Hide Your Heart: A New Zealand Small Town Romance (Sexy New Zealand Beach Romance Far North Book 1) (11 page)

“Leave Drew’s bike at the store and we’ll pick it up on the way out of town. I’ll meet you back here in an hour,” he said. “I’m buying lunch. No arguments.”

“Okay.” She jammed on her hat and ducked away, hoping Nate wouldn’t notice her goofy smile at the idea of spending more time with him.

Lauren walked to the rear of the department store, dodging past summer holidaymakers toting armfuls of last-minute Christmas bargains. Being tall for a woman, she naturally turned a few heads, but she could only pray no one would see past her huge dark sunglasses and sunhat.

Celebrities past and present were stuck on ridiculously high pedestals in a small country like New Zealand, and remaining anonymous was wishful thinking. A year ago, an episode of a popular, national soap was filmed in the area. Fans mobbed two actors on Bounty Bay’s main street—according to Kathy’s detailed report. A month went by after that before Lauren risked venturing into town again, just in case.

But almost thirty minutes after Nate dropped her off, the
James Bond
theatrics of sneaking around had drained Lauren of energy. Then three young blonde women clutching Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and Allure magazines headed toward her on the crowded sidewalk. Her photos had once featured in all three magazines, so the risk of the fashionista trio recognizing Lauren was intolerably high.

She tugged her hat lower and slunk into a craft shop. The bright embroidery cottons and fuzzy balls of yarn always soothed her. Lauren hurried away from the shop entrance to browse through sampler patterns. Kathy had organized a baby shower for her youngest sister in a few weeks’ time; maybe Lauren could find a birth announcement pattern to cross-stitch. On the nights when sleep got sucked away by horrible memories, the gentle motion of forming tiny X shapes helped her relax.

She selected a baby-themed sampler pattern and idly flicked through the remaining leaflets. Funny…after Nate’s arrival, her insomnia wasn’t caused so much by nightmares as it was by thoughts of a certain green-eyed photojournalist and a blow-her-brains-out kiss.

Her fingers hesitated over a leaflet entitled
A Classic Heart-Warmer.

Lauren slid it from the basket and examined the list of silk requirements on the back. She had every single color in her sewing kit. But why make a gift for someone who obviously disliked the holidays and the family closeness associated with it?

The image of a little boy in a foreign land, everything strange and unfamiliar, overrode her good sense. Before she could talk herself out of it, she purchased both patterns.

***

Nate waited in the shade under the department store awning. Lauren walked toward him, head stooped and shoulders hunched. He unlocked the car with the key remote and she tossed her shopping bags into the back seat.

“Hungry?” he asked her.

“I’m too hot to be hungry.”

She flapped her shirt hem, sucking his gaze down to the smooth expanse of her stomach.

“Let’s just pick up Drew’s bike and grab a sandwich on the way out of town.”

He shook his head, blurring his view of her luscious curves. A smart move, considering his shorts were an ineffective item of clothing to conceal his growing interest.

“I’d rather find somewhere out of this heat and sit down.’”

She sighed, but didn’t smile. “Got a place in mind?”

“Of course.” He gestured in the opposite direction. “This way.”

They strolled along the main street, past fake-snow-sprayed window designs and cheesy Christmas music piped out of a few stores’ sound systems. Nate snickered. A Christmas winter wonderland in the Southern Hemisphere?
Please
. The temperature had to be in the eighties.

He turned, ready with a sarcastic comment about the silly season, but his mouth clicked shut at the sight of Lauren’s floppy-hat-covered head swinging from side to side, scanning the sidewalk.

Weird
. Who was she looking for?

He stopped outside the only—and therefore most popular—full-service restaurant in town. Glass accordion doors opened onto the sidewalk, and the rumble of conversation spilled out from the nearly full dining area beyond.

“
Kai Moana
?”

Her tone lacked enthusiasm. Anyone would think he’d taken her to a run-down burger joint.

“Best seafood in town.”

Her gaze shot left, and she backed away from the entrance. “I’m allergic to seafood.”

