CHAPTER TWO — OLD ORCHARD GAMES
To her intense relief the keys slid free and she whisked them off his far-too-suggestive thumb.
“I’ll go right now,” she said, forgetting to ask what he drove before she dashed away.
Nicky—still getting me hot and bothered.
She vowed not to tell him she’d recognized him. He hadn’t recognized her, and that’s how things needed to stay. Why dredge up their embarrassing past?
Remembering the shy little girl she’d been, all long brown braids and owlish glasses, she thought she had a fair enough chance of keeping up the deception for a month.
The braids and spectacles were gone, her hair now streaky blonde. Tinted contacts made her grey-green eyes much greener. She looked nothing like the awkward ugly duckling from the orchard.
A month. Not even that long, because he’ll be away in Sydney for part of it. Two weeks. Three weeks at worst. Definitely do-able. I managed secrets longer than that when I had to keep Grandpa from worrying.
She rattled the keys as she walked past Tyler. “He wants beers to go with the sushi now.”
“It’ll be the Sydney people then. Check there are enough paper napkins before you go out. I’ll make sure the plates and glasses are clean. Although they won’t bother with glasses. What is it with men and drinking straight from the bottle?” She wrinkled her nose and pulled out one of the desk drawers. “If there’s beer as well, petty cash won’t be enough—I’ll give you the company credit card.”
“You’d think he’d take them out to a bistro for lunch.”
“Not if they want to work.”
Sammie caught something in her expression. “What?”
Tyler’s smile broadened. “Would you like somewhere else to live for a fortnight?”
“Where did you have in mind?”
“My sister’s apartment. She needs someone to feed her cat and water a few plants while she’s in Hawaii. I was going to call in, but”—she looked down at her beach-ball belly—“this one might arrive and make it difficult. My Cam would do it for her of course, but it’d be more secure to have someone living there. Lights switching on and off, blinds going up and down, mail being collected.”
“A house-sitter?”
“Exactly. Will you do it?”
“Will she have me?”
“She’d love to. I just phoned her and suggested it.”
Sammie did a joyful little side-step, tossed the keys in the air and caught them. “Absolutely, yes!”
Nick sat, unmoving for once, staring into space and reviewing what had happened moments ago. His new P.A. was hot. She had a temper. She didn’t like him. Maybe messing with her attitude would be enough fun to help take his mind off everything else.
She had great tits. A peachy butt that begged to be spanked. A spiky temper only just under control. She’d wrestled the keys off his thumb as though she was a bossy nanny and he was a small boy who needed putting in his place.
He’d like that place to be the hot juicy valley between her jeans-clad thighs.
His cock gave a lurch of agreement.
Yup, hot body, sharp brain, sharp manner. He leaned back in his leather-covered chair, giving in to his fantasy for a few minutes to take his mind off more serious matters. Maybe having her around was the distraction he needed, because right now he was totally hurt, furious, and confused. For thirty years he’d been made to live a lie, and if he hadn’t been so keen to donate blood, marrow, anything to help his brother’s tiny daughter battle her cancer, he might never have found out.
His heart had thumped frantically, and the scalding bile had risen in his throat when he’d been told by old Doc Latimer that he probably wouldn’t be an ideal donor because of the adoption.
Adoption? Erin wasn’t adopted.
He’d seen Hannah’s belly growing ever larger. He’d joked with a relieved and proud Hal once the baby had been safely delivered.
“Erin’s not adopted,” he’d blurted. And Doc Latimer had realized the enormity of the bomb he’d just dropped, stammered with shock for a few moments, and then found the wisdom to know there was no way to back-track. He’d reached out and clasped Nick’s arm, and said very quietly, “But you were, Nick. My God, they never told you? You never suspected? I’m so sorry to have done this to you. You have to talk with your parents.”
So he was not Erin’s uncle. Or Hal and Tony Sharpe’s brother. Or Gaynor and Brian Sharpe’s son.
Adopted? Why the fuck hadn’t they told him? His emotions raged through baffled incomprehension to freezing cold denial.
Then to ashamed relief that he wasn’t really part of the less-than-honest Sharpe clan.
Finally to blazing anger that they’d duped him for so long; hadn’t they thought him important enough to know his true heritage?
Talk to his ‘parents’? What a joke. Right now he wanted nothing to do with them—had even included a note on his new P.A.’s task-sheet he wouldn’t accept their calls. Not that they were likely to contact him. They rarely did.
Last Friday afternoon had torn him to bloodied shreds.
He’d spent half the weekend on the internet, searching for help.
Found iwasadopted.com and gone as far as possible there, but someone needed to be searching for him before he could be matched up with them. The same with the Jigsaw people.
No-one was searching for Nicolas David Sharpe.
