The Marriage Merger (2 page)

“Miss Martin. Jinx.” A hand was shaking her
shoulder. She tried to open her eyes but they seemed to be glued
shut. And her brain wouldn’t function, it was coated in treacle and
cotton wool and weighed a ton like her body.

From a long distance she could hear a deep
male voice telling her to wake up. With a great effort she forced
her eyes open. Braden Fleetwood was bending over her, urging her to
her feet. The frown was back on his face and she felt a niggle of
annoyance that it was again directed at her. She pushed groggily
upwards, swayed, and would have fallen but a strong arm wrapped
around her and a warm hand rested against her ribs, just below her
breast.

The jolt that shot through her body at the
intimate contact jerked her awake. She pulled away.

"I'm sorry ... it's been a long trip ... I
don't normally fall asleep like this ..." She realised she was
babbling. "If you could call me a taxi?"

Strong white teeth bit into his bottom lip as
though trying to stop his thoughts from vocalising. In unconscious
reaction, Jenna's tongue tipped her teeth and her mouth half moved
in anticipation of how those lips would feel on hers.

An emotion Jenna couldn't decipher flared in
his eyes, the blue flecks magnified, and his voice came out almost
as a growl. "There's a spare bedroom here. You're too tired to go
looking for a motel. Tomorrow I'll arrange for a lift back to
Brisbane for you."

Jenna started to protest, but he picked up
her suitcases and walked up the hallway. She debated arguing with
him but antagonizing Jeff's boss didn't seem like a good idea, and,
after all, it was only for one night.

"Jeff would never forgive me if I didn't look
after his kid sister." He remarked dryly as he opened a door and
switched on the light. He moved just inside the doorway and Jenna
had to walk close to him to get passed. A magnetic field seemed to
surround him judging by the crackling of electrical tension Jenna
felt as her shoulder brushed his arm. Disconcerted, she quickly
pretended to look over the room - rich cream walls, dusky apricot
carpet, built-in wardrobes with mirrored doors, a pale timber
dressing table and matching bedhead on the double bed.

Braden put her luggage down.

"When you're ready I'll make you something to
eat."

As he closed the door Jenna dropped her
handbag on the bedside table. A great wave of tiredness swept over
her again. She stretched out on the bed. Oh, what bliss! After the
cramped confines of the plane to be able to stretch out was sheer
heaven. She closed her eyes, promising herself just a minute or two
of rest before dealing with the situation she now found herself
in.

She knew Jeff admired his brilliant boss, but
the very disconcerting way in which she had responded to his touch
made her wary about accepting his offer to stay. He was too
attractive by far, and she certainly didn't need any complications
in her life right now. She yawned. Just one more minute of rest
...

CHAPTER TWO

Where was she?

For one awful panic-stricken moment Jenna sat
bolt upright in the bed trying to make out anything familiar in the
semi-darkness. A sigh puffed her cheeks as memory and embarrassment
returned. If Braden Fleetwood needed proof that she was Jeff’s
gawky sister she had certainly provided it by falling asleep on his
lounge and then not even being steady enough on her feet to stand
up unaided. And now she realized she must have been asleep for
hours. The light had been turned off, her boots removed, and a
light throw placed over her.

Braden! She remembered his earlier amusement
- he must have positively smirked when he had to take her boots off
and cover her like a child. She felt a burning resentment that the
competent, capable adult she knew herself to be had been viewed in
his eyes as a bumbling adolescent who couldn’t even confirm travel
arrangements with her brother or stay awake long enough to maintain
her dignity and escape to a motel for the night.

Memories of her adolescence flooded back. She
had started growing tall when she was ten, and her arms and legs
had seemed to develop a will of their own, knocking into things
that weren’t even in the way, tripping over obstacles a kitten
could have avoided. She was in a constant state of embarrassment,
her face flamed with red that matched her startling hair.

