Out of Bounds (3 page)

Anton sprawled on that huge bed in the room
next to mine?

Tousle haired and sleepy eyed at breakfast?
Bounding into the house after an early morning run? Bare-chested,
and wearing shorts low on his sexy narrow hips?

Naked in my bathroom? A man?

She flushed hot, then turned icy cold. Beads
of sweat broke out along her spine and started to trickle
downward.

She was well used to these familiar old
symptoms—but not to the dark insistent pulse that stuttered to life
deep inside her. Throbbing. Thrilling. Female. Tempting.

Damn—would her brain ever grant her the
courage to truly relax with a man?

“You can’t,” she repeated weakly.

“Sorry, babes, but that’s the deal,” he said,
arriving with two big brown cups full of killer coffee. He set them
on the low table in front of the sofa. “All above board—don’t worry
about that.”

Jetta shook her head, sick, confused and
disoriented. How could she dissuade him?

“You’ve got three bedrooms, right?” he
continued, dragging a matching grey suede footstool around in front
of her and folding down onto it.

He was so close. With his legs parted like
that, her gaze could do nothing but zero right in on the crotch
seam of his jeans. A helpful ray of sun shone across him,
emphasizing the snug bulge between his thighs. Jetta swallowed,
both fascinated and repelled. It was impossible not to look.

Anton kept talking, showing no reaction to
her discomfort. “One room for you, one for me, one for a temporary
site office. But we need to make the place a bit more attractive.”
He took a sip of his coffee. “So we’ll start by cleaning up that
mess you’ve made in the kitchen. Have you got other stuff to throw
out?”

Her head spun, and she tried to put the last
half hour into perspective.

First, her house was not truly hers.

Now she’d have to tell Bren and Hallie they
couldn’t live with her after all.

Which meant she wouldn’t be going to New York
yet to further her studies.

And on top of everything, Anton expected to
move in when she was still so far from ready to share space with a
man. Any man. Especially this man, who already had her brain
spinning and her body sliding out of control.

With a supreme effort, she dragged her mind
back to his question. Did she have other stuff to throw out? God,
yes! She’d piled the third bedroom half full of Gran’s old clothes
and the worst of the furniture. All the things that were far too
rubbishy to donate to the charity shop.

“Some,” she agreed.

“Okay, I’ll order a dumpster first thing
Monday. And I’ll get some white paint onto the walls as soon as.
Lighten the place up a bit like this. Your wallpaper looked pretty
dire.”

“It’s very early Mason Handprint,” she
retorted. “Expensive in its day.”

He grinned at her defense of it. “Its day has
well and truly gone.”

“And you’d know all about that, would you?
From the look of this place, you wouldn’t have a clue about
heritage décor. That’s my specialty.” She peered around at the
pristine walls. “Did you paint this?”

“Taped the edges, a day with a roller, and it
cleaned up well,” he confirmed. “You tape next door and I’ll
paint.”

“Not in my room, thanks.” The colors she’d
been allowed to choose at fifteen after she’d arrived to live with
Gran and Grandpa were still there. The memories were too strong to
obliterate—even if one wall was the most spectacular out of date
watermelon pink. She needed a big secure lock on that door for
sure.

“How bad is the carpet?” he asked.

“You saw it. It has brown leaves on it,” she
muttered, still trembling, still wondering how the hell she could
cope with this even worse intrusion into her life. “Gran loved
it.”

“Old-lady-ish then. We might get shot of that
too. Any objections?”

She shook her head. Getting rid of the
threadbare carpet had been one of her priorities. If Anton was
willing to provide the labor that was fine by her.

At least her house couldn’t be demolished as
long as they were living in it, so maybe she should actually
encourage him to move in? Her tummy clenched just thinking of it,
but if she put the lock on her bedroom door...if she gained some
time to find out her true legal position...if he really did keep
his distance as he claimed he would...?

She sighed and sipped her coffee, and as she
raised her eyes again, she stole another quick peek between his
parted thighs. It wasn’t such a threatening bulge. She flexed her
fingers, imagined cupping them around it, feeling him safely
contained behind the warm old denim. That wouldn’t be too bad.
Nowhere nearly as scary as Uncle Graham. She shuddered at the
memory and dropped her eyes to her coffee again.

