Her Knight in the Outback (8 page)

Isolation from the world and its threats
. She kind of liked the sound of that. Maybe that was what Trav was chasing when he walked out into the darkness a year ago. Emotional
refugia.

She stumbled on a rock as she realised. Not a year ago...a year ago
tomorrow
. Not only had she failed to think about Travis for entire hours this morning but she'd almost forgotten tomorrow's depressing anniversary.

Her joy at their spectacular view drained away as surely as the water far below them dragged back across the shell-speckled beach where they'd come ashore.

Marshall extended his warm hand and took her suddenly cold one for the final haul up the granite top of Flinders Peak, and the entire south coast of Western Australia—complete with all hundred-plus islands—stretched out before them. The same sense of despair she'd felt when staring up at the stars the night before washed over Eve.

Australia was so incredibly vast and so incredibly empty.

So much freaking country to look in.

She stood, immobile, as he did what they'd come to do. Photographing. Measuring. Recording compass settings and GPS results. Taking copious notes and even some soil and vegetation samples. He threw a concerned glance at her a couple of times, until he finally closed up his pack again.

‘Eve...'

‘Are you done?'

‘Come on, Eve—'

‘I'm going to head down to the lake.' But there was no interest in her step, and no breathlessness in her words. Even she could hear the death in her voice.

‘Stop.'

She did, and she turned.

‘What just happened? What did I do?'

Truth sat like a stone in her gut. ‘It wasn't you, Marshall. It was me.'

‘What did
you
do?'

More what she didn't do.

‘Eve?'

‘I shouldn't be here.'

‘We have a permit.'

‘No, I mean I shouldn't be wasting time like this.'

‘You're angry because you let yourself off the hook for a few hours?'

‘I'm angry because I only have one thing to do out here. Prioritising Travis. And I didn't do that today.'

Or yesterday, if she was honest. She might have pinned up a bunch of posters, but her memories of yesterday were dominated by Marshall.

‘Your life can't only be about your brother, Eve. It's not healthy.'

Health. A bit late now to be paying attention to anyone's health. Her own. Her brother's. Maybe if she'd been more alert a couple of years back...

She took a deep breath. ‘Are you done up here?'

A dozen expressions ranged across his face before he answered. But, when he did, his face was carefully neutral. ‘We have a couple of hours before the boat gets back. Might as well have a look around with me.'

Fine. He could make her stay...

But he couldn't make her enjoy it.

* * *

It took the best part of the remaining ninety minutes on the island but Marshall managed to work the worst of the stiffness from Eve's shoulders. He did it with easy, undemanding conversation and by tapping her natural curiosity, pointing out endless points of interest and intriguing her with imaginary tales of the pirate Anderson and his hidden treasure that had never been recovered.

‘Maybe his crew took it when they killed him.' She shrugged, still half-numb.

Cynical, but after the sad silence of the first half-hour he'd take it. ‘Seems a reasonable enough motive to kill someone. You know, if you were a bloodthirsty pirate.'

‘Or maybe there never was any treasure,' she posed. ‘Maybe Anderson only managed to steal and trade enough to keep him and his crew alive, not to accrue a fortune. Maybe they weren't very good pirates!'

‘You've seen the island now. Where would you bury it if it did exist?'

She glanced around. ‘I wouldn't. It's too open here. Hard to dig up without being seen by the crew.' Her eyes tracked outward and he followed them to the guano-blanketed, rocky outcrop just beyond the shores of Middle Island. ‘Maybe over there? Some random little cave or hollow?'

‘Want to go look?'

She turned wide eyes on him. ‘I'm not about to swim fully clothed across a shark-infested channel to an outcrop covered in bird poo filled with God knows what bacteria to hunt for non-existent treasure.'

‘You have no soul, Evelyn Read,' he scoffed.

‘I do have one and I'd prefer to keep it firmly tethered to my body, thanks very much.'

He chuckled. ‘Fair enough. Come on, let's see if the lake looks as impressive up close.'

It didn't. Of course it didn't. Wasn't there something about rose-coloured glasses? But it wasn't a total disappointment. Still officially pink, even once Eve filled her empty water bottle with it.

‘You're not planning on drinking that?' he warned.

‘Nope.' She emptied it all back into the lake and tucked the empty bottle into her backpack for later recycling. ‘Just trying to catch it out being trickily clear.'