No-one missed their son enough to try and re-establish contact.
Just when everything had been coming right—the expansion of his fitness center empire, the refurbishment of the big old house by the sea—life had shot him yet another lightning-bolt.
Sammie jogged into the alley brandishing the keys. Surely if she beeped the remote, something would light up and identify itself? She surveyed the line of vehicles in the big parking lot and knew instantly it would be the low-slung black Ferrari.
‘Hi there honey,’ the beautiful old car whispered back. She clenched her teeth. How difficult was that going to be to drive after her mild-mannered hatch?
She found it needed almost no accelerator and a very firm hand, but she made it to the liquor store without incident. Beers on board, she collected the mail and food and carried everything back into BodyWork in time to find Nick bent over the reception desk, pants stretched taut around the best butt she’d ever seen, long legs showing hints of the strong muscles his shorts had displayed earlier that morning. Who’d have thought Nicky would turn out so hot?
Well, maybe her if she was honest. Because there’d been something earthy and dangerously attractive about him, even as a boy. That last summer when she’d been a shy thirteen and he a surly sixteen had been both paradise and agony. She’d wanted constantly and desperately to see him, and then been embarrassed whenever she had.
Now she somehow managed to ignore him and breezed on by to the staffroom to set her load down. A couple of the others were there, grabbing a bite before the busy lunchtime rush of clients.
“For me?” Jarrod suggested, making a playful swat at the beer.
“Sushi—my favorite,” Heidi teased.
“You should be so lucky. Where will I put this?”
“There’s a bar-fridge in Nick’s office.” Jarrod eyed the bottles again. “He wouldn’t miss just one, would he?”
“Yes he would,” Nick said, far too close behind her. Sammie froze for a moment but then swung around and faced him. He looked relaxed and too darn gorgeous—not at all worried about his beers being under siege. He lifted the heavy pack as though it weighed a few ounces. “Bring the food through as well Samantha, you can’t trust these vultures,” he said, switching on the charm he seemed to have such unnerving control over.
Once again, she found herself in his office, this time with the door closed so he could open the fridge properly.
He squatted to peer inside it, and Sammie swallowed as the fabric of his pants pulled tautly around the serious strength of his long thighs. He reached in to move a carton of j
uice. His shoulders flexed under the thin charcoal shirt. Big shoulders, now so much more defined and powerful than when he’d been a boy.
It was hard to rip her eyes away, and when she did, it was to admire the length of his back, all the way down to the black leather belt cinching his hips. He looked much leaner around the waist now his adolescent body had grown to manhood. She conjured up a present-day flash of him skinny-dipping at Grandpa’s old orchard property. She wouldn’t stay hiding in the bushes and spying this time around!
Nick pulled the beer pack open and began stacking bottles inside the fridge.
Sammie dragged her brain back to the food. “Leave room for the sushi. The sandwiches don’t matter as much.”
He turned and grinned over his shoulder. She tried to tamp down the attraction by reminding herself of his sulky insistence as a boy, his arrogant lack of thanks earlier in the morning.
“Yeah, we won’t get through the whole dozen beers,” he said. “Or if we do, we won’t get much work done.”
“So what’s your meeting about?” she asked, trying for businesslike interest.
“Probable locations. Franchising versus outright ownership. There are pros and cons for both.”
“In Sydney?”
One eyebrow lifted.
Maybe it was none of her business? “Tyler mentioned it.”
“Sydney for starters. Then Melbourne and Brisbane, all going well. Followed by some of the smaller centers.”
“And after that, the world?”
“West coast of the U.S. anyway. We’ve got the formula right, so why not?”
Sammie saw the blaze of ambition and determination in his eyes. She handed him the trays of sushi and he slid them onto a shelf. His strong forearms flexed as skin moved over muscle.
She sighed. The annoying boy from her childhood still held a dangerous fascination for her. But she wanted no romantic entanglements, no other person intruding on the life that had finally become all hers after Grandpa’s sad, slow passing.
At last she had no-one to be responsible for, no-one to answer to. She’d longed for freedom during the last six years. Now her brain fizzed with possibilities for the future.
Those possibilities didn’t include Nick Sharpe. The moment her passport arrived, she’d be off to see some of the places her parents had ripped out of the travel magazines and pinned to the walls at home. The Greek Islands. The Nile. Paris. New York where she had contacts through Ray. Sweden, to meet Grandpa’s cousins. Brazil. Uruguay. To wherever in the world called her most strongly.
There was money from her parents’ home, invested by her financially-savvy brother for their mutual benefit, and now a share from Grandpa’s estate as well. Enough for a couple of years of blissful independence and still some for a deposit on a house when she returned. She’d promised herself this for so long, fuelled by her parents’ early travel ambitions, and reinforced by her own itching need to get away from New Zealand and see what the rest of the huge world had to offer.
