Книга - She’s So Over Him

She's So Over Him
Joss Wood


He’s back. He’s insanely hot. He’s absolutely the last person she should date.Maddie Shaw is a part-time bartender with a never-get-involved attitude to dating and a flair for the perfectly served drink.Yet when ex-boyfriend Cale Grant walks into her bar, a whole ten years after their massive bust-up, she’s blown away all over again by his dark chocolate voice and deep blue eyes. So, just how over him is she? Put on Adele, pour a glass of wine, and get swept away.












‘Don’t, Cale.’


Cale moved closer and, ignoring her desperate plea, pulled her into his embrace. Strong arms bound her and she found herself breast to chest, her face tucked into the hollow beneath his shoulder, his bent head blowing warm breath across her cheek.

So this was what being held by him again felt like. Maddie had to admit that Reality kicked Memory’s butt.

Maddie lifted her head to look into those fabulous eyes. A muscle ticked in his jaw as his eyes darkened and the flame flickered brighter. Maddie could feel his body change, felt the switch from comfort to awareness. It was in the way his hand flexed on her back and ran down her spine.

And that was all the warning he gave before lowering his mouth onto hers. The world fell away as she welcomed his manly, exciting taste, his firm lips and clever tongue, his strong hand on her back pulling her closer.

Whoa! She was not nineteen any more, at the mercy of her hormones and her emotions. He didn’t get to step back into her life and pick up where they’d left off. She wouldn’t let that happen again.




About the Author


JOSS WOOD wrote her first book at the age of eight and has never really stopped. Her passion for putting letters on a blank screen is only matched by her love of books and travelling—especially to the wild places of Southern Africa—and possibly by her hatred of ironing and making school lunches.

Fuelled by coffee, when she’s not writing or being a hands-on mum, Joss—with her background in business and marketing—works for a non-profit organisation to promote local economic development and the collective business interests of the area where she resides.

Happily and chaotically, surrounded by books, family and friends, Joss lives in Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa, with her husband, children and their many pets.


She’s So Over Him

Joss Wood




















www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


This is Joss Wood’s fabulous first book for Mills & Boon


! We couldn’t be more excited about this uniquely talented author. Enjoy the fun, sparky chemistry between Cale and Maddie and keep a lookout for more titles by Joss, coming soon…


This being my first book, I have so many people to thank—treasured friends far and wide who walked this amazing journey with me—but this one is for Vaughan. Firstly for handing me a set of wings and telling me to go and fly, and, on a far more practical level, for the hours you spent with the kids at the airport—not flying!—so that I could write. Love you.




CHAPTER ONE


‘NICE tattoo, Mad.’

The voice came from out of the blue, clear and distinguishable despite the high volume of noise in the bar. Such a luscious voice—deep, smooth, compelling. Like hot chocolate after a freezing walk in the winter rain, she thought as her heart roller-coastered inside her rib cage.

Maddie Shaw flicked a glance to her left and there he was, leaning against the bar counter, a bright blonde barnacle superglued to his side. Hot damn, her memory wasn’t playing tricks on her. It was Cale Grant and—oh, heaven help her—he’d moved up from very good-looking to stupid-making hot. Long and lanky had turned into long and strong. Instead of the ponytail she remembered, his naturally streaky blond hair was cropped so that the ends brushed the open collar of his shirt, and the goatee he’d sported on his stubborn chin was gone.

His eyes flicked over her and she watched, mortified, as they stopped at her chest. The tight sleeveless top with the image of a camp queen splayed across it was cut low enough to reveal the edges of her tangerine bra, way more than necessary of her cleavage, and most of the teeny-tiny red butterfly that she’d acquired in a fit of pique shortly after her last conversation with this same man.

‘Cale Grant. Wow. Hi.’

And lift your eyes up, bud, she silently suggested, or I might have to hurt you.

Resisting the urge to tug up her bra, she met those fantastic eyes—the colour of old-fashioned blue ink. A deep blue that sometimes looked black. Or cobalt. Maddie had always loved his eyes…

She gestured to the bar. ‘What can I get you?’

Cale snagged a barstool from under the bottom of a departing drinker. As his date, a mature blue-eyed blonde, arranged her very curvaceous body onto the barstool, Maddie filled another order and turned back to Cale, to find him dissecting her with that intense look she remembered so well.

‘What on earth are you doing?’

Maddie looked around her in fake bewilderment. ‘I don’t know. Raising goats? Computer programming? Macramé?’

‘I meant, Miss Smarty Pants, what are you doing behind a bar?’

Maddie lifted dark winged eyebrows. ‘I know what you meant.’

‘Well? Ten years ago you were doing a degree in Marketing and Communications. Had plans to do your Masters. So why this?’

Maddie sighed as Cale added one and one and got a hundred and two. She kept her answer short. ‘It’s a job. What can I get you to drink?’

‘A glass of Chardonnay and a draught—’

‘Maddie—oh, Maddie!’

Cale’s words were drowned out by a yell from the back of the crowd of customers waiting to be served. The booming voice was loud and compelling enough to immediately snag her attention. Maddie laughed as her thin, gangly neighbour good-naturedly pushed his way through the bodies to sink against the bar.

‘Hey, gorgeous!’

‘Hey, back.’ Maddie boosted herself up on the bar and leaned across the counter to kiss first one rough cheek and then the other. ‘Nat, I’ve missed you! And here I was, desperate for someone interesting to show up.’

‘I have so much to tell you. Jo’burg was fabulous… Thanks for the tip about that bakery in Melville. We’re in the back booth; join us when you have a break.’ Nat planted a kiss on her mouth and tapped her nose before melting back into the crowd.

Maddie dropped back to her feet and sent Cale a bland smile, ignoring his narrowed eyes at her not so subtle jibe.

‘Sorry, what did you want? A Chardonnay and a—?’

‘Draught beer.’ Cale sent her a feral smile. ‘Still a chronic flirt, Maddie?’

Maddie shrugged and reached for a bottle of house wine. ‘Well, I did learn at the seat of the master. You taught me so well.’

‘I—’ Cale’s mouth snapped shut when his companion laid her diamond-encrusted fingers on his sleeve and leaned forward, so that he had a perfect view down the continental divide in her shirt. She whispered something in his ear before sliding off the seat and walking towards the restrooms.

Maddie uncorked the bottle of Chardonnay and glugged the contents into a sparkling glass. ‘So, I see that you still do all your shopping at Blondes R Us?’

Maddie caught the quick grin he couldn’t hide and wistfully remembered how he’d loved her dry sense of humour. Even if it was at his expense. ‘She’s… sweet. Not really my type, but sweet.’

‘How can she not be your type? You always went for the tanned, stacked blondes.’

She clearly remembered the long-legged, longhaired creatures who had followed Cale, his twin, Oliver, and their sports-mad friends around, their tongues dragging on the floor.

Judging by what she’d read and heard over the years, he still seemed only to date a wide variety of the fairer section of her sex.

It was a point of pride—or idiocy—that he’d once broken the mould with her.

Maddie sent him a sly smile. ‘Okay, I’ll play… If she’s not your type, why are you buying her a drink and allowing her to bat her eyelashes at you?’

Cale stared past her shoulder and Maddie thought she caught a flash of embarrassment whip across his face. ‘She’s an… obligation I have to fulfil.’

Maddie’s curiosity was piqued. He wasn’t the type of man who felt obligated easily. ‘Did you lose a bet? A blind date? A favour to a friend?’

Cale scowled at her. ‘I haven’t seen you for ten years. Can’t we find something else to talk about other than my love-life?’

‘Why, when your love-life helps fill the social pages every week?’

‘It was three times in three months, not every week. I just wish they’d leave me alone.’

‘They would if you got your pretty face off TV and out of the public eye.’ Maddie leaned across the bar and condescendingly patted his hand. ‘And maybe if you stuck to one woman for more than a month nobody would actually care who you are dating!’ Maddie countered his annoyed glare with a wide smile.

‘Are you quite done?’ he demanded.

Maddie shrugged as she put a beer stein under the tap and pulled the lever, feeling her face heat as he watched her. He still had the ability to make her skin prickle…

Cale tapped his finger against the bar before taking the beer she slid across the bar. He ran a blunt finger around the rim. ‘It’s been a long time.’

Maddie nodded as she took an order for a margarita and a Cosmopolitan from two slick women who were happily drunk and singing along with the house band in the corner. Maddie waited until they’d moved off before flashing Cale a searching look, even as she kept serving drinks, knowing that she couldn’t afford to take a break on a busy Friday night.

‘What are you doing in this neck of the woods? Or have you moved to this side of the mountain?’

‘I’m still in the same house. I heard about this place a while ago and thought I’d try it out. Can you stop for a minute so that we can have a non-interrupted conversation?’