When she was thirteen she had walked into the
lounge room late one night and in the dark had knocked over a vase.
The resulting crash brought her father bounding out of bed in time
to catch sight of Jeff and his girlfriend hurriedly gathering their
clothing off the lounge and racing for the door. From then on Jeff
had called her “Jinx”, at first in retaliation for the trouble he
was in with their parents, and then as an affectionate
nickname.

She tried to tell herself it didn’t matter
what Braden Fleetwood thought of her but it wasn’t true. She found
the man very attractive, in spite of what appeared to be a scowl
overload.

In the moonlight filtering through the
vertical blinds she was able to see her watch. Two o'clock.
Something must have caused her to wake so abruptly, but there was
only the soft sigh of the breeze and the muted sound of occasional
cars in the distant street. She turned on the bedside lamp and
looked around.

At first she thought she must have imagined
it. A child’s sob. No, there it was again, floating on the breeze
through the bedroom window. She walked over and peered through the
blind. Through the surrounding courtyard she could see the lights
of high rise buildings and houses in the hills beyond.

The sob came again. A pitiful, shuddering sob
that tore at Jenna’s heart. This time she could orientate the
sound. It was coming from the room next to hers. She waited for
someone to come and comfort the child. A minute or two passed and
the sobs intensified. Jenna started to worry. She had always had a
soft heart, especially where children were concerned. Why was the
child being allowed to continue crying like that?

Jenna padded back to the bed and sat down.
More minutes passed. Still the crying continued. Now she was
getting very concerned. Surely someone could hear the child? Her
patience, an ill-controlled virtue when she suffered from jet lag,
snapped. She strode out of the room, blinked in the darker hallway,
waited until her eyes adjusted, then walked into the adjoining
bedroom.

But for two single beds replacing the double
bed, the bedroom was a twin of the one she had just left. A small
body lay curled on a bed in a tight ball, only the deep shuddering
sobs moving the rigid back.

Jenna bit back her cry of compassion. Her
footsteps silent on the thick carpet, she walked over to the bed.
She leaned across and stroked the dark hair, making soothing,
hushing sounds learnt from her own mother. The child’s sobs
gradually lessened.

Suddenly the child drew sharply away and sat
up, reaching for the bedlamp. As the soft glow outlined the child’s
face Jenna could make out grey eyes similar to Braden Fleetwood’s.
His daughter? Jenna tried to think, but she had no memory of Jeff
having mentioned that Braden was married.

The thin face pinched in fear. Jenna’s heart
contracted. Poor little thing, she must wonder who this stranger
was coming into her bedroom in the middle of the night. In one
gentle movement, Jenna sat on the edge of the bed, placed her hands
in a non-threatening gesture on her lap, and smiled.

“It’s all right, Possum. I heard you crying
and I was worried. I didn’t mean to startle you. I used to cry in
my sleep when I was little, too,” she said softly.

At this shared secret the small face relaxed.
The grey eyes, luminous with tears, looked beseechingly into
Jenna’s. Even a heart of stone would have melted at the sadness in
such young eyes, and Jenna’s heart had been marshmallow from birth.
She held out her arms. The child hesitated, then, as though unable
to bear the burden of being alone any longer, she collapsed against
Jenna, the slight arms holding onto her with fierce
determination.

Gentle, comforting words spilled from Jenna’s
lips while her hands soothed the thin body. Poor child, so much
torment. Jenna’s instinct and training told her that this display
of despair was more than a normal upset.

The girl was only slight in build but Jenna
judged her to be about four or five years old. She felt a surge of
anger at Braden Fleetwood. How could he not have heard the girl
crying. And what had happened to cause such pain to one so young?
All Jenna’s protective instincts raged against the man who had
apparently allowed this situation to occur.

Gradually she became aware that the child’s
body was lying heavily against hers, the thin arms dropping away
from her waist, her breathing was soft and regular against Jenna’s
breast. She eased the slight body back against the pillows, then
tenderly brushed the dark hair from the tear-stained face. She
turned off the lamp, waited a few more minutes, still gently
stroking the small forehead, then tiptoed from the room.

