Jonah gritted out, ‘I’m trying to rescue you, which will not be possible unless you stop struggling.’

The woman stopped wriggling long enough to shoot him a flat stare. ‘I’m an excellent swimmer,’ she croaked. ‘I swam conference for Bryn Mawr.’

Not just a tourist, Jonah thought, with her posh American accent ringing in his ears. From the whole other side of the world.

‘Could have fooled me,’ he muttered. ‘Unless that’s what passes for the Australian Crawl Stateside these days.’

The stare became a glare. And her eyes … A wicked green, they were, only one was marred with a whopping great splotch of brown.

And while he stared her hand slipped. Luckily she had the smarts to grab the pointy end of his board, leaving him to clench his thighs for all he was worth.

‘Honey,’ he growled, by then near the end of his limited patience, ‘I understand that you’re embarrassed. ‘But would you rather be humbled or dead?’

Her strange eyes flinted at the honey—not that he gave a damn. All he cared was that she gave a short nod. The sooner he dumped her back on the sand and got on with his day the better. And if a dose of reality was necessary to get it done, then so be it.

Dear Reader

Far North Queensland is a beautiful part of the world—and only a hop, skip and a short plane ride from where I live. The beaches are magnificent, the sun is hot, and the skies are endless. And what with all that gorgeousness and sultry heat, the flash resorts and the great bars and cafés—well, the possibility of a hot summer romance is ripe.

From all that my hero, Jonah North, was born. Strong and taciturn. All sun-drenched skin, quicksilver eyes, brawn, candour and capability. A man with a wild past that has him shouldering regret, and a rare smile that’ll melt your knees from ten paces. He’s a bloke. A man’s man. And one the ladies like quite a bit as well—myself included! All I had to do was throw him the most unlikely heroine—cool, unimpressed, desperately independent and a tourist—then sit back and watch as the sparks flew and the mighty tree was felled.

I hope you enjoy the show as much as I did!

Till then, happy reading. And keep a fan on hand—when Jonah hits the page you might need it! :)

Ally

www.allyblake.com

Those Summer Nights In Crescent Cove find sun, sea and steamy nights …

This hot, sultry duet continues next month with THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT by Amy Andrews.

Don’t miss Claudia’s story!

Her Hottest Summer Yet

Ally Blake

www.millsandboon.co.uk

In her previous life Australian author ALLY BLAKE was at times a cheerleader, a maths tutor, a dental assistant and a shop assistant. In this life she is a bestselling, multi-award-winning novelist who has been published in over twenty languages with more than two million books sold worldwide.

She married her gorgeous husband in Las Vegas—no Elvis in sight, though Tony Curtis did put in a special appearance—and now Ally and her family, including three rambunctious toddlers, share a property in the leafy western suburbs of Brisbane, with kookaburras, cockatoos, rainbow lorikeets and the occasional creepy-crawly. When not writing, she makes coffees that never get drunk, eats too many M&Ms, attempts yoga, devours The West Wing reruns, reads every spare minute she can and barracks ardently for the Collingwood Magpies footy team.

You can find out more at her website, www.allyblake.com

Other Modern Tempted™ titles by Ally Blake:

THE DANCE OFF

FAKING IT TO MAKING IT

This and other titles by Ally Blake are available in eBook format from www.millsandboon.co.uk

This one is for all the long, hot Australian summers of my life; for all the memories and possibilities they hold.

With an extra dollop of love for Amy Andrews, one of my favourite writers and a sublime woman to boot.

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

ONE

Avery Shaw barely noticed the salty breeze whipping pale blonde hair across her face and fluttering the diaphanous layers of her dress against her legs. She was blissfully deep in a whirlpool of warm, hazy, happy memories as she stood on the sandy footpath and beamed up at the facade of the Tropicana Nights Resort.

She lifted a hand to shield her eyes from the shimmering Australian summer sun, and breathed the place in. It was bigger than she remembered, and more striking. Like some great white colonial palace, uprooted out of another era and transplanted to the pretty beach strip that was Crescent Cove. The garden now teetered on the wild side, and its facade was more than a little shabby around the edges. But ten years did that to a place.

Things changed. She was hardly the naive sixteen-year-old with the knobbly knees she’d been the summer she was last there. Back when all that mattered was friends, and fun, and—

A loud whoosh and rattle behind her tugged Avery back to the present. She glanced down the curving sidewalk to see a group of skinny brown-skinned boys in board shorts hurtling across the road on their skateboards before running down the beach and straight into the sparkling blue water of the Pacific.

And sometimes, she thought with a pleasant tightening in her lungs, things don’t change much at all.

