[4 Seasons 01] Seducing Summer (6 page)

“It’s fucking hot in the Northland. Toby
says it’s been hot and sultry for weeks. Sounds like a bit of
Summer
seduction is on the cards.”

“I can’t.”

“Yeah.” Felix snorted. “That sounded real
convincing.” Someone called in the background, and Felix said, “Coco’s ready
and we’re going out. Got to go. Speak later. Let me know how you get on.”

“I don’t…” But it was too late. Felix had
hung up.

Gene blew out a breath and slipped the
phone back into his pocket. He’d only known Callie for an afternoon. She might
be completely different when he got to know her properly, when he was with her
day in, day out. She might irritate him by talking all the time. Perhaps she
was untidy, or hated the music he liked, or refused to eat unusual food. There
were a million reasons why he might not find her attractive.

He thought about the V of her blouse, and
the pale skin that had tempted his gaze to search out what he was certain would
be a lacy bra beneath her top. Closing his eyes, he groaned. This whole mission
had disaster written all over it.

But that was just it—disaster wasn’t just a
broken heart or hurt feelings. In his line of work, disaster meant injury or
even death. Darren Kirk was a menace in the shadows, a man out for vengeance,
who didn’t care if innocents got hurt along the way. He was a real threat, and
Gene had to stay sharp. He couldn’t afford to think with his dick for the next
few weeks.

Seducing Summer was definitely off the
cards.

“Coffee, ma’am?”

Callie smiled at the flight attendant.
“Yes, please. With milk and sugar, thanks.”

She glanced at Gene, sitting in the seat
next to her, daring him with her eyes to say something about how pernickety she
was with her coffee, but although he raised his eyebrows at her, he didn’t say
anything.

It was Monday morning, and they were on a
flight to Dunedin, at the bottom of the South Island of New Zealand, about to
start their tour of the country.

Friday had been busy, filled with
finalizing their plans, as well as tying up any loose ends with the business
before she left. To be fair, Gene had been invaluable. As he’d promised, he was
efficient and organized, and he’d dealt with a couple of last-minute
emergencies calmly, a perfect PA.

She still found him a little unnerving,
though. In some ways, he was easy to read, and his reaction to her Holmesian
deductions had told her she hadn’t been far from the mark. He seemed to respect
her business and her role in it. But on a more personal level, she wasn’t sure
what he thought of her. Occasionally, a look glimmered in his eyes like the
flash of a coin on a riverbed—quite what it was, she couldn’t be sure.
Admiration? Desire? And for a brief moment, she’d think maybe he liked her.

But then his seriousness would wash it
away, and his eyes would appraise her coolly, the shutters coming down to
shelter him from her searching gaze. When he was like that, he had a way of
looking at her that made her think he found her foolish. He was only thirty-one—okay,
nearly thirty-two—and she was twenty-six, so hardly a kid, but sometimes she
felt the way Emma must have felt when Mr. Knightley scolded her for being rude
to Miss Bates.

He was doing it now, because she’d accepted
the cup of coffee, lowered it onto her tray, and then promptly knocked it as
she opened the stick of sugar, spilling a quarter of the liquid.

“Give me your serviette,” she said crossly.

“Would you like a bib, too?”

“Because you never make a mistake, Mr.
Perfect.”

He chuckled and handed her his serviette,
and, adding it to her own, she mopped up the mess.

“Don’t look at me like that.” She cleaned
the last few drips, conscious of his gaze on her.

“Like what?”

“Like I’m your brother’s toddler you’re
supposed to look after who’s embarrassing you in public. I’m a grown woman who
runs a business, thank you very much. I’m not hopeless.”

“Hmm.”

She decided to ignore that. “Well, now
we’re finally alone, you’ll have to tell me some more about yourself.”

“Will I?”

“Yes. We can’t go the whole trip without
talking.”

“That’s a shame.”

“Gene…”

He sighed. “What do you want to know?”

“Tell me about your family.”

“Parents still alive, one brother.”

She waited for more. When more obviously
wasn’t coming, she nudged him with her elbow. “Come on.”

“What?”

“Jeez. It’s like getting blood out of a
stone. Where do your parents live?”

“In Wellington.”