“They do steak and salad too.”

“Can’t we find somewhere else? I hate crowds.”

Her sunglasses masked her eyes, but the wobble in her voice, her teeth nibbling on that lush bottom lip, all showed the emotion behind her impassive expression. The answer hit him like a lightning strike on a summer’s day. The furtive glances while walking through town, the dark shades and oversized hat, the balking at a busy restaurant—she didn’t want to be seen in public with him, the smarmy
New Zealand Bachelor of the Year
entrant who’d punched Savannah Payne’s husband.

She took another step backward, but he pressed a splayed hand to her lower back. “The lunch hour is nearly over; it’ll empty out soon.”

Lauren flinched from his touch as a small group of people left the restaurant. His jaw involuntarily tightened as a couple gave them a bemused once over.

Yeah, that was her problem, all right.

“We can argue in the hot sun or we can go inside to that table in the back corner,” he said.

“Fine.”

She stalked ahead and flung open the door, which gave him a truly superior view of her legs but didn’t do much to moderate his temper.

To say conversation became stilted while they waited for his scallops and her grilled steak was an understatement. He may as well have been sitting with a cardboard cut-out.

He stopped fidgeting with the saltshaker. “Seriously? You’re going to sit through our whole lunch with sunglasses and that ugly damn hat on?”

“The glare is hurting my eyes.”

“Bullshit. The sunlight is nowhere near us back here.”

Even through the brown-tinted lenses, her gaze shredded him. His gut tightened, but he told himself he
was
not
hurt by her behavior, just insulted.

Lauren pulled off the hat and dropped it on the empty chair beside her. After a pause, she slid the glasses from her face and placed them on the table. “Happy?”

“Are you really that embarrassed to be seen with me?”

The popped-open eyes and perfect “O” of her mouth was almost comical.

“I’m not embarrassed to be—”

The buzzer above the restaurant door signaled new customers entering, and Lauren’s eyes grew wider. A trio of blondes in teeny-tiny shorts sauntered inside, chattering like magpies. Two of the women picked up a menu from the serving counter. The third glanced over in their direction, looked away briefly, then did a double take and elbowed one of her friends.

Shit.

Snatches of their shrill remarks turned the muscles between his shoulder blades to concrete. He glanced back at Lauren, who had one hand cupped to her cheek, shielding her eyes, and her lips pressed bloodlessly together.

Then the first blonde arrived in a rush of sun-lotion-scented air.

“‘Scuse me, aren’t you the guy who was in the Bachelor of the Year contest? The one who smacked down Savannah Payne’s husband?”

The woman jiggled with excitement, her backup blondes crowding around their table.

He’d kill his old university-days mate, Glen,
again
for nominating Nate to be a contestant in that stupid contest. A couple of nearby diners craned their necks toward their corner table.

“Ladies, I don’t—”

“O.M.G.” The second blonde cut him off, pushing forward and staring at Lauren. “You’re Alexandra Knight! I loved you in Michael Kors’ fall collection a couple years back—”

“She totally is!” Blonde-Number-One chimed in.

Blonde-Number-Three gushed, “Why’d you dye your hair, Sexy Lexy? You rocked as a blonde.”

Lauren’s skin had gone pale and waxy, her eyes like those of a small creature caught in a hunter’s spotlight. “No, you’re wrong. Please—” Her voice was a choked rasp over the women’s rapid-fire questions.

Nate sat frozen in place, ice water flushing through his veins, lowering his internal temperature into the realms of hypothermia.

Alexandra Knight.

The New Zealand girl who made it big on the world’s catwalks then mysteriously disappeared. He had few preconceived ideas about her, mainly because runway models didn’t figure much in his world of military coups and genocide.

Alexandra
Lauren
Knight. Sexy Lexy.

Of course she was. Substitute the brown hair for a waterfall of long, blonde locks, remove her lovely curves and replace them with the skeletal shape designers thought appealed to the masses, erase the scar from her cheekbone and
voila
! His Lauren became a model.

