swore loud and hard. That was what his trip to Africa had been about—wanting to do something positive rather than negative, helping rather than hurting, making someone’s life a bit better rather than a bit worse. He’d needed to feel that he could make a difference in a good way instead of a bad one.
Letting Kit walk away was making a difference in a bad way. He’d done enough damage where she was concerned. He had no intention of adding to the score.
He scattered the contents of his in-box across his desk until he found the file he wanted. He tucked it under his arm. ‘Tell Donald he’s still in charge,’ he shot at Phillip as he strode from his office. He punched the button for the elevator … twice … three times. ‘There’s something I need to take care of.’
Phillip did his best not to gape. Kit would’ve stood, hands on hips, and demanded to know where he was going, what time he’d be back and what he expected her to tell all his appointments for the day. Alex shot into the elevator before Phillip could ask him anything so unanswerable. All of those answers depended on Kit.
Alex double-checked the file that lay open on the car seat beside him, and glanced again at the house opposite. There was no doubt about it, this was the address. This was where Kit now lived.
He frowned. It was a far cry from her stylish one-bedroom flat in French’s Forest. That building had been all square blonde brick with a couple of well-trimmed hibiscuses out the front. This wasn’t anywhere near as well-ordered. This was … messy.
Paint peeled from weatherboards, and one end of the tiny veranda sagged. What lawn there was needed cutting. Shrubs grew willy-nilly in the front garden. Most of it was obscured, though, by the enormous bottlebrush tree on the front path that was so laden with red blossoms it sagged beneath their weight. It took him a moment to realize the hum came from the bees in that tree rather than his shock.
Kit’s talents would be wasted in this two-horse town.
He’d researched Tuncurry on his phone at a roadside restaurant a couple of hours back. Apparently it was a seaside township purportedly inundated with holidaymakers in the summer, four hours north of Sydney. A glance at his watch told him he’d been on the road for five hours.
Five hours? He hadn’t even had the sense to pack an overnight bag. He dragged both hands back through his hair. He didn’t even have a plan.
He did know the outcome he wanted, though. For Kit to return to Hallam Enterprises.
He pushed out of the car and straightened his tie. All he had to do was the right thing. He had to make things right for Kit again so she could go back to the job she loved. End of story.
The gate squeaked when he opened it and the wood and wire fence swayed when the gate slammed back into place behind him. The door to the house stood wide open, but nobody appeared at his first knock, or his second.
He hesitated, then opened the screen door. ‘Hello?’
The room was empty—unlived in empty. No furniture. No people. He was about to holler another hello when a door at what he guessed was the back of the house thudded closed and a few seconds later Kit came tripping into the room wearing faded jeans, a navy-blue singlet top and with her hair scraped back into a ponytail. He cleared his throat. She swung to him and froze in one of the shafts of sunlight that came streaming in through the front windows.
His stomach hollowed out. Dear Lord, she was lovely. A sense of regret stole through him, giving him the strength to push his shoulders back. ‘Hello, Kit.’ He took two steps into the room and let the screen door close behind him.
‘Alex?’
Two lines creased her forehead. He had an insane urge to walk across and smooth them out.
‘What on earth are you doing here? I thought you’d ring or email, but … ‘
The sound of a truck screeching to a halt outside had her glancing behind him. ‘You’ll have to excuse me for a minute.’ She shook herself, dusted off her hands. ‘It sounds as if my new furniture has arrived.’
She moved past him and out to the veranda to wave to the truck. She smelled of soap and fresh cotton and she barely spared him a glance. He surveyed the room in an effort to distract himself from the way her jeans hugged the curve of her hips, at the memory of how his hands had traced those curves and how she’d—
His heart started to pound. He gritted his teeth. He glanced to his left, guessing the hallway that opened off there led to the bedrooms and bathroom. Given the proportions of the outside of the house, he’d guess there would be two bedrooms.
The mundane calculations helped settle his heart rate.
Kit half-turned in the doorway, not quite meeting his eyes, and smiled as if he could be anyone. ‘How was Africa?’
‘Amazing.’ He found himself suddenly eager to tell her all about it. He knew she’d appreciate it, that she’d understand. He opened his mouth to find she’d already swung away to greet a burly man with a clipboard.
‘Delivery for Mercer?’
‘That’d be me,’ Kit said with a smile that held genuine warmth, and Alex’s stomach dropped. Kit didn’t want to hear about his trip. And there was no conceivable reason on earth why she should be glad to see him.
‘Do you need a hand?’
The burly man glanced at Alex, took in the suit and tie and shook his head. ‘We’ll be right, mate. We do this for a living.’ He turned back to Kit. ‘Just tell us where you’d like the stuff.’
Bemused, Alex watched as Kit indicated where she wanted the dining table and chairs—in the small part of the L-shaped living room, which he discovered adjoined the kitchen with a door that led out to the back garden.
‘I want the dresser there, the sofas here and here, and the entertainment unit against that wall.’
‘Rightio. Oh, and the boss was really sorry the delivery was delayed so he sent someone to install those shelves you ordered.’
‘That was kind of him. I want them on that wall there.’
She indicated an internal wall and Alex had never felt more like a third wheel in his life.
She turned to look at him again. And again those two lines creased her forehead. ‘We’ll um … be out the back if you need us.’
‘No probs.’
Kit hitched her head in the direction of the back garden and Alex followed. Her back garden wasn’t any neater than the front. A row of haphazard azaleas bloomed along the fence to the right. A banksia stood sentinel at the back fence while, to the right, a giant frangipani stood wedged between the back of the house and a garden shed, threatening to push them both over. Some patches of the lawn were more sand than grass.
Kit, however, didn’t seem to find anything wrong with the place and she certainly wouldn’t care what his opinion of it was either. That much was evident.
‘Are you just passing through, Alex, or is there a purpose to your visit?’
Her ponytail bounced as she knelt down in front of a Cape Cod chair, picked up a piece of coarse sandpaper and