A burly man shouted his order at Maddie and bumped Cale’s shoulder at the same time. Cale sent him a look that caused him to step back a pace. Cale, Maddie noticed, still radiated harnessed power. It made men wary and women hot.

She brought her attention back to the conversation. ‘Sorry, can’t do that. This place is going to start pumping soon.’

Cale looked around in astonishment. ‘It’s already full!’

‘This is nothing!’ Maddie shouted back as a roar went up from a rowdy group of students in the corner.

When the worst of the shouting fell away, she placed her elbows on the bar and leaned closer to Cale. She couldn’t ignore it any longer. She had to say something. Even if they’d had nothing more than a brief acquaintance, common decency dictated it. What words to use? What did you say to someone who’d lost his twin so horribly?

She decided to keep it simple. ‘I’m so, so sorry about Oliver. He was an utterly amazing man.’

Privately Maddie had always thought that Oliver was a modern-day Icarus—a wild, impetuous free spirit who flew too close to the sun. His death hadn’t surprised her; the fact that it had been due to cancer had.

Cale looked past her shoulder and she saw the muscle jump in his jaw, a heavy curtain fall in his eyes. His eyes dropped to look at her hand, clasping his thick tanned wrist. ‘Thanks.’

He was warm and strong, and she could feel his steady pulse under the ridges of her fingertips.

‘Hey, Maddie!’

Maddie jerked her hand away and turned to look at Dan, the other bartender. ‘Yes?’

‘We’re running short on house wine. Can you cover me while I get more?’

Maddie thought that a supply run would be the perfect excuse to recover her shaky equilibrium and to break the intensity of the last minute. Who would have thought that Cale could, a decade later, still accelerate her hormones with one navy-eyed look? She was still obviously—and sadly—a sucker for his hard body and attractive face.

It was just chemistry, she decided hastily. A normal reaction to a very sexy man—which in itself was vastly reassuring. She hadn’t felt the tug of attraction, the prickling of feminine awareness for too long. This was good, given her lack of interest in men and sex these past three years. Hell, she was practically a nun! Well, except for no habit and the lack of devotion…

His was a good-looking face and a sexy body. That was what she was responding to. Nothing else. She’d grown out of her infatuation with sporty womanisers ten years ago.

Probably.

‘I’ll go. I need a bathroom break anyway,’ Maddie told Dan, and turned back to the bar and lifted her hands in a gesture of apology. ‘Five minutes, guys.’

Steeling herself not to look back at Cale, she stumbled through the door that led to the kitchen and hooked a left to the staff bathrooms of the Laughing Queen.

Jim, owner of the LQ, good friend and entirely too curious about her love-life, bustled up to her as she reached the Ladies’. ‘Dish, dish, dish. Who is he?’

‘You are such a girl!’ Maddie mock scowled at him and drilled a finger into his chest. ‘I’d like it put on record that this is what happens when I do you a favour!’

She banged through the door of the Ladies’ and rolled her eyes when Jim ambled in after her. Maddie looked at her reflection in the mirror above the washroom taps and grimaced. In the heat and humidity of the bar, the hair that she’d spent an age straightening that morning had sprung back into wild corkscrew curls, and she’d sweated off every trace of makeup except for—naturally—a streak of mascara under each eye, which made her look like an astonished raccoon.

‘He is smoking hot! Any chance that he’s gay?’ Jim demanded. His shoulders slumped at her cutting glare. ‘Okay, so not gay. Who is he?’

‘First lover.’

‘First as in… the first first? Oooh… and you’re looking like that?’ Jim waved his hands at her and shuddered.

‘Obviously I would’ve preferred meeting him again dressed in a fabulous black dress, killer heels and great hair! Not wearing my faded Levi’s and this stupid tight LQ T-shirt,’ Maddie retorted. ‘And if you weren’t short of a bartender on a Friday night I could at the very least be on the other side of the bar, sipping martinis and not serving them.’

Maddie, seeing that Jim was settling in for a gossip, thought she’d give him the high-speed version to satisfy his immediate curiosity.

‘Met him when in my first year at uni. He was doing his PhD in Sports Psychology and some part-time work for the uni’s sports department after hopping around the world for a couple of years. We had a very short relationship. Booted him. The end. Now, go away.’

Jim tapped her chin with his index finger. ‘Mmm… if that was all that was to it, then I’m a monkey’s uncle. You will give me all the deets later, Miss M.’

If only it had been that simple, Maddie thought as Jim left. Her relationship with Cale had been anything but. As she’d become part of Cale’s group of friends—older than her, but not necessarily wiser—she’d watched and shaken her head as Cale turned over women with the speed of a spinning top. She had nodded when said women called him a heartless bastard for dumping them, and rolled her eyes when he’d charmed them into being friends again.

Then the man she’d laughed, talked and played with, who was the life and soul of any party, who thought commitment was spending six hours with a girl, had turned those gorgeous eyes on her and said that he thought it was time they ‘stopped messing around and hooked up’.

His exact words. Mr So-Not-Romantic. It should have been a big clue… but she’d allowed him to cajole her into a relationship—handed him her virginity, for crying in a bucket!—despite knowing that he’d be an utterly horrible, comprehensively catastrophic boyfriend. She’d thought she’d be the one to change him.

This reminded her how, for a smart girl, she could be amazingly idiotic on occasion.

After wiping the mascara from under her eyes, she splashed water on her face and pulled a long clip from the back of her jeans. Pulling her sable-shaded hair into a rough tail, she twisted it and clipped it to the back of her head in a messy knot. There was nothing she could do about her heightened colour or the past, she told herself. And right now she had a job to do.

Maddie plucked up her courage, plastered a fake smile on her face and walked towards the store room.

Back in the bar, she dumped a box of wine under the bar and passed Dan two bottles, idly noticing that Cale’s date had to hold the record for the longest bathroom visit. She took an order before tossing him a casual comment.

‘Are you still doing triathlons?’

He had to be. Under the steel-grey buttoned-down shirt he wore she could see that his shoulders were as broad, and his forearms beneath the rolled-up sleeves were tanned and corded with muscle.

Cale nodded. ‘Occasionally. I switched to adventure racing.’

‘Which is?’

‘Triathlons on acid. Trail running, cycling, paddling and orienteering. Climbing,’ Cale replied, and looked frustrated when she had to turn away to serve a customer.

Maddie caught a glimpse of his date as she made her tottering way back to the bar, and lifted her chin to give Cale a heads-up.

‘It was good seeing you, Cale,’ Maddie told him.

Cale leant across the bar. ‘Listen, can we meet for a drink later? To catch up? I can come back here after I drop Bernie off.’

Maddie cocked her head, considering. What would be the point? Except to show him that she’d made a marvellous life for himself without him? To let him see what he’d been missing out on? They were good, valid reasons, but she suspected that the real truth was that she wanted to see what she’d missed out on, to find out what his life was like, whether he’d missed her at all. Pride… one of these days it would get her into serious trouble.

Maddie took the money he held out for his drinks and slowly nodded. ‘It’ll have to be late. I won’t finish until after midnight.’

‘That’s okay.’ Cale’s mobile and firm mouth briefly twisted. ‘I don’t sleep that much anyway. I’ll see you back here, around midnight.’

Maddie nodded, felt a hand on her arm and turned to face Jim. She leaned into his tall, stodgy frame, briefly seeking support. Over the years this man and his partner had become her best friends, and had rented and eventually sold her the flat above theirs in the small block they owned across the parking lot of the Laughing Queen. As a result, and also because she hated cooking and loved their company, she’d made the LQ her second home. They were a strange little family: two gay older men and their wayward neighbour slash emotional ward.

‘Why don’t you take a break?’

Jim ran a hand down her arm and Maddie caught the piercing look he sent Cale.

‘I’ll take over for a while.’

Maddie shook her head. ‘Don’t look at me like that, Jimbo. All suspicious and speculative. Been there, done that, fumigated the T-shirt.’

Cale saw Bernie to the door of her flat and deftly sidestepped her blatant offer of sex disguised as coffee. At thirty-five he required a little conversation with his sex, some intellectual connection.

Back in his car parked on a side street, Cale leaned his forearms on the steering wheel and stared down the mostly empty road.

Madison Shaw—all grown-up and looking fine—was the last person he’d expected to see serving drinks from behind a popular bar in Simon’s Town. Cale tapped the steering wheel with his index finger, staring into the inky night.

Oliver would get such a kick hearing that he’d met up with Maddie again… Habit had him reaching for his mobile to call his twin, and he cursed when sharp pain slashed through his chest. Two years dead and he still automatically reached out to him… Would the complete reality of his passing ever sink in?