One of the women produced a smartphone and tapped the screen. “Can we get a photo with you?”

The other two clustered at Lauren’s side in anticipation.

“I’m not who you think I am.” Lauren’s gaze locked onto the phone’s bright pink cover, and it was as if defibrillator paddles slapped onto her chest. She bolted upright, her wild glance careening off his. “Sorry.”

Then she darted around the startled waitress delivering their lunch and slammed out of the restaurant.

While the blondes blustered in indignation, Nate approached the service counter. Apologizing for the commotion, he paid for their meals and left a generous tip.

He wanted answers. So finding Lauren-Alexandra-Lexy, or whoever the hell she was, had become his top priority.

Chapter 6

Lauren pressed against the shop wall opposite Nate’s Range Rover and did her best to blend in to the window display of summer tops and patterned bikinis.
The Art of Being a Chameleon 101.

Two years, dammit
. Two years she’d kept herself and her son away from unwanted publicity. Two years blown in one moment by three giggly teens.

What on earth would Nate think of her now?

Bad enough the stunned look on his face, then the shuttering of his gaze as recognition poisoned his system. She turned her head slowly as her peripheral vision located him striding along the sidewalk. She’d know soon enough what Nate Fraser thought of her.

He unlocked the car with his remote and moved around to the driver’s door.

Lauren hurried into the vehicle, tugging her hat even lower over her face—but not before she caught Nate’s grimace at the action.

He climbed in and passed over one of the bags he was holding. “Eat this before you pass out.”

She opened the bag and stared at the plastic-wrapped sandwiches with a mouth bereft of saliva. Choking them down would be like trying to swallow dry crackers. But it was sweet of him to buy her something after she’d completely ruined their lunch.

“Thanks,” she said.

He held out a hand. “Where’s the store slip. I’ll go get Drew’s bike.”

She didn’t consider arguing; all she wanted was to get home and figure out what the hell to do now.

Once Nate returned and stowed Drew’s new bike in the rear, he got back into the driver’s seat. He didn’t start the vehicle, just stared straight ahead. His expression was stiffly neutral, his arms folded across his chest, which only emphasized the breadth and power of the muscle beneath his shirt.

Lauren’s heart tripped over itself, her mind racing to find a way to diffuse the situation. Each time she opened her mouth with a word about to fall off her tongue, she’d close it again, the remains of the sentence slipping from her grasp.

“She’s not me.” She finally gasped the words out, keeping her gaze directed at the dashboard. “At least, not anymore.”

Silence from the other side of the car.

“Alexandra and Sexy Lexy, that is.”

“Who was she then?” His voice was pitched low, with a cool edge that had her fingers locking together in her lap until it felt as if her knuckles would shatter.

“Alexandra was the girl my mother wanted me to be. A graceful, elegant model who’d strut the catwalks of New York, Milan and Paris. Alexandra was the woman who Jonathan Knight married and molded. Sexy Lexy was the embarrassing nickname the press knew would sell more copies of their sleazy papers. Alexandra and Sexy Lexy allowed other people’s expectations to dictate who they were.”

“So who is Lauren?”

Tears stung the corner of her eyes and she furiously blinked them back. “Lauren is
me
. The girl happy to hand her father grease-covered tools in his garage, working on his Caddy. She grew into someone who never wanted to be a famous model or a trophy wife—she’s a woman who loves her son, her family, her life in Bounty Bay.”

He unfolded his arms and gripped the steering wheel. “That’s the Lauren I know.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.” She bit her lip and swiped away an errant tear streaking down to her jaw.

“Given your situation having a nosy reporter move next door—”

She sniffed. “Photojournalist.”

That earned her a crooked smile. “Right. Having a
photojournalist
move next door—one who plans to bring the hounds of hell right to your doorstep—I understand why you didn’t tell me about your past. I understand, but it still pisses me off because I wonder if you were
ever
going to tell me.”

