Temporary Intrigue (15 page)

A series of expressions chased themselves across her face. He saw shock, followed by resentment and, damn it, hurt. That slight tremble in the lower lip he had noticed before now tugged at his emotions and caused him to berate himself silently.

He’d been feeling so relaxed with her that he’d spoken his mind without thinking, without remembering there were liberties he had no right to take.

Not yet, at least.

“I’m sorry.” He spoke quickly. “That was totally out of line. I just meant – ”

He stopped. He’d only be making it worse if he said it riled him that she seemed to think Shane and Leigh deserved medals for actually getting off their butts and doing something for her.

“Forget it.” She nodded towards an approaching waiter. “We’d better decide.”

“Right.”

From a quivering wreck she had morphed seamlessly into a woman of steel. He eyed her warily while they made their selections. After the waiter filled their water glasses and left, Dimity propped her elbows on the table and turned her head sideways, apparently engrossed in the movement of boats on the harbour. Josh fingered his glass, watching her.

“Look,” he said at last with a wry grin, “can we take it from the top again?”

“Might be an idea.” Her smile was more polite than friendly, but at least it was a smile.

He hesitated. Small talk seemed to have deserted him. Why not cut straight to the chase and deal with the issue hovering like an icicle between them.

“I guess I haven’t had much to do with Shane’s type of problem,” he said, feeling his way carefully.

“It’s not an easy thing for him to live with.” She sounded slightly more relaxed, he was relieved to note.

“How did he lose the foot?”

The waiter materialised again with cutlery.

“A car accident when Mum was taking him to baseball training,” Dimity said when he had gone. “Mum was killed and Shane’s foot was so badly injured it had to be amputated. He was only eight.”

Josh winced. Behind her matter-of-fact tone he sensed something of the family’s grief and terrible disruption.

“I’m sorry. I can’t begin to imagine – how old were you?”

“Thirteen.”

“Your father never remarried?”

“No. I think he had the occasional girlfriend but he didn’t bring any home. He worked in sales and travelled a lot. I guess he’d been used to Mum coping at home, and assumed I could do the same.”

Josh watched the waiter put a basket of bread rolls on the table.

“Didn’t you have relatives who could help?”

“No. Mum and Dad were both the only children in their families, and all our grandparents died before we were born.”

Thinking of family gatherings in Canada with grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins virtually hanging out the windows, Josh again found his imagination failing.

“So who looked after you both when your father was away?”

She shrugged, glancing at the harbour again.

“We managed. I’d always been pretty good in the house and Shane liked cooking.” To his surprise she chuckled suddenly. “On paper it looks pathetic, but we really had a lot of fun on our own.”

“Your father left you on your own? Two kids of that age?”
And one of them probably needing constant medical attention.

There he went again. Comparing her situation with his own secure childhood it was hard to suppress his shock, but he made a belated effort to sound detached rather than critical.

“Interesting. I’m not sure that would have been legal in Canada.”

“I think it was probably a bit dodgy here, too. So sue us.” She grinned at him, but he heard the edge behind the words. He offered the bread and they watched a group of small boys at the end of the wharf playing a noisy game that involved leaping into the harbour water, swimming to the side, climbing up a ladder built into one of the piers and leaping off again.

“Dad was a salesman, with a big region to cover, so sometimes he was away for a couple of nights,” Dimity said at last, “but he usually made it home at weekends. Looking back, I suppose it’s lucky we didn’t get into trouble of some sort but Shane was too young to go anywhere on his own so I was able to keep an eye on him.”

A larger than usual splash from the romping boys drew her attention. She smiled, watching them, her arms resting on the table.

She had small, delicate hands, the nails tinted a light pink. The sunlight showed up a small scar on her right forearm that he had not previously noticed.

Turning her head suddenly, she caught him watching.

“What?” Her tone was half apprehensive, half challenging, as if she thought he was still mulling over her criminally neglected childhood. But her eyes seemed held to his as if by some invisible tie between them.

He felt a faint smile curving his lips.

“I was wondering when I’m ever going to see you without battle scars.”

She lowered her eyes quickly, brushed her bruised face with a hand and flushed.

“I decided to wear it with pride. The alternative was to have Sandy do a make-up job on me.”

“And we’ve seen the results of that,” Josh agreed straight-faced.

That unexpected gurgle suddenly escaped her. Josh grinned, glad of the easing of the tension.

“Was that an accident too?” he queried, nodding casually at the scar on her arm.

She stiffened again. Uh oh. He’d relaxed too soon. He opened his mouth to change the subject, but she spoke first.