Don’t go there… Cale took a deep breath and forced his thoughts away from Oliver and back to Maddie. At eighteen she’d been mature and so smart, with a wicked sense of humour. Compared to those breathy, earnest girls who’d made no secret of their availability, Maddie and her reticent and sarcastic attitude had been a breath of fresh air.

For months he’d listened to his instinct and common sense—honed from twenty-five years of trying to keep Oliver under control and out of trouble—that told himself that getting deeper involved with Maddie, getting involved with any woman, was a train wreck waiting to happen.

But at one of Oliver’s legendary parties the combination of one too many tequila shots consumed and Maddie in a very brief pair of denim shorts lowered his IQ and he’d taken her to bed.

He’d kept her in it for eight tumultuous weeks.

Madison. Five-feet-four of pure attitude. She’d flipped his life upside down and he still wasn’t sure what it was about her that had had him, Mr Cool, chasing his tail like a demented puppy.

Accustomed to calling the shots with women, Maddie had turned him inside out. He’d had no idea how to handle her, no clue how to deal with those weird sensations she’d pulled to the surface. He had known that she expected more from him than he could give—his time, his attention, a large chunk of his soul. But his time had been split between his work and his studies, his attention was always half on Oliver, trying to anticipate trouble, and his soul had never been on offer anyway.

He’d known he’d lost her even before she’d frightened the hell out of him with that pregnancy scare. He’d panicked and reacted in comprehensive fear… throwing his pizza into the wall and storming out to get hammered. Yeah, nobody had considered awarding him a prize for his maturity.

Cale rested his forehead on the steering wheel, wincing at the memory. When he’d returned she’d waved the negative result in his face and proceeded to strip ten layers of skin off him. Her brutal rejection had been swift and non-negotiable and had left little room for hope.

Petty enough to want to punish her, he’d ignored her calls. Two weeks later, when his emotions had subsided into a dull roar and he’d had a vague plan of action for how to talk her back into bed, he’d found out that Maddie, as she’d said she would, had dropped out of his life. Nowhere to be found.

He’d been young enough, arrogant enough, to shrug her off and shove any hurt away, choosing to concentrate on his PhD, his career, his racing, revelling in his single status.

Time passed, then his twin had died from cancer, and for months it had been a sheer battle just to get through the day.

He knew intellectually that he was still grieving. He knew how the process worked, the phases he had to get through. In every death there were unresolved issues, but he had a shed-load when it came to his twin’s life—and death—and he wasn’t nearly ready to deal with them.

Psychologist heal thyself… yeah, right.

What he also knew was that depression had gone but guilt, regret and responsibility were still his constant companions.

But then, for all of his life with Oliver those three stooges had never been far away. Guilt for the utter frustration he’d frequently felt towards his reckless, completely unaccountable twin. Regret when he’d been unable to keep him from doing something that had hurt either himself or someone else, and a feeling that he was always responsible for his brother. During his life and at his death.

Oliver had been more than a rebel, more than a free spirit. On more than one occasion, when he’d been comprehensively fed up, Cale had suspected that he might be a touch psychotic.

Guilt, regret and responsibility. Grr, indeed.

He knew how to treat his clients’ hang-ups, but it was far easier for him to operate on the surface of his own life. He could meet, flirt and even have the odd sexual encounter with women. He wasn’t interested in emotional entanglements. He didn’t have the time or the energy… and even less inclination.

And he wasn’t nearly ready to be in any conceivable way responsible for another person; he’d played that song all his life and he was sick of it.

So the thrill he’d felt at meeting Maddie again was just a flashback to those crazy feelings of his youth—a reminder of a golden time in his life when he’d thought he was so clever, that he’d had life under control. He’d had no freaking idea.

What could it hurt to share a drink with Maddie?

They’d catch up, have a laugh and walk away as friends. After all, he was older and smarter, and now he knew it was when he allowed people into his head—like brothers and lovers—that life tended to become chaotic. And God knew he’d dealt with enough chaos to last a lifetime.

The trick was keeping it all under control. And he’d earned his PhD in that as well as the real one on his wall.

After living with crazy Oliver it would take more than a tawny-eyed woman to upset the equilibrium of his life.




CHAPTER TWO


MADDIE rested her arms on the railing that ran the length of the restaurant and stopped the unwary or the intoxicated from falling into the harbour. The inky, oily water lapped the wooden pylons below, and Maddie tried to concentrate on the sounds and scents of summer morphing into autumn. Her tawny eyes drifted over the marina, idly noticing that a new catamaran now occupied the berth at the end. Hadn’t Cale once dreamt of owning such a vessel?

Maddie removed the clip that kept her riotous hair off her neck and felt the heavy curls tumble down her back. The bar had quietened down and, since Dan was fully able to cope with the remaining patrons by himself, she’d called it a night.

Lord, she was tired. Even the short walk across the parking lot seemed a mission, and climbing the stairs to her third-floor flat seemed impossible. She knew she needed to rest, yet she knew that sleep—never easy—would be scarce tonight. Her mind, so used to shoving Cale into a box labelled ‘Do Not Open, Stupid,’ was skipping from memory to memory.

‘Maddie.’

Maddie turned slowly and had to smile. With the sea breeze ruffling his hair and the shadows hiding his flat, hard eyes, for a moment he looked like his old devil-may-care self.

‘Hi.’ Maddie stepped away from the railing and nodded to the empty glass and the open bottle of wine. ‘Help yourself.’

Cale picked up the bottle and dumped a healthy amount of Merlot into his glass. He lifted it in a salute and a smile pulled the corners of his mouth up. ‘She won a dinner with me at a bachelor auction. Longest three hours of my life. I saw the question in your eyes.’

‘Ah.’ Maddie’s eyes laughed at him over the rim of her own glass. ‘She’s very… um… sexy.’

‘Very… except that I’m not sure how much of it is real or out of a silicone tube,’ Cale said, placing his elbows next to hers on the railing.

She could feel the heat from his body, smell his soap, citrus and Cale-scent mixing with the brine from the sea.

Cale pointed his glass at the new catamaran and whistled. ‘What a boat.’

‘It’s new. At the marina, I mean. It docked today.’

‘It’s new in every sense. Twin screws, dual engines—obviously—and its finer bows give it a nearly forty-five-foot waterline.’

If he said so, Maddie thought, not having a clue what he was talking about. ‘I have no idea what that means,’ she admitted when he looked expectantly at her.

Cale grinned. ‘It significantly improves the up-wind and overall sailing ability of the yacht.’ He sipped his wine.

‘Didn’t you sail somewhere once?’ Maddie wrinkled her nose, trying to remember.

‘When I finished my Masters, I was sick of studying, so Oliver and I sailed a cat from here to Zanzibar. It was the start of two years of travelling. I’ve never been so physically scared or thrilled before or since—and that’s saying a lot because, well, I was Oliver’s twin.’

Mad Oliver and his many crazy escapades. ‘That is saying a lot. What happened?’

‘We hit a cyclone off the Mozambique channel. Crazy winds, crazy waves…’

‘Crazy Oliver.’

‘Yeah. He whooped and hollered his way through it. We nearly capsized a dozen times, and didn’t sleep for two days straight, but it was a hell of an adrenalin rush.’

In his eyes she could see the flicker of pain edged with laughter. She knew about the devastation of loss, and instinctively knew that Cale had visited more than one level of hell since his twin’s death.

‘I really am sorry about Oliver.’ Maddie heard her breath catch in her throat. Funny, wild, crazy, impetuous Oliver.

‘Yeah. Me, too.’ Cale took a healthy sip from his glass and nudged her with his shoulder.

Maddie opened her mouth but stopped when Cale briefly placed his hand on hers.

‘It’s been a really long day. Can we not talk about him?’

Maddie nodded and stared out at the ocean.

‘Please tell me that you don’t tend bar for a living.’ Cale broke the silence.

‘No, during the day I sell crack and turn tricks.’ Maddie grinned when he sent her a look of resigned amusement. ‘After we split up I worked here weekends for the rest of my time at uni. I still help my friends out if they’re short of staff or if I’m bored. I don’t normally work this long; usually they let me go home a lot earlier.’

‘It’s very late to be driving home.’ Cale glanced towards the parking lot and she could see his protective streak rise to the surface.

‘I don’t drive. I walk.’

Cale straightened, and this time he looked genuinely horrified. ‘You what? Are you insane? Do you know what could happen?’

Maddie laughed. ‘Relax, Grandpa.’ She nodded at the three-storey block of flats just across the well-lit parking lot. ‘Third floor—my flat.’

Cale tugged on a long curl that lay on her shoulder. ‘Stop winding me up,’ he complained, without any heat.

‘But it’s so much fun!’ Maddie topped up her glass and held out the bottle to Cale, shrugging when shook his head.

‘So, apart from your less than legal pursuits, how do you pay for a flat in one of the more upmarket areas of the city?’ Cale crossed his arms and rested his glass against his bicep.

