Every Girl's Secret Fantasy (6 page)

He checked out the next room from a distance.

No Phoebe.

He was about to move on when his gaze hooked on a pair of photos perched on the window ledge—six-by-fours set in a tarnished silver double frame. On one side a happy and beautiful young woman—bearing a striking resemblance to Phoebe—held a tiny baby up for the camera. No mistaking the identical river of pale blond hair streaked with gold, the sparkling green eyes.

On the alternate side beamed an unusually pretty girl with a familiar heart-shaped face…Phoebe, aged perhaps nine or ten, curled around a tyre-swing hanging from some big old tree. Something small clutched in her hand—a penknife?—had caught a glint of sun. Her smile was so total the upward thrust of her cheeks left only happy slits for eyes.

Pace's heart pinched.

So this was the little girl who had grown up without her parents.

He dragged a finger across the glass. The dust-free line left Phoebe's smile brighter still.

Pace's father had been an exceedingly busy and enterprising man, and an exacting, larger-than-life person
as well as a mentor to whom Pace could never hope to measure up. But at a pinch Nicholas Senior had made himself available if either boy had ever truly needed him—even if gaining his undivided attention had taken some doing. The positive as well as the negative…Pace couldn't imagine growing up without his father's influence.

Then there was Phoebe, who'd not only missed out on a father but on a mother's guidance too. She'd had her aunt. But still…

He studied the photos and his bite clenched.

What man could walk away from his own flesh and blood?

 

Phoebe pushed on the cottage's back door and, seeing the silhouette of a tall broad figure standing in Meg's kitchen, reflexively reeled back. She wasn't used to seeing a man in this house—
any
man. But, sucking down a breath, she soon realised.

Holding her clamouring heart, she exhaled heavily. “Pace, you scared me half to death.”

He looked a little taken aback himself, setting the photo frames he'd been holding back on the counter.

“I've finished the boiler,” he said, stepping forward. “Thought I'd find out where everyone was hiding.”

“I was out back.”

“Out back where?” Pace craned his neck to peer around her.

Hooking an arm, Phoebe retraced her steps through the doorway and Pace followed.

Scattered gums and clusters of firs stretched to distant purple hills. Untouched, unhurried smells wove
all around…old wood, scented wildflowers, and the purest of fresh country air. It was
beautiful
. And yet Phoebe hadn't been able to leave this town behind her quickly enough. Her aunt aside, home was supposed to be where the heart was—but if her heart lay in Tyler's Stream she'd have to dig deep to find it.

“When I hit seventeen Meg and I renovated the old housemaid's quarters,” she told him, letting them both inside a smaller cottage that lay at the end of the path. “It was great, having my own space filled with my own things, listening to my own music whenever I liked. But I had responsibilities, too. Cleaning, cooking, setting my own bedtime.”

She'd felt so grown up. But she had never over-stepped the boundaries. Never dreamed of inviting boys back in the middle of the night. She wouldn't have betrayed Meg's trust that way. More importantly, she hadn't wanted to end up like her mother…starry-eyed, in love, then pregnant and alone. A child deserved two parents. Hell,
she'd
deserved at least one.

As they moved further inside—the lower level a living space, an open attic the bedroom—Pace nodded his approval.

“Cosy.” He took in the
faux
bearskin rug stretched between the fireplace and an Indian cotton couch. The far wall was painted cerise. When his survey hit the counter, his eyes flashed.

“Ah! There you are.”

Phoebe glanced over and smiled. He was talking to the hamper.

“Guess you're ready now?”

She'd meant for coffee, but she didn't miss the spark in his gaze at her suggestion—or the sizzling
undercurrent that zapped a lightning path from his eyes straight to hers.

Instantly light-headed, she angled back to boil the water.

She'd seen that look in his eye before. A look that said he wanted what he wanted, and right now he wanted her. Earlier today, back in Sydney, she'd thought she'd wanted him too. Now, after their near accident, in this setting…

Well, she felt more cautious. Edgy.

Holding her stomach, she flicked on the kettle. “Coffee or cocoa?” she asked a little absently.

When he didn't answer, she looked back over her shoulder.

As if it were a difficult choice, Pace had tilted his head. He moved towards her, nearer and nearer, until his mouth eventually stopped a breath away from hers. The dark bristles on his jaw glistened in the silver threads of light slanting in through the window.

Then that masculine mouth grinned and suddenly, like an urge to jump, Phoebe's fingertips burned to sample the sandpaper-roughness of those cheeks and compare the abrasion to those soft smiling lips. She still felt edgy, but where Pace was concerned she couldn't seem to keep the longing she felt for him down.

