remotely sexual about the gesture—the sex, she told herself sternly, was all in her own mind—but that didn’t stop her body temperature hiking up several notches. This entire weird overreaction was probably all part of the winding-down process. After the last few months that wasn’t going to be an overnight thing.
‘Realistically I don’t suppose there’s much chance of anyone coming along here.’ A cooling-off period was urgently required, so she allowed her eyes to drift around the rather bleak landscape before coming to rest once more on his face.
‘I did.’
‘It’s probably lucky for me you did.’ She didn’t think she’d been in any actual physical danger from the journalist, just the sort of unpleasant scene which she would much rather avoid.
Lamb to the slaughter, Josh marvelled as she looked up at him oozing trust and lack of suspicion. He ought to be feeling pretty pleased with how things were going, but somehow her trusting disposition was irritating the hell out of him.
‘I wouldn’t want you to risk indecent exposure charges.’
Flora’s eyes widened, a hard laugh was wrenched from her throat. ‘Wouldn’t they have loved that!’
‘Pardon…?’
Flora gathered her wits. Small wonder he was looking at her blankly. ‘It’s a long story.’
‘And none of my business.’
Flora flushed, aware that at the first hint of the conversation growing remotely personal she had automatically reverted to cool disdain. ‘Actually it’s not something I want to talk about.’
‘And I’m a stranger.’
‘But a very kind one,’ she told him warmly. She couldn’t understand why his handsome face hardened.
‘And if I wasn’t—if I was a dangerous, marauding lone male with evil intentions—you could deal with me…right?’
Flora laughed a little uneasily and tried not to notice the way her stomach lurched when she visualised how it might feel if that horrifying scenario were true.
‘But you’re not alone, you’re with Liam…you’re a father.’
‘And being a father places me above suspicion…and temptation?’ He silently reviewed the lists of world-class baddies who’d been doting dads, but resisted the impulse to point out the obvious flaws in her argument. ‘I must admit I’ve never quite looked at it in that way before. I’m overcome by the confidence you place in me.’
Flora didn’t think he sounded overcome, just irked. Perhaps even happily married men preferred to think they could still be considered dangerous.
‘There’s nothing wrong with being domesticated,’ she told him kindly. Actually she didn’t think half a dozen kids could make this particular specimen appear domesticated. She was a sensible, mature woman—mostly—with her feet firmly on the ground, and even her stomach showed a dangerous tendency to go all squidgy when she looked into those hooded silvery eyes.
‘And it’s nothing to do with paternity as such.’ She frowned earnestly. ‘Don’t you ever just get a gut feeling with some people that you can trust them?’ She closed her mouth with an audible snap…where the hell did that come from?
Squirming with humiliation, she gazed at the dark colour that stained the sharp, high angle of his achingly perfect cheekbones. Now I’ve embarrassed him—small wonder! You don’t go around telling total strangers you have gut feelings about them—gut feelings suggest a degree of intimacy! He probably thinks I’m making a pass at him or something. It was true about the gut feeling, though…
Josh broke the awkward silence. ‘Liam’s been cramped in the car all morning; he needs a chance to stretch his legs.’ To her relief he was acting as if she’d said nothing out of the ordinary. ‘If you want to change I’ll keep an eye out for coach parties.’
‘Well, if you’re…thanks…’
Josh kept one eye on his son who was building a tower with the stray rocks he’d gathered and the other on the wing mirror of his four-wheel drive, which kept him up to date with the state of play of Flora’s contortions in the back seat of her small car.
Now wasn’t the time to be worrying about the general scumminess of such behaviour. He couldn’t afford the luxury of scruples if he was going to make Graham pay. He was going to hit him where it hurt and Graham’s Achilles’ heel was his daughter—he adored her. The moment Josh had seen the interview of the two of them together he’d known that this was the way to make him pay. As for the girl, she hadn’t even been willing to admit her father had done anything wrong. As always when he needed reminding of why he was doing this, he brought the picture of Bridie’s sweet, laughing face to mind—or he would have if what was going on in the car hadn’t distracted him.
Any travellers seeking a respite from their journey at that moment wouldn’t have been treated to the sight of Flora’s underwear. She wasn’t wearing any—at least not from the waist up, which was the bit he could see. Her breasts were fairly small, pointed and high. They bounced energetically as she stretched upwards, pulling a thin cashmere polo shirt over her head. With a muffled curse of self-disgust Josh tore his eyes away.
Who was he kidding? This had nothing to do with revenge; it was pure voyeurism. That was bad, but not so bad if all he’d wanted to do was look!
He heard the sound of her feet on the rough ground but didn’t turn around. He watched as Liam carefully selected a stick and knocked down the tower of rocks he’d so lovingly constructed.
‘I worry about his aggressive instincts sometimes.’
‘I wouldn’t, it’s perfectly normal,’ Flora comforted. She smiled as the youngster laughed out loud before he started to rebuild his destroyed creation. ‘I’m sure you did the same.’
‘No, my brother Jake built them and I knocked them down, then he knocked me down. These days people pay him a lot of money to build things and nobody knocks them down.’
‘He’s a builder?’
‘No, an architect.’
‘And what do you do?’ She bit her lip. ‘You don’t have to answer that—once I get into interrogation mode there’s no stopping me,’ she babbled in embarrassment.
‘So what does that make you?’ He responded to Liam’s pouting plea by producing a sweet from his pocket. ‘Only one,’ he warned before handing it over. ‘A police woman…?’ he suggested, straightening up from his crouched pose and brushing his hands against the seat of his well-worn denims.
‘No, a solicitor.’
‘Pity…’
She looked enquiringly at him.
‘I’ve always had a soft spot for a girl in uniform.’
His smile and the way her heart started to beat wildly filled her with panic. ‘Is Liam an only child?’ A swift diplomatic change of subject was urgently required.
Josh didn’t reply straight away; when he did his grey eyes held