Sexy arms, Maddie thought. What would he look like with his shirt off? Images from long ago flashed in her head. A wide chest, lightly covered in crisp blond hair, strong shoulders—and did he still have that washboard stomach? Her eyes brushed over his lower mid-section and drifted across his slim hips. Oh, yes, it was still there…

Whoah, boy—chemical reaction.

Maddie hauled in her breath, shoved an agitated hand into her hair and counted to ten. Then she counted to twenty, frantically thinking that she might have to go to two thousand and sixty-two to get her heart-rate under control.

Damn him… If he ever gave up his day-job he could hire himself out as a defibrillator. Huh! That was a pretty impressive word for—she glanced at her watch—twenty to one in the morning.

‘Earth to Maddie?’

Maddie was jerked out of her thoughts by Cale tugging on the curl again before allowing it to fall off his finger.

‘You took quite a mental side trip. What were you thinking about?’

Your muscles under my hands…

‘Cardiac arrest and defibrillators.’

Cale’s eyebrows lifted in surprise and he scratched his forehead. ‘I’d forgotten about your weird thought processes.’

‘You always said that I had a mind like a grasshopper,’ Maddie agreed. ‘It drove you crazy.’

‘Newsflash: everything about you drove me crazy.’

Maddie’s glass stopped halfway to her mouth. She silently cursed when Cale turned his face away, leaving her with a very good view of his strong neck. What, for the love of all things bright and beautiful, did he mean by that? Was he joking? Being serious? Sarcastic? Unfortunately his neck and the back of his head didn’t give her a clue.

Cale didn’t give her a chance to respond. ‘How are your parents?’

‘Uh… fine.’

‘And your grandfather Red? How is he?’

How could he ask her that? Why would he ask her that? He had to have heard that Red had passed on… didn’t he?

Maddie bit her lip. ‘You don’t know?’

‘That he eventually ordered that Russian mailorder bride he wanted?’ Cale asked, his voice teasing.

Maddie stared at him. God, he really didn’t know. The mind simply boggled.

Maddie turned around and leaned her bottom against the railing, crossed her legs at the ankles and ignored the stabbing pain in her sternum. Ten years? Sometimes it still felt like ten days.

‘Red is—excuse the rhyme—dead. The day we broke up.’

‘The day we… What?’ Cale ran a hand over his shocked face and swore quietly. ‘Mad, I’m sorry. What happened? Why didn’t you let me know?’

Maddie walked away from him, boosted herself onto one of the wooden tables and placed her feet on the bench. ‘He fell down the steps in his house and broke his neck. And I did let you know… well, I tried to. I left messages,’ she stated, her voice devoid of inflection.

Cale frowned at her. ‘What do you mean?’

Maddie stared at the deck. ‘I found him that next morning. I called you… so many times. Asking you to help me. My mother was, as per usual, out of town, and my father hated Red. I never expected their help. But yours? Yes, I stupidly did. I didn’t need or want them. I wanted you. Not my lover but my friend, who I trusted would be there for me.’ Maddie’s voice wavered as emotion seeped through her flat tone. ‘But you kept dismissing my calls. I left messages asking you to come… There were so many questions. The paramedics and the police… the coroner. Where was I? Who was I with?’

Cale rubbed his face with his hands and swore. ‘I don’t believe this…’

Maddie shrugged. ‘It wasn’t a fun time.’

Cale closed his eyes. ‘God, Madison. I thought that you were…’

‘Begging you to reconsider?’ Maddie’s eyes flashed molten gold with anger. ‘That I was so desperate for your delicious body, to have you back in my life, that I would call you twenty times and leave as many messages? How could you not think that something drastic had happened?’

‘I—Yes.’ Cale lifted his hands in a self-deprecating gesture. ‘I’m sorry. I was stupid.’

‘Yes, you were. And cruel. You let me down.’

Cale nodded. ‘I can’t apologise enough.’

Maddie lifted her eyebrows in surprise at his confession. She’d expected him to justify his actions, to find an excuse. She’d never expected him so easily to admit to being in the wrong.

‘I made a lot of bad assumptions.’

‘Yes—like you’ve assumed that I’m a bartender.’ Maddie let out a small bitter laugh. ‘On that point: I got my honours degree in Marketing and Communication. I work as an event co-ordi-nator and PR specialist.’

Cale rubbed the back of his neck and Maddie could see him mentally flipping through her statements. She glanced at the empty restaurant through to the bar, where Jim and Ali sat nursing a coffee. They both kept looking at her, openly curious about Cale.

‘I can’t believe it was a decade ago. It feels like yesterday.’ Maddie rubbed her hands over her face. ‘I was young and stupendously stupid but, by God, you were the worst boyfriend in the world.’

Cale nodded his agreement. ‘I can’t argue with that. I was.’

‘You broke dates, rocked up late, didn’t call—’ Maddie was rattling on, but stopped when she registered his words.

‘I spent too much time with my friends and not enough time with you,’ Cale added. ‘Hell, Mad, I’m just surprised that you didn’t drop-kick me off a cliff sooner.’

Maddie shoved her tongue in her cheek. ‘Oh, I kept you around for entertainment value. You could always make me laugh. Your excuses and explanations were legendary.’

‘And here I thought you kept me around for my skill under the covers.’

‘Dream on, dude.’ Maddie slapped her hands on her thighs, looked at the empty wine bottle and then towards her dark flat. ‘Look, I’ve got to get some sleep. So, again—good to see you.’

Cale’s strong fingers on her arm halted her progress. ‘Maddie—’

Maddie stopped and hung her head, closing her eyes against the flickers of heat that radiated up her arm, the corresponding curl of attraction in her belly. She couldn’t believe, after all this time, that he still had the power to turn her anger to lust, her disappointment to attraction. His physical effect on her was instantaneous, dangerous.

‘Don’t, Cale.’

Cale moved closer and, ignoring her desperate plea, pulled her into his embrace. Strong arms bound her and she found herself breast to chest, her face tucked into the hollow beneath his shoulder, his bent head blowing warm air across her cheek.

So this was what being held by him again felt like. Maddie had to admit that reality kicked memory’s butt.

Maddie lifted her head to look into those fabulous eyes. Beneath the sadness and apology she caught a flicker of heat, and suddenly realised the attraction wasn’t one-sided. A muscle ticked in his jaw as his eyes darkened and the flame flickered brighter. Maddie could feel his body change, felt the switch from comfort to awareness. It was in the way his hand flexed on her back and ran down her spine.

And that was all the warning he gave before lowering his mouth onto hers. The world fell away as she welcomed his manly, exciting taste, his firm lips and clever tongue, his strong hand on her back pulling her closer.

One of her hands, operating independently from her protesting brain, crept up his hard chest and curled into the thick hair at the back of his neck. The other gripped his hip above the ridge of his belt. Solid, warm, masculine. Oh, she’d missed the feel of hard male flesh, the texture of sun-kissed skin, the demand of strong hands and a firm mouth urging her to take more, to own the moment.

‘I’m so, so sorry.’

He murmured the words against her neck and she heard the sincerity in them. It was the mental equivalent of a tidal wave dousing her back to reality. Whoah! She was not eighteen any more, at the mercy of her hormones and emotions. He didn’t get to step back into her life and pick up where they’d left off. She wouldn’t let that happen again.

She hadn’t raised herself to be a fool.

Stepping back abruptly, she sent him a cool look. ‘Okay, so that’s something that hasn’t changed. You always were a dynamite kisser.’

‘Um—thanks. Want to do it again?’

Maddie rolled her eyes. ‘I’ll survive.’ Maddie held up her hand as he stepped forward. ‘No, stay where you are, Slick.’

Cale reached out to touch her and abruptly pulled his hand back. Good call, Maddie thought, or else I might just end up with splinters in my butt.

Maddie shook her curls. ‘We’re not doing this, Cale. It’s been a long time, and too much has happened for us to go back there.’

‘I am sorry,’ Cale said, and she could see the frustration on his face. Did he really expect that a couple of apologies would make it all better? That he could snap his fingers and have her in his arms and his bed again?

Not going to happen.

Maddie lifted her eyebrows. ‘Sorry for what? Letting me down? Disappointing me? Kissing me?’

‘One and two. Kissing you, it turns out, is still an absolute pleasure.’ Cale raked his hand through his hair. ‘So, where to now?’

What? Was he insane?

Maddie summoned up her frostiest voice. ‘Nowhere! Cale, this is it. You carry on your merry way and I do the same.’

Cale snorted. ‘You’re not that naïve, Maddie.’

Maddie forced herself to step forward, to give him a patronising pat on the cheek. ‘I was never naïve, and you don’t know anything about me any more.’

‘I know that something shifted in my world when I saw you behind that bar tonight.’