But maybe she could use Anton to overcome
some of her fear? She shrank from the thought of anything
suggestive or dirty, but if she could just get used to a man’s
presence, surely that would help? It looked like she had no option
anyway—he seemed determined to move in with her, so she’d have to
make the best of it.

“Gran has a terribly retro dining setting,”
she said, deciding to pretend to fall in with his plans for now.
“So bad it’s kind of good. There are several nice old occasional
pieces—antiques really—but the sofa and chairs are terrible.”

“So they’re gone. We have what we’re sitting
on and a decent TV. We’ll survive.”

Jetta was far from sure about that. And then she
discovered she still had Grandpa’s awful old hat on.

Half an hour later, Anton departed to buy
paint and she sank down on her hands and knees to haul out the last
items from the floor of Gran’s wardrobe. This was the only room
Anton’s overgrown bed would fit into. It seemed he was serious
about moving in.

Well, if he was so keen to help he could take
over the tough job of the kitchen floor after all. She’d have a
while longer with Gran and past memories. It looked like nothing
had been cleared out of the room in many years.

She tried to picture Anton sleeping here.
Would his blonde girlfriend be over-nighting? She’d better not
be!

On the other hand, it might help to know he
intended to live at number fifteen platonically. That would make
things easier for sure. But did she want him having someone
else?

“
Oh, grow up Jetta
,” she snapped as
she ferreted out empty boxes, and dusty plastic shopping bags and
ancient shoes from the wardrobe floor. She gave a couple of violent
sneezes. Then she found the book.

Even through its coating of fluff, she could
read the title. ‘The Joy of Sex’ by Alex Comfort MD.

“
Grandma
!” she exclaimed, picking it
up and then tossing it down again as though it was radioactive. A
cloud of dust rose, and she blinked to protect her eyes.

She’d heard of it of course. Hadn’t everyone?
It was only thirty seconds before her curiosity got the better of
her and she reached for it again. She opened it at random and found
a beautiful pencil sketch of a naked man sitting on the side of a
bed with an equally naked woman kneeling in front of him. And she
was—

Jetta snapped the book closed, heart racing,
brain refusing to believe. Surely Grandma hadn’t done that with
Grandpa? Slowly she opened it to check its date of publication.
1972, so it was more than forty years old. Her grandparents would
have been in their forties. Their young and still sexy forties
apparently. That didn’t seem quite so bad, but...

She forced herself to flip through more of
the pages. The drawings were soft and loving, and there were plenty
of them, but soon her stomach started to clench, and the old sick
feeling rose up her throat. This was so far out of her comfort
zone, so far from anything she’d ever done—or imagined doing.

Trepidation suddenly hit. What if Anton found
her looking at it? He’d said he wouldn’t be long. She banged it
closed again with a small explosion of dust, hurried back to her
own room, and buried it deep in her underwear drawer. One day soon,
she’d have another look. Maybe.

She returned to Gran’s wardrobe.

“Ow!” she exclaimed as her hand hit something
hard. An old suitcase. She gave the handle a tug. The case barely
moved. Probably full of old clothes and mothballs. She tossed the
other dross out of her way and pulled it out so she could open it,
but the old-fashioned catches wouldn’t budge.

“Where have you put the key, Gran?” she muttered,
heaving it up and dragging it into the hallway.

Anton whistled as he carried the big pail of
paint across the hot asphalt parking lot outside the DIY store.
Stage one was out of the way.

He’d been surprised to find the girl he’d
seen occasionally, and assumed to be the old lady’s caregiver, was
in fact her grand-daughter.

Her very young and nervous grand-daughter.
She didn’t look twenty-six.

He’d spotted her several times letting
herself into the house next door, sometimes carrying lunch, so
she’d been very close to her grandmother.

