A Groom For The Taking. Rebecca Winters

made, Sonja perched on the edge of the pink-striped dining chair that sat where a lounge chair ought. ‘So, you’re schlepping our girl to the wilds of Tasmania?’

      ‘On my way to the New Zealand recce.’

      ‘Several hundred miles out of your way.’

      ‘What’s your point?’

      ‘It’s not my job to have a point. You pay me to build mystery and excitement,’ she said, grinning. ‘And what’s more exciting and mystifying than you and Hannah heading off to have a wild time in the wild?’

      ‘A wild—?’ This time his frown was for real. He sat up as best he could in the over-soft old chair, and pointed two fingers in the direction of Sonja’s nose. ‘She works damned hard. I’m saying thanks. So don’t you start cooking up any mad stories in that head of yours. You know how I don’t like drama.’

      Sonja stared right back, and then, obviously realising he was deadly serious, nodded and said, ‘Whatever you say, boss.’

      And with that she got up and strode back towards what must have been her bedroom.

      ‘So long as you promise I’m the first one you’ll tell when you have something else to say. About New Zealand,’ she added, as an apparent afterthought.

      And with a dramatic swish of silk she was gone.

      Bradley sank slowly back into the soft couch and downed the hot espresso in one hit, letting it scorch the back of his throat.

       If the woman wasn’t so good at her job …

      But he hadn’t been kidding. He abhorred gratuitous drama. He’d gone miles out of his way to avoid it his whole life. Up remote mountains, down far-flung rivers in the middle of nowhere, deep into uninhabited jungles. Dedicating his life to concrete pleasures. Real challenges he could see and touch. Facing the raw and unbroken parts of the world in order to discover what kind of man he really was, rather than the kind life had labelled him the moment he was born.

      Far, far away from the histrionics he’d endured as a kid, both before and after his hypersensitive mother had decided that being his mother was simply too hard. Leaving him to the mercy of whichever relative had had the grace to take him that month and increasing the drama tenfold. Every one of them had expected him to be volubly and effusively grateful they’d taken on such an encumbrance as he. The telling of it had become a daily litany. But that had been nothing compared with the horrendously uncomfortable drama that rocked each household the moment the inhabitants realised that they were not, in fact, as altruistic as they’d imagined they were.

      Then they’d each and every one whispered behind half-closed doors, perhaps it wasn’t their fault. His own mother had given him away after all.

      A flash of something appeared out of the corner of Bradley’s eye, slapping him back to the absolute present. He sat forward, leant his elbows on his knees, and ran his hands hard and fast over his face in an effort to rub the prickly remnants of memory away.

      Then all thought fled his mind as he realised what the flash had been. Hannah. Dashing from the bathroom into her bedroom. Naked.

      He slowly turned his head to look at the empty spot where the vision had appeared. Piece by piece it slipped into his mind.

      A wet female back, a pair of lean wet legs, and a small white handtowel covering nought but what must have been wet naked buttocks.

      Hannah. Naked. And right at that moment behind that door, towelling down with something about the size of a postage stamp.

      From nowhere a swift, steady heat began to surface inside him. An unmistakable heat. The kind he’d usually invite with open arms.

      He dragged his eyes back to the front and stared hard at a pink quilted lamp covered in so many tassels it made his eyes hurt. Better that than focus on the image seemingly burned into the backs of his eyes.

      Hannah was hard-working, meticulous, with a reserve of stamina … He stopped when he realised he was repeating himself to himself.

      A loud bang came from Hannah’s room, after which rang out a badly muffled oath and what sounded like hopping.

      He found himself coughing out a laugh. Relief flooded through him, and the unfortunate heat brimming inside him dissipated, somewhat. That was the Hannah he knew. Hard-working, meticulous, and singularly likely to snap him out of the labyrinth of his mind right when he needed it most.

      At that moment Hannah came bounding out of her room. Fully dressed. In fact she appeared to be wearing a grey blanket as she dragged a big black suitcase behind her.

      He managed to pull himself from the clutches of the soft couch to stand, just as she plonked her suitcase by the door and turned to face him. Lips parted, breathless. From the suitcase? The hopping? The exertion of running to her room wet and naked?

      He gave himself a mental slap.

      ‘You made yourself coffee?’ she said, staring at the coffee table.

      ‘Sonja.’

      ‘Oh. Oh!‘ Her eyes opened unnaturally wide, then flicked to the room into which Sonja had disappeared. ‘Did she …? Did you …?’

      He raised an eyebrow.

      But she just shook her head, a new pinkness staining her cheeks and a telling kind of darkness in her eyes. It was the kind of look that told a specific story without need for words. It was the kind of look, when added to the image of naked female flesh, that could turn a man’s blood to hot oil.

      Though it was far more likely he simply hadn’t fully moved on from the ‘flash’ after all.

      You’re a man, he growled to himself, not a rock. Don’t be so hard on yourself.

      Suddenly Hannah held up a finger and headed over to the small round table behind the couch, flicked through a bunch of papers.

      Ignoring him completely. He gave his head a short, sharp shake.

      As she moved, Hannah’s voluminous blanket—which turned out to be some kind of poncho—shifted, revealing that in lieu of her usual filmy, elegant work number she wore dark skinny jeans tucked into cowboy boots, and a fitted black and red striped, long-sleeved top. Truly fitted. Giving him glimpses of the kind of gentle curves that her filmy, floaty, elegant work numbers had clearly never made the most of.

      Curves he’d glimpsed naked, with no embellishment. Curves he could almost feel beneath his hands.

      Gritting his teeth, Bradley leant his backside against the edge of the couch and waited. And watched. With the early-morning sun streaming through the old window behind her she looked so young, so fresh. Her nose was pink in the morning cold, her cheeks even pinker. Her lips were naturally the colour of a dark rose. She had a smattering of freckles across her nose he’d never before noticed. And her usually neat, professional hair was kinky and shaggy, as if she’d come from a day at the beach. As if she’d just rolled out of bed.

      She glanced up to find him staring. After a beat she smiled in apology. ‘Two seconds. I promise.’

      He cleared his throat. ‘If I didn’t know better I’d think you were purposely delaying getting moving.’

      She blinked at him, several times, super-fast. Then shook her head so quickly he wondered if his sorry excuse for a joke had actually hit its mark. But he knew so little about her outside of how well she did her job he couldn’t be sure.

      ‘Sonja is clueless about paying bills,’ she went on. ‘It’s too cold a winter for me to risk her getting the heating cut off—even though I can think of a dozen reasons why she might deserve it.’

      He found himself stepping over a line he didn’t usually breach as he asked, ‘Why do I get the feeling there’s some other reason you’re avoiding heading out that door?’

      ‘I—’ She swallowed.