“Brother younger or older than you?”

“Younger.”

“What’s his name?”

“Freddie.”

“As in Mercury?”

“As in Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly. Mum’s a
big fan of old Hollywood musicals.”

At last, she was getting somewhere. “What
does he do? Did he go into the Army too?”

Immediately, the shutters came down again,
his smile fading and his tone turning clipped. “No. He’s an accountant.”

Hmm, he didn’t like talking about the Army.
Was it because of his injury, or something else that happened there?

She couldn’t ask him yet—he’d just clam up.
Instead, she’d have to steer the conversation to other things if she wanted to
get him to talk. “You never did answer me when I asked you what her name was.
The ex who was a strident feminist.”

“No, I didn’t.” He sipped his coffee.
Clearly, he didn’t want to talk about her, either.

His reticence was frustrating, but it also
told her more about him. People had reasons for not wanting to divulge details
about themselves. Opening up, even a little, made people vulnerable. It exposed
them to criticism and comment, to being judged, and to being hurt. Something
had happened to Gene in the past. He’d been terribly hurt, maybe more than
once, and because of that he’d sealed himself in a concrete shell that he was
determined not to let anyone breach.

He pulled his iPad out of the pocket in
front of him, apparently determined to shut her out.

She turned toward him in her seat. There
was something so intimate about plane journeys. His upper arm and thigh pressed
against hers. She could smell his aftershave, and see how neat his sideburns
were up close, carefully shaved into a small rectangle to the base of his ear. His
jaw was clean shaven. He had a small mole on his neck just below his earlobe.
She wished she was brave enough to lean forward and kiss it.

“I’ve just thought,” she said, “I forgot to
arrange a car in Dunedin.”

“I did it. Don’t worry.”

“Oh. Thanks.” She watched him for a moment.
“What are you reading?” she asked.

“A thriller.”

“By whom?”

He sighed. “John Grisham.”

“I love Grisham. I read
The Runaway Jury
and got hooked after that.”

“Yeah, I liked the theme of that one,
stitching up the tobacco firm.”

“Do you mainly read thrillers?”

“Mostly, but I’ll read anything.”

“I like psychological thrillers, mainly.”
She watched him lower the iPad to his lap, but didn’t comment. “And detective
stories. Things I have to puzzle out.”

“That makes sense. I bet you love Sherlock
Holmes.” He smiled.

“I do! Conan Doyle rules. And I love
Cumberbatch’s portrayal of him. Have you seen the
Sherlock
series?”

“I have. All of them. And the movies.” He
tucked his iPad back into the pocket of the seat.

So, he was comfortable talking about some
of his interests. “I’d die without my TV,” she admitted. “I don’t sit in front
of it all the time, but I do love movies and series especially. I’ve been
watching
Game of Thrones
, and
Mad Men
, and a Danish thriller
called
The Bridge
.”

“I’ve seen it. Thought it was brilliant.”

They continued to talk for a while about
movies and series, then moved on to music. He didn’t volunteer much about
himself and she had to pry most of it out of him, but it was a start, anyway.

They stopped while the flight attendant
topped up their coffee cups, and they each accepted a cookie in a packet.

“So why are you single?” Gene asked out of
the blue. He opened his packet and took a bite out of the cookie.

“Oh, so you won’t tell me anything about
yourself, but I’m supposed to tell you my life story?”

He grinned, apparently having warmed up a
little after their conversation. “Fair enough.”

“Ah, well, the difference between us is
that I don’t mind revealing a little of myself.”

His eyebrows rose.

“I meant I don’t mind revealing some
details about my life. I’m not about to strip for you on the plane.”

“I didn’t say a word.”

“You didn’t have to.” She suppressed an
inner shiver at the mischievous smile that curved his lips for a moment.
Beneath the somber exterior was a rather naughty man, she was beginning to
suspect. What fun. It would be interesting to see if he made more of an
appearance over the next few weeks.

She nibbled at her cookie. “I was living
with a guy up until about four months ago.”

“Oh?”

“His name’s Jamie. He works at Te Papa—he’s
a historian, and he acquires artifacts for the museum.”

“Sounds like a good job.”