Lungs full to bursting with the taste of salt and sea and expectation, Avery and her Vuitton luggage set bumped merrily up the wide front steps and into the lobby. Huge faux marble columns held up the two-storey ceiling. Below sat cushy lounge chairs, colossal rugs, and potted palms dotted a floor made of the most beautiful swirling mosaic tiles in a million sandy tones. And by the archway leading to the restaurant beyond sat an old-fashioned noticeboard shouting out: Two-For-One Main Courses at the Capricorn Café For Any Guests Sporting an Eye Patch!

She laughed, the sound bouncing about in the empty space. For the lobby was empty, which for a beach resort at the height of summer seemed odd. But everyone was probably at the pool. Or having siestas in their rooms. And considering the hustle and bustle Avery had left behind in Manhattan, it was a relief.

Deeper inside the colossal entrance, reception loomed by way of a long sandstone desk with waves carved into the side. Behind said desk stood a young woman with deep red hair pulled back into a long sleek ponytail, her name tag sporting the Tropicana Nights logo slightly askew on the jacket of the faded yellow and blue Hawaiian print dress, which might well have been worn in the seventies.

“Ahoy, there!” sing-songed the woman—whose name tag read Isis—front teeth overlapping endearingly. Then, seeing Avery’s gaze light upon the stuffed parrot wiggling on her shoulder, Isis gave the thing a scratch under the chin. “It’s Pirates and Parrots theme at the resort this week.”

“Of course it is,” Avery said, the eye patch now making more sense. “I’m Avery Shaw. Claudia Davis is expecting me.”

“Yo ho ho, and a bottle of rum... The American!”

“That I am!” The girl’s pep was infectious, jet lag or no.

“Claude has been beside herself all morning, making me check the Qantas website hourly to make sure you arrived safe and sound.”

“That’s my girl,” Avery said, feeling better and better about her last-minute decision to fly across the world, to the only person in her world who’d understand why.

Tap-tap-tap went Isis’s long aqua fingernails on the keyboard. “Now, Claude could be...anywhere. Things have been slightly crazy around here since her parents choofed off.”

Choofed off? Maybe that was Aussie for retired. Crazy or not, when Avery had first called Claude to say she was coming, Claude had sounded giddy that the management of the resort her family had owned for the past twenty years was finally up to her. She had ideas! Brilliant ones! People were going to flock as they hadn’t flocked in years!

Glancing back at the still-empty lobby, Avery figured the flocking was still in the planning. “Shall I wait?”

“No ho ho,” said Isis, back to tapping at the keyboard, “you’ll be waiting till next millennium. Get thee to thy room. Goodies await. I’ll get one of the crew to show you the way.”

Avery glanced over her shoulder, her mind going instantly to the stream of messages her friends had sent when they’d heard she was heading to Australia, most of which were vividly imagined snippets of advice on how best to lure a hot, musclebound young porter “down under.”

The kid ambling her way was young—couldn’t have been a day over seventeen. But with his bright red hair and galaxy of freckles, hunching over his lurid yellow and blue shirt and wearing a floppy black pirate hat that had seen better days, he probably wasn’t what they’d had in mind.

“Cyrus,” Isis said, an impressive warning note creeping into her voice.

Cyrus looked up, his flapping sandshoes coming to a slow halt. Then he grinned, the overlapping teeth putting it beyond doubt that he and Isis were related.

“This is Miss Shaw,” warned Isis. “Claudia’s friend.”

“Thanks, Cyrus,” Avery said, heaving her luggage onto the golden trolley by the desk since Cyrus was too busy staring to seem to remember how.

“Impshi,” Isis growled. “Kindly escort Miss Shaw to the Tiki Suite.”

Avery’s bags wobbled precariously as Cyrus finally grabbed the high bar of the trolley and began loping off towards the rear of the lobby.

“You’re the New Yorker,” he said.

Jogging to catch up, Avery said, “I’m the New Yorker.”

“So how do you know Claude anyway? She never goes anywhere,” said Cyrus, stopping short and throwing out an arm that nearly got her around the neck. She realised belatedly he was letting a couple of women with matching silver hair and eye-popping orange sarongs squeeze past.

Avery ducked under Cyrus’s arm. “Claude has been all over the place, and I know because I went with her. The best trips were Italy...Morocco... One particular night in the Maldives was particularly memorable. We first met when my family holidayed here about ten years back.”

Not about ten years. Exactly. Nearly to the day. There’d be no forgetting that these next few weeks. No matter how far from home she was.

