Beneath Outback Skies (19 page)

But when he returned to Anne’s side and placed the container onto the table, he knew he had to at least try to tell her how he felt. He swallowed down his fear. He could do this. He’d told Molly he loved her. He told Paige. And now he could tell Anne.

He breathed deeply. ‘Anne, I …’ Panic crashed over him. ‘I … like having you here.’

Anne’s eyes widened. Tears glistened as though she too were buffeted by a wave of emotion. Her shaking hand covered his and he held her fingers as though he was drowning and she was his only lifeline.

‘I can stay.’ Her words might have been whispered but the promise in her gaze guaranteed he’d understood her perfectly.

‘I’m not easy to live with. Sometimes I have no words for how I feel.’

‘I know and I understand.’ She clasped her other hand around his. ‘I’ll fill in the blanks.’

‘Are you sure?’ Hope flared inside him.

‘I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life.’ She smiled a loving smile. ‘By your side is where I want to be.’

What was wrong with her? She was as wired as a sugar-high toddler and she’d only eaten a leafy salad for lunch.

Paige pummelled the pillow into shape and slipped it behind her shoulders. She so hated sitting still and, thanks to her foot, taking a walk was out of the question. She wriggled but still couldn’t get comfortable on the huge bed. She released a frustrated breath and flicked through the television channels in case anything gripping had come on in the last five minutes. Nothing.

She set the TV controller beside her knee and glanced towards the connecting door. When they’d returned to the hotel, Tait had been white as a sheet, and even though he’d pulled her close for another kiss outside his room she’d opened his door and pushed him inside. Alone. The hospital doctor had prescribed sleep not sex. She could only hope Tait had eaten the lunch she’d heard delivered and was now having more of a rest than she was. She lowered her bare feet to the lush brown carpet. She should check on him in case he was awake and needed anything for his headache.

She quietly tapped on the connecting door and, after hearing Tait’s quiet reply, walked into the room. Apart from the television’s soft light and the glow from the lamp on the
bedside table, the room was dark, the curtains closed. As she drew closer to where he lounged on the bed, she could see his feet were bare and he’d dressed in the jeans and sky-blue Polo shirt he’d bought that morning. Exhaustion smudged the skin beneath his eyes. He put down the book he’d been reading and offered her a bowl of grapes.

‘Like some? I couldn’t doze off so went for a walk.’

‘Thanks.’ She plucked off a plump, green grape.

He patted the expanse of bed beside him. ‘Pull up a pew.’

She looked towards her room. She’d done what she’d come to do, made sure Tait was fine. She should go.

Tait patted the bed again. ‘Are you sitting or standing?’ She stepped forward. Tait sounded so weary the last thing on his mind would be kissing her again. Maybe some company was all he’d need to sleep? She sank onto the bed and, ensuring she kept a safe distance between them, slid back until she reached the pillows against the bedhead. Tait deposited the bowl of grapes on her lap.

‘Eat up. I bought two bags.’

‘Didn’t you eat your lunch?’

‘No, but I’m hungry now. I’d be fine if only this headache would go.’

‘I’ll make you a coffee?’

His smile flashed in the dim light. ‘I’d never thought I’d say this but I’m all coffeed out.’

‘Now that is a first.’

‘You’d better believe it. Did you sleep?’

‘No.’ She stifled a yawn. ‘But I should have.’ She passed him back the bowl of grapes. ‘I’ll try again now.’

He took the bowl, his eyes not leaving hers. ‘Don’t leave. I’m going stir-crazy all by
myself. Sleep here.’

She shook her head. ‘You and I both know that’s not a good idea.’

‘Believe me,’ he dragged a hand across his forehead, ‘you haven’t ever been safer than you are right now.’

She examined his face and saw nothing but tiredness and pain. But even then she hesitated.

‘If I stay, will you try to sleep?’

He nodded even as he placed the grapes onto the bedside table and reached for the television remote to turn off the TV.

She lay down on the white coverlet. ‘Okay then, but see this space?’ She gestured between them. ‘Cross it at your own risk.’

His only answer was to switch off the bedside lamp. Daylight crept in through the thin crack in the curtains, preventing the room from falling into total darkness. She watched as Tait lay on his back, rested a hand behind his head and closed his eyes. ‘Your wish is my command, Princess.’

She waited a few seconds to check he was serious about sleeping and then closed her own eyes. Too late she heard the rustle of the coverlet as Tait moved and his hand settled on her right breast. She sat bolt upright and swung her pillow in the general direction of his deep chuckles. He stole the pillow from her grasp and hugged it to him as he rolled on his side to face her.