She leaned back into the seat and massaged her temple. “I didn’t trust you, at first…and then it was too late to say, ‘Hey, you know that skinny blonde model that disappeared? That was me.’ I didn’t know you then like I know you now. I didn’t know at the beginning you were one of the good guys.”

He snorted dismissively, but the tense line of his broad shoulders relaxed a little. Part of her wanted to lean across and cover his hand, to draw his tense fingers off the steering wheel and twine them with hers.

Instead, she tucked her fists between her knees and continued. “I’ve kept a low profile for his sake. I don’t want Drew growing up with the stigma of having other people know that Alexandra and Jonathan Knight are his mother and father. Together, we sucked at parenting. Drew’s much better off with plain Lauren Taylor as his mum.”

“This low profile means isolating yourself from everyone other than your family, doesn’t it?”

“My family knows the real me.”

“I’d like to think I know the real you, at least some of the real you.” He peeled a hand from the steering wheel and draped it over the backrest of her chair. He lightly stroked her shoulder. “I don’t give a damn about who you used to be.”

A shiver trembled through her at his touch. “Well.” She sucked in a deep breath. “Most people wouldn’t get past the ex-model, ex-celebrity factor.”

“I did—took all of two minutes. Alexandra Knight doesn’t exist anymore;
you do
. I bet if you’d give people a chance the novelty that you used to wear fancy clothes for snooty New York designers would wear off just as quickly.”

“You’re a pain in the butt, you know that?”

“Why? Because I tell the truth without sugar-coating it?”

“No, because you’re too damn attractive, too damn intuitive and too damn complicating.”

“You think I’m attractive.” His sexy grin stretched across his face as he tugged on a lock of her hair.

She pulled back, trying to look indignant, rather than like a woman who badly wanted to press herself against his hand like a dog searching for affection. “In a scruffy sort of way—don’t go getting a big head.”

“And how am I complicating?”

“By just being you—and for making me break my rule of not getting involved with anyone.”

“Ah. So we
are
involved, then?” He twisted in his seat, giving her an inscrutable look.

Why the heck had she admitted that? Had anything really changed? His words rang in her head.
I don’t know how to do the family thing and I’ve no desire to learn.

“We’re something, I guess. I’m not sure what.”

“Me either.” Nate sighed and started the car. “But while we think on it, how about we eat our lunch at the beach?”

“I’d like that.”

“On the condition you lose the ugly hat. It’s ruining my appetite.”

“Fine.” She tossed the hat into the back seat.

The return trip was a lot quieter than the ride to town. They did talk about the weather, because every other topic seemed loaded with landmines.

“The water looks tempting,” she said as they approached a side road leading down to Bounty Bay’s beach, one of the only beaches in the area where vehicles were permitted to drive on the hard-packed sand. They drove off the concrete ramp, the Range Rover wallowing briefly as the tires left the solid surface.

The tide was out, and in the distance, kids rode boogie-boards in the gentle surf. Many vehicles were parked on the wide expanse of sand between the dunes and the water, and people sprawled on towels while teenagers idly tossed rugby balls to and fro.

“We could drive a bit farther around the coast. Get away from the holiday crowds.”

He shrugged and joined the line of vehicles at the foot of a scrubby hill, headed toward the rocky reef ledge exposed by the low tide. The Range Rover bumped and jolted across the low rocks that made up the drivable ledge. They stopped and waited for a pickup loaded with surfboards and wetsuit-clad teenagers to edge past.

“Those girls at the restaurant today…” She hesitated, unwilling to stir things up again, but trying to understand. “They recognized you, too—you know it’ll be all over the social networking sites by this evening. Don’t you mind?”

“I won’t live my life in hiding.”

The words prickled like an accusation, and she tucked herself deeper into the sun-warmed leather seat.

“I’ve done nothing I’m ashamed of,” he added.

He felt no remorse for brawling with Savannah Payne’s husband? No shame at fooling around with another man’s wife? No—she didn’t believe that. There must be some other explanation. Now would be the time to ask, if she could garner the courage to pry. But the words jammed her throat shut. Even the persistent jab of curiosity couldn’t blot out the knowledge that questioning his relationship with the actress would mean admitting the significance of her interest. That over the last couple of weeks she’d developed an invested interest in
him
.