“Now, come on Cyrus,” Avery said, shaking off the sudden weight upon her chest. She looped a hand through the crook of Cyrus’s bony elbow and dragged him in the direction of her suite. “Take me to my room.”

Kid nearly tripped over his size thirteens.

One wrong turn and a generous tip later the Tiki Suite was all hers, and Avery was alone in the blissful cool of the soft, worn, white-on-white decor where indeed goodies did await: a basket of warm-skinned peaches, plums and nectarines, a box of divine chocolate, and a huge bottle of pink bubbly.

But first Avery kicked off her shoes and moved to the French doors, where the scent of sea air and the lemon trees that bordered the wall of her private courtyard filled her senses. She lifted her face to the sun to find it hotter than back home, crisper somehow.

It was the same suite in which her family had stayed a decade before. Her mother had kicked up a fuss when they’d discovered the place was less glamorous than she’d envisaged, but by that stage Avery had already met Claude and begged to stay. For once her dear dad had put his foot down, and Avery had gone on to have a magical, memorable, lazy, hazy summer.

The last simple, wonderful, innocent summer of her life.

The last before her parents’ divorce.

The divorce her mother was about to celebrate with a Divorced a Decade party, in fact; capitals intended.

Avery glanced over her shoulder at the tote she’d left on the bed, and tickles of perspiration burst over her skin.

She had to call home, let her mother know she’d arrived. Even though she knew she’d barely get in a hello before she was force fed every new detail of the big bash colour theme—blood-red—guest lists—exclusive yet extensive—and all-male live entertainment—no, no, NO!

Avery sent a text.

I’m here! Sun is shining. Beach looks splendiferous. I’ll call once jet lag wears off. Prepare yourself for stories of backyard tattoos, pub crawls, killer spiders the size of a studio apartment, and naked midnight beach sprints. Happy to hear the same from you. Ave xXx

Then, switching off her phone, she threw it to the bed. Then shoved a pillow over the top.

Knowing she couldn’t be trusted to sit in the room and wait for Claude without turning her phone back on, Avery changed into a swimsuit, lathered suncreen over every exposed inch, grabbed a beach towel, and headed out to marvel at the Pacific.

As she padded through the resort, smiling at each and every one of Claude’s—yes, Claude’s!—pink-faced guests, Avery thought about how her decision to come back had been purely reactive, a panic-driven emotional hiccup when her mother had broached the idea of the Divorced a Decade party for the very first time.

But now she was here, the swirl of warm memories seeping under her skin, she wondered why it had never occurred to her sooner to come back. To come full circle.

Because that’s how it felt. Like over the next few weeks she’d not only hang with her bestie—or nab herself a willing cabana boy to help get the kinks out—but maybe even be able to work her way back to how things had been here before her family had flown back to Manhattan and everything had fallen apart. To find the hopeful girl she’d once been before her life had become an endless series of gymnastic spins from one parent to the other and back again. Cartwheels to get her absent father’s attention. Cheerleading her way through her mother’s wild moods.

She’d never felt quite as safe, as secure, as content since that summer.

The summer of her first beer.

Her first beach bonfire.

Her first crush...

Avery’s feet came to a squeaking halt.

In fact, wasn’t he—the object of said crush—in Crescent Cove, right now?

Claude had mentioned him. Okay, so she’d bitched and moaned; that he was only in the cove till he and Claudia sorted out what they were going to do with the resort now that their respective parents had retired and left the two of them in charge. But that was about Claude’s history with the guy, not Avery’s.

Her history was nice. And at that moment he was there. And she was there. It would be nice to look him up. And compared to the supercharged emotional tornado that was her family life in New York, this summer Avery could really do with some nice.

* * *

Jonah North pushed his arms through the rippling water, the ocean cool sliding over the heat-baked skin of his back and shoulders, his feet trailing lazily through the water behind him.

Once he hit a sweet spot—calm, warm, a good distance from the sand—he pressed himself to sitting, legs either side of his board. He ran two hands over his face, shook the water from his hair, and took in the view.

The town of Crescent Cove was nestled behind a double row of palm trees that fringed the curved beach that gave the place its name. Through the gaps were flashes of pastel—huge resorts, holiday accommodation, locally run shops, as well as scattered homes of locals yet to sell out. Above him only sky, behind and below the endless blue of the Pacific. Paradise.

It was late in the morning for a paddle—there’d been no question of carving out enough time to head down the coast where coral didn’t hamper actual surf. Who was he kidding? There was never any time. Which, for a lobsterman’s son, whose sea legs had come in before his land legs, was near sacrilege.

But he was here now.