‘Sorry.’ He grinned. ‘I’ve never been good at doing what I’m told.’

‘Now I know what that poor scout master had to put up with,’ she said, pulling the second pillow from behind her and holding it to her chest like a shield.

‘Relax. I’ve had my fun.’ His smile widened at her undoubtedly sceptical expression. ‘We do really need to sleep.’

Easing the pillow behind her and lying down, she kept her eyes pinned on him. He edged a little more over to his side. ‘You have my word I won’t touch you again.’ His lips quirked. ‘Unless of course you want to come over onto my half.’

She rolled onto her hip so she could keep a closer watch on him. ‘That’s so not going to happen.’

‘A man can dream.’

‘Go. To. Sleep.’

But his eyes didn’t close. Her internal alarm signalled code-red. She was supposed to be remembering he was just a city boy who’d soon be gone. She was supposed to be staying behind the invisible line. She looked at his tanned forearm wrapped around the pillow.

‘Tait, why don’t you wear an allergy bracelet? A girl at university who was allergic to peanuts wore a heavy silver one.’

‘I did when I was younger but now – what can I say? – I’m a bloke.’

‘Real men can wear jewellery, you know. Especially if a bracelet saves your life.’

‘I don’t need one. I have you.’

She waited for a smile or mischief to glint in his eye, but his expression remained shadowed and strangely serious.

‘But I won’t always be around.’ She aimed for a light and breezy tone, but instead her voice emerged barely louder than a whisper.

‘Well then, that’s why I have a card in my wallet that tells everyone about my allergy and I always carry an EpiPen.’

She nodded and went to speak but then shut her mouth. Maybe if she stopped talking Tait would close his eyes and not look at her with such compelling intensity. But the longer the silence stretched, the more the nerves fluttered in her stomach.

‘So were you very young when you had your first allergic reaction?’

For a moment she thought he wouldn’t answer, then he adjusted the pillow beneath his head and spoke. ‘I was eight. Mum and I’d been at Bruce’s for a while and one Sunday he’d taken us to Whale Beach. We walked along the sand, ate ice-creams and explored the rock pools. Being a typical boy, I’d run ahead and when I saw this blue, jelly-like thing on the sand I jumped on it to see if it would pop. In the process I tangled my foot in the tentacles.’

‘Hell, Tait. You jumped on a bluebottle jellyfish.’

‘Don’t worry, I won’t ever do it again. After I’d popped the bluebottle, my foot stung a bit but I kept running, only feeling a little short of breath. But then I fell onto the sand and couldn’t breathe, and Mum knew something was seriously wrong. As I said that day in town, a mobile saved my life. Bruce had an early one, you know the ones the size of a brick, and called for an ambulance. They reached me just in time. Tests showed I was also allergic to oysters and prawns.’

Paige shivered. She knew how Tait’s mother must have felt seeing him unable to breathe. ‘Your poor mum. Her heart would have stopped seeing you lying there on the sand.’

‘I never set out to cause her grief but always seemed to end up doing so.’

Paige sank her fingers into her pillow to stop them reaching over the gap between them. From the raw emotion underscoring his words, there were other things he’d done he still felt guilty about.

‘Tait, your mother loved you, no matter what worry you may have caused her. As you said last night, things do happen and sometimes they aren’t anyone’s fault.’

But as Tait rolled onto his back, his profile set, she knew she’d lost him.

‘Maybe.’ The single word indicated their conversation had ended.

Paige’s eyelids fluttered but she didn’t open them. She hadn’t slept so soundly for what felt like forever and she wasn’t about to abandon her peaceful dream world. She snuggled deeper into the plush underlay beneath her. A whisper of sound beside her again caused her eyelids to flicker. But still she didn’t fully awaken. She flung out a hand and encountered the warm, corded strength of a man’s arm. Reality rushed back.
Shit.
She was in Tait’s bed. But instead of opening her eyes and pulling her hand away, the lethargy of sleep continued to act like a sedative. Her fingers crept down Tait’s arm to his hand. If he didn’t move, he was still asleep and she was safe to silently slip from his bed. But his fingers closed around hers with gentleness and purpose. The heat of his touch seeped into her skin. Into her soul.

Something deep within her chest splintered. The man lying beside her, whose fingers were entwined with hers as though he wouldn’t ever let her go, might be a city boy who’d soon be a distant memory. She struggled to draw breath. But he was a city boy she … loved.