Maddie felt her heart stutter. She didn’t like her heart stuttering—wasn’t used to it behaving badly.

‘And I don’t generally kiss a woman like that and let her walk away.’

Ooh, there was that legendary Grant arrogance again. Her eyes and her voice cooled. ‘There’s always a first time for everything. Goodbye, Cale.’

‘This isn’t finished, Madison.’

Maddie thought that silence was the best response to his statement, because in truth she had no idea how to reply to the words that terrified and annoyed her in equal measure.

Maddie treasured Sunday—her favourite day of the week. Most Sundays she’d pull on a bikini and a wetsuit, grab her surfboard, then head for the west coast and the big rolling waves that made the area north of Cape Town a surfers’ paradise.

Mid-morning, loose-limbed and hungry after skimming the waves, would find her at her favourite coffee shop in Scarborough, devouring the papers and scoffing poached eggs and hollandaise sauce, followed by croissants and strawberry jam.

And coffee—rich, aromatic, compelling. Just like the man walking across the packed room towards her table. This was more like the Cale she remembered: faded navy T-shirt, red board shorts and flip-flops.

She tipped her head and watched him as he stopped for a moment to talk to a fit-looking couple in the far corner. Dr Caleb Grant: consulting sports psychologist and life coach to several national teams, top sportsmen and women, sports writer, TV commentator and triathlon stroke adventure racer.

Unfortunately, due to that strong face and hot body, and the fact that he was rich and relentlessly single, he was also a favourite amongst the gossip columnists. One of, if not the most eligible bachelor in the city.

Good for him—but she wouldn’t let it affect her; she made it a personal policy never to make the same mistake twice.

Cale took the seat opposite her, took a sip of the coffee from her cup and snagged a piece of croissant with the familiarity of a current lover and not a blast from her past.

‘Order your own.’ Maddie slapped his fingers as they headed towards her plate again.

Cale, for once, listened and ordered an espresso and two croissants.

Maddie folded her paper and tucked it into her bag. Folding her arms, she tapped her foot. Squinting at him, she reacquainted herself with the object of her fantasies of the last week… and the last ten years. In daylight, she noticed the little things now: a couple of laughter lines, some strands of grey mingled with the streaky blond hair at his temples, and the high-tech watch on his wrist that could be the price of a new car. Well, not an entire car—maybe just a set of tyres. The sunglasses were top of the range too. Striking and successful, he’d become all the S’s she’d known he would.

Back then he’d had sardonic, sporty and sexy nailed. She could add super-successful and sophisticated to the list.

‘How did you find me?’

‘Easy. I went to your flat and your neighbour… Jim?… he told me that you spend most Sunday mornings here.’

‘You could’ve called.’

‘You neglected to give me your number.’ Cale whipped his BlackBerry out of his back pocket and looked at her enquiringly.

Maddie sighed, recited her number and handed over her mobile so that he could scan the barcode for her BlackBerry BBM. She’d never in a million years thought that she’d see Cale’s number in her phone again.

‘I can’t believe I’m letting you put your number in my phone.’

‘Was I that bad?’

‘Terrible. Have you improved?’ Maddie asked archly, openly curious.

‘Probably not as much as you’d hoped.’ Cale sat back as the waiter placed his coffee and croissants in front of him. ‘What about you? How long did you pine for me before you twisted the next guy up into a pretzel?’

‘About two seconds. Nearly as long as you spent missing me.’

‘Yeah, I really wish it had happened that way,’ Cale said, his eyes on his plate.

Maddie had opened her mouth to pursue the subject when her attention was distracted by the gaggle of young women who had entered the restaurant behind Cale, all wearing tops and shorts about three sizes too small for them. Maddie sourly wondered why they didn’t just go out in their underwear. They weren’t covering up much more.

Oh, man, she sounded just like a jealous old woman. Deciding it was a good time to take a bathroom break, she quickly excused herself. When she returned, she found one of the gaggle leaning over Cale’s shoulder as she watched him scrawl his signature on a paper napkin.

Please, shoot me now, she thought as she ambled back to her seat.

She sat down and waited till the girl had gone, then whispered, ‘That’s nice, dear, now run along and do your homework.’

Cale choked back his laughter.

‘Does that happen often?’ she asked Cale, horrified.

He shrugged. ‘Now and again.’

‘It would drive me nuts.’

‘You kind of get used to it. The trick is to remember that they don’t know you. They know the TV you. They don’t know that you hate going to sleep, or that you snore, or that you are allergic to peanuts.’ Cale took a sip of his espresso and lifted a broad shoulder in a shrug. ‘It keeps your head from getting too big.’

‘It’s already big,’ Maddie teased, mostly because he expected her to. She played with her teaspoon and decided to risk a personal question. ‘Why do you hate going to sleep?’

Cale bit the inside of his lip while he obviously debated what to say. Maddie was surprised when he gave her a real answer instead of responding frivolously.

‘The spooks come and get me.’

‘What?’

Cale sighed. ‘I normally delay going to bed until the early hours of the morning and then I can’t sleep anyway. The mind loves three a.m. The nastiest hour of the day.’ Cale toyed with a piece of croissant and smiled thinly. ‘Just because I’m a psychologist doesn’t mean that I don’t have my own demons to fight, Mad.’

Judging by the weariness that flashed in his eyes, she suspected that his demons were winning.

‘I can understand that,’ she replied, intrigued by this new side of Cale.

She sighed when she saw another member of the group stand up and head towards them, a small book in her hand. By the constant looks they sent Cale, and the animated discussion that followed, Maddie supposed that there was a bit of a dare raging to see who grabbed his attention. The fact that he was at least fifteen years older than they were didn’t seem to faze them in the least. It was also galling to realise that they didn’t think her much competition.

This one was a pale redhead with a breathy voice. ‘Sorry to disturb, but would you mind?’ She thrust the book under Cale’s nose.

Maddie sent her a cool look. ‘Excuse me, we’re trying to have a conversation here.’

‘It won’t take a mo,’ Strawberry Cake dismissed her.

Maddie looked at her super-flat stomach and the small medallion that hung off the ring in her belly button. She blinked and looked again. It couldn’t possibly be…

The girl drifted away with another signature and Maddie widened her eyes at Cale. ‘Did you see the picture on the medallion hanging off her belly button ring?’

‘I was too scared of you to do more than quickly scribble my name,’ Cale retorted.

‘Funny man.’ Maddie leaned across the table. ‘It was a very small, very clear picture of a… a sexual position. Very inventive. You’d probably have to be double-jointed to do it…’

Cale mock turned in his seat. ‘I need to see it… Let me call her back!’

Maddie pinched the skin on the back of his hand. Then she sighed heavily. ‘My mother would applaud her upfront attitude to sex, but I think it looks tacky.’

Cale pushed his plate away. ‘Speaking of… how are your parents?’

Maddie leaned back in her chair and rolled her eyes. ‘Still mad as a box of crickets. My mother is working as a guest lecturer in Women’s Studies at Edinburgh University. She’s still got that waste of oxygen with her—Jeffrey. I think you met him.’

‘Mmm.’

‘My father is still a Professor of English Literature, drinking cheap red wine out of pottery bowls while listening to Verdi and bonking as many un-dergrads as he can. And, yes, they still think that I am a massive disappointment as a daughter and an outright academic failure.’

‘And they still have the ability, when I hear that, to make me want to smack them,’ Cale said grimly. ‘How can they think that? You are so successful.’

‘At planning parties? “Darling, any two-bit socialite can do that.”’ Maddie imitated her mother’s crystal-clear diction. ‘“How do I explain to our friends, our colleagues, that our only child obtained a silly degree in Marketing? The shame, the horror!”’ Maddie shuddered theatrically and slumped in her seat. ‘I’m embarrassed to admit that I’m still looking for their love and approval.’

‘It’s a natural response. Habits that are formed in our childhood are the most difficult to break,’ Cale told her, idly toying with her fingers.

Maddie pulled in her breath when his thumb caressed the inside of her wrist.

Cale glanced at Maddie’s frustrated face, thinking he was glad he’d taken the risk to seek her company today. Her prickly attitude and fast mouth amused him. The vulnerability below her tough, business-girl exterior touched him. To throw in a body still slim, tanned and long-limbed was deeply unfair. Cale watched as she threw confused looks at him. Her amber eyes were dark with bewildered distrust, the colour of bold, old whisky.

Since leaving her the other night his mind had frequently drifted in her direction, so he’d done what he always did when a subject engaged his curiosity: he’d looked for more information.

He’d spent the last week reaching out to his extensive network of contacts and found out that she was much respected in her field and solidly stable financially. How could her fruitbat parents not be proud of her? They were, to him, a very clear case of too much education and not enough humanity and common sense.