Jonah closed his eyes, tilted his face to the sun, soaked in its life force. No sound to be heard bar the heave of his slowing breaths, the gentle lap of water against his thighs, a scream—

His eyes snapped open, his last breath trapped in his lungs. His ears strained. His gaze sweeping the gentle rolling water between himself and the sand, searching for—

There. A keening. Not a gull. Not music drifting on the breeze from one of the resort hotels. Distress. Human distress.

Muscles seized, every sense on red alert, he waited. His vision now locked into an arc from where he’d heard the cry. Imagining the reason. Stinger? No, the beach was protected by a stinger net this time of year so it’d be tough luck if they’d been hit.

And then he saw it.

A hand.

His rare moment of quietude at a fast and furious end, Jonah was flat on his belly, arms heaving the ocean out of his way before he took his next breath.

With each swell he glanced up the beach to see if anyone else was about. But the yellow and red flags marking out the patch of beach patrolled by lifesavers were farther away, this part cleared of life bar a furry blot of brown and white dog patiently awaiting his return.

Jonah kept his eyes on the spot, recalculating distance and tidal currents with every stroke. He’d practically been born on the water, reading her as natural to him as breathing. But the ocean was as cruel as she was restorative, and if she decided not to give up, there wasn’t much even the most sea-savvy person could do. He knew.

As for the owner of the hand? Tourist. Not a single doubt in his mind.

The adrenalin thundering through him spiked when sunlight glinted off skin close enough to grab. Within seconds he was dragging a woman from the water.

Her hair was so long it trailed behind her like a curtain of silk, so pale it blended with the sandy backdrop behind. Her skin so fair he found himself squinting at the sun reflecting off her long limbs. And she was lathered in so much damn sunscreen she was as slippery as a fish and he could barely get a grip.

And that was before she began to fight back. “No!” she spluttered.

“Hell, woman,” Jonah gritted out. “I’m trying to rescue you, which will not be possible unless you stop struggling.”

The woman stopped wriggling long enough to shoot him a flat stare. “I’m an excellent swimmer,” she croaked. “I swam conference for Bryn Mawr.”

Not just a tourist, Jonah thought, her cultured American accent clipping him about the ears. From the whole other side of the world.

“Could have fooled me,” he muttered. “Unless that’s what passes for the Australian Crawl stateside these days.”

The stare became a glare. And her eyes... A wicked green, they were, only one was marred with a whopping great splotch of brown.

And while he stared at the anomaly, her hand slipped. Lucky she had the smarts to grab the pointy end of his board, leaving him to clench his thighs for all he was worth.

“Honey,” he growled, by then near the end of his limited patience, “I understand that you’re embarrassed. But would you rather be humbled or dead?”

Her strange eyes flinted at the Honey, not that he gave a damn. All he cared was that she gave a short nod. The sooner he dumped her back on the sand and got on with his day, the better. And if a dose of reality was necessary to get it done, then so be it.

“Good. Now, hoick yourself up on three.” When her teeth clamped down on her bottom lip to suppress a grimace, and her fair skin came over paler again, he knew there’d be no hoicking. “Cramp?”

Her next grimace was as good as a yes.

Damn. No more finessing. In for a penny, Jonah locked his legs around the board, hooked his elbows under her arms, and heaved.

She landed awkwardly in a mass of gangly limbs and sea water. Only Jonah’s experience and strength kept them from ending up ass up, lungs full of sea water, as he slid her onto his lap, throwing her arms around his neck where she gripped like a limpet. He grabbed her by the waist and held her still as the waves they’d created settled to a gentle rock.

Jonah wondered at what point she would become aware that she was straddling him, groin to groin, skin sliding against him all slippery and salty. Because after a few long moments it was just about all he could think about. Especially when with another grimace she hooked an arm over his shoulder, the other cradling the back of his head, and stretched her leg sideways, flexing her foot, easing out the cramp, her eyes fluttering closed as her expression eased into bliss.

He ought to have cleared his throat, or shifted her into a less compromising position, but with those odd eyes closed to him he got a proper look. Neat nose, long curling lashes stuck together with sea water, mouth like a kiss waiting to happen. If he had to have his paddle disturbed, might as well be by a nice-looking woman...

Tourist, he reminded himself.

And as much as the tourist dollar was his life’s blood, and that of the entire cove, he knew that with all the Hawaiian shirts and Havana shorts they packed, it didn’t leave much room for common sense.

And those were just the uncomplicated ones. The ones who were happy to come, and happy to go home. Lanky Yankee here—a city girl with clear dibs on herself—had complication written all over.

“You all right?” Jonah asked.

She nodded. Her eyes flicked open, and switched between his and finally she realised she was curled around him like seaweed.

