Her Outback Knight. Melissa James

her had a swallowed-alive feel to it. The hot, sweet tenderness so foreign to her two years before when he’d held her returned in a rush. The jumble of changes in her life in a single hour left her humbled, confused and wanting all at once. She didn’t know what to do with the inner whisper telling her she was in the right place at the right time.

      Yet somehow, her silence wasn’t wrong or pitiful. Maybe quiet was what he needed far more than her imperfect words. After all, words had just torn his life apart.

      They stood locked together for a long time. The quiet shimmered with peace, like sunlight on a winter pond, gentle and beautiful. Though she’d never done this with a man before, standing in Jim’s arms, holding him close and giving him comfort felt so natural she almost forgot to question it, to remember the differences between them.

      Perhaps that was the reason: the biggest differences between them had been removed. The rug of secure family had been pulled out from beneath his feet, while she’d never had a rug. Suddenly opposites had become two of a kind—but the welter of confusion, fury and unexpected grief had blinded him. He’d need a guide to walk him through the darkness.

      And she knew that darkness well: the parental lies and omission; feeling as if you don’t belong anywhere; feeling lost and alone. She’d walked in that darkness ever since the day she’d realised other kids’ mummies and daddies actually liked each other. They didn’t all buy separate groceries, use the kitchen at different times and sleep in separate bedrooms. They didn’t all stay together for the sake of the child, living in a trap of semi-polite hatred and needle-fine insults.

      Some parents loved each other.

      Some parents didn’t lie to their kids—and gentle, honest Jim had just discovered, at age thirty, that he’d lived a lie all his life. He’d been a lie all his life.

      Slowly, the stiffness in him softened. He still clung to her, but it felt more relaxed, sharing rather than the drowning man’s hold. She could breathe again.

      “Thank you,” he murmured against her hair.

      “You’re welcome,” she murmured back, feeling her hair move, and his breath touch her skin. She shivered.

      He lifted his face and looked at her, those dark eyes filled with turbulence; and yes, the wanting she couldn’t help feeling for him, even here and now, it was there in his eyes, too. Even though she knew Jim was an expert in playing the game—he’d had girls hanging off him for as long as she’d known him—in the reflection of the deep blackness of his eyes, she still felt beautiful, truly desired as a woman for the first time.

      And she felt—vulnerable. Feminine. Lost, but happy to be so…and her lips parted…

      “I don’t know who I am anymore.”

      Danni blinked, trying to reorient herself. The kiss they hadn’t shared had seemed so real, she felt as if he’d wrenched it from her—just as she’d felt it two years before when he’d turned her down and walked away without looking back.

      Tonight had been a terrible shock for him, she admonished herself. He needed time to adjust, not kisses, biting wit or sharp-tongued defences: he needed a friend. She couldn’t leave him alone with this.

      As alone as I’ve been all my life…and I survived it, didn’t I?

      Yeah, you’re a regular poster girl for personal growth.

      After long moments, she said tentatively, “You should go home, talk to your—” She stopped there, uncertain what to call them now, the people who’d raised him and loved him.

      His smile was a grim travesty of the open, cheerful, I know who I am and where I belong smile that had ticked her off all these years…and yet now, it hurt that he wasn’t the same man he’d been an hour ago. “It’s okay to call them my family. Apparently I’m still related.”

      Wondering how he fit in now, she smiled back at him. “That’s good.”

      “Half nephew,” he said, reading her thoughts without difficulty. “If there’s such a thing as a half nephew.”

      “Well, that’s good…isn’t it? I mean, you still belong with them.” She closed her mouth, cursing her stupid tongue—and her body. His touch, the depth of his gaze on her was stirring her senses so much she couldn’t think. She’d been thrown without warning into a world where she wanted so much more than to best a man at the game he played, a world without superficial rules.

      Maybe it was because Jim was incapable of playing games tonight; he was in too much pain to handle it. She had to ignore her pathetic wish that she could have been in his arms an hour before the phone call had rocked his life off its secure foundations.

      “I suppose I do still belong.” He kept looking at her. His hands, at her back, moved a little. The most tentative caress she’d ever known.

      She felt her breath catch again. Looking at him became dangerous, yet she couldn’t stop. What was he doing? What did he want from her: a friend to understand his pain, or a lover to help him forget for a while? The thought sent a shudder of longing through her.

      Did she follow his lead, or ignore it? She didn’t know; all she knew was she couldn’t breathe again, and her gaze clung to his.

      “I have to go,” he whispered, but held her still.

      Without breath or balance, she nodded again, not trusting her voice. Wanting too much. Craving. She rested her hands against his chest, trying to find the strength to move.

      “I want you, too, Danni,” he said quietly, giving her the words she didn’t know she was aching to hear until they came. “Right now I don’t think I’ve ever wanted a woman more. But until I know who I am, I can’t give you what you need.”

      From another man, the words would have brought out her fighting spirit. She didn’t need anything from a man. She would make her way alone, and succeed.

      From Jim, it was raw truth, he was hurting too much to tell her anything else.

      She didn’t want to think about whether he was right or not. “So you can’t give your usual one hundred and fifty percent. Maybe it’s time someone gave to you, Haskell,” she said, hearing the huskiness of desire in her voice. “I don’t think you should go home alone.”

      He tipped up her chin, his gaze searching her face, so taken aback by her words, his brows met in a frown. “Are you offering to come with me?”

      Amazed that she actually was, she nodded…and made a soft, purring sound when his hand caressed her back, and the other moved beneath the sensitive skin at her chin.

      He made a helpless gesture, a little shrug that conveyed his confusion. “Why?”

      How to answer that, when she didn’t know herself? “I owe you for saving my butt two years ago. And I’ve been where you are, in a way,” she said, hearing the soft breathlessness thrumming through each word. “I might not be adopted, but I’ve spent my life wishing I was.” She looked up at him, half-defiant. “You know my story. I suppose everyone does. I’ve been navigating the waters of parental lies and self-delusion all my life. You can’t let them to fluff you off with their version of the story—and believe me, they’ll try. Even the best parents hate being caught out lying or being in the wrong. They should have told you years ago, and given you the chance to find your real parents.” She drew a deep breath after saying more in one go than she had for years. “You shouldn’t be left alone with this.”

      “What about your job?”

      She shrugged. “I quit three weeks ago. I’ve only been doing locum work until I find the right practice. So I’m free to come with you.”

      “How about where you live? Laila said you signed a lease on a place in Sydney?”

      She shrugged. “My stuff’s there. A week’s rent’s no big deal.” She frowned as he began to find another objection. “Look, I’ll come if you want me to. I may not be Laila,” she added