“The next bay has a nice swimming beach and some rock pools.”

Nate grunted noncommittally, and they rounded another cluster of rocks, the scrubby hill changing into a steep mountain of golden sand dunes stretching to the sky. The contrast and beauty of this area still managed to send a visceral thrill of pleasure through her.

He brought the car to a slow stop and parked. “Will this do?”

“Yes. This is great.” She slipped off her sandals and stepped out, relishing the gritty sand beneath her toes.

Nate found an old blanket in the back and spread it a short distance from the car. They sat and ate, throwing the odd piece of bread to a small group of jostling gulls.

Once the last of their lunch had been dispersed to the greedy birds, Nate stood and collected their empty paper bags. “Think I’ll go for a swim.”

He opened the Range Rover’s back door and offered her a towel. “You coming?”

She waved it away. “Oh, no. I won’t swim. I’ll just paddle my feet to cool down.”

He raised an eyebrow, but didn’t comment. After hauling off his shirt, he tossed it into the car and then draped the towel she’d rejected around his neck. The shorts clung low on his hips, the towel highlighting more of his toned flesh than it covered.

Always aware of his masculinity on some level, she could usually keep the just-friends illusion around Todd and Kathy while Nate remained fully clothed. Now, her unwilling gaze was drawn to the breadth of his shoulders and the smooth ripple of muscle bracing his torso as he toed off his sandshoes.

Lauren walked to the water’s edge, her mouth papery and pulse skittering in erratic leaps. The height of a cluster of rock pools near the shoreline concealed her from the traffic farther along the beach. Perfect if she’d been alone, but with Nate close behind her, privacy wasn’t the safest option. She inhaled great gulps of salty air, trying to wrangle her heartbeat under control. She needed to stop this silly infatuation, these school-girlish blushes every time he got within touching distance.

Nate arrived beside her, hands on hips, his brow furrowed. “Are you still worried about those girls? Or maybe that I’m going to start calling you Sexy Lexy?”

She shook her head, gazing at the small waves encircling her feet.

“Why is it whenever we’re alone, you rarely smile?”

Lauren dragged her gaze up to meet his. No hostility glittered there, just a flicker of bewildered hurt.

Because I’m scared
. She kept her lips stitched shut.
I’m scared that if I let you in, if I trust you with the real me it won’t be enough—that I won’t be enough, and you’ll try to change me like he did.

And God help her, she didn’t want to make the same mistake twice.

***

“That’s not true. I smile a lot,” she said.

Nate rolled his shoulders, trying to force the tension out of his muscles. “Just not at me. You don’t have anything to fear from me, Lauren.”

Was she still scared that he’d reach for his cellphone to contact the tabloids? He’d told her the truth earlier when he said he didn’t care who she’d been, but he hadn’t told her the whole truth. Because the whole truth was he cared about who she was now. He cared more than a guy leaving in a few short weeks should.

She nodded, but her eyes skipped away to the horizon. Maybe he needed to take her mind off worrying.

“When did you last do something spontaneous, something fun?”

“I have lots of fun.” She thrust out her chin. “Why, the other day Drew and I—”

“Without Drew. Just you, or you with another”—he paused and grinned down at her—“adult.”

“I think you and I have different definitions of fun.”

A sea breeze flicked hair across her face, and a strand caught in the corner of her mouth. Before rationality censored the move, his hand reached out. Like the softest wisp of combed silk, Lauren’s hair slid over his finger as he tucked the lock behind her ear.

“Maybe not so different.”

His hand lingered at the curve of her jaw and a tremor ran through her. Her lips parted slightly, moist with invitation. One step and he’d take her, crush his mouth to hers. He’d mold those killer curves into the shape of his body, cranking up the lust that’d driven him half mad. But make the move now, when she was still so tense he could almost see her muscles contorting?