Light sparked in the green depths, the brown splodge strangely unmoved. Then, with a quick swallow, she slid her gaze down his bare chest to where they were joined at the hip. Lower. She breathed in quick, rolling as if to separate only to send a shard of heat right through him as she hit a sweet spot with impressive precision.

“May I—?” she asked, rolling again as if to disentangle.

Gritting his teeth, Jonah grunted in response. Having a woman be seaweed on him wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. But out here? With a tourist on the verge of cramp? Besides which she was a bossy little thing. Skin and bone. Burn to a crisp if he didn’t get her indoors. Not his type at all.

“This is nice and all,” he said, boredom lacing his voice, “but any chance we could get a move on?”

“Nice? You clearly need to get out more.”

She had him there.

With that she got to it, lifting a leg, the edge of a foot scraping a line across his bare belly, hooking a hair or two on the way, before her toes hit the board, mere millimetres from doing him serious damage. He shifted an inch into safe territory and breathed out. And finally they were both facing front.

Not better, he realised as The Tourist leant forward to grip the edges of his surfboard, leaving nowhere for him to put his hands without fear of getting slapped.

Especially when, in place of swimmers, the woman was bound in something that looked like a big-girl version of those lacy things his Gran used to insist on placing on every table top—all pale string, and cut-out holes, the stuff lifted and separated every time she moved, every time she breathed.

“Did you lose part of your swimmers?”

With a start she looked down, only to breathe out in relief. “No. I’m decent.”

“You sure about that?”

The look she shot him over her shoulder was forbearing, the storm swirling in her odd eyes making itself felt south of the border.

“Then I suggest we get moving.”

With one last pitying stare that told him she had decided he was about as high on the evolutionary scale as, say, kelp, she turned front.

Jonah gave himself a moment to breathe. He’d been on the receiving end of that look before. Funny that the original looker had been an urbanite too, though not from so far away as this piece of work, making him wonder if it was a class they gave at Posh Girls’ Schools—How to Make a Man Feel Lower Than Dirt.

Only it hadn’t worked on him then, and didn’t now. They bred them too tough out here. Just made him want to get this over with as soon as humanly possible.

“Lie down,” he growled, then settled himself alongside her.

“No way!” she said, wriggling as he trapped her beneath his weight. The woman might look like skin and bone but under him she felt plenty female. She also had a mean right elbow.

“Settle,” Jonah demanded. “Or we’ll both go under. And this time you can look after your own damn self.”

She flicked him a glance, those eyes thunderous, those lips pursed like a promise. A promise he had no intention of honouring.

“Now,” he drawled, “are you going to be a good girl and let me get you safe back to shore, or are you determined to become a statistic?”

After a moment, her accented voice came to him as a hum he felt right through his chest. “Humility or death?”

He felt the smile yank at the corner of his mouth a second too late to stop it. Hers flashed unexpected, like sunshine on a cloudy day.

“Honey,” he drawled, “you’re not in Kansas any more.”

One eyebrow lifted, and her eyes went to his mouth and stayed a beat before they once again looked him in the eye. “New York, actually. I’m from New York. Where there are simply not enough men with your effortless charm.”

Sass. Bedraggled and pale and now shaking a little from shock and she was sassing him. Couldn’t help but respect her for that. Which was why the time had come to offload her for good.

Jonah held on tight and kicked, making a beeline for the beach.

He did his best to ignore the warmth of the woman beneath him, her creamy back with its crazy mass of string masquerading as a swimsuit.

As soon as they were near enough, he let his feet drop to the sand and pushed the board into the shallows.

She slid off in a gaggle of limbs. He made to help, but she pulled her arm away. Didn’t like help this one. Not his at any rate.

Hull stood at their approach, shook the sand from his speckled fur, then sat. Not too close. He was as wary of strangers as Jonah was. Smart animal.

Jonah took note and moved his hand away. “Stick to the resort pool, next time. Full-time lifeguards. Do you need me to walk you back to the Tropicana?” Probably best to check in with Claudia, make sure she knew she had a knucklehead staying at her resort.

“How on earth do you know where I’m staying?” asked said knucklehead.

He flicked a dark glance at the Tropicana Nights logo on the towel she’d wrapped tight about her.

“Right,” she said, her cheeks pinkening. “Of course. Sorry. I didn’t mean to suggest—”

“Yeah, you did.”

A deep breath lifted her chest and her odd eyes with it so that she looked up at him from beneath long lashes clumped together like stars. “You’re right, I did.” A shrug, unexpectedly self-deprecating. Then, “But I can walk myself. Thanks, though, for the other. I really am a good swimmer, but I... Thanks. I guess.”

