been a mother to me, and I can’t and…’ Her voice trailed off. It was the biggest dream of all, wasn’t it? A home and family of her own.
It was Anne’s turn to try and provide distraction. ‘We’ve got each other,’ she said stoutly. ‘And we’ve both got amazing careers. Now, tell me all about this job with the train.’
‘It was unreal. It’s been all over the Sunday papers here. I’ll scan the articles and email them to you.’
‘Please. But tell me about it first so I won’t have kittens when I see the pictures.’
‘OK.’ This was good. Anne’s career was so much part of her, it was inseparable from who she was. Julia needed to be more like that. So passionate about her career that anything else got at least a slightly lower priority. Things like relationships. That ordinary kind of family unit she’d never had herself as a child and could never create for any children of her own.
She was a survivor. She’d already survived being orphaned as a young child, hadn’t she? And a brush with cancer that had led to a hysterectomy at the age of twenty-two, for heaven’s sake. Life couldn’t throw anything at her that she couldn’t handle.
‘We got the call about 2 p.m.,’ she told her sister. ‘And when we spotted the target, I really couldn’t believe what I was seeing…’
Chapter Four
THANK heaven for uniforms!
If she didn’t have a uniform to put on, Julia might have had the entire contents of her admittedly meagre wardrobe strewn over her bed this morning, thanks to a bad dose of what could only be described as ‘first date’ nerves.
She hadn’t seen Mac for two days.
Two days of worrying about how it would be when they saw each other for the first time in the wake of that kiss.
Two nights of reliving said kiss and her imagination hadn’t held back in exploring what might have happened if they’d been somewhere other than an open car park. Or if she hadn’t pulled away and then done her best to dismiss the moment by cracking a stupid joke about it.
The night time was manageable. Private. A guilty but irresistible pleasure.
It was the day time workings of her overactive imagination that was causing the nerves. So many scenarios had presented themselves. The worst was an awkward coolness between herself and Mac that everyone would notice and would make working together a misery instead of a joy.
At the other end of the spectrum, she could imagine an escalation of attraction which drew them together like human magnets. And that would probably have exactly the same effect due to the kind of tension it would create.
The best she could hope for was something in the middle. A return to the status quo but with a connection that had been deepened. A step towards a genuine friendship perhaps.
That was what Julia really wanted.
‘Who are you trying to kid?’ she muttered at her reflection, pausing in disgust as she realised what she was about to do.
In disgust, she threw the mascara wand back into the drawer. Make-up was an occasional indulgence and only ever used for a night out. Never for work. What was she thinking?
As if she didn’t know!
‘Focus,’ she ordered herself, tucking the black T-shirt with the red SERT insignia into her black trousers.
‘On your career,’ she specified, lacing up her steel-capped black boots. ‘Like Anne does. It’s all you need to do.’
She tied the knots in the laces tightly. ‘You’re going to be the best you possibly can be in a job you absolutely love,’ she said aloud.
The determined talk to herself was helpful. It worked right through the fifteen-minute drive from the farm cottage she was leasing and got her through parking close to that big, black vehicle and the stone wall that marked the spot where the kiss had happened.
The flashback was so powerful she actually raised her hand to touch her lips, convinced she could feel the pressure of his all over again. Impossible not to push that mental rewind button as she had so many times already. Back to before the kiss had happened. To that delicious waiting. Knowing what was about to happen and experiencing a more intense anticipation than she would have believed anything could engender.
Julia tore her gaze away from the wall. She could stop doing this. Stop thinking about it. She couldn’t stop that odd kick in her gut, though, or the tingles that shot out from it to spread throughout her entire body but she could—and did—ignore their significance. It was nothing more than a physical thing. She could deal with this.
At least, she could until she walked into the messroom and saw what it was that she really wanted, standing there beside the bench, making coffee.
Mac.
Tall. Solid. Julia eyed his back cautiously, hoping like hell he wouldn’t turn around until she got her errant mind—and body—back under control.
He’s not even that good looking, she thought somewhat desperately. He’s…rugged. His nose and mouth are a bit big and he’s got that odd dimple in the middle of his chin. And he looks older than he is. Kind of weathered.
And he’s got some other woman he cares about. One with long, blonde hair.
Yes. Maybe this was the track to take. It certainly felt like a splash of cold water. Julia poked her fingers through her own hair, making the spikes more prominent.
A pixie cut, the hairdresser had promised, but it looked more like a hedgehog now that it had grown out a little. Appropriate, really, given her short, little legs.
That blonde woman was probably tall. And beautiful.
And that was fine, because she wasn’t interested in Mac as anything other than a colleague.
Oh, Lord. This was going to be every bit as dreadful as she’d feared. That kiss had unleashed something that had to be chained up again. Currently it felt like something far too wild to even begin trying to handle. It was too hard to move her feet and take the first step in any attempt. Her heart was thumping and her stomach was tying itself into a painful knot.
And then Mac turned his head. ‘Hey, Jules. Want a coffee?’
It was exactly what he would have said last week. In exactly the same kind of tone. The knot inside began to melt and Julia’s heart gave a peculiar kind of wiggle and then settled into a steady rhythm she could ignore. It was going to be OK.
She nodded. ‘Yes, please.’
And here it was. The first challenge. Eye contact that would be far too easy to maintain and allow to continue long enough to be significant. To send messages that Julia had no intention of transmitting. But Mac’s glance only brushed hers. Just a whisper of contact. The kind you might make with a complete stranger.
It should have been reassuring.
It certainly shouldn’t feel like a physical shove to push her away and even if it did, it shouldn’t feel