The last thing she needed was a lover, and Nick was the last man it could possibly be—a bad-tempered flirt who expected everyone to ask ‘how high?’ when he said ‘jump’.
“Shall I bring the plates in?” she asked.
“Yeah, fine.”
Okay, so he was all business again. Relief flowed over her and she relaxed a little. That was good. That was excellent, because for a few minutes there her determination had been wavering.
She opened the door and fled.
Jarrod and Heidi sauntered away from the staffroom as she returned. Both about her own age. Jarrod stood very tall—an ideal basketball player. Heidi’s more muscular build came from the aerobics classes she regularly led. Sammie had watched through the glass wall as Heidi put a group of panting, glistening housewives through a punishing mid-morning routine.
A rummage through the cupboards under the counter produced a respectable-looking tray. Sammie remembered how she used to take Grandma a lunch tray to her room sometimes. Poor Grandma, who’d never seemed really well. The housekeeper, Silvia, fussed over her incessantly, preparing special foods with strange-sounding names, muttering soft encouragement to her to eat more, eat more.
She set the tray down and searched for plates. She stacked four matching white ones on it, thinking again of the orchard days when she used to spend school vacations there. The last time she’d seen Nicky—Nick, she corrected herself—had been thirteen years ago. Half her life. No wonder he hadn’t recognized her.
The blue paint on the implement shed door had faded almost to grey in the sunlight. She showed him shyly how the numbers on the padlock turned around until they told her birthday—and then how it magically opened. She knew they were out of sight from the house and the packing shed. Feeling like a clever thief, she pushed the door and they slid in, quiet as shadows, closing it with care behind them again.
She wasn’t being bad.
It was always dark and quiet inside, a mysterious place full of machinery smells. The corrugated iron walls and roof creaked and crinked in the wind and sun.
They roamed among the hydraladders, mowers, tractors and other machinery. Hid and found each other, laughing quietly, talking in muffled voices because it felt like a secret.
Birds nested in the rafters, and their babies set up a furious hopeful cheeping when the mothers rustled in through the gaps with food.
“I wish I was up higher so I could see them,” she said. Without warning, Nick grabbed her under the arms and lifted her, setting her down on one of the big tractor tires so she was taller than he was. How amazing he was strong enough to do that.
He held her there until she was steady, and pulled his hands away slowly, brushing them across her chest as he removed them.
“You’re starting to grow...breasts.”
“I’m not!” Her face went all hot and embarrassed.
“Yes, look.” He pointed to the soft buds.
Sammie gazed at him in agony. She wasn’t! She couldn’t be. Her mother said she didn’t need a bra yet. “I’m not,” she quavered. “Not like some of the girls at school.”
“Maybe not, but they’re starting. Can I see?”
“Noooooo...”
“Let me look.” His eyes were big and dark in the dim light. If the birds were making any noise, she couldn’t hear it now because she could see and hear only Nicky.
He stood so close that the front of his body pressed her feet against the tractor wheel. Soft denim brushed against her bare legs.
He reached down and pushed at his jeans, closing his eyes for a few seconds. He’d gone lumpy, and his breathing was funny.
“Let me look,” he asked again, hands hovering close, but not quite touching her as though he knew it was wrong.
Overcome with confusion she leaned forward the tiny distance until her old pink T-shirt pressed against his palms.
All manner of thoughts ricocheted around her brain. ‘This is what men and ladies do.’ ‘This is what pop-songs are about.’ ‘This is what Marilyn Strang’s sister did, and now she’s having a baby.’
She jerked back. “No. We mustn’t.”
“Let me see them.” His thumbs bridged the small gap again and he rubbed softly. He smelled of dry grass and salty perspiration and fruit candy.
She would have leaned away but she might have overbalanced, and his touch was the nicest feeling, and...
“Look.” He was smiling, and Nicky never smiled.
She glanced down, and even though it was a scorching hot day, she now had little peaks like in wintertime.
The big main door gave a sudden rattle and the electric motor switched on. In an instant he had his hands around her waist, had lifted her down, and they were both rushing to the side door before the main one crawled up far enough to reveal them. In the bright blinding daylight, Nicky somehow threaded the padlock back into the latch and twirled the numbers around as the big door continued its noisy climb.
He pressed himself against the wall,
swearing, and pushing her away.
After a few seconds of being ignored, Sammie walked around the corner of the shed.
“Hi Grandpa. What are you doing?”
“Getting the mower out so Nicky can make a start between the trees. Have you seen him anywhere?”
“Not for a while.” She scuffed at the gravel with her sandal, unable to look him in the eye. All she could think of was how desperately she wanted to be back in the implement shed, doing more exciting exploring with Nicky.