“You’re welcome.” Then, “I guess.”

That smile flickered for a moment, the one that made the woman’s face look all warm and welcoming and new. Then all of a sudden she came over green, her wicked gaze became deeply tangled in his, she said, “Luke?” and passed out.

Jonah caught her: bunched towel, gangly limbs, and all.

He lowered himself—and her with him—to the sand, and felt for a pulse at her neck to find it strong and even. She’d be fine. A mix of heatstroke and too much ocean swallowed. No matter what she said about how good a swimmer she was, she was clearly no gym junkie. Even as dead weight she was light as a feather in his arms. All soft, warm skin too. And that mouth, parted, breathing gently. Beckoning.

He slapped her. On the cheek. Lightly.

Then not so lightly.

But she just lay there, angelic and unconscious. Nicer that way, in fact.

Luke, she’d said. He knew a Luke. Was good mates with one. But they didn’t look a thing alike. Jonah’s hair was darker, curlier. His eyes were grey, Luke’s were...buggered if he knew. And while Luke had split Crescent Cove the first chance he had—coming home only when he had no choice—nothing bar the entire cove sinking into the sea would shift Jonah. Not again.

Literally, it seemed, as he tried to ignore the soft heat of the woman in his arms.

Clearly the universe was trying to tell him something. He’d learned to listen when that happened. Storm’s a coming: head to shore. A woman gets it in her head to leave you: never follow. Dinner at the seafood place manned by the local Dreadlock Army: avoid the oysters.

What the hell he was meant to learn from sitting on a beach with an unconscious American in his arms, he had no idea.

* * *

Avery’s head hurt. A big red whumping kind of hurt that meant she didn’t want to open her eyes.

“That’s the way, kid,” a voice rumbled into her subconscious. A deep voice. Rough. Male.

For a second, she just lay there, hopeful that when she opened her eyes it would be to find herself lying on a sun lounge, a big buff cabana boy leaning over her holding a tray with piña coladas and coconut oil, his dark curls a halo in the sun...

“Come on, honey. You can do it.”

Honey? Australian accent. It all came back to her.

Jet lag. Scorching heat. A quick dip in the ocean to wake up. Then from nowhere, cramp. Fear gripping her lungs as she struggled to keep her head above water. A hand gripping her wrist: strong, brown, safe. And then eyes, formidable grey eyes. Anything but safe.

Letting out a long slow breath to quell the wooziness rising in her belly, Avery opened her eyes.

“Atta girl,” said the voice and this time there was a face to go with it. A deeply masculine face—strong jaw covered in stubble a long way past a shadow, lines fanning from the corners of grey eyes shaded by dark brows and thick lashes, a nose with a kink as if it had met with foul play.

Not a cabana boy, then. Not a boy at all. As his quicksilver eyes roved over her, Avery’s stomach experienced a very grown-up quiver. It clearly didn’t care that the guy was also frowning at her as if she were something that had washed up from the depths of the sea.

So who was he, then?

Luke? The name rang in her head like an echo, and her heart rate quickened to match. Could this be him?

But no. Strong as the urge was to have her teenage crush grow up into this, he was too big, too rugged. And she’d had enough updates about Claude’s family friend over the years to know Luke had lived in London for a while now. Worked in advertising. If this guy worked in an office she’d eat her luggage.

And as for nice? The sensations tumbling through her belly felt anything but. They felt ragged, brusque, hot and pulsey. And oddly snarky, which she could only put down to the recent oxygen deficit.

On that note, she thought, trying to lift herself to sitting. But her head swam and her stomach right along with it.

Before she had the chance to alter the situation, the guy barked, “Lie down, will you? Last thing I need is for you to throw up on me as well.”

While the idea of lying down a bit longer appealed, that wasn’t how she rolled. She’d been looking after herself, and everyone else in her life, since she was sixteen.

“I think I’m about done here,” she said.

“Can I get somebody for you?” he asked. “Someone from the resort? Luke?”

Her eyes shot to his. So he wasn’t Luke, but he knew him? How did he know she knew him...? Oh, my God. Just before she’d passed out, she’d called Luke’s name.

Heat and humiliation wrapped around her, Avery untwisted herself from Not-Luke’s arms to land on the towel. She scrambled to her feet, jumbled everything into a big ball and on legs of jelly she backed away.

“I’m fine. I’ll be fine.” She pushed the straggly lumps of hair from her face. “Thanks again. And sorry for ruining your swim. Surf. Whatever.”

The brooding stranger stood—sand pale against the brown of his knees, muscles in his arms bunching as he wrapped a hand around the edge of the surfboard he’d wedged into the sand. “I’m a big boy. I’ll live.”

