Nobody but Him (7 page)

Even from across the street he couldn’t take his eyes off her. Which is why he realised something wasn’t right. She looked overcome, with her eyes squeezed tightly closed and her hands jammed into the pockets of her big coat. She wasn’t moving, seemed glued to the spot outside of the fancy shop with big blue pots in the window. Even at that distance he could see the rise and fall of her chest, as if she was trying to catch her breath.

Instinct overcame reason and history and good sense and, without thinking, he stepped off the footpath and onto The Strand, and was almost collected by a fast-approaching Volvo to his right. With a curse under his breath and an adrenalin rush, he pulled up, stepped backwards out of harm’s way and returned the grim look the driver shot at him.

There was a pause down the line. ‘Ry? Are you still there?’

‘Must be a bad line. Where did you say you were?’

The second time he crossed, he was more careful, making sure to look both ways, before ducking between cars to reach Julia. He found himself standing right in front of her and when he looked at her up close, a wave
of resignation and regret swamped him. The woman he hadn’t seen in fifteen years still got him right where it hurt. That mysterious place somewhere between the neck and the gut that he didn’t have a name for, but when it ached, it felt like hell.

And there she was, completely oblivious to the fact that he was standing there. God, she was still as beautiful as he remembered, her cascading brown curls framing her face, her skin — so soft and pale — was anchored by high cheekbones, her lashes lay full and long on her cheeks.

Had he thought about Julia in all those years? Too many times to count. Usually late at night, in the quiet dark, when there was too much time to think about all the what-ifs in his life. Sometimes in the morning when he woke up alone and wondered what his life would have been like if things had turned out differently. When he’d bought the pub. When he walked the Middle Point beach. Every time he looked up at the dazzling night sky, studying once again the stars he’d only ever seen with her.

He was caught out.

Julia opened her eyes and gasped. Her full lips parted as if she was about to speak, then she hesitated, caught herself, and simply stared right through him. Like he was a complete stranger.

Ry reached a hand up to rub his chest. There was that ache again. She was looking at him as if they’d never met or seen each other naked.
Fuck
. Ry wanted to slap himself across the head.
Don’t think about her naked.
It was way too late for that now. The images were right there, like a photo. And if he couldn’t stop thinking about her naked, there was no way he could do anything about the long, slow trip his eyes took down her body, from her caramel eyes past her big old woolly coat to the tips of a pair of unbelievably sexy leather boots.

The voice in his ear reminded him he was still on the phone. To Amanda.

‘Yeah, I’m still listening.’ His gaze lifted to Julia’s stormy eyes and flat-line mouth.

And then he tuned out again, letting the bullshit float right over his head. As she moved to go, turned her shoulder to step past him, he acted without thinking.

‘Listen, Amanda. I’ll call you back,’ he said as his hand snapped out to grab Julia’s arm.

‘JJ.’ He could feel the deep freeze set in, even through her coat. But she
stopped anyway, looked back over her shoulder with a kind of elegant disdain.

‘Yes?’ Her voice was colder than the wind that blew up from the bay.

And then he didn’t know what to do next. All that thinking about sex and her being naked had blown a hole in his anger. Hell, fighting with her hadn’t made him feel any better about the fact that she was back in town. And, despite his behaviour on her front doorstep the day before, anger wasn’t his default position anyway.

‘Look, Julia. This is a small part of the world. We’d better figure out a way to deal with this.’

‘This? There is no this.’

‘I mean running into each other,’ he said, and even he could hear the frustration in his voice.

Julia lifted her chin. ‘Well, it’s lucky for both of us that I don’t live in this small part of the world anymore, so you don’t have to worry that this will ever happen again.’

Ry could feel the tension flare in his jaw and a tightness emerge right on his breastbone. He knew that tone of hers, had heard it once before, aloof and arctic. Fifteen years ago. The day she’d broken his heart and walked out of his life.

He let go of her arm but took a step closer so he could look down right into her eyes. With his body language, arms crossed in front of his chest, his head angled down to look at her, he demanded her full attention. The closer he was, the higher she had to look up, and he got the killer view that had always driven him crazy. That mouth. Those plump, pink lips had always been full of sass and sweetness and were still so damn sexy he wanted to take her right there. Like he had on her doorstep the day before.