Cale moved in his chair, unfamiliar with the strange sensation he felt just being in her presence. He eventually identified it as excitement. Excitement. He rolled the word around his head. He hadn’t felt it in a while.

The last two years had been a blur of grief, denial and self-recrimination, and he was still looking for himself… for the Cale he was supposed to be without the person who had shared his life before. Oliver had lived life on a knife-edge and Cale had been sent, he was convinced, to keep him from tumbling over. He had been Oliver’s voice of reason, his compass, his navigation system. While Oliver had been brilliant academically, he’d had the impulse control of a two-year-old.

A two-year-old with the destructive capabilities of a nuclear bomb.

Don’t think about that, Cale told himself. Don’t think about the chaos he created, the hurt he caused… Besides, being Ol’s voice of reason was what he’d done—except when Oliver had been at his most vulnerable and so sick he’d let him down. Cale swallowed, breathing deeply to keep the flickers of panic to a manageable level.

A slender hand slapping his jolted him from his thoughts. ‘What?’

‘You faded away on me—with your eyes on my chest.’

The flickers dissolved with one look at her startling eyes. Relieved, he grinned, probably unwisely, at her pinched face. He couldn’t help it. Prickly or not, it was good just to look at her. He was bemused by how fiercely compelling he found her. The wave of attraction he’d felt back then had morphed into a tsunami of lust. No woman—not even his ex-model ex-girlfriend, Gigi—had roused such thoughts. Candles. Silk sheets. A huge bed with her naked in it.

It had obviously been too long. It wasn’t because he was remembering how addicted he’d been to Maddie, how much he’d craved her. He was over her; he’d been over her the minute he’d realised that she’d disappeared for good a decade ago.

She was a very good-looking woman and he was just a man. You didn’t need to be a rocket scientist…

Maddie was staring at his mouth. Damn, he wished she wouldn’t. It gave him ideas, and he needed those ideas like he needed an aneurysm. Naturally even the thought of kissing her had his blood rushing south. Superb, he thought sarcastically, how old was he? Thirty-five or fifteen?

He really had to get himself some action… this was ridiculous.

‘Excuse me?’

Oh, hell. Not another one. He sighed and turned his attention from Maddie’s visibly annoyed face to the blonde bunny looking down at him, with a far too adult promise in those admittedly startling blue eyes.

Maddie’s breath hissed as she swiftly leaned across the table and picked up his plate and coffee cup and handed it to the girl. Not knowing what else to do, the blonde took the crockery and lifted it, puzzled.

‘Thanks. Take this, too.’ Maddie put some bunched-up used serviettes on the plate and waved her away. The blonde, caught off-guard, turned on her heel and dumped the dirty crockery on an empty table.

Maddie ignored Cale’s wide grin, leaned back in her chair and hooked her arm over the back. ‘How is your family? Still boringly normal?’

‘’Fraid so. All of us—parents, Megs, the twins—’

‘Whoah! Back up. You have kids?’

Cale grinned at Maddie’s shocked face. ‘No, you idiot. They are Ollie’s kids.’

More shock. ‘Oliver had twins? He got married?’

Cale nodded. ‘Briefly. The twins were a result of a brief fling and he thought he’d try to do the right thing. He lasted about three months. He tried to settled down with them… but you know Oliver.’

He didn’t need to spell it out. Oliver had had the attention span of a gnat.

‘Did he see the twins? Spend time with them?’

‘He was a great father.’

What else could he say? Certainly not the truth—that he’d been a great father when he’d remembered them and when he didn’t have something better to do. Not so great on the realities of fatherhood, like paying maintenance and attending PTA meetings.

To Oliver, the mundane tasks of life had had to be avoided at all costs. And when they couldn’t be avoided, normally his twin had stepped in to sort them out.

Maddie cocked her head. ‘Good for him.’

Her dry tone told him that he hadn’t completely convinced her. But that wasn’t his problem. He never openly criticised Oliver. Ever. His mixed-up contradictory feelings about his brother were his and his alone.

‘Anyway, to get back to the subject, my parents are fine, thank you. We all had supper together a couple of nights ago.’ Cale rested his cheek on his fist. ‘They’re talking about doing something in memory of Oliver. It’s two years in August.’

Maddie tipped her head, immediately interested. ‘Like what?’

‘My mom has this idea that we should do something to raise money for charity in his name.’

He thought the whole idea was mad, but if an event and some funds helped his mom work through her grief he’d be all over it.

‘Nice idea.’ Maddie thought for a minute. ‘Didn’t you and Oliver organise an informal triathlon while you were doing your PhD?’

Cale dropped his fist. ‘Yeah, we got all our racing friends together and did it for laughs.’

‘So, do it for Oliver. Do it for charity.’

‘It’s an idea.’ Cale took her hand again, his fingers sliding between hers. ‘Would you help?’

‘Cale… I can’t. My plate is so full,’ Maddie responded. ‘Besides, you and I working together? Not wise.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because we’d either end up killing each other or end up in bed.’

‘Or end up killing each other in bed, which sounds like an amazing way to go,’ Cale said on an easy grin.

‘Yeah… not. Anyway, play around with the idea and see what you come up with. I think it could work,’ Maddie suggested, before standing up and pulling her bag over her shoulder, she threw him a cheeky grin and buzzed her lips across his cheek. ‘Thanks for breakfast.’ She flicked a glance at the young women next to them. ‘If you take any of their numbers I will hunt you down and kill you. Too stupid and too young. Even for you, Slick.’

Maddie gently nipped his bottom lip before walking away. There was nothing wrong in her humble opinion, in leaving a man wanting more than she intended delivering. It was one of the perks of being a woman.




CHAPTER THREE


UNLIKE most people, Saturdays for Maddie were nearly always full work days and consistently crazy. They were family days: weddings, engagements, family reunions. It was her role to make sure that the emotional, sentimental stuff didn’t interfere with the logistics.

Today, she treated herself to a fifteen minute soak before stepping out of her ball-and-claw tub and reaching for a towel. Moving in the small bathroom was always a challenge, but she refused to sacrifice her precious cast-iron bath for a few inches of space. Turning towards the basin, she nudged the open door with her bottom and, as per usual, the slightest movement caused the door to swing itself closed. Maddie heard the usual click—and then a loud clank as something inside the door dropped. Frowning, she pulled the handle of the door. Although the handle moved, the door remained firmly in place.

Maddie looked at the door, absolutely nonplussed. She jerked the handle again, heard the rattle of parts in the mechanism, yet the door remained resolutely, stubbornly closed. After five minutes she came to the unhappy conclusion that she was locked in her own bathroom.

Maddie cursed, softly and creatively, before reaching for her mobile.

‘I love you, Mad, but not at six in the morning,’ Jim grumbled when he finally answered her call. ‘Especially on my weekend off.’

‘It’s seven, and I have a problem. I’ve managed to get myself stuck in my own bathroom.’ Maddie explained the situation. ‘I need you to come and rescue me.’

Jim cursed. ‘Sweetie, I told you—we’re away for the weekend. What about Kate? Nat?’

‘Kate is also away, and I tried Nat. His mobile is off.’

‘This is why you need a non-gay resident man in your life,’ Jim told her. ‘You know—someone to fix tyres, change lightbulbs, unscrew doors…’

Maddie knew what was coming.

‘There could even be some other benefits on the side…’

‘Supremely unhelpful, Jim,’ Maddie grumbled before disconnecting.

She glanced towards the open sash window and shivered at the gust of cool wind that swirled around her wet body. Who else could she call? Cale? She hadn’t spoken to him since the coffee shop, and was currently ducking his calls because she wasn’t quite sure how to handle him….

Ignoring the thought that Cale wasn’t the type of man to be ‘handled’ at the best of times, Maddie told herself that she dealt with people on a daily basis… she was never at a loss for words. But Cale made her feel tongue-tied and gawky… awkward. Mostly because she was pretty sure that her attraction to him was tattooed on her forehead.

If she were a dog then she’d be constantly panting….

Maddie glanced down at her skimpy towel and realised that calling him would be dangerous. She was practically naked, and she suspected that she had a good chance of ending up flat on her back if Cale saw her like this.

She’d loved him as a teenager, had burned up the sheets with him—when they weren’t fighting—but she’d never experienced this soul-jumping, crotch-squirming reaction that swept over her every time he was within a hundred-foot radius of her.

Lust. So this is what it really feels like, huh? It had to be lust. What else could it possibly be? Feeling like this, she assured herself, was a very normal, natural reaction when you hadn’t had sex for more than… roughly four hundred days times four—one thousand, two hundred days!

Or thereabouts.

She was allowed to feel all jumbled up.

She made a couple of calls: one to Thandi to cover for her, and a request to her mobile service provider for a list of locksmiths in her area. As she started to dial the first, her mobile rang. It was an unfamiliar landline number and she answered it cautiously.