Yes, you are, a saucy little voice cooed inside her head. But not particularly nice. And that was the thing. She’d had some kind of epiphany before she’d gone for a swim, hadn’t she? Something about needing some sweet, simple, wholesome, niceness in her life compared with the horror her mother was gleefully planning on the other side of the world.

“Take care, little mermaid,” he said, taking a step back, right into a slice of golden sunlight that caught his curls, and cut across his big bronzed bare chest.

“You too!” she sing-songed, her inveterate Pollyannaness having finally fought its way back to the surface. “And it’s Avery. Avery Shaw.”

“Good to know,” he said. Then he smiled. And it was something special—kind of crooked and sexy and fabulous. Though Avery felt a subversive moment of disappointment when it didn’t reach his eyes. Those crinkles held such promise.

Then he turned and walked away, his surfboard hooked under one arm, his bare feet slapping on the footpath. And from nowhere a huge dog joined him—shaggy and mottled with deep liquid eyes that glanced back at her a moment before turning back into the sun.

Definitely not Luke. Luke Hargreaves had been taller, his hair lighter, his eyes a gentle brown. And that long-ago summer before her whole world had fallen apart he’d made her feel safe. To this day Avery could sense the approach of conflict as tingles all over her skin, the way some people felt a storm coming in their bad knees, and Mr Muscles back there made her feel as if she’d come out in hives.

She blinked when she realised she was staring, then, turning away, trudged up the beach towards the road, the resort, a good long sensible lie-down.

“Avery!”

She glanced up and saw a brilliantly familiar blonde waving madly her way from the doorway of the Tropicana: navy skirt, blinding blue and yellow Hawaiian shirt, old-fashioned clipboard an extension of her arm. Claudia. Oh, now there was a sight for sore eyes, and a bruised ego and—

Avery’s feet stopped working, right in the middle of the street. For there, standing behind Claudia and a little to the left, thumb swishing distractedly over a smartphone, was Luke Hargreaves—tall, lean, handsome in a clean-shaven city-boy kind of way, in a suit she could pin as Armani from twenty feet away. If that wasn’t enough, compared to the mountain of growly man flesh she’d left back there on the beach, not a single skin prickle was felt.

With relief Pollyanna tap danced gleefully inside her head as Avery broke out in a sunny smile.

TWO

A car honked long and loud and Avery came to. Heat landed in her cheeks as she and her still wobbly legs made their way across the road.

She wished her entrance could have been more elegant, but since in the past half an hour she’d near drowned, passed out, woken up looking into the eyes of a testosterone-fuelled surfer who made her skin itch, she had to settle for still standing.

Avery walked up the grassy bank to the front path of the resort where Claudia near ploughed her down with a mass of hugging arms and kisses and relieved laughter. When Avery was finally able to disentangle herself she pulled back, laughing. Compared with the stylishly subdued Mr Hargreaves, Claudia with her bright blue eyes and wild shirt was like sunshine and fairy floss.

“What happened to you?” asked Claudia. No hellos, no how was your flight. The best kind of friendship, it always picked up just where it left off.

“Just been out for a refreshing ocean dip!”

Avery shot a telling glance at Luke. Claudia crossed her arms and steadfastly ignored the man at her back. Avery raised an eyebrow. Claudia curled her lip.

They might have lived on different continents their whole lives but with Skype, email, and several overseas trips together, their shorthand was well entrenched.

Finally Claudia cocked her head at the man and with a brief flare of her nostrils said, “Luke, you remember Avery Shaw.”

Luke looked up at the sound of his name. Avery held her breath. Luke just blinked.

Rolling her eyes, Claudia turned on him. “My friend Avery. The Shaws stayed at the resort ten odd years ago.”

Still nothing.

“They booked out the Tiki Suite for an entire summer.”

“Right,” he said, a flare of recognition finally dawning in his seriously lovely brown eyes. “The Americans.”

Claudia clearly wasn’t moved by it. Something he’d said, or the way he said it, had Claudia bristling. And Claudia wasn’t a bristler by nature; she was as bubbly as they came.

Avery didn’t have a problem with him seeming rather...serious. Serious was better than hives, any day. And like the worrying of a jagged tooth her mind skipped back to the scratch of the other man’s leg hairs on her inner thighs. To the hard heat of his hands gripping her waist, calloused fingers spanning her belly, big thumbs digging uncomfortably into her hips. Those cool grey eyes looking right through her, as if if he could he would have wished her well away...

