Her Knight in the Outback (13 page)

CHAPTER TEN

W
AKING
THE
NEXT
MORNING
was like an action replay of the morning before—but without all the action. This time, he didn't catch Eve creeping out of bed. This time, she was not freaking out and sucking all the warmth out of the room. This time, she was not back-pedalling madly from what they'd shared the night before.

Even though what they'd shared overnight was more intimate and meaningful than anything they'd done with each other back at the campsite.

Two bodies, pressed together in sleep. Wrapped around each other. Talking.

No sex.

But infinitely more loaded.

‘Morning,' she murmured before her eyes even opened.

‘How long have you been awake?'

‘Long enough to feel you staring.'

‘It's the novelty.' He chuckled.

Come on. Open them...

But she just smiled and squirrelled in closer, as if she was getting ready to go back to sleep.

‘It's eight o'clock,' he pointed out.

And then her eyes opened—drugged, languorous, and he'd never seen anything quite so beautiful.

‘No, it's not.'

‘Yeah, it really is.'

And this was a workday for both of them. Technically.

Her eyes fluttered shut and she wiggled deeper into the covers. Okay, so he was going to have to be the brave one.

‘So, look at you in my bed...' he hinted.

One eye half opened and he waited for the quip to follow. Something sharp and brilliant and completely protective. But he didn't get one. Her second eye opened and locked on him, clear and steady.

‘I just woke up in the middle of the night,' she murmured, ‘and knew this is where I wanted to be.'

Right. What could he say to that? This was what he'd come back for, wasn't it? To see what might grow between them. Wasn't that what he'd been murmuring at midnight about? Yet, now that he was faced with it, it suddenly seemed overwhelmingly real.

He cleared his throat. ‘Breakfast?'

‘In town, maybe? After I get set up.'

Right. Work.

‘I have to do my thing today, too.' For the people paying him.

‘Where's the weather station?'

He told her and she asked a question or two. More than enough to muddle his mind. He was in bed with a living, breathing,
radiating
woman and they were talking about the weather again. Literally. But somehow it didn't feel like small talk. It felt big.

And then it hit him why.

They were having a
couple
conversation. Comfortable. Easy. And they were having it in bed. Where all conversations should happen. And that was enough to scare him upright.

‘I'm going to grab a shower, then I'll get us some food while you set up.'

She pushed up onto her elbows, blinking. ‘Sorry if I made things weird.'

He forced a relaxed smile onto his face.

‘Not weird. Just—'
dangerously appealing
‘—new.'

He padded into the bathroom and put himself under the shower Eve had enjoyed so much the night before. Images filled his head—of Eve standing with the water streaming over her slight body, head tipped back, issuing those sounds he'd heard while he leaned on the doorframe out in the hall. How badly he'd wanted to step inside and join her. Shower with her until the end of time. And now, here he was freaking out that his dreams might be coming true.

In his world, dreams didn't come true.

They shattered.

It was so hard to trust the good feelings.

He nudged the taps and cut out half of the hot water feed and then made sure to keep his shave brief.

When he emerged, Eve was gone.

For half a heartbeat the old doubts lurched to the surface but then he remembered she had no clothes up here, only what she'd crept up the stairs in, and he opened the suite door a crack and peered down through the hallway window. Like a seasoned stalker. Long enough to see Eve heading back across the car park.

Come on, man. Pull it together
.
This is what you wanted.

He'd just learned the hard way not to want. It only led to disappointment.

So Eve had opted for more comfortable accommodation overnight. No biggie. That was hardly a declaration of passion. She'd snuggled in and enjoyed the heat coming off him, and today she was all about Travis again.

Eve was always about Travis.

It was part of what intrigued him about her. That fathomless compassion.

But it was part of what scared him, too. Because how could there be room for him with all that emotion already going on?

He quickly shrugged something decent on and ran a quick comb through his hair so that when she swiped the suite's door he was clothed and everything that needed brushing was brushed.

He threw her a neutral smile. ‘Good to go?'

The pause before she answered was full of silent query. ‘Yep. Meet you in front of the Town Hall?'

Wherever that was. ‘Yup.'

The question mark shifted from her eyes to her soft smile but she simply turned and let him follow her back down to where his bike was parked. She headed for the bus.

‘Egg and bacon burger?' he called.

‘Sounds great.'

Great.

Okay, so it was officially his turn to be off. Most guys would be stoked to wake up to a warm, willing body but, instead of converting the opportunity to a goal, he'd let it get under his skin. Weird him out. Not the best start, true, but Eve didn't look too tragic about it. Her mind was back on her brother already.

As was always the way.

* * *

The bumbling MP yesterday was pretty normal, in Eve's experience. In fact, he'd been more tactful than many of the people she'd tried to explain herself to in the past.

Herself... Her choices.

But the only people who'd understood her odyssey the way Marshall had were the other family members in her missing-persons network. Which did, in fact, make him pretty darned exceptional.

Eve smiled and passed a poster to an older lady who stopped to peruse her display. The stranger took her time and looked at every single face before wandering off, which Eve particularly appreciated. Nothing worse than the glancers. Glancing was worse than not looking at all, in some ways. Eve knew it was a big ask to hope that people might remember one face, let alone dozens, but there was no chance of people remembering them from the wall displays in post offices that were half obscured by piles of post packs or pull-down passport photo screens most of the time.

Something inside her had shifted last night when Marshall told her about his brother. As if he went from adversary to equal in her mind. He'd effectively lost a brother, too—to circumstance—so he knew what it was like to give up on a family member.

Except, in Marshall's case, he was the one who'd walked away.