Her fingers tightened on his. His thumb caressed the back of her hand, waking every slumbering nerve ending. What she wouldn’t give to suspend time and to have a night in his arms where there was only the two of them with no responsibilities and no goodbyes.

Why couldn’t she? She’d never been one for a casual fling but if that was all that was on offer then it would have to be enough. She’d trade a night with the man she loved for a future free of regrets. Anxiety knotted her stomach. Well, that’s if he’d have her. She was no sexy and sophisticated city girl.

Before her courage failed her, she opened her eyes. Tait looked at her. Even in the poor light she could see the tension that carved his face into taut lines. She might have slept but he hadn’t. He soon would. Fingers shaky, she unfastened the buttons at the front of her dress.

Tait followed the path of her hand down her chest even as he sat upright. The tremble
of her body transferred to his and she felt his hand shake before he suddenly released her fingers.

‘Paige?’ He said her name with such torment she knew he was just as lost as she was. The knowledge silenced the last murmurs of her reservation. All or nothing.

She came to her knees and shrugged out of the top half of her dress. The thin, red fabric pooled around her waist.

Fire burned in his eyes but still Tait didn’t make a move towards her or look below her shoulders. So much for the skimpy coral and ivory lace bra she’d agonized over buying.

‘Paige. I gave you my word I wouldn’t touch you again.’

Her only answer was to slide the wide belt from around her waist and drop it onto the floor. The red dress slid lower around her hips.

He groaned. ‘I’m not a saint.’

She closed the arm’s length between them and when their bodies were a breath away from touching, she stopped. His heat jumped across the space separating them. His haunted eyes held hers.

‘I can’t offer more. Not yet.’ He spoke as though all the syllables were being ripped from his lips.

‘It’s okay.’ She touched her mouth to his and then pulled away a little. ‘Tonight will be enough.’
It will have to be.

She saw the instant his control snapped. His pupils dilated and his urgent, almost desperate hands cupped the back of her head as his mouth covered hers in a molten, hard kiss.

She entwined her arms around his neck and squealed as his hands claimed her waist and he flung her onto the bed, his body covering hers.

Oh. My. God.

Breathing ragged, her hormones too replete to even say ‘I told you so’, Paige wound her arms around Tait’s no doubt nail-gouged back. She could hardly think. All she could do was feel the way her satiated body pulsed with life and love, and feel the wrench as Tait rolled off her. But then he gathered her against him and she turned her face into the curve of his neck to kiss his racing pulse. His arms tugged her even closer.

Her soul floated as weightless as summer air. Tait’s clever and tender touch had taken her to places she’d only believed existed in fiction. She’d shattered beneath him like the finest crystal. And, man, she wanted to shatter again. She had a lifetime of loving to cram into just one precious night.

Careful to veil her eyes with her lashes, she leaned back in his arms to look up at his face. Tait couldn’t know her heart was now his. She had to keep things fun and casual between them.

He smiled. Even in the dim light, she knew she’d never seen his blue gaze glow with such vibrancy.

‘You know I didn’t ever believe it was the quiet ones you had to watch.’ He brushed from off her cheek the hair that had long ago ceased to be smooth and sleek. ‘But now I’m a believer.’

She lifted a hand to trace the bruises beneath his eyes and matched his smile. ‘Well, before you double-check your discovery, you need more sleep.’

He suddenly looked serious. ‘Will you be here when I wake?’

She trailed her fingers over his eyes until his lids closed, and then breathed, ‘Try keeping me away.’

Get a grip, Cavanaugh.

Tait forced his attention onto the road and away from Paige as she slept in the passenger seat of the hire car, just as she’d done on their first trip to Glenalla. The hem of her red dress failed to cover her slim legs that she’d tucked beneath her. The top three buttons, with a little earlier help from him, had worked themselves undone to reveal the shadow of her cleavage.

He speared his hand though his hair. It didn’t matter they’d slept little last night, just like it didn’t seem to matter he’d organized a late check-out so he could take his time removing her bath robe when she emerged from the shower. He was still as wound up as a horny teenager. He simply couldn’t get enough of her.

But it wasn’t the way her curves filled his palms or the honey taste of her skin that drained his willpower; his attraction ran far deeper than just the physical. He clamped his hands around the steering wheel to stop himself from touching her. God he loved her.

His deep sigh echoed around the car. Somehow he had to find a way to honour his mother’s last wish and somehow he had to find a way tell Paige the truth without losing her. No words had passed between them but he had to hold onto the hope the promise of her kiss meant she saw him as more than just a troublesome city boy. He then could only hope when she found out how he’d deceived her she’d still feel the same.