He said, “I think I like the sound of cocoa.” His deep voice resonated through her blood like chords of music before he lobbed an unhurried glance over his shoulder to the fireplace, the couch. “It's almost cold enough for a fire,” he said, as his eyes climbed the ladder and then swam back to focus once more upon her lips. A lopsided smile hooked his mouth, perfectly
aligned teeth appearing as his smile grew. “Shall we drive it in?”

Quivering inside, Phoebe swallowed hard.

She knew his mind: cocoa first, soft mattress and crisp sheets later. After the explosion of those kisses earlier she really couldn't blame him.

Low and deep inside, that giddy spiral of longing intensified, the heart-thumping sensation spreading over her body like a delicious rash. Nape, nipples, fingertips—everything tingled. Despite her past experiences…the doubts she harboured about herself…wouldn't sleeping with Pace Davis would be the easiest, most natural thing in the world?

His lidded eyes held hers. “I have an idea. But we'll need a few things.”

Phoebe's heartbeat skipped. A few things like, maybe, massage oil? Body chocolate?

“Do you have a Thermos?”

Phoebe blinked. Did he say… “A
Thermos
?”

“And a blanket? The picnic kind.”

She blinked again. “Yes, I have a blanket…and a Thermos.”

“It'll be dark soon.” Moving to a window, Pace drew back the curtain to inspect a horizon hinting at the rose-hewn colours of sunset. “We'll take the cocoa with us on a walk. And didn't you say there was apple pie?”

Phoebe risked a peek at the loft, visualised two bodies wreathing and on the brink, then she saw it as it actually was—a quaint room with a neat quilted bed, shelves chock-full of memories, a box filled with her childhood dress-ups, and a one-eyed teddy bear propped on his cushions. A young woman's retreat from her small-minded world.

Still, as they put pie and drinks together for their picnic, his scent filled her lungs, his heat teased her skin, and Phoebe couldn't help but wonder if it was time for her loft to grow up, too.

T
EN
minutes later they were strolling beside a pretty winding stream that reminded Pace of the countryside when he'd visited Germany—verdant green and breathtakingly picturesque. The last of the sun was hanging onto the day as a cool breeze drifted in from the silhouetted hills. Hannie had trotted off ahead, trusting Pace with his mistress as he disappeared into the grass.

Pace inhaled a lung full of fresh air. “Ever miss these wide open spaces?”

“Sometimes. Meg and my mother loved the country. That house was their parents', and their parents' before them. Meg used to reminisce for hours about their ‘adventures in the wilderness' when they were young.”

“Sounds like they were good mates,” Pace said, thinking about Nick and how they'd never seen eye to eye but rather
had
constantly competed. Growing up, it had always been who hit the ball hardest? Or whose mud pies were the biggest? Between his father's expectations and his brother's goading Pace had been constantly kept on his toes. But he'd more than held his own. Until that one god-awful, very public disgrace. Now he only had to
look
at his brother to be remind
ed of how badly he'd stuffed up three years ago. It aggravated the bejesus out of him.

And Nick knew it.

“Meg was a little older,” Phoebe was saying, “and a lot wiser. When my mother fell for a man passing through, Meg was there to comfort her.”

She stooped to pluck a flower while Pace put two and two together. The man had been Phoebe's father.

“Ever try to find him?” he asked.

Twirling the stem, Phoebe gazed off at some distant point and lifted her chin. “Other people might want to track down their biological links. I don't need to go there.”

Pace thought he understood. “Guess it wouldn't change anything.”

“I'm over wondering about what happened to him. But there are some things I'd change if I could.”

“Like?”

“Like my mother never giving up on the idea that one day he'd come back to her. She was driving to see him the night she died. It was a wet night. A tired truck driver nodded off and…” She tossed the flower away. “Well, she never came back.”

Pace's stomach fell. Her mother had died in a car accident? She'd had reason enough to be shaken earlier, when their car had spun out. Having lost her mother that way must have made that near miss all the more harrowing.

The line between her brows eased. “But I had my aunt. She loved me like a daughter, and I've always looked on her as a parent. I don't know what I'd have done without Meg.” Her mouth tightened almost im
perceptibly. “Sometimes I wish I could tell my mother that.”

Pace had to swallow to dislodge the stone in his throat. Not only had she been dumped by her father, Phoebe also felt abandoned by her mother—a woman who had been responsible for a small child but had driven off on a wet night to visit an ex who'd no longer wanted her.

His own father might have worked too hard, but Pace knew he'd slogged those long hours not only for his own sense of satisfaction but also for his family's sake, for their security. Pace's grandfather had been an alcoholic who'd squandered the family budget on booze and terrorised the home at night in drunken rages. Nicholas Senior had wanted different things for his children. That was why he'd put in those hours. Expected so much.