Okay, their discussion hadn’t gone quite as
he’d expected. Horrie had assured him the girl knew all about the
fifty-fifty split, but either she was the world’s best actress or
she hadn’t had a clue. Whatever, once he’d started his explanation
he was committed, and he’d plowed on through her distress and
disbelief until he’d put his side of the case. He’d not felt able
to do that until old Lucy was off the scene, and was glad now that
he’d held back. Another day or two would have been better, but he
really didn’t have the luxury of much time on his side.

Shame about Jetta not seeing sense though.
Why couldn’t she agree she’d be a lot better off with a brand new
apartment instead of a decaying old house? Or half a house, to be
precise. And if he was being really precise, not a decaying house,
just a run-down one. There was a lot of good timber to salvage,
Marseilles tiles on the roof that the recyclers would jump at, and
some of the fancy leadlight windows would fetch big bucks, too.

He stopped whistling and compressed his lips
in a determined line. It had to happen. His apartment project had
been years in the making. It would bring the rewards he deserved
after all the intense years of study and slog and saving.

Soon, he’d offer to move his mother to a
better part of the city. Upgrade his beloved old car to a model
that showed everyone his success. In a few months, no-one would
look sideways at the shy skinny math-whizz who hadn’t known who his
father was.

He opened the Porsche’s passenger door and
waves of heat flooded over him. It was too good a day to be inside,
but the sooner he had the old house cleaned up, the sooner he could
move in.

He lowered the pail of paint onto the floor,
and braced it with the bag containing tape, and a new paint tray
and roller. Number fifteen was in for a fright.

But when he strode up the front path, pail of
paint in one hand, bag of gear and bottle of champagne in the
other, Jetta’s door was closed. He set the bag and bottle down and
raised the old brass knocker for a hail of noisy raps.

Nothing.

The back garden? He dumped the pail, grabbed
the bottle by its neck, and paced along the overgrown strip of lawn
on one side of the old house. Long vine tendrils reached out from
the fence and would have whipped him across the face if he hadn’t
ducked and dodged. The place was out of control. Jetta couldn’t
hope to restore it.

He found no sign of her anywhere, although
he’d half hoped to find her stretched out enjoying the sun—wearing
somewhat less than the morning’s shorts and T-shirt.

Lunch on the lawn in the shade of the peach
tree he’d spotted from the other yard had seemed an ideal plan.
Surely if he redoubled his efforts, he could soften her up and
convince her not to rock his boat.

But he heard only unnerving silence—no music,
no running water, no thump of spade on linoleum—nothing except the
drowsy buzz of bees in the lavender and the muted drone of a
lawnmower on the far side of the park.

He pounded on the back door with a clenched fist,
angry now, and losing patience. Where the hell had she disappeared
to?

Jetta stepped off the bus and hummed along
with Jason Mraz as she strolled the two blocks to her old flat. She
needed sympathy and advice in equal doses, and her long time
flat-mates were just the girls to provide both. Volatile Greek
Hallie and no-nonsense Scottish Bren had been dependable anchors
for several years. How would they deal with this new storm in the
suddenly tossing sea of her life?

She’d been deliberately mysterious on the
phone. Indicating there was a change of plans and a man was enough
to have them both panting for more.

And sure enough, Hallie threw the door open
before Jetta drew level with the flat, dark eyebrows arching up
with questions. “What?” she squealed. “You can’t just throw hints
around like that, Jetta Rivers!”

Jetta removed her earbuds and grinned.
“Interesting news and bad news. Which do you want first?”

“The interesting,” Hallie begged.

“Get the bad over with first,” freckled Bren
said, arriving beside Hallie in the doorway.

“It’s not terribly bad—well, not for you two.
But it’s pretty shattering for me.”

“So?” Hallie demanded, as soon as Jetta
stepped inside.

“Coffee?” Bren asked.

“Please.” She flopped down on the navy-blue
sofa, registering that someone was still bothering to arrange the
throw and cushions nicely.

Or had they made a special effort because
they knew she was visiting?

She took a deep breath and steepled her
fingers beneath her chin. “Okay, total change of plans I’m afraid.
I’m still shaking from it.”

“Oh God—what?”

“Shut it, Hallie. Let her get on with it,”
Bren called from the adjoining kitchen.