knocked a hip against the side of the boat, and began to topple—
From there everything happened in slow motion—Jonah’s leap over a bench, his canvas shoes landing on the slippery deck then sliding him towards her. He reached for her hand, grabbed, caught, and dragged her back to safety and into his arms.
Her hands fisted into his shirt, the scrape of nails through cotton hooked his chest hair, pulling a couple right from the roots. At the sharp tug of pain, he sucked in a breath. And her eyes lifted swiftly to his. Those odd mismatched eyes. Seriously stunning in such an otherwise quiet face.
“Seriously?” he growled. “I’m going to start thinking these moments are all for my benefit.”
She gave him a shove. Strength in those lean arms. “Seriously?” she shot back. Then heaved up a hunk of her skirt, flapped it at him accusingly and shot him a look that said that if she had the superpower, she’d have set him on fire. “All that I know is that thanks to you, I’m soaked!”
“Stick around here, princess, and chances are you’re gonna get wet.”
She opened her mouth...but nothing came out. Instead high spots of pink burned into her cheeks creating hollows beneath her elegant cheekbones, pursing those kissable lips, and bringing wild glints to those eyes. Not such a quiet face after all. “Maybe next time you decide to go all He-Man, try not to rip the victim’s arm from its socket.”
She rubbed her arm as if to prove as much, only bringing his attention to the fact that her skin was covered in goosebumps. With the temp edging into the high thirties, that was some feat. Only one other reason Jonah knew for a woman to go goosey when locked in a man’s arms...
Testing his theory, Jonah leaned an inch her way, caught the intake of breath, the widening of her eyes, the fresh pink staining her cheeks. Seemed Miss Yankee Doodle Dandy here wasn’t as unaffected by him as she was making out.
She swallowed and shoved, with less oomph this time. “Oh, go peddle your He-Man act to someone else for a change.”
“No one else seems to need it.” The fact that nobody else had ever brought out the urge he kept to himself.
Yeah, he’d heard the chatter since he’d come home; heard himself called hell-bent, a lone wolf. But the truth was even before that, as a kid with all the freedom in the world, he’d known he could count the people he could truly depend upon on one hand. He was glad of that instinct now. Less chance he’d make the mistake of counting on the wrong someone again.
And yet, with this one, it took someone else to wrench him away.
“Mr North?”
Jonah turned to find one of his staff standing in the doorway, wringing his hands, swallowing hard, as if his head might be bitten off for disturbing the boss.
“Sir,” said the kid, “we have a Code Green.”
“Right.” Awesome. He’d asked the crew before they’d taken off to grab him in the event of any major incidents so that he could watch any of the new policies and procedures in action. Code Green was otherwise known as Puke Patrol.
“I’ll be there in a sec.”
The kid disappeared so fast into the salon he practically evaporated. Leaving Jonah to turn back to Avery, whose eyes were locked onto his chest.
“Twenty minutes till touchdown, Avery,” he said.
She blinked, looked up, then pinked some more. He’d never much been one for girls who blushed, but it suited her. Took the edge off her sharp tongue. Heaven help the guy who fell for one before he was witness to the other.
“You might want to get out of the sun. Get something to drink. Complimentary sunscreen’s inside. Whatever you do, get something between you and the big blue. One of these days I won’t be around to save you.”
Not intending to stick around to see how that went down, Jonah slipped inside.
It was a little under twenty minutes before Green Island came into view: a sliver of land on the horizon that grew into a small atoll of forest-green with a long crooked jetty poking out into the ocean. The cruiser slipped through the reef to park and the passengers staggered off; some clutching snorkels ready for a close encounter with tropical fish, others planning to head straight to a bar.
Jonah caught a flash of orange out of the corner of his eye and turned to find Avery now with a huge sunhat covering her face. Lifting her long dress, she stepped onto the gangplank, her shoe caught and she tripped. Jonah near pulled a muscle in an effort not to grab her. Chin tilted a mite higher, she walked steadily along the jetty, where all sorts of adventures awaited.
Adventures...and dangers. Things happened to tourists all the time—swimming too far, diving too deep, getting knocked off by ingenious spouses.
“Avery!” he called.
She turned, surprise lighting her features. “Yes, Jonah?”
She knew his name. A thick slide of satisfaction washed through him—then he remembered the Code Green. Down boy. “Take care.”
She blinked, those odd eyes widening, then softening in a way that made him want to howl at the moon.
Hence the reason he added, “Don’t get eaten.”
The next look she shot him might as well have said, Bite me. But when she realised they had an audience, she found a sweet-as-pie smile, and said, “Oh, don’t get eaten. Thanks for the advice. I’ll keep it in mind.”
And he found himself laughing out loud.
With a frown and twitch of her mouth, she disappeared into the crowd.
Leaving Jonah to use the respite to remind himself that despite the lush mouth, and the bewitching eyes and the rich vein of sexual attraction she’d unearthed, he didn’t much like her.
Because he’d known a woman like her once before.
He hadn’t realised why Rach had stood out to him like bonfire on a cloudy night from the first moment he’d seen her until it was too late. Turned out it was because despite her attestations that a sea change was exactly what she needed she’d never left the city behind enough to really fit in. Too late by the time he’d seen it to stop her leaving. Too late to convince himself not to follow. Until he’d woken up in Sydney, cut off, miserable, realising what he’d given up for her, and that he’d lost her anyway.
Returning to Crescent Cove after that whole disaster had been hard. Returning to find he no longer quite fitted in the place he’d been born had been harder still. He’d had to remake his life, and to do that remake himself. As if the cove had needed a sacrifice in order to take him back, in order to make sure he’d never take her for granted again.
So no, for however long Avery Shaw flitted about the periphery of his life she’d mean no more, or less, to him than a pebble in his shoe.
Because this time his eyes were wide-open and staying that way. This time he wouldn’t so much as blink.
Jonah