They strolled around the lake the long way, then headed back down to the only decent beach on the island. A tiny but sandy cove formed between two outcrops of rocky reef. The place the boat had left them. Marshall immediately tugged his shoes and socks off and tied them to his own pack, which he stashed on a nearby rock, then made his way out a half-dozen metres from where Eve stood discovering that the sand was actually comprised of teeny-tiny white shells.

‘Water's fine...' he hinted. ‘Not deep enough for predators.'

She crossed her arms grumpily from the shore. ‘What about a stingray?'

He splashed a little forward in the waves that washed in from the current surging between the islands. ‘Surfing stingrays?'

‘Where lakes are pink and lizards bark? Why not?'

‘Come on, Eve. Kick your shoes off.'

She glared at him, but eventually she sank onto one hip and toed her opposite runner and sock off, then she did the same on the other foot. Though she took her sweet time putting both carefully in her pack and placing the lot next to his backpack on the hot sand.

‘Welcome to heaven,' he murmured as she joined him in the shallows. Her groan echoed his as her hot and parched feet drank up the cold water, too. They stood there like that, together, for minutes. Their hearts slowing to synchronise with the waves washing up and into their little minibay.

Just...being.

‘Okay,' Eve breathed, her face turned to the sky. ‘This was a good idea.'

He waded a little further from her. ‘My ideas are always good.'

She didn't even bother looking at him. ‘Is that right?'

‘Sure is.'

He reached down and brushed his fingers through the crystal-clear water then flicked two of them in her general direction.

She stiffened—in body and in lip—as the droplets hit her. She turned her head back his way and let her eyes creak open. ‘Thanks for that.'

‘You had to know that was going to happen.'

‘I should have. You with a mental age of twelve and all.'

He grinned. ‘One of my many charms.'

She flipped her cap off her head, bent down and filled it with fresh, clean water and then replaced the lot on her head, drenching herself in salty water.

‘Well, that killed my fun,' he murmured.

But not his view. The capful of water had the added benefit of making parts of her T-shirt and cargos cling to the curves of her body even more than they already were. And that killed any chance of him cooling down unless he took more serious measures. He lowered himself onto his butt in the shallows and lay back, fully, in the drink.

Pants, shirt and all.

‘You know how uncomfortable you're going to be going back?' Her silhouette laughed from high above him, sea water still trickling off her jaw and chin.

He starfished in the two feet of water. ‘Small price to pay for being so very comfortable now.'

Even with her eyes mostly shaded by the peak of her cap, he could tell when her glance drifted his way. She was trying not to look—hard—but essentially failing. He experimented by pushing his torso up out of the water and leaning back casually on his hands.

‘Easy to say...'

But her words didn't sound easy at all. In fact, they were as tight as her body language all of a sudden.

Well, wasn't
that
interesting.

He pushed to his feet and moved towards her, grinning. Primarily so that he could see her eyes again. Her hands came up, fast, in front of her.

‘Don't you dare...'

But he didn't stop until he stood just a centimetre from her upturned hands. And he grinned. ‘Don't dare do this, you mean?'

‘Come on, Marshall, I don't want to get wet.'

‘I'm not the one with a soggy cap dripping down my face.'

‘No, you're just soaked entirely through.'

And, with those words, her eyes finally fell where she'd been trying so hard not to look. At his chest, just a finger flex away from her upturned hands.

‘I'm beginning to see what Anderson might have liked about this island,' he murmured.

She huffed out a slow breath. ‘You imagine he and his crew took the time to roll around in the shallows like seals?'

The thought of rolling around anything with Eve hadn't occurred to him today, but now it was all he could do to squeeze some less charged words past the evocative image. ‘Flattering analogy.'

The
pfff
she shot out would have been perfectly at home on a surfacing seal. Her speech was still tinged with a tight breathlessness.

‘You know you look good. That was the point of the whole submerge thing, wasn't it? To see how I'd react?'

Actually, getting cool had been the point. Once. But suddenly that original point seemed like a very long time ago. He dropped his voice with his glance. Straight to her lips. ‘And how will you react, Eve?'

Her feminine little voice box lurched a few times in her exposed throat. ‘I won't. Why would I give you the satisfaction?'

‘Of what?'

‘Of touching you—'

If she could have bitten her tongue off she would have just then, he was sure. ‘Is that what you want to do? I'll step forward. All you have to do is ask.'