One day he hoped Phoebe could forgive her mother. Carrying around a truck full of spite for someone you ought to love was heavy work. He should know.

Setting the hamper down, he gave a soft smile. “Let's have that cocoa and pie.”

She glanced around and nodded. “The perfect spot.”

They stood beneath a massive dome of lime-green foliage supported by a giant trunk and a tangle of exposed roots. This monster must stand fifty feet high. A hundred to one it was the swing-tree from that photo in the kitchen he'd looked at.

He laid out the blanket. “What kind of tree is this?” He'd never seen one like it.

“No idea.” Kneeling, she extracted the Thermos and cups from the hamper. “Definitely not a pine. Obviously
not a gum. In spring its branches are covered with these amazing fluffy white flowers.”

Scooping her legs at an angle beneath her, Phoebe poured two steaming cups, then handed one to Pace as he hunkered down beside her.

“Years ago I'd tell myself this tree was magic. That it had grown here on this very spot, overlooking this part of the stream, just for me. Every year, when the blossoms were full enough, the wind strong enough…”

Pace could imagine. “There'd be a massive white carpet?”

“And a snowstorm of flowers floating all around. I'd close my eyes…and dream.”

Her eyes drifted shut as an angelic smile lifted the corners of her full-lipped mouth.

Pace's mesmerised gaze swept over her. “What would you dream of?”

A faint vee formed between her brows before she opened her eyes and smiled cryptically. “The usual things little girls dream of.”

Close by, Hannie snapped out a clatter of sharp and rapid yaps before streaking off again into the distant wood.

“Rabbits,” Phoebe explained. “They drive him nuts—not that he catches any. When he's had enough, he knows his way home.” She took a sip, watching him over the rim of her cup. “What about you? Do your parents live in Sydney?”

Pace lowered his cup. “My mother died when I was twelve,” he said. “My father when I was twenty-five. A heart attack. My brother and his fiancée live in Sydney.”

“I'm sorry about your parents,” she murmured, her
voice full of understanding. Then she angled her head. “You always seemed like such a mystery to me.”

“Maybe because you were so busy running the other way.”

“I'm not running now.”

She held his gaze with hers and the air simmered between them. Drawn to her like never before, Pace was about to lean closer when she dropped her eyes and rummaged through the hamper.

The pie was delicious, sweet and filling. The cocoa too. But the air was cooling by degrees now. Pace thought they ought to head back to her cottage soon. Light a fire. Maybe stay the night. And, remarkably, his reasoning wasn't about sex. Not entirely.

He could do the drive back to Sydney, certainly. He'd thought she'd want him to. But after learning about her mother and how she'd died, taking a break from the road until morning might be best.

When he'd finished eating, Pace put his plate in the hamper. Phoebe leaned in at the same time. Their hands brushed and, like a lightning flash, the chemistry that drew them together and fought to hold them there flared up again. Feeling the jolt, too, Phoebe darted her gaze to his.

But his eyes had drifted to her mouth, to the succulent pink bow and the lone pastry crumb that sat, enticing him, on her lower lip.

He didn't think. Didn't hesitate. Acting on instinct, he simply leaned in, cupped her head, and plucked that crumb from her lips with his own.

 

A shiver of anticipation whirled through Phoebe's centre as Pace's mouth touched hers. A knot of hot
need swelled in her throat when, feather-light, their lips touched again, this time lingering. Her eyes drifted shut and a firestorm swept over her skin at the same time as bands of heat coiled and tightened around her core. When a tiny blissful sigh escaped her throat his arm went around her to draw her wonderfully close.

Like a length of warm wax her body moulded to his as a crooked finger tilted her chin higher, angling her face so that his mouth hovered a heady whisper away from hers. Testing, he gently rimmed her lips with the tip of his tongue—first one way, then the other. Disbelieving that an act so simple, so mild, could wind her up so tight, Phoebe gave in to the burn—gave in to it all—and wove her arms around his strong neck.

He kissed her deeply. Thoroughly. Her entire being seemed to shut down before an explosion detonated deep inside and her heart swelled under a rapid rush of blood. She felt exhilarated. Alive. As if she'd sprinted up ten flights of stairs with weights on her belt and angel's wings on her feet. She savoured the flavour of apple and creamy chocolate.

How would the rest of him taste?

His hand slid from the back of her neck down her spine, until his thumb found and rubbed that low, sensitive dip. Swept further away, she cupped his jaw and pressed her sensitive breasts against his chest. As the kiss deepened more he eased her back and onto the blanket, tangled in each other's limbs. His hand trailed down the outside of her smooth leg, then back up, towing material along in its wake.