“Yeah. We dated for a few years, then
finally decided to move in together at the beginning of last year. I thought it
was going well, and then…”

Suddenly, the cookie stuck in her throat,
and she had trouble swallowing. Why was she telling Gene about this? She didn’t
like talking about Jamie to anyone, not even Neve and the others, although
maybe that was worse because they’d known him. Their comments when she’d broken
up with him had told her that they had seen right through him in a way she’d
been blind to while she was living with him.

She’d finished her coffee, and so she
accepted Gene’s cup gratefully when he held it out to her, and drank until
she’d dislodged the lump in her throat.

“Sorry.” She handed him back the cup. “I
keep thinking I’m over him, and then I realize I’m not quite there yet.”

She waited for him to say,
You don’t
have to talk about it if you don’t want to
, or something similar to put her
off showing emotion, because he didn’t seem like the kind of guy who’d be
comfortable with a blubbering girl.

“What happened?” he asked. He frowned,
concerned, and his eyes were gentle. He wouldn’t make fun of her.

“I came home early from work one day and
found him in bed with his secretary.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah. It would have been shocking even if
we hadn’t been getting on, but I hadn’t suspected anything at all. I thought we
were doing well, that he loved me. I was half-expecting him to propose.” Shame
filled her, and she concentrated on lifting her tray and fixing it with the
latch to the seat in front. “I felt such an idiot. Still do.”

Tears pricked her eyes, and her throat
tightened again. She clenched her jaw. She wasn’t going to cry, not on the
plane, not in front of Gene, not ever again about Jamie.

They fell quiet for a moment while she
struggled with her emotion. Music was playing in the plane, mixed with the hum
of conversation, but she felt as if the two of them were in a bubble, isolated
from everyone else. Gene’s quiet manner was oddly soothing, like Aloe vera for
her soul.

After a while, he shifted in his seat.
“Angela,” he said.

“What?”

“That was her name. My ex.”

Callie held her breath for a moment. She
sensed this was very unusual for him, to talk about himself. “Oh.”

“I met her about a year after I came out of
the Army. We lived together for a few years. But… it didn’t work out.”

“Why not?” she prodded gently.

He swirled what was left of his coffee in
his cup. “She felt I wasn’t fully committed to the relationship.”

“Did you cheat on her?”

He looked startled. “No! Of course not.” He
blinked a few times, the hard look in his eyes disappearing, as if he’d
realized that although the accusation might have sounded insulting, Callie’s
experience had led her to jump to that conclusion. “I wouldn’t do that,” he
said.

She was certain that this upright,
honorable soldier wouldn’t, but then she’d been wrong before, and no longer
felt she could trust her own judgement where men were concerned. “So why did she
think you weren’t fully committed?”

“Women like to talk,” he said, and smiled.
“And I was worse than I am now.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. She felt I was hiding something.”

“Were you?”

He hesitated. “I wasn’t keeping terrible,
dark secrets from her. But I didn’t see why I had to explain every thought that
passed through my head. Some memories, or feelings, are private, upsetting, or
traumatic. Why should I want to share those?”

“If you didn’t want to, it’s a shame she
pushed you. Everyone is entitled to their privacy. But it’s a natural fear that
if your partner’s keeping quiet, he or she is hiding something.”

“I guess.”

“So you broke up?”

“I could feel the relationship crumbling
around me like a Roman wall. I didn’t want to break up with her, but I couldn’t
seem to do anything about it. I couldn’t be what she wanted. Eventually, she said
it was over and moved out.” He sipped his coffee.

“Do you see a therapist?” Callie asked.

His eyebrows lifted. “About Angela?”

“About the war. About what happened to
you.” She gestured at his hip. Most of the time, his limp was unnoticeable, but
occasionally he moved stiffly, as though it pained him.

“No,” he said. “And I don’t want to.”

“Fair enough. But sometimes shining a light
in those deep recesses of the mind can banish the shadows. Fears are like
mushrooms—they only grow in the dark.”

His lips curved up. They studied each other
for a moment.

“I’m sorry your ex cheated on you,” he
said. “I don’t even know the guy and I want to smash his face in.”

“Aw. Thanks.” She liked his protective
streak. Kind of like a big brother.