This shit had to stop. So he pulled back. For a long moment they stood there, playing out a game of emotional checkmate on the footpath of The Strand. Neither wanted to be the first to move, to give in, to surrender. It was stubborn at fifty centimetres.

Until Amanda’s grating voice drifted from behind the slowly opening door of Stella’s shop and Ry broke his gaze first.

‘He just hung up on me, Mum. I don’t know what’s going on.’

When Ry’s eyes shifted, for a mere half a second, at the sound of Amanda’s voice, Julia spun around. The sound of her boots beat a confident rhythm on the footpath as she walked away from him without an
other word.

‘There you are.’ Amanda’s possessive fingers gripped his shoulder and she rubbed her body close to his, like a cat. ‘Is everything all right?’

Ry watched Julia’s hair dance on her shoulders as she disappeared into the weekend crowd.
No. Not all right. Everything’s fucked up totally, but thanks for asking.

‘Everything’s fine.’ He managed a smile at Amanda’s mother, Annie, who was watching them both with way too much interest. ‘But I’ve found you both now. How about that coffee?’

* * *

Julia was scrubbing the shower cubicle in her mother’s bathroom like a maniac, almost woozy from the amount of cleaning fluid she’d squirted around the cream-coloured tiles. She was proud of herself for finally making a start on the place. It needed an industrial-strength clean, given the house had been empty for twelve months. There were still a few dead spiders to collect from the raggedy webs in the corners of the living room ceiling and a scattering of tiny dead ants in the laundry, but she hadn’t got around to most of it yet. She’d been too busy filling in at the pub, catching up with Lizzie, fighting with Ry and trying her best to stay away from the handsome jerk.

Oh yes, this was excellent stress-diversion therapy, Julia realised and wondered why she hadn’t begun the cleaning aspect of this program sooner. Back in Melbourne she had a super-efficient Greek lady who arrived every second Wednesday and made her old cottage gleam. It made life bearable, especially after pulling fourteen-hour days at the office dealing with the crisis
du jour
. Coming home to a sparklingly clean home was one of life’s pleasures, she’d decided. No one else’s dirty clothes were ever dropped on the floor. The only dirty coffee mug in the sink was hers. She could watch what she wanted, when she wanted. That was her Melbourne life and she loved it.

Middle Point didn’t have a monopoly on handsome jerks. There were plenty in Melbourne, too, she could attest to that. But none were quite so handsome as Ry Blackburn. On the jerk front, he was still out there, way in front too. She couldn’t believe he’d grabbed her arm, right there on the street, pretending everything should be nicey-nicey between them, when
his wife was a mere ten feet and a shop window away. He’d been on the phone to her, but that hadn’t stopped him from looking at Julia like she was dinner and he was half-starved.

So he wasn’t only a handsome jerk, he was a sleazy jerk as well.

Julia grabbed the bottle of cleaning liquid, flipped it upside down and squirted it with both hands until it started making farting noises. She stared at the huge white splodge on the tiles before attacking it with both hands, scrubbing furiously until the scourer wore through.

Middle Point was too small. She’d known that all along which was why she’d left in the first place. Now that Ry was back in it she had to get out of the place. For her own sanity.

The next morning, Ry ran harder and faster than he had in months, pounding the sand from Middle Point to Goolwa and back. He’d pushed himself until his quads ached and his running gear was soaked through with sweat. His doctor had told him that exercise was a stress reliever, but when he got home he was more wound up and tense than when he set out an hour earlier.