‘Maddie, it’s Cale.’

She really had to save all his numbers into her phone, she decided.

When she didn’t reply, Cale continued speaking. ‘Hello? Maddie?’

‘Cale… um—hi.’

‘Are you okay? You sound funny.’

‘I’m—I’m fine.’ Maddie heard the note of hysteria in her words and hoped that Cale missed it.

No chance. ‘What’s the matter?’ he demanded.

Maddie heaved in a breath. ‘I’m locked in my bathroom.’

‘You’re what?’

‘I’m trapped—I can’t get out of my bathroom. There’s something wrong with the door,’ Maddie said, trying for cheerful but hearing misery in her voice.

‘Right. Are the hinges on your side of the door?’

Maddie wondered if she’d really heard the faint thread of laughter in his steady voice. ‘You’d better not be finding this funny, Cale! And the door swings out, into the dressing room. So the hinges are on that side.’

‘Good. That makes it easier. I’ll be there in… say, twenty minutes. But how do I get into the block?’

‘Keypad. My code is 6541. And my front door is open,’ Maddie replied, and put the heel of her hand into her eye socket. ‘Look, Cale, if it’s a hassle I’ll call a locksmith—although they’ll cost their weight in gold to do a call-out on a Saturday,’ she added glumly. ‘And I’ll be so late for my functions.’

‘Don’t be stupid. Twenty minutes,’ Cale said, before disconnecting.

Maddie placed her mobile on the windowsill, watched the walls recede a little and, feeling like an idiot, almost wept with relief.

Twenty-five minutes later, Cale parked in a visitor’s parking bay and looked at the small brick block of flats encircled by a wrought-iron fence.

He hopped out of his car, re-adjusted his grip on his toolbox and walked up the front steps. As Maddie had said, the front door opened to her code and he walked up the stairs and straight through her front door. Her flat smelled like its owner: light, fresh, slightly intoxicating. She’d used the open space well, filling the living area with comfortable-looking furniture, and a floor-to-ceiling bookcase took up one wall. The room looked restful and lived in, although he wasn’t sure about the red walls.

Cale turned into the passage and opened the first of three closed doors. He grinned at the mess. An unmade bed, a hot pink T-shirt over the back of a wingback chair and a violet bra on the duck-egg-blue duvet. Putting the toolbox down, he put his hands on his hips and looked around, taking in the details. Like the fact that the wall above the bed was dominated by an abstract painting in creams and browns. Cale nearly dismissed the painting, but something made him look at it again. It was a massive swirl of neutral colours, fluid, filled with emotion and… sex.

It looked like a cream and brown orgy.

Or it might just be an abstract cream and brown painting and he’d see sex in a tub of margarine.

Dragging his gaze away, Cale looked around the room. Deep brown curtains and an antique dressing table dominated the room, groaning under the weight of all the junk he’d come to expect from the female of the species. Necklaces and beads spilt out of copper woven baskets, perfume bottles vied for space, and lipstick tubes, scraps of paper and small change littered the rest of the wooden surface.

‘Cale? That you?’ Maddie called.

Cale walked into the dressing room. He presumed beyond the shut door was the bathroom. ‘Yeah. How you doing in there?’

‘Getting a bit cold.’

‘Hang in there. Not long now.’ Cale looked around her dressing room; in such an intimate space he felt surrounded by her.

‘I see that you still keep the retail sector of the city in champagne and caviar,’ Cale told her through the door.

‘What are you on about?’

‘Your immense selection of clothes. How can you possibly need so many shoes?’ Cale asked as he bumped his thigh against an open drawer and glanced down. Naturally it was her lingerie drawer. Cale swallowed, unable to resist lifting a semi-transparent candy-pink thong that was hardly bigger than dental floss.

‘It’s a girl thing,’ Maddie grumbled. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’

‘I won’t even try to,’ Cale assured her.

‘Stay out of my lingerie drawer,’ Maddie warned him.

Cale quickly dropped the non-offending article. How could she know he was… Did she have X-ray eyes?

‘Nothing would fit me,’ Cale joked as he put down his toolbox and placed his hand against the door.

‘Ha-ha. Can you hurry up? I’m getting really cold.’

Cale looked at the hinges on the door and sighed. The hinges were covered in paint—many layers of paint—which would make them difficult to unscrew. He tested the handle on the door, just in case, and heard the click-clack of the faulty mechanism. He thought he heard Maddie’s snort of impatience and didn’t blame her. Crouching again, he assembled his drill and, with plug in hand, stood up to find an electrical outlet. He disconnected the hairdryer and plugged the drill in. Placing himself between the door and the edge of the closet, he felt for the creases that indicated where the screws were and in a few minutes had them in his hand.

Grabbing hold of the wrong side of the door, he pulled it away from the frame and saw Maddie, wet-haired and shivering, a small towel barely covering her from collarbone to crotch.

With her makeup-free face and wide eyes she looked about seventeen.

‘It’s like a fridge in here!’ Cale exclaimed as he stepped inside.

Maddie clutched the top of her towel, her hands white and her bottom lip almost blue. Being so close to her in the tiny bathroom, he could see the fine shivers trembling through her. Cale looked towards the sash window Maddie gestured to.

‘Tell me about it. The cord got jammed ages ago. I’ll have to get it fixed soon.’

‘Why didn’t you get back into the warm bath?’

‘Hot water ran out.’ Maddie shrugged

‘Get dressed,’ Cale ordered. ‘You’re going to get sick.’

Maddie looked towards the door that half stood, half hung in the doorway. She clenched the top of her towel tighter and stepped around him. Yanking some clothes off a hanger, and some underwear from the drawer, she moved into the bedroom.

Cale took a deep breath and looked down through the dressing room into Maddie’s room. In her haste to get warm and out of his sight she’d started dressing in the far corner of the room and he could see her reflection in the dressing table mirror. Unable to pull his eyes away, he watched as she dropped her towel and gracefully pulled on a pair of low-cut panties. Her stomach was gently rounded, her legs long, her hips slim. Cale swallowed as she slid trousers up her legs and reached for a gauzy cream bra and snapped it into place, doing that weird jiggly thing woman did to make sure it fitted exactly right.

Cale swallowed a moan. Since he hadn’t had any action for a while he was surprised that moaning was all he did.

As opposed to lying her on that bed…

‘Cale?’

Cale blinked. She was shoving her arms into a shirt and turning to look at her reflection in the mirror. Stepping back just in time, he leaned against the open sash window.

‘Yeah?’

Maddie appeared in the small area between the hanging door and the frame. ‘Thanks. It was turning out to be a long, cold morning.’

Cale shrugged off her thanks and gestured to the window. He spoke brusquely. ‘You need to get this fixed or else you’ll freeze.’

‘I keep meaning to and I don’t seem to get it done.’ Maddie nibbled at her bottom lip. ‘I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to inconvenience you like this—and on a Saturday morning, too.’

‘Maddie, it’s fine. No worries.’ Cale practically spat the words like bullets.

Her eyes heated and her mouth firmed. ‘Then the least you can do is be gracious about helping me instead of a doing a great impression of a bear with a thorn in its paw!’

Cale closed his eyes as if seeking patience. ‘Can we drop this, please? It’s a stupid conversation.’

Her eyes lightened with frustration. ‘But—’

‘You just don’t know when to shut up, do you?’ Cale burst out, his breath ragged. He stood up and took two steps to reach her. He looked into her desperately pretty eyes and grimaced. ‘Okay, Maddie, see if you can handle this. Pretty, feminine room. Sexy painting. Lingerie. Wet woman in towel. Wet woman getting dressed around the corner. Keep thinking about what I want to do to you in that bed. I want to do you in the worst way possible. Getting the picture yet?’

It almost amused him to see how the tips of her ears and then her cheeks blushed. ‘Oh…’

‘Yeah. Oh.’

Maddie stepped back into the dressing room and leaned against the shelves—yet he still managed to connect most of his body with hers as he slid past. On a low curse, he turned and cupped her face with his big hands.

‘Maddie, look at me,’ Cale commanded.

Maddie curled her hand around his strong wrist and looked up. He saw his desire reflected in her eyes, could feel her jumping pulse in the tips of her fingers.

‘It would be so easy…’

‘I don’t do easy,’ Maddie muttered.

Cale heard her words but they didn’t make any sense. Why was she hedging when there was this heat between them? Didn’t she understand that this was important—all that was important? Cale dropped his hands to her waist. He just had to touch her, had to move closer. Just for one minute…

‘I’m sorry, I just have to,’ Cale said, stepping forward, his hands on her supple back.

Cale heard her groan as she welcomed him into her space, heard her breath hitch and felt her nipples pucker against his chest. ‘You shouldn’t be here.’

