Caitlin's Hero (2 page)

Caitlin both loved and hated to remember those times she lost control. She’d heard that masturbation was a normal human need, but it didn’t make her feel any less uncomfortable with her own actions.

Seeing him in such a state of near nakedness
didn’t
help. Shaking off her silly, girly fantasies, her stomach fluttering in response to her wilful thoughts, Caitlin stepped onto the block and did a graceful racing dive into the water. For the first few laps she tried to find her rhythm, reprimanding herself for her body’s response to the man by chanting a mantra over and over in her head. “I don’t have time for men, I don’t have time for dating, I don’t have time for men, I don’t have time for dating…”

Previous forays into the dating scene hadn’t filled her with much confidence. These so-called dates were nothing but a bunch of octopus-limbed disappointments who seemed to think buying her a drink, or dinner, gave them the right to grope her at will. Just the thought had Caitlin angrily pounding her arms into the water.

* * * *

Brodie James was tired. Not sleepy, but that bone-deep, weary kind of tiredness that made you feel as if you were dragging yourself through life. He was feeling all of his thirty years at the early morning recovery session.

Yesterday’s game had been a hard-fought grind, ending disappointingly in a loss for Brodie’s Sydney Jets. Brodie’s battle-
fatigued
body reminded him painfully of every tackle and knock it had taken. It wasn’t just the game, though. Brodie could not pinpoint what it was that was making him feel so old and
jaded
. He was living the dream. This was the life he had worked so hard for. He was playing rugby league at the top level.

Brodie had lived and breathed rugby league from the time he could hold a footy. He was good—some even said the best. Brodie didn’t go much for that sort of talk, though. He was successful, sure. His thirteen years at the top level were testimony enough. He had captained his club, state and country, and earned a good living doing what he loved. What more could he want?

Maybe that was exactly the issue. What more did he, Broderick Patrick James, want from life?

Just thinking about it gave Brodie chills, and that wasn’t because he was waist deep in a swimming pool. These recovery sessions were just a part of the routine that was Brodie’s life. He had to contend not only with his aching muscles, but with the antics of his younger teammates as well. Full of the exuberance of youth, these pups were good at riding him about his age. They respected him, though, despite their good-humoured cheek, and they were keen to learn all they could from him.

As his teammates laughed and horsed around, Brodie’s attention was drawn elsewhere. She was here again. Brodie had seen her swimming laps at the pool many times. Something about the way she walked, or stood, or swam
caught
his attention. Maybe it was
how
her elegant arms seemed to effortlessly slice through the water.

He had watched, fascinated by the way that, no matter how hard she tried, she never completely managed to corral that red mass of curls under her swim cap. There were tendrils always haphazardly poking out. He wanted to tuck them away for her just so he could feel their texture. He wondered what her hair would feel like up against his chest—a bad move on his part. His body had an immediate reaction to the sexy thought, forming an
ill-timed
lump in the front of his tiny swimming briefs.

Brodie was shocked at this physical response. He had been with his fair share of women. Not lately, though. Lately he just hadn’t really bothered. He could never tell, these days, if the many offers were made due to his high profile.

That thought reminded him of the big mistake—his now failed marriage. At first, Lila had seemed to be every man’s dream. She’d said all the right things about wanting a family and the normal trimmings. It wasn’t long, though, before Brodie had realised that what Lila said and what she actually meant were two entirely different things. Lila had wanted everything she could get. The memory of her was enough to remove that tight feeling in his trunks.

Sighing, Brodie took one last look in the direction of his redhead’s swimming form as her arm lifted and curled back towards the water’s surface. A glimpse of shiny metal caught his eye as it
flew from
her wrist
to
plop right into the water next to her. It looked to Brodie like a gold bracelet
.
She went on swimming, unaware of what had just happened. Without another thought, he ducked under the lane rope and swam towards the spot, diving to the depths of the pool in search of the lost piece of jewellery.

Chapter Two

I’m not getting into a rhythm today
.

Caitlin scowled to herself. Her mind just wouldn’t stop. She didn’t know how to slow down the relentless wave of disaster that seemed to have swallowed her life since the tragic loss of her mother and stepfather in a car accident twelve months ago.
L
ife had taken an abrupt change of direction that day, as the welfare of her ten-year-old half-brother was thrust into her care.

 
The memory was still
so clear in her mind. She had rushed home after university to sit with Riley, so her parents could go out and celebrate their tenth wedding anniversary. The police crash investigation had concluded
that her stepfather’s car had been speeding when he had lost control, crashing into a telegraph pole and killing them both instantly.
The end result had been that she and Riley were alone.

The next few months had been full of problems and tough decisions. With no life insurance and not much in the way of savings to help them, Caitlin and Riley had been forced to sell their family home. After paying out all legal and funeral costs, there was enough money left over for them to buy a small, one-bedroom flat in an old, majestic house in Ashfield, an inner western suburb of Sydney. The once opulent home had been converted into four apartments—two ground-floor garden flats and two upstairs flats, complete with French doors leading onto their own verandas.

Caitlin and Riley had settled into their new home as best they could. Riley slept in the bedroom, sharing closet space with his sister. Caitlin slept on a foldout
sofa bed
in the living room, which she made up every night and packed away again in the morning. The kitchen was large, with space for a small dining table and four chairs. The bathroom housed a beautiful clawfoot bath, pedestal sink and toilet, and there had been plenty of room to add a washing machine and dryer as well. The best feature of the new home was the large windows. Starting from nearly the ceiling line, they fell to a few feet from the floor. They were finished with deep stone ledges, perfect for sitting on to read, or just to gaze out onto the gardens.