It was a swift, powerful dive. It took Braden
more than half-way along the pool length. He surfaced, flexed his
tense shoulder muscles, then relaxed into the strong measured
strokes of a thousand ritualled mornings. He cursed the smallness
of the pool, his body craving the more intense workout he gained in
the larger pool at his Brisbane apartment.

The steady rhythm gradually eased the
frustration the last week had brought. After Caitlin’s last
disastrous meeting with her mother the doctors had urged him to
give her a change of environment. Perhaps a change of scenery, new
faces, new things to keep her mind off her mother would help ease
the child’s traumatized emotions. Braden doubted that.

What the girl needed was a mother who could
look at her with acceptance and joy, not with guilt and anguish.
But he did as the doctors had advised. Luckily the work that had
arisen in Sydney had been an ideal excuse for getting Jeff out of
the penthouse so he could move Caitlin out of Brisbane.

He frowned as he ploughed through the water.
It hadn’t worked. The girl had become more withdrawn,
uncooperative. The doctors had warned him if she didn’t do her
exercises the damage caused in the accident would become permanent.
But try as he might to explain this to her, his cajoling, his
promises of treats had made no difference. She allowed him to move
her thin little body around but she refused to put in the effort
needed to make the exercises a success.

He had hired a physiotherapist but the child
had shrunk away, allowing no-one but Braden to touch her. Each day
his frustration level grew. Heaven help him, he wasn’t very good
with children, but he loved her and it broke his heart not to be
able to help her.

Yesterday his housekeeper, Mrs Jenkins, had
received word that her daughter had undergone emergency surgery.
Her departure couldn’t have happened at a worse time. He had to go
back to Brisbane today. He had a meeting that was crucial to the
development of one of his companies' holdings in south-east Asia
and there was no way he couldn’t be there. Which left him no
alternative but to take Caitlin with him and have one of his
secretaries look after her for the day.

Even this solution would present problems -
Caitlin had become afraid of strangers. When he took her anywhere
she clung to him like a limpet, her expressive eyes showing the
fear of rejection he knew she anticipated. Which was why he could
see no point in contacting the employment agency for a replacement
housekeeper. Caitlin had only accepted Mrs Jenkins because she had
always known her.

Well, at least he’d be able to give Jeff’s
sister a lift back to Brisbane Airport. That was another problem he
hadn’t needed yesterday. Jeff was a good employee, and Braden
genuinely liked him. They had worked closely together at times and
on business trips had socialized, though Jeff had never tried to
take advantage of their burgeoning friendship, a fact Braden
appreciated and approved of.

Jeff’s only problem was he liked women - and
they liked him. Three of them had come looking for him this week,
the last one crying when she’d been informed Jeff was gone and not
likely to return. By the time Braden had calmed her and bundled her
into a taxi he had lost patience with Jeff’s love life and was
quite prepared to physically throw out the next female to turn up
on his doorstep.

So when the sight of the curvaceous
auburn-haired stranger in his doorway caused a reactive jerk in his
groin, his frustration had erupted in anger, an anger that had him
disgusted at himself for feeling aroused by one of Jeff’s
girl-friends. That she had turned out to be Jeff’s sister was
worse.

The image that had been left with him by the
photo in Jeff’s wallet and the tales Jeff had told under the
influence of a few drinks had no resemblance to the woman whose
eyes had caught at his soul and left him breathless. Eyes so
exactly the colour of a clear ocean on a sunny day he felt he was
drowning in them. And her voice had a slightly husky timbre that
sent shivers of desire up his spine.

When he had steadied her after she'd fallen
asleep on his lounge he’d had to forcibly restrain his hand from
creeping upwards to the temptation of her full breast. And when
he'd covered her with the throw, her blouse had fallen to the side,
and at the sight of creamy skin swelling from a lacy bra desire so
intense he couldn't control its effects had erupted through him. It
was a long time before he was able to get to sleep.

A movement at the side of the pool caught his
eye. As though his thoughts had conjured her up, Jenna walked over
to the high railings surrounding the perimeter of the penthouse
courtyard.