‘In your arms or in your house?’

‘Either. Both. This is wrong.’

‘Why?’

‘We’re practically strangers. I don’t know you any more.’

But her eyes said that she had an empty flat, that she wanted to get naked, that she needed him as much as he needed her. How exactly was he supposed to resist?

‘Maddie…’ He drawled out her name. ‘Your mouth is saying one thing and your body another. Which do I listen to?’

Maddie shoved a trembling hand into her hair.

‘What do you want me to say? That I just look at you and all I want to do is strip you naked and throw caution to the wind?’ she said, her voice hoarse.

He frightens me, Maddie thought wildly, her eyes on his. The way he makes me feel terrifies me. He just touches me and I feel complete… I feel him everywhere… Every cell in my body is yelling for him to take me… He feels like… God, he feels like home.

That couldn’t be good.

Cale took a step towards her and placed his finger on the beating pulse-point below her throat. ‘Don’t make me beg, Mad.’

Cale slowly undid the buttons of her shirt and pushed the fabric down her arms to reveal creamy shoulders. He let the shirt drop and she stood there in her semi-transparent bra. After watching her for a long, long minute, Cale stepped towards her and yanked her to him. His mouth slanted over hers as his hands grabbed her bottom and pulled her closer, allowing her to feel the hard erection he could no longer hide. He felt Maddie burrowing her hands under his clothing until she eventually found his skin.

Cale stepped backwards and cursed as he slammed into the doorway. He lifted his head to quickly scan his surroundings and bent his head again, kissing her as he walked her into her bedroom. His mouth nibbled her neck before he turned around, sat down on the bed and pulled her so that she sat across his thighs.

One strong arm banded around her waist, he half lifted her off him to take his car keys and his BlackBerry out of his jeans pocket and place them on the bed next to him. He yanked Maddie back onto his lap and lifted his hands to hold her face. He pushed a strand of hair that kept falling in her eyes behind her ear and traced her mouth with a callused thumb.

His eyes, when they met hers, were serious. ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’

Maddie closed her eyes. ‘I shouldn’t, but…’

Cale’s palm drifted over her back and his tongue thrust deeper to explore her mouth.

His long fingers were fiddling with the side button of her trousers when the ring of his mobile pierced her sexual fog. She looked past his shoulder and saw the display light up. The name ‘Megan Adams’ flashed on his screen.

She stiffened in his arms and felt the same familiar, burning jealousy she had as a teenager. Karen. Jenny. Amber. He’d been relentlessly chased and she knew that he always would be. She suspected that he often allowed himself to be caught…

‘Saved from my own stupidity,’ she muttered as she pulled back. Clambering off his lap, she pulled the cups of her bra back over her breasts.

Cale—smart man—let his mobile ring to voice-mail. ‘Maddie? What the hell?’

Maddie looked around for her shirt. ‘I’m late and you need to get out of here.’

Cale grabbed the waistband of her pants and held her in place. ‘I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what flicked your “off” button.’

‘At least I have an “off” button! You don’t seem to!’

More worrying was that he’d found her ‘on’ button so quickly. He’d liquefied her common sense in ten seconds flat.

‘Oh, God! Here you go again, judging my love-life.’ Cale rolled his eyes. ‘Trust me, you’re making something out of nothing, Mad.’

‘So you say.’ Maddie shrugged in mock insouciance. ‘But, just so we’re clear, I am never going to be a woman who hangs around waiting for your calls!’

‘Uh—I’ll never expect you to be.’

Maddie, feeling his fingers warm against her stomach, walked around his knees and leaned across the bed. She grabbed his mobile and waved it in his face. ‘Like this poor woman!’

‘Who?’

Maddie didn’t need to check the name. ‘Megan! Megan Adams!’

Cale looked puzzled. ‘Megan Adams often calls. So?’

Maddie jerked away, and the look she sent him was hot enough to burn a hole in sheet metal. ‘And she’s okay with you sleeping with other women?’

Cale grinned. ‘She seems to be.’

Maddie knew that he was mocking her and wasn’t quite sure why. It only ratcheted up her temper. Stomping away, she grabbed her shirt off the floor and pulled it on. ‘You’re not funny. Just go, Cale.’

‘You’ve really got the wrong end of the stick, Maddie.’

‘Cale, this is me—remember? I remember the incessant phone calls and the drooling girls with their flicky hair. I know. I was the girlfriend trying to compete for your attention with them!’ Maddie yanked a comb through her still-wet curls. ‘Megan’s just another poor sap desperate for you to take her calls. FYI, I’ve grown up and I will never, ever again be Miss Desperate or Miss Stupid or Miss Waiting-in-Anticipation for you to call!’

Cale stood and picked up his mobile and keys from the bed. She caught his flinty eyes and his tight jaw. He walked into the dressing room, reappearing with his toolbox in hand. ‘No, you now have the title of Miss Closed Mind and Miss Stubborn. Maybe Miss Childish, too,’ he said coldly.

‘Whatever,’ Maddie snapped. ‘And Cale?’

Cale stopped at the door, his fingers white as he clenched the frame of the door. ‘What now?’

‘I know that you were in my lingerie drawer! Where’s my candy-pink thong? Did you take it?’

He found it where he’d dropped it—behind the bathroom door—and tossed the underwear towards her.

‘I’d be happy for you to add it to your collection, but it’s my favourite,’ she called as he stormed out and slammed her front door so hard that the earth tilted off its axis and, Maddie was quite certain, set off an earthquake somewhere in the South Pacific.

BlackBerry Messaging: 16.15.

Cale Grant: Just thought I’d let you know that you’re the first woman I’ve killed in 3 months.

Maddie: What? Standing here watching my bride walk down the aisle. Pretty sure I’m still alive.

Cale Grant: Kissed, not killed! Can’t get used to this new phone. Thought you should know that since you think I’m a man slut. Just clearing the air…

Maddie: Seriously? So, if you haven’t kissed/killed anyone, then you haven’t…? How long since you… you know?

Cale Grant: Not answering that.

Maddie: Curious. Can I still call you Slick?

Cale Grant: You’re laughing, aren’t you?

Maddie: MAO. So… are you waiting for an apology?

Cale Grant: Would you give me one? Anyway, just wanted to clear the air. Now going for a long, long run, followed by a cold, cold shower… unless you’re offering alternative entertainment?

Maddie: Nope.

Cale Grant: Damn.

‘Maddie? Are you there?”

Maddie, perched on a ladder helping her crew drape a tent, mobile to her ear, mentally shook herself and concentrated on the low drawl. Finally putting a name to the voice, her lips curved in pleasure as she recognised a rival co-ordinator.

‘Dennis King, what do you need? An ice sculptor? A Roman set? Some advice?’

Although they were officially competitors, they both recognised the value of maintaining a cordial, friendly relationship. Who else but another event co-ordinator would know the name of an ice sculptor at two in the morning? Who else would understand? From who else could you borrow a cream tent, supplement chair covers, or get a new source of blue roses?

‘Hey, sweetie, you’re good, but I doubt that even you can express a Roman set to the Big Apple.’

‘You’re in New York? What are you doing there?’

‘Got a job at Bower & Co.’

Maddie nearly swallowed a pin. How on earth had he landed a job with one of the most respected PR and eventing firms in the world? And why hadn’t she heard about it?

‘That’s actually why I’m calling you.’

Maddie removed the pins from her mouth.

‘Sorry?’

‘They’ve got an opening for an events co-ordi-nator and I thought of you.’

‘Me? Why?’

‘Because I could use a friendly face here, we get along well and you already work the long hours that are standard over here. What do you think?’

Maddie sat down on the ladder and rubbed her eyes. ‘Wow, Dennis. Wow. I’m not sure what to say.’

‘Say you’ll think about it. I’ve been dropping your name at every opportunity I get. In the meantime, e-mail me your CV.’

‘I’ll think about it. New York?’

‘Manhattan, baby. Big money. Big kudos,’ Dennis replied. ‘E-mail me your CV. Later.’

Maddie looked down at her dead mobile and pinched the bridge of her nose. She carefully sat down and rested her head on her knees. New York City.

This was so exciting—a career move of stratospheric proportions. Bower & Co tendered for opening ceremonies at sporting events, Hollywood première parties and political balls. They were solidly big league…

She couldn’t wait to tell… Cale?

Maddie huffed a breath. Why did her thoughts instinctively veer to him? He’d just dropped back into her life, she wasn’t even sleeping with him, and they’d shared no more than a couple of conversations. You ‘re being an idiot, she told herself. He shouldn’t even be a blip on her radar.

But he was, and he was blipping far too often for her physical and, more frightening, her emotional comfort. You ‘re just out of practice, Maddie assured herself. Allowing your imagination to run away with you. You’re—eek!—sexually frustrated and easily confused





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