Step forward into those still-raised hands that were trembling ever so slightly now.

But she was a tough one. Or stubborn. Or both.

‘And why would I do that?'

‘Because you really want to. Because we're all alone on a deserted island with time to kill. And because we'll both be going our separate ways after Esperance.'

Though the idea seemed laughable now.

She swallowed, mutely.

He nudged the peak of her cap upwards with his knuckle to better read her expression and murmured, ‘And because this might be the only chance we'll have to answer the question.'

Her eyes left his lips and fluttered up to his. ‘What question?'

He stared at her. ‘No. You have to ask it.'

She didn't, though he'd have bet any body part she wanted to.

‘Tell you what, Eve, I'll make it easier for you. You don't have to ask me to do it, you just have to ask me
not
to do it.'

‘Not do what?' she croaked.

He looked down at her trembling fingers. So very, very close. ‘Not to step forward.'

Beneath the crystal-clear water, his left foot crept forward. Then his right matched it. The whole time he kept his glance down at the place that her palms almost pressed on his wet chest.

‘Just one word, Eve. Just tell me to stop.'

But though her lips fell open, nothing but a soft breath came out of them.

‘No?' His body sang with elation. ‘All righty, then.'

And with the slightest muscle tweak at the backs of his legs, he tipped his torso the tiny distance it needed to make contact with Eve's waiting fingers.

CHAPTER SIX

D
EAR
L
ORD
...

How long had it been since she'd touched someone like this?
More than just a casual brushing glance? All that hard flesh Eve had seen on the
beach—
felt
on the bike—pressed back against her fingers as they
splayed out across his chest. Across the shadowy eagle that she knew lived there
beneath the saturated cotton shirt. Across Marshall's strongly beating
heart.

Across the slight rumble of the half-caught groan in his
chest.

One he'd not meant to make public, she was sure. Something that
told her he wanted this as much as she secretly did.

Or, as her fingers trembled, not so secretly, now.

Marshall was right. They weren't going to see each other again.
And this might be the only chance she had to know what it felt like to have the
heat of him pressed against her. To know him. To taste him.

All she had to do was move one finger. Any finger.

She'd never meant to enter some kind of self-imposed physical
exile when she'd set off on this odyssey. It had just happened. And, before she
knew it, she'd gone without touching a single person in any way at all
for...

She sucked in a tiny breath. All of it. Eight months.

Puppies and kittens got touch deprivation, but did grown women?
Was that what was making her so ridiculously fluttery now? Her father's goodbye
hug was the last time she'd had anyone's arms around her and his arms—no matter
how strong they'd once been back when she was little—had never felt as sure and
rooted in earth as Marshall's had as he'd lowered her from the bus's roof last
night. And that had been fairly innocuous.

What kind of damage could they do if they had something other
than
help
in mind?

How good—how
bad
—might they feel? Just once. Before he
rode off into the sunset and she never got an answer.

Only one way to find out.

Eve inched her thumb down under the ridge of one well-defined
pectoral muscle. Nervously jerky. Half expecting to feel the softness of the ink
feathers that she could see shadowed through the saturated T-shirt. But there
was no softness, only the silken sleeve of white cotton that contained all that
hard, hot muscle.

God, he so didn't feel like a weatherman.

Marshall's blazing gaze roasted down on the top of her wet
head, but he didn't move. Didn't interrupt. He certainly didn't step back.

Eve trailed her butterfly fingers lightly up along the line of
the feathers, up to his collarbone. Beyond it to the rigid definition of his
larynx, which lurched out of touch and then back in again like the scandalous
tease it was.

Strong fingers lifted to frame her face—to lift it—and he
brought her eyes to his. They simmered, as bottomless as the ocean around them
as he lowered his mouth towards hers.

‘Ahoy!'

Tortured lungs sucked in painfully further as both their gazes
snapped out to sea, towards the voice that carried to them on the onshore
breeze. Eve stumbled back from all the touching into the buffeting arms of the
surf.

‘Bugger all decent catch to be had,' the gruff captain shouted
as he motored the
Vista II
more fully around the rocks, somehow
oblivious to the charged moment he'd just interrupted. ‘So we headed back
early.'

Irritation mingled with regret in Marshall's storm-grey depths
but he masked it quickly and well. It really wasn't the captain's fault that the
two of them had chosen the end of a long, warm afternoon to finally decide to do
something about the chemistry zinging between them.

