If You Can't Stand the Heat.... Joss Wood

shut, then yanked down the security grate and bolted and locked it.

      Jack looked from the old-style bakery to the wide beach across the road and felt a smile form. It was nearly half-past six, a warm evening in summer, and the beach and boardwalk hummed with people.

      ‘What time does the sun set?’ he asked.

      ‘Late. Eight-thirty-ish,’ Ellie answered. She gestured to the road behind them. ‘I live so close to work that I don’t drive...um...my house is up that hill.’

      Jack looked up the steep road to the mountain behind it and sighed. That was all he needed—a hike up a hill with a heavy pack. What else was this day going to throw at him?

      He sighed again. ‘Lead on.’

      Ellie pulled a pair of over-large sunglasses from her bag and put them on, and they started to walk. They passed an antique store, a bookstore and an old-fashioned-looking pharmacy—he needed to stock up on some supplies there, but that would raise some awkward questions. He waited for Ellie to initiate the conversation. She did, moments later, good manners overcoming her increasingly obvious shyness.

      ‘So, what happened to you?’

      ‘Didn’t your father tell you?’

      ‘Only that you got jumped by a couple of thugs and were kicked out of Somalia. You need a place to stay because you’re broke.’

      ‘Temporarily broke,’ Jack corrected her. Mitchell hadn’t given her the whole story, thankfully. It was simple enough. He’d asked a question about the hijackings of passing ships which had pushed the warlord’s ‘detonate’ button. He’d gone psycho and ordered his henchman to beat the crap out of him. He’d tried to resist, but six against one...bad odds.

      Very bad odds. Jack shook off a shudder.

      ‘So, is there anything else I can do for you apart from giving you a bed?’

      Her question jerked him back to the present and his instinctive answer was, A night with you in bed would be great.

      Seriously? That was what he was thinking?

      Jack shook his head and ordered himself to get with the programme. ‘Um...I just need to spend a night, maybe two. Borrow a mobile phone, a computer to send some e-mails, have an address to have my replacement bank cards delivered to...’ Jack replied.

      ‘I have a spare mobile, and you can use my old laptop. I’ll write my address down for you. Are you on a deadline?’

      ‘Not too bad. This is a print story for a political magazine.’

      Ellie lifted her eyebrows. ‘I thought you only did TV work?’

      ‘I get the occasional assignment from newspapers and magazines. I freelance, so I write articles in between reporting for the news channels,’ Jack replied.

      Ellie shoved her sunglasses up into her hair and rubbed her eyes. ‘So how are you going to write these articles? I presume your notes were taken.’

      ‘I backed up my notes and documents onto a flash drive just before the interview. I slipped it into my shoe.’ It was one of the many precautionary measures he took when operating in Third World countries.

      ‘They let you keep your passport?’

      Jack shrugged. ‘They wanted me to leave and not having a passport would have hindered that.’

      Ellie shook her head. ‘You have a crazy job.’

      He did, and he loved it. Jack shrugged. ‘I operate best in a war zone, under pressure.’ He loved having a rucksack on his back, dodging bullets and bombs to get the stories few other journalists found.

      ‘Mitchell always said that it’s a powerful experience to be holed up in a hotel in Mogadishu or Sarajevo with no water, electricity or food, playing poker with local contacts to the background music of bombs and automatic gunfire. I never understood that.’

      Jack frowned at the note of bitterness in her voice and, quickly realising that there was a subtext beneath her words that he didn’t understand, chose his next words carefully. ‘Most people would consider it their worst nightmare—and to the people living and working in that war zone it is—but it is exciting, and documenting history is important.’

      And the possibility of imminent death didn’t frighten him at all. After all, he’d faced death before...

      No, what would kill him would be being into a nine-to-five job, living in one city, doing the same thing day in and day out. He’d cheated death and received a second swipe at life...and the promise he’d made so long ago, to live life hard and fast and big, still fuelled him on a daily basis.

      Jack felt a hard knot in his throat and tried to swallow it down. He was alive because someone else hadn’t received the same second swipe...

      ‘We’re here.’

      Ellie’s statement interrupted his spiralling thoughts and Jack hid his sigh of relief as she turned up a driveway and approached a wrought-iron gate. Thank God. He wasn’t sure if he could go much further.

      Ellie looked at the remote in her hand, took a breath and briefly closed her eyes. He saw the tension in her shoulders and the rigid muscle in her jaw. She wasn’t comfortable... Jack cursed. If he had been operating on more than twelve hours’ sleep in four days he would have picked up that the shyness was actually tension a lot earlier. And it had increased the closer they came to her home.

      ‘Look, you’re obviously not happy about having me here,’ Jack said, dropping his pack to the ground. ‘Sorry. I didn’t realise. I’ll head back to the bakery—hitch a lift to the airport.’

      Ellie jammed her hands into the pockets of her cut-offs. ‘No—really, Jack...I told my father I’d help you.’

      ‘I don’t need your charity,’ Jack said, pushing the words out between his clenched teeth.

      ‘It’s not charity.’ Ellie lifted up a hand and rubbed her eyes with her thumb and index finger. ‘It’s just been a long day and I’m tired.’

      That wasn’t it. She was strung tighter than a guitar string. His voice softened. ‘Ellie, I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable in your own home. I told Mitch that I was happy to wait at the airport. It’s not a big deal.’

      Ellie straightened and looked him in the eye. ‘I’m sorry. I’m the one who is making this difficult. Your arrival just pulled up some old memories. The last time I took in one of my father’s workmates I was chased around my house by a drunken, horny cameraman.’

      He sent her his I’m-a-good-guy grin. ‘Typical. Those damn cameramen—you can’t send them anywhere.’

      Ellie smiled, as he’d intended her to. He could see some of her tension dissolve at his stab at humour.

      ‘Sorry, I know I sound ridiculous. And I’m not crazy about talking about my relationship with Mitchell for this book you’re helping him write—’

      ‘I’m helping him write? Is that what he said?’ Jack shook his head. Mitchell was living in Never-Never Land. It was his book, and he was writing the damn thing. Yes, Mitchell Evans’s and Ken Baines’s names would be on the cover, but there would be no doubt about who was the author. The sizeable advance in his bank account was a freaking big clue.

      ‘Your father...I like him...but, jeez, he can be a pain in the ass,’ Jack said.

      ‘So does that mean you don’t want to talk to me about him?’ Ellie asked, sounding hopeful and a great deal less nervous.

      Jack half smiled as he shook his head. ‘Sorry...I do need to talk to you about him.’

      He raked his hair off his face, thinking about the book. Ken’s fascinating story was all but finished; Mitch’s was progressing. Thank God he’d resisted all the collective pressure to get him to write his. Frankly, it would be like having his chest cracked open without