Caitlin had shelved plans to finish her Bachelor of Music Performance since she’d had to find a way to support her
diminished
family. She was lucky to have befriended June, the pensioner living in the other ground-floor apartment. The old woman, also alone, had filled the role of adopted granny in Riley’s life. June was happy to spend time with Riley when Caitlin was working and, in return, Caitlin drove June to the shops and to appointments. Caitlin was thankful she had been able to purchase her
compact
green Daihatsu to run everyone around.

Finally coming to the realisation that she wasn’t enjoying her swim, Caitlin abruptly stopped mid-lap. Thinking maybe a hot shower and cup of tea would work better this morning, she started to climb the rungs of the ladder to exit the pool. As she reached up to grab the handrail, she noticed her bare wrist with horror.

Her heart stopped. The bracelet that had once belonged to her mother—given to her by Caitlin’s biological father, a man Caitlin had never met—was missing.

“What else can go wrong in my life?” she whimpered to herself. “I’ve lost my mum and now my bracelet.”

Brodie found the bracelet on the first dive. It sparkled up from the bottom of the pool as if waiting for him. Grabbing the little gold links in his hand, he pushed back up to the surface. He made his way to the side and, in one smooth movement, lifted himself from the water and sat on the pool’s edge, where he watched the bracelet’s owner continue swimming, unaware of her loss.

Some of his teammates had stopped to watch Brodie. JT shouted out to him, a question he didn’t quite catch. Brodie just waved at them in such a way to suggest that all was okay as he waited for his chance to return the bracelet to its beautiful owner. Brodie
watched as
the girl abruptly stopped swimming and headed
over to
the ladder, as if she was about to exit the pool. He jumped up and started towards her.

As she climbed the rungs of the ladder he saw her hesitate and look at her arm. Brodie could
tell she was becoming agitated.
Her eyes
took
on a wild look and her face, already a beautiful, pale, porcelain skintone,
appeared
to go even paler. Not liking to see her in such distress, Brodie almost ran the remaining distance between them. When he finally reached her, she had turned her back to him—ready to dive in, he guessed, to begin a search. Brodie reached out and placed his hand on her shoulder to stop her.

“Excuse me, miss. I believe you lost this while you were swimming.”

Brodie held up the bracelet in his free hand at about her eye level. As if in slow motion, she turned towards him. She looked at his hand as he offered up the gold trophy, then her eyes met his. Brodie felt as though he had been hit in the chest with an impact harder than any
rugby league
opponent had ever delivered.
His
breath was knocked from his lungs as he gazed into the biggest, deepest emerald-green eyes he had ever seen. It was as if they burned deep into his soul.

It was then that the most unexpected thing happened. As Brodie stood, mesmerised, she actually leapt onto him, throwing those elegant arms around his neck, encircling his large frame with her long legs, all the while raining small kisses down his jaw. Hell, his cock sprang to life immediately as she pressed her impressive breasts, with pebbly nipples, into his bare chest. Over her head, in the distance, he could see JT and the rest of the team stare, open-mouthed.

She spoke—she was almost sobbing. “Thank you! Oh, thank you. You are my hero. You don’t know how much this means to me!” She emitted little breaths that teased his skin.

Brodie, not wanting her to stop, didn’t move. He wanted to embrace her so badly. The heat from her skin was electrifying and he felt so alive, as if every nerve had reawakened. He felt brand new.

Just as he had made that incredible discovery, the woman wrapped around him went stiff. She
gasped
and disengaged from him. He felt the loss immediately, as if someone had flicked a switch and taken away his soul. He just stood there like a big, stupid statue.

Her face had gone a beetroot red. Snatching the trinket from his hand, she hugged her arms around her body as if to hide it from view. But as he dragged his eyes from
her wet-dream-inducing figure
to her face, he could still see the look of desire in her eyes. She took off like a jackrabbit, running away in the direction of the ladies’ locker room.

Brodie just stood there, trying to breathe again, as he watched her cute little behind move away from him, her long legs eating up the ground quickly. Brodie thought she looked nearly as good from this angle. Those round globes of her sexy backside made his hands itch with longing. He could almost imagine the soft
skin
against his palms.

He wasn’t sure how long he stood there, but eventually felt a towel being shoved in his face. Brodie heard the sound of a familiar chuckle, and his mate Jon Thomson—JT—spoke.

“Hey, Cap, I think you had better wrap this around you, or jump back in that cold water before you get arrested for indecent exposure.”

With that, his mate actually pushed him, towel and all, into the water. Brodie felt the chill from the pool on his throbbing erection as he hit the surface hard.

* * * *

Caitlin was shaking as she leaned against the shower stall wall and went back over what had just happened. What on earth had possessed her to jump all over him? One minute she’d been
full of
despair and gloom over the loss of her beloved bracelet, the next, she was in the arms of none other than
him
. She had actually thrown herself at the man and latched on.

Her arms and legs were still tingling from the touch of his skin. As she had wrapped her limbs around him, she’d noted how masculine his body was. It had invoked a feeling so foreign to her, she’d felt as if her body were some sort of chocolate that had just melted on him. It had felt so good and natural, as if that was what
she
had been waiting for.

Sexually, she
had certainly responded. Her nipples were still so hard they were almost too painful to touch. She was wet and throbbing between her thighs
, s
o hot and bothered, but most of all, embarrassed. Maybe the strain of the last year had been too much for her and she was actually in the throes of a nervous breakdown. She sighed to herself.

My goodness
. What must he have thought of her as her traitorous nipples poked him in the chest and she all but molested him poolside? She groaned at the thought. Someone as gorgeous as him could have his pick of women, and had probably been embarrassed by her outrageous behaviour. He would surely think of her as just some silly girl. The man had not moved a muscle—not one. Maybe he was used to women literally throwing themselves at him. Suddenly it occurred to her that Riley and his friends might have seen her acting so disgracefully, and she felt sick with worry.