‘Hold that thought,' he murmured low and earnest as he turned
to salute the approaching boat.

Not hard to do while her body screamed in frustration at the
interruption, but give her fifteen minutes... Give her the slightest opportunity
to think through what she was doing with half her senses and...

Marshall was right to look anxious.

But, despite what she expected, by the time the
Vista
II
's inflatable dinghy transferred them and their gear safely on deck,
Eve's awareness hadn't diminished at all. And that was easily fifteen minutes.
During the half-hour sea journey back to the campsite beach that followed—past
seals sunning themselves and beneath ospreys bobbing on the high currents and
over a swarm of small stingrays that passed underneath—still the finely tuned
attention her body was paying to Marshall didn't ebb in the slightest.

She forced conversation with the two-man crew, she faked
interest in their paltry fishy catch, she smiled and was delightful and totally
over-compensated the whole way back.

She did whatever she needed to shake free of the relentless
grey eyes that tracked her every move.

After an emotional aeon, her feet were back on mainland sand
and the captain lightly tossed their last backpack out of the inflatable and
farewelled her before exchanging a few business-related words with Marshall.
Moments later, her hand was in the air in a farewell, her smile firmly plastered
on and she readied herself for the inevitable.

Marshall turned and locked eyes with her.

‘Don't know about you,' he said, ‘but I'm famished. Something
about boats...'

Really? He was thinking about his stomach while hers was
twisted up in sensual knots?

‘Have we got any of those sausages from breakfast still in the
fridge?'

Um...

Not that he was waiting for her answer. Marshall lugged his
backpack up over his shoulder and hoisted hers into his free hand and set off
towards the track winding from the beach to the campsite. Eve blinked after him.
Had she fantasised the entire moment in the cove? Or was he just exceptional at
separating moments?

That was then, this was now. Island rules, mainland rules?

What gave?

Warm beach sand collapsed under her tread as she followed him
up the track, her glare giving his broody stare all the way back from Middle
Island a decent run for its money.

* * *

They polished off the leftover sausages as soon as they
got back to the bus. At least, Marshall ate most of them while she showered and
then she nibbled restlessly on the last one while he did, trying very hard not
to think about how much naked man was going on just feet from where she was
sitting.

Soapy, wet, naked man.

Had the bus always been quite this warm?

‘I think I would have been better off washing in the ocean,' he
announced when he walked back in not long after, damp and clean and freshly
clothed. Well, freshly clothed in the least used of three pairs of clothes he
seemed to travel with. ‘Lucky I didn't drop the soap because I wouldn't have
been able to retrieve it.'

‘I think the previous owners were hobbits,' Eve said,
determined to match his lightness.

He slumped down next to her on the sofa. ‘The hot water was
fantastic while it lasted.'

Yeah. The water reservoir was pretty small. Even smaller as it
ran through the onboard gas heater. ‘Sorry about that. I guess Mr and Mrs Hobbit
must have showered at different ends of the day.'

Not usually a problem for a woman travelling alone. The hot
water was hers to use or abuse. And that had worked pretty well for her so
far.

‘So what's the plan for tonight?' Marshall said, glancing at
her sideways.

Lord, if she wasn't fighting off visuals of him in the shower,
she was hearing smut in every utterance.
Tonight.
It wasn't a very
loaded word but somehow, in this tiny space with this über-present man, it took
on piles of new meaning.

‘Movie and bed—' She practically choked the word off.

But Marshall's full stomach and warm, fresh clothes had clearly
put the damper on any lusty intentions. He didn't even blink. ‘Sounds good. What
have you got?'

Apparently an enormous case of the hormones, if her prickling
flesh and fluttery tummy were any indication. But she nodded towards one of the
drawers on the opposite side of the bus and left him to pick his way through the
DVD choices. The mere act of him increasing the physical distance helped dilute
the awareness that swirled around them.

He squatted and rifled through the box, revealing a stretch of
brown, even skin at his lower back to taunt her. ‘Got a preference?'

‘No.'

Yeah. She'd have preferred never to have said yes to this
excruciating co-habitation arrangement, to be honest. But done was done. She
filled her one wineglass high for Marshall and then poured filtered water into
her own mug where he couldn't tell what she was drinking. Maybe if he was
sedated, that powerful, pulsing thrum coming off him would ease off a bit.

And maybe if she kept her wits about her she'd have the
strength to resist it.