Her fingers flexed through his hair, urging him closer as she arched up. Blistering magic raced through her veins. There'd never been a sensation like it—brilliant
tingling waves of hundred-proof pleasure sparking to hot pulsing life.

The iron of his hand scorched a path over her waist, settling on her hip, kneading till his fingers worked their way beneath her dress.

A low, sure voice hummed at her ear. “I knew you'd feel like this…soft and hot and heavenly.” His velvet tongue tickled a lobe. “I want you, Phoebe…I want you more than ever.”

Phoebe trembled out a sigh. Oh, Lord, she wanted him too. She'd been consumed by a fire that could never get enough of his fuel. Never enough of his heat and this hunger. When he tasted the hollow at her throat an almost painful longing flooded her. Breathless, she dragged his mouth back up to hers, and as he devoured her again she reached around, prying the shirt from his belt and up over that wide, muscular back.

Feeling reckless, yet in control, she flipped over until he lay on his back and she lay squarely on top, her thighs pressed over his hips. But when she tossed back the hair hanging in her eyes her gaze caught on a spot a few feet away. On her tree…on its trunk…the etching she'd left there so long ago.

In a blinding flash she remembered the day she'd carved that heart and the many times she'd touched it those first few years. She thought of her shiny penknife, then of her faded childhood, and how once she'd dreamed of finding not
Mr Right Now
but
Prince Charming
—a dedicated family man who would protect her and always be there for her, the way her mother and father had not.

That was so long ago, but her chest still squeezed thinking of it now, and as a wind from the south blew
over her back a familiar frosty cold soaked into her heart. Her stomach muscles gripped, and much of the beautiful warmth Pace had brought out in her was in an instant lost.

Biting her lip, she rolled away.

“I'm sorry,” she murmured, avoiding his gaze. “I can't do this.”

At least not here. Not in this town. Not near this tree.

Pace pushed up onto his elbows. “What's wrong?”

Heat was returning—not to her blood but to her cheeks. He would never understand. She should never have brought him here. Now she wished she'd never come back. If it weren't for Meg, she wouldn't have.

His warm hand covered hers. “Phoebe?”

She drove out a breath and, feeling empty, looked around. “It's this place.”

“I thought you liked this spot.”

“I do. I
did
.”

He coughed out a laugh. “I'm confused.”

Her throat thick, she held her brow, then pushed up to her feet. Of course he was confused. She was being a yo-yo. Whether he understood or not, she owed him an explanation.

“In a small town,” she began, “scandals die hard, and some folk believe apples don't fall far from the tree.” When he cocked his head, she made it more clear. “There were people waiting for me to turn out like my mother—to fall pregnant, unmarried, then throw my life away chasing rainbows I'd never catch. The kids I went to school with were fine,” she said, “but some parents didn't want their girls mixing with my kind.”

Illegitimate.

She'd been determined to somehow change the perception people had of her. Change the label she'd inherited but hadn't earned. At fourteen, when her girlfriends had been watching their weight and experimenting with hair dye and boys, she'd chopped her hair short and hid her developing figure in overalls. Just to prove it to Tyler's Stream, she hadn't so much as kissed a boy until she'd moved away.

She crossed to the tree trunk and pointed out the worn carved heart and her initials.

“You did that?” he asked.

Nodding, she leaned back against the trunk. “I know it sounds silly, but I feel as if the little girl I used to be is looking on and she's disappointed.
She
wasn't going to let anyone but the man she'd love for ever kiss her. Fairytale stuff, I know…” She set her jaw and growled. “I wish I'd been born a boy.”

“Because boys don't get pregnant? Not every man is like your father, Phoebe.”

“You, for instance?”

She cringed at the acid in her tone. This wasn't Pace's fault. It wasn't anyone's…except perhaps her mother's.

“Yeah. Right,” he said. “I'm so slick I managed to seduce you the first time we met.”

She didn't smile at his joke. Who was he trying to fool? “The night we met there must have been at least a dozen women hanging off your every word. The next time I saw you there were even more. They were like ants on a sugar bowl. You could've had your pick.”

His voice deepened. “But I'm not with any of them. I'm with you.”

He pushed to his feet and came close. After combing
some hair back from her temple, he gently held her cheek. She thought he was going to kiss her again, and she was torn between desperately wanting him to and asking whether he'd listened to anything she'd said.

And then he did kiss her…tenderly…on her brow.

“It's been a big day,” he said. “We'd better head back.”

The breath left her body as her stomach sank. No one in the world could know her internal tug of war. She wanted to cast away all her doubts and experience everything she and Pace could share together. On the other hand, after today, she understood as she'd never understood before that she didn't want to give too much of herself—the way her mother had given way too much to that man.