“One of those kid things. Shane was fooling around with a carving knife when he was ten or eleven. I tried to take it from him but he didn’t want to give it up. He didn’t mean to hurt me.”

Feeling his eyes narrow, Josh looked at the harbour as if squinting in the sun. To his surprise, Dimity continued.

“I know it’s ugly but I decided long ago I wasn’t going to spend my life trying to hide it.”

Seeming to move of its own accord, his hand reached out and covered hers. It was, as he had already noted, small and delicate, so small it disappeared under his. It was also soft, warm and apparently a conduit for a series of breathtaking impulses that shot up his arm without warning and fanned out instantly through the rest of his body.

“It’s not ugly at all,” he said when he could speak.

She stared down at his hand, under which hers hadn’t moved. Surely she had to be feeling something too. Those throbbing signals couldn’t be travelling one-way – could they?

With faultless mistiming, the waiter arrived with their meals.

Josh increased the pressure slightly then let go, trailing his fingers deliberately across the back of her hand and fingers as he did so. He wanted to absorb every iota of those totally disturbing but very enjoyable impulses and, to tell the truth, he wanted to see if she was feeling them too.

She wouldn’t meet his eyes. Examining her meal, taking a sip of water, picking up her knife and fork, glancing at the harbour, she was busy looking everywhere except where he wanted her to look.

Annoyed with himself, he refilled their water glasses. His instinct had told him to keep this casual, but here he was, as inarticulate as a keyed-up teenager on a first date, just because he had held her hand.

While she was obviously finding the prawns on her plate far more interesting.

****

He’d touched her before, but not like that.

Dimity hadn’t known the impact of flesh on flesh could be so shocking. Literally. If he hadn’t released her when he did, she would not have been able to resist the compulsion to turn her hand and return the pressure, wrap her fingers around his, stroke the lean but muscular wrist exposed by the shirt sleeves rolled, as usual, halfway up his forearms . . .

She grabbed her glass and gulped a quick mouthful of water.

It was stupid to react that way to a friendly gesture. But she couldn’t look at him until she was sure she had her emotions under control.

She chewed without tasting, watching him spike a piece of pasta with his fork. His other arm rested on the table. Dimity eyed the long fingers and reached suddenly for her glass again.

“Where did you grow up?” she asked.

He seemed happy to talk about his childhood in Toronto. Glad to have found a safe topic, she listened to an entertaining rundown on his family life.

“Mainly skiing in winter, fishing and boating in summer,” he concluded, pushing the remainder of his meal aside. “A couple of my sisters and their families still go back to the same places. I go along when I can.”

“It sounds wonderful.” She could picture him with children, teaching them to fish and sail, romping with them in the water.

After a slight pause they began to speak simultaneously and stopped.

“After you,” he said.

“I was going to ask if your sisters and brother are all married.”

A faint shadow crossed his face.

“My brother has a steady girlfriend and two of my sisters are married, but the middle one, Kate, is going through a tough time. She’s been with a guy for a year, but his ex-wife is still very much on the scene, calling him whenever she has a problem. Kate has decided she can’t handle that.”

Dimity nodded sympathetically.

“I don’t blame her. There’s only so much baggage a person can take on, especially when an ex is involved. A couple of my friends have had the same thing happen.”

There was another pause. Despite Kate’s predicament, Dimity couldn’t help envying her. It must be good to have a brother who cared so much about her problems.

“What were you going to say?” she asked at last.

“Mm? Oh – did you get away on holidays at all when you were growing up?”

Thinking of her own shoestring teenage years compared with the type of childhood he had described, Dimity chuckled.

“Nothing elaborate, but there are plenty of beaches around Newcastle and they don’t cost anything. We used them a lot in summer.”

“Yes, it’s a great area.”

Coffee arrived. Dimity noticed Josh stirring his slowly although he hadn’t put any sugar in it. Probably wishing himself back in the office. Almost certainly regretting that he’d wasted an hour of his day in her company.

“How was the pasta?” she asked when she couldn’t stand the silence any longer.

“Great.” He toyed with his spoon, then met her eyes. “But the prawns looked even better. Remind me to try them next time.”

Next time?

S
omething turned a crazy cartwheel in her stomach.

Even though trillions of volts were zapping through her with an effect that was practically painful, she managed to hold the eye lock.

“I’ll do that,” she said.

He dropped his eyes first, glancing at his watch.

“I suppose we should think about making tracks soon.”

The lack of enthusiasm in his voice did nothing to dampen her spirits.

As far as she could remember, there hadn’t been one mention of business, either.