He held up a favourite. ‘Speaking of hobbits...'

Yes!
Something actiony and not at all romantic. He
popped the disc at her enthusiastic nod, then settled back and jumped through
the opening credits to get straight into the movie. Maybe he was as eager as she
was to avoid conversation.

It took about ten minutes for her to remember that Middle Earth
was definitely
not
without romance and then the whole movie became
about the awkwardness of the longing-filled screen kiss that was swiftly
approaching. Which only reminded her of how robbed she'd felt out in that cove
to have the press of Marshall's lips snatched away by the approach of the
Vista II
.

Which was a ridiculous thing to be thinking when she should be
watching the movie.

Hobbits quested. Wraiths hunted. Dramatic elven horse chase.
Into the forests of Rivendell and then—

‘Are we in the clunk zone, Eve?' Marshall suddenly queried. She
flicked her eyes to her left and encountered his, all rust-flecked and serious
and steady.

‘What?'

Which was Eve-ish for
Yes...yes, we are.

‘Did I stuff things up this afternoon by kissing you?'

‘You didn't kiss me,' she managed to squeeze out through her
suddenly dry mouth.

But that gaze didn't waver. ‘Not for want of trying.'

A waft of air managed to suck down into her lungs. ‘Well, the
moment has passed now so I think we're cool.'

‘Passed?' he asked without smiling. ‘Really?'

Yeah... She was a liar.

‘That was hours ago,' she croaked.

‘I wouldn't know,' he murmured. ‘Time does weird things when
you're around.'

Her brain wanted to laugh aloud, but the fluttering creatures
inside her twittered girlishly with excitement. And they had the numbers.

‘I think you're being adversely affected by the movie,' she
said, to be safe.

‘I'm definitely affected by something.'

‘The wine?'

His smile was as gorgeous as it was slow. ‘It is pretty
good.'

‘The company?'

‘Yeah. 'Cos that's been terrific.'

She let her breath out in a long, apologetic hiss. ‘I'm being
weird.'

‘You're weird so often it's starting to feel normal.'

‘It's not awkward for you?'

His large hand slid up to brush a strand of hair from across
her lips. ‘What I'm feeling is not awkwardness.'

There went the whole dry mouth thing again. ‘What are you
feeling?'

‘Anticipation.'

The fantastical world on-screen might as well have been an
infomercial for all the attraction it suddenly held. Their already confined
surroundings shrank even further.

‘Maybe the moment's gone,' she said bravely.

He didn't move. He didn't have to. His body heat reached out
and brushed her skin for him. ‘Maybe you're in denial.'

‘You think I'm that susceptible to low lighting and a romantic
movie?'

Sure enough, there was a whole lot of elven-human longing going
on on-screen. Longing and whispering against an intimate, beautiful soundtrack.
Seriously, why hadn't she insisted on something with guns?

‘I think the movie was an admirable attempt.'

‘At what?' she whispered.

‘At not doing this...'

Marshall twisted himself upright, his fingers finding a safe
haven for his nearly empty wineglass. His other hand simultaneously relieved her
of her mug and reached past her to place it on the sideboard. It legitimised the
sudden, closer press of his body into hers.

‘Now,' he breathed, ‘what were you about to say?'

Heat and dizziness swilled around her and washed all sense out
to sea. ‘When?'

‘Back in the cove. Was it no?' Grey promise rained down on her.
‘Or was it yes?'

Truly? She had to find the courage to do this again? It had
been hard enough the first time. Though, somehow, having already confessed her
feelings made it easier now to admit the truth. She took the deepest of breaths,
just in case it was also her last.

‘It wasn't no.'

Those beautiful lips twisted in a confident, utterly masculine
smile. ‘Good.'

And then they found hers. Hot and hard and yet exquisitely
soft. Pressing into her, bonding them together, challenging her to respond. She
didn't at first because the sensation of being kissed after so very long with no
touch at all threw her mind into a state of befuddlement. And she was drowning
pleasantly in the sensation of hard male body pressed against hers. And sinking
into the clean, delicious taste of him.

But she'd always been a sure adaptor and it only took moments
for her feet to touch bottom and push off again for the bright, glittery
surface. Her hands crept up around Marshall's shoulder and nape, fusing them
closer. Her chin tilted to better fit the angle of his lips. The humid scorch of
his breath teased and tormented and roused her, shamefully.