He could barely think about the night before. Dinner with the Winters had been unbearable. They were nice enough people, David especially, but Ry felt like a freight train was heading right towards him and that he didn’t have the guts to jump out of the way. When the subject of dinner came up, he’d tried to convince them to head over to the pub again for their last night in the Point — he’d joked that he could always get the best table — but they’d insisted on staying in. David had spent an inordinate amount of time fussing over the fireplace, going through almost an entire box of matches, before finally getting the logs roaring into crackling life just as Amanda’s dinner was ready to be served. She’d taken over the kitchen as if she was the lady of the house. The intent wasn’t lost on Ry. She’d spent the whole long weekend trying to insinuate herself into his life, as if this was a trial period and she didn’t want to be returned for the money back guarantee. All that pressure pushed down on him like tropical humidity and he wanted to escape into the night, filled as he was with a polite but confirmed sense of panic. Unfortunately it was kind of hard to escape when it was your house, so he’d gone up to bed early, pleading a big week ahead and an early run. Doctor’s orders, he’d said. Amanda
hadn’t tried to argue with that, which was a relief. But sleep hadn’t come easy. It had been fitful and restless and he’d tangled in the sheets most of the night. When he closed his eyes, all he could see was Julia.

A glance at his sports watch revealed it was seven a.m. and the night-time quietness was still settled over the house.
Thank Christ for that. They’re still asleep.
The fresh sea air did that to people. It seeped into your lungs and your bones and helped you drift off to an easy and lingering slumber.

Yeah, except for him. Ry toed off his wet, sand-covered running shoes at the front door and left them there. He padded in his socks across the wooden floor to the stairs and then up to his bedroom on the mezzanine. With every step, there was a new ache in his legs and in the deep muscles of his arse. He needed a hot shower. Then coffee. Then peace and quiet.

A minute later, he was standing under the steaming spray of a sparkling stainless steel tropical showerhead, hot droplets rinsing through his hair and over his aching jaw. The previous owners had spared no expense on the house and, at that very moment, as the soothing hot water sluiced over his shoulders and ran in rivulets down his aching legs, Ry was glad they’d over-extended themselves and been forced to sell the place, lock, stock and barrel, in a fire sale. Some people’s misfortunes always turned into someone else’s good luck.

Ry let his eyes drift shut, trying to let the repetitive sound of the water against the tiles lull him into a peacefulness he wanted desperately to feel. He turned to face the taps, lifted his arms and flattened his palms up high on the wall, stretching out some of the tension in his shoulders.

Which was when the unmistakeable sensation of skin on skin shot through him. Two tightly budded nipples were teasing their way up his back and a pair of French-manicured hands snaked around his waist.

What the fuck?

‘Good morning handsome.’ Amanda’s voice was in his ear but her fingers were doing most of the talking, trailing a slow but unambiguous journey down his belly to his … Ry quickly looked down … oh no they weren’t. He grabbed her hands before she got to anything important and spun around to face her, spluttering water and curse words into the spray.

Holy shit.
She was naked. With a body straight out of a men’s health magazine. Willing. Dripping wet. And looking at his dick with clear intent.

‘Jesus, Amanda …’ he finally managed. She stepped closer, a thigh nudging between his legs, forcing his back up against the cold tiles. There wasn’t much room to manoeuvre between the metal taps digging into his kidneys and her firm breasts pressing insistently into his chest.

Talk about a rock and a hard place.

Not hard, no. Don’t think about this being hard.
No fucking way.

Amanda’s eyes flicked down to her wrists, encircled in a fierce grip by his strong fingers. She licked her full lips. ‘You want it rough, Ry? Interesting. I’d never have picked you for one of those guys. But I’m up for it.’

Christ alive.
This had to stop right now. Ry gritted his teeth. Her parents were about twenty feet away and … yes, think of her parents. Ry let out the breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding in.

‘Amanda. Stop.’ He released her wrists from his grip and turned the taps off. For a fleeting second he thought about leaving the cold one on at full force and aiming it right at her. Instead, he turned and manoeuvred past her, trying not to rub against her as he did, before grabbing a big white towel from the rail and hurriedly wrapping it around his waist. He pulled another from a shelf by the hand basin and handed it to Amanda.

‘Here. Put this on.’

Amanda considered it for a moment, then let it drop to the floor. She propped one hand up against the open door, the other on her cocked hip and gave him an admiring once over.

He couldn’t help but notice that she was in killer shape, if you liked
that sort of thing. Slender hips. A flat stomach, her breasts high and round. Long, long legs. This would be so much easier if he wanted her, if he felt any vague interest at all. Ry planted his fists on his hips and tipped his head to the ceiling, trying not to look at her while he figured out exactly what to say.