she’d only be four or five feet from the ground. He knew it would look vastly different from her perspective, though.

      He wished she wasn’t so cute.

      The thought flitted in and out of his head in the time it took to blink. ‘Cut out the racket, Molly,’ he growled. The dog had kept right on howling all this time. Like most of the females of his experience, Molly loved the sound of her own voice.

      Josie bit her lip and glanced at the goanna. ‘Is it going to jump too? Or chase me?’

      ‘Nope. This is his tree. It’s where he feels safe.’

      She glared at him again. ‘So, of all the trees in the forest I had to pick his?’

      ‘Yep.’

      ‘I’m so happy.’

      He guessed from the way she gritted her teeth together as she said it, she didn’t mean it.

      Without any more prompting on his part, Josie shifted her weight from her behind to her stomach then tried to take her full weight with her arms to lower herself to the ground. Kent leapt forward and wrapped his arms around the tops of her thighs.

      ‘I don’t need—’

      The rest of her words were lost when her hands slipped and she landed against him with a muffled, ‘Oomph.’

      Kent couldn’t manage much either as the top half of her body slumped over him and he found his face mashed between her breasts. Then a long, delicious slide as her body slipped down his.

      They were both breathing hard when her feet finally touched the ground.

      They paused then sprang apart.

      ‘Thank you,’ Josie babbled, smoothing down her hair. ‘I, umm…It probably wasn’t necessary to jump to my rescue like that, but, umm…thank you all the same.’

      ‘Are you going to make a habit of that?’ he snapped. He darn well hoped not. His body wouldn’t cope with it. Even now he had to fight down a rising tide of raw desire. He didn’t need this.

      ‘It’s not part of my plans.’

      He wanted her off his mountain. Fast. He flung his arms out. ‘Doesn’t this prove how unsuited you are to this place?’

      Her chin shot up although her shoulders stayed hunched around her ears. ‘Because I’m frightened of goannas?’

      ‘Because you’re frightened of everything.’

      ‘I’m not afraid of Molly. Not now,’ she pointed out reasonably enough. ‘I just didn’t know what to do when that thing started running at me.’

      ‘Run away at right angles to it,’ he answered automatically.

      ‘I’ll remember that.’

      He didn’t want her remembering. He wanted her gone. ‘You don’t know how to protect yourself out here.’

      ‘Well…I’m not dead yet.’

      ‘What would you do if some big, burly guy jumped out at you, huh?’ To prove his point, he lunged at her.

      The next moment he was lying on his back, and staring up through the leaves of the trees at the clear blue of the sky. With no idea how he had got there.

      Josie’s face hovered into view as she leaned over him. ‘Does that answer your question?’

      She’d thrown him? He deserved that smug little smile. For some reason he wanted to laugh again.

      He scowled. No, he didn’t. He wanted her off his mountain.

      ‘I might be hopeless, but I’m not completely helpless, you know. Men I can defend myself against. It’s the dogs and goannas that I have trouble with.’

      He rolled over onto his stomach to watch her saunter away. He really wished he didn’t notice how sweetly she filled out a pair of jeans. Molly licked his face, as if in sympathy, then trotted after her new-found friend.