rapped again on the door, his knuckles connecting with the wood just above his shoulder. ‘Claude.’
Still no answer.
Luke looked back at his feet and rubbed his toes together to displace the sand. A fine sprinkling of gritty powder dusted the thinning, aged carpet with its palm-tree print that had graced this hallway for as long as he could remember.
As a kid roaming around the resort he’d never been without sand between his toes. He’d rarely even noticed it, for ever being chided by his mother for tracking it into the suite. He’d loved it back then.
But like everything else today, it bugged him and he leaned down with his fingers to brush it all off. His phone buzzed in his pocket and he rubbed his hands together to remove the last trace of sand before quickly answering the text.
A pair of work boots filled his vision as he hit send and he glanced up to find Jonah looking down at him dangling a key—yes, they still had real bona fide keys at the Tropicana, of course—from his fingers.
‘This might help,’ Jonah said. ‘And if you tell Avery I gave it to you I will deny everything.’
Luke put the phone away and took Jonah’s offering. It was the keys to the Mai Tai. He smiled. ‘Thank you.’
Jonah and Luke had been friends a long time so when he reached out a hand Luke grabbed hold gratefully and let Jonah haul him to his feet. ‘Don’t screw it up,’ Jonah warned before retreating.
Luke made his way next door and slid the key into the lock. For twenty years the Davis family and the Hargreaves family had not only run the resort but lived right next door to each other. Somehow, miraculously, they’d made it through twenty years in business together and still come out as friends. Even choosing to take their trip of a lifetime together.
Luke stepped inside the suite, which looked more worn and shabby around the edges than ever. A familiar smell of old carpet, starched linen and the hibiscus air freshener that was synonymous with his childhood embraced him. He’d grown to hate that smell as his desperation to see the big wide world had grown more intense, but today it was soothing to ragged nerve endings.
He must be tired.
He glanced at the big king-sized bed covered in its colourful Hawaiian-style bedspread and was surprised by the overwhelming desire to leave Claudia alone as she’d requested and get some much-needed sleep. Tackle her when he could count on more than two functioning brain cells. But that solitary tear played in slow motion through his head and he placed temptation firmly behind him as he stalked to the connecting door.
A long-forgotten memory made Luke hesitate before sliding the key into the lock. When their parents had run the resort, the door was never locked. In fact it was usually left chocked open. On a hunch, he just reached for the handle.
The knob turned and the door opened.
And there, dead ahead, on a matching king-sized bed, lay Claudia, all curled up and very definitely bawling her eyes out. She was crying so hard and so loud, he didn’t think she’d even heard the door swing open.
Hell, it sounded as if she were crying for Australia and going for gold.
Another spike of guilt drove a stake right between his eyes. Crap. He hesitated before he crossed the threshold into her room but what the hell? He’d come this far.
The curtains that matched the bedspread were pulled back and the balcony doors were thrown wide, admitting the magnificent tropical view. A cool ocean breeze tickled at the open neck of his shirt as he tentatively edged inside, and felt heavenly against his sweaty skin.
‘Claude?’
Claudia almost leapt out of her skin as Luke’s deep, rich voice reached straight into the middle of her misery and yanked her out by the roots of her hair. She sat abruptly, her tears temporarily forgotten.
‘Jeez,’ she said, her hand clutched to her rocketing heart, ‘are you trying to scare me half to death?’
Luke stalled where he was, holding up his hands at the frightening sight of a puffy-eyed, wild-looking Claudia. Her hair was half in, half out of her ponytail, the loose bits clumped together into some kind of bird-nest-like creation, her nose and cheeks were red and she was surrounded by piles of well-used tissues.
‘Sorry...I didn’t mean to startle you.’
‘Who gave you a damn key?’ Claudia demanded, ignoring his apology. ‘No, don’t worry, it was Jonah, wasn’t it? Bloody traitor.’
Luke took a tentative step closer. ‘I just wanted to see if you were okay,’ he said, avoiding selling out Jonah.
‘Do I look okay?’ she snapped.
Luke shook his head. She looked as if she’d been dragged through a hedge backwards. She looked angry and sad and tired.
She looked defeated.
And that probably kicked him the hardest. Claudia was a glass-half-full kind of girl.
‘Oh, just go away,’ Claudia groaned as the fright wore off and the surge of adrenaline mixed with her already precarious emotional state to make her feel even more edgy and vulnerable. Emotion clogged her throat and the hot scald of tears pricked at her eyes again.
She fell back against the mattress, resuming her former foetal-ball position. ‘Just let me cry in peace,’ she said, dragging another tissue out of the box.
Luke was torn between leaving and not having to listen to her cry and staying put, being some kind of emotional support for Claudia. Or trying at least.
Neither prospect thrilled him.
But the part of him that had run barefoot through the resort with her and swum with her in the ocean just across the pathway and played hide-and-seek with her amidst the resort gardens won out.
He shut his eyes, sending up a brief plea to the universe that she wouldn’t jab him in the ribs or knee him somewhere a little lower as he moved around the other side of the enormous bed and climbed on.
Claudia frowned as she felt the bed give behind her. She looked over her shoulder as Luke approached on his hands and knees. ‘What are you doing?’ she demanded.
‘I’m doing what I should, according to Avery, have done down on the beach. I’m going to hug you.’
Claudia blinked and swallowed against another threatening tide of tears. She gave an inelegant sniffle. ‘If you hug me I’m just going to cry harder.’
Luke chuckled at her husky threat as he settled in behind her, slipping his arm around her waist. ‘I guess that’s probably kind of the point.’
Claudia’s breath caught at the light tease in his voice and she looked away from him, turned to face the doorway over the other side of the room. Her back was all smooshed against his front—his big, broad, hard front—his breath was a warm caress at her neck, the slight scrape of stubble skating delicious shivers to dangerous places.
She shut her eyes, her heart racing now for an entirely different reason. How many hot, fevered dreams had she had as a teenager about exactly this? Lying with him like this?