And didn't that tear her up. Half of her wanted to hug him for the personal strength it must have taken to leave an intolerable family situation so young. The other half wanted to shake him and remind him he had a brother. A living, breathing brother.

And those weren't to be sneezed at.

She never would have picked him for the product of a rough neighbourhood, even with all the tattoos. He was just too
normal
. Beneath the ‘keep your distance' leather smokescreen. But to find out that someone so close to him was neck-deep in criminal activity... That just made what he'd done with his life even more remarkable. Finished school, tackled university and then got himself the straightest and smartest of straight, smart jobs.

Meteorology.

A tiny smile crept, unbidden, to her lips. Who knew that she'd ever get quite so hot and bothered by a weatherman?

Yet here she was, very much bothered. And decidedly hot under the covers.

At least she had been last night.

Crawling in with him hadn't been quite the spontaneous exercise she'd confessed. The sprint across the car park had been as sobering as it was chilly and she had plenty of opportunity to think better of it. But she hadn't—because a big part of her had wanted him to roll over, see her and just keep on rolling. Up and over onto her. To make love to her like he had the first time—all breathless and uninhibited.

Another taste of lightness.

Her days were consumed by her brother—couldn't someone else have her nights? When she'd normally be asleep? Wouldn't it be okay to let go just for those few short hours? To forget?

But Marshall hadn't taken advantage. He'd just tugged her close, murmured hot, lovely words in her ear and pulled her into unconsciousness behind him. And it was only as she'd fallen asleep that she'd realised how badly she wanted
not to
do the obvious thing. The easy thing.

Sleeping with Marshall was easy.

Falling for him would be treacherous.

But morning would always come. And it dragged reality with it.

Eve's reality was that she still had a monumental task ahead of her. Marshall had chased her up the highway to see what might form between them if they gave it a chance, but how could there be any kind of something between them while she had this dismal marathon to complete?

Good sex was one thing. A
happy families
future was quite another.

She had no room for anything beyond right now.

And both of them knew that
happy families
was just a myth. They knew it firsthand.

‘Thank you,' she murmured belatedly to the man who took a poster as though from an unattended pile. She'd been so lost in thought, that might as well have been true.

Nope, she hadn't promised Marshall anything more than
right now
and he hadn't asked for it.

Two people could go a long way on
right now
.

* * *

The south-western corner of Western Australia was packed with small, wine-rich country towns, each with unique personality and spaced close enough for tourists to hop from one to another on their weekend trails.

Papering the two hundred square kilometres ahead with posters was going to be a much bigger job than the two thousand before it.

But they did a good job together, she and Marshall. When he wasn't working, or they weren't curled up together in her bus or a motel room, he'd be with her, plastering Trav's face all over the towns they visited. Handing her the pins or the tape or the staple gun. Nothing she couldn't have done for herself but—boy—was it good not to have to.

Somehow, having someone to share all of this with made it more bearable. And she hadn't realised how unbearable it had become. How utterly soul-destroying. Until she felt her soul starting to scab over.

She glanced sideways at Marshall's handsome face. How fast she'd adapted to having him here by her side during her displays of
The Missing
. How willing she'd been to bring him into her journey.

A problem shared...

A man approached from the far end of the street, folded paper in his hands. He looked grim and twitchy.

‘Movie tonight?'

Marshall's voice pulled her focus back to him. The two of them hadn't braved a movie since
that
night in her bus. As if the entire art form was now too loaded. The last time they'd settled in to watch a movie together they'd ended up sharing so much more.

‘Maybe,' she said breathlessly. A girl couldn't live on spooning alone. And she was fairly sure neither could a man. They were well overdue for a rematch. The way Marshall's eyes locked on hers said maybe he thought so, too.

The stranger still hovered and it was only as he turned away, stuffing the paper in his pocket, that Eve's brain finally comprehended that he wanted to say something.

‘I'm sorry,' she called, stretching taller in her seat. ‘Can I help you?'

The man slowed. Turned.

‘Do you know him?' he said, holding up the crumpled paper as he approached. It was one of her posters.

A tingle tickled between her shoulders and grew outwards until gooseflesh puckered under her shirt. ‘He's my brother. Why? Do you recognise him?'

The man stepped one pace closer. ‘Not sure. He looks familiar.'

Eve shot to her feet. ‘What do you mean?'

‘Just that I feel like I've seen him before. But I don't want to get your hopes up if I'm wrong...'

‘I don't need certainty,' she was quick to reassure, ‘just leads.'

She felt Marshall's heat as he stood behind her and her heart began to hammer. God, she'd been so wrapped up in the promise in his eyes she'd nearly let this guy walk off. A guy who might know something.

‘Where do you think you know him from?' Marshall asked.

The guy switched focus. ‘I really can't say. Just...somewhere. And recently.'

‘How recent? Two months? Six?' Eve could hear the urgency in her own voice but was incapable of easing it. A big hand fell on her shoulder as if to physically suppress her.

‘Where do you live?' Marshall asked, much more casually.

The guy responded to his even tone. ‘Here. In Augusta. But I don't think I know him from here.'

God, the idea of that. That Travis might be right here in this little seaside town...

‘Somewhere else?'

‘I run trucks. Maybe I saw him on one of those. In another—'

‘What other town?' Eve pressed, and Marshall squeezed harder.

Are you freaking kidding me?
The first reasonable lead she'd had in nearly nine months and Marshall wanted her to relax? Every nerve in her body was firing in a soup of adrenaline.

‘Where do you do your runs?' Marshall asked calmly.

‘Anywhere in the South West,' the man said, visibly uncomfortable at having started the conversation at all. He immediately started retreating from his earlier thoughts. ‘Look, I'm probably wrong—'

Deep panic fisted in her gut.