She shook herself back to the much more pleasant present where Claude snuggled up to her with love. Waiting till she had Luke’s distracted attention, she brought out the big guns—a smile that had cost her parents as much as a small car. “Nice seeing you again, Luke. Hopefully we’ll bump into one another again. Catch up on old times.”

He blinked again, as if he thought that was what they’d just done. But it was early days. She had time. To do what, she was as yet undecided, but the seeds were there.

“I’m off duty as of this second, Luke,” Claude said, not even deigning to look his way. “We’ll talk about that other stuff later.”

“Soon,” he said, an edge to his voice.

Claude waved a dismissive hand over her shoulder, offloaded Avery of half her gear as they headed up the stairs into the resort.

“Are you sure?” Avery said. “You must be so busy right now, and I don’t want to get in the way. I can help! Whatever you need. I have skills. And they are at your disposal.”

“Relax, Polly,” Claude said, using the nickname she’d given Avery for when she got herself in a positivity loop. “You are never in my way.”

“Fine, Julie,” Avery shot back. Claude’s nickname had sprung from an odd fascination with The Love Boat that Avery had never understood. Though when Claude instantly perked up as a seniors tour group from the UK emerged from behind a pylon—amazingly remembering everybody by name—it couldn’t have been more apt.

Cyrus—who’d been leaning on the desk staring out at nothing—straightened so quickly his pirate hat flopped into his eyes.

Claudia frowned at Cyrus, who moved off at quite a pace. “Welcome to Crescent Cove,” she said to Avery, “where heat addles the hormones.”

“Is that in the town charter?” Avery asked, grinning. “Did I read it on the sign driving in?”

“Unfortunately not. Do you think it would work? As a marketing ploy?” Claude looked more hopeful than the idea merited.

Avery, whose business was public relations and thus who was paid to create goodwill, gave Claude’s arm a squeeze. “It couldn’t hurt.”

They reached the Tiki Suite and Claudia dumped Avery’s stuff on a white cane chair in the corner, oblivious to the bucketload of sand raining onto the floor. “Now, refreshing dip, my sweet patooty. What happened to you out there?”

“You should see the other guy,” Avery muttered before landing face down on the bed.

Claudia landed next to her face up. Then after a beat she turned on her side, head resting in her upturned palm as she loomed over Avery, eyebrows doing a merry dance. “What other guy?”

Avery scrunched up her face. Then rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling. “My leg cramped, and a guy on a surfboard dragged me out of the ocean. I’d have been fine, though. I am a very good swimmer.”

Claudia landed on her back and laughed herself silly. “I’ve been locked inside with Luke all morning, forced to listen to him yabber on about figures and columns and hard decisions and I missed it! Who was the guy?”

Avery opened her mouth to give his name, then realised he hadn’t given it. Barbarian. “I have no clue.”

Claude flapped a hand in the sky. “I know everybody. What did he look like?”

Avery tried a shrug, but truth was she could probably describe every crinkle around those deep grey eyes. But knowing she would not be allowed to sleep, till Claudia knew all, she said, “Big. Tanned. Dark curly hair. Your basic beefcake nightmare.”

Claudia paused for so long Avery glanced her way. Only to wish she hadn’t. For the smile in her friend’s eyes did not bode well for her hope that this conversation might be at an end.

“Grey surfboard with a big palm tree on it? Magnificent wolf dog at his heels?”

Damn. “That’s the one.”

Claude’s smile stretched into an all-out grin. “You, my sweet, had the pleasure of meeting Jonah North. That’s one supreme example of Australian manhood. And he rescued you? Like, actually pulled you out of the ocean? With his bare hands? What was that like?”

Avery slapped her hands over her face to hide the rising pink as her skin kicked into full-on memory mode at the feeling of those bare hands. “It was mortifying. He called me honey. Men only do that when they can’t be bothered knowing your name.”

“Huh. And yet I can’t even remember the last time a guy called me honey. Raoul always called me Sugar Puff.”

“Raoul?”

“The dance instructor I was seeing. Once upon a million years ago.”

“Well, Sugar Puff is sweet. Toothache inducing, maybe, but sweet.”

Truth was Avery usually loved an endearment. They always felt like an arrow to the part of her that had switched to maximum voltage the day her parents had told her they were getting divorced. Like me! Love me! Don’t ever leave me!

Maybe the fact that she’d responded unfavourably to the barbarian meant she’d grown. “Either way, the guy rubbed me the wrong way.”

“I know many a woman who’d give their bikini bottoms to have Jonah North rub them any which way.”

“Are you one of them?”

Claude blinked, then laughed so hard she fell back on the bed with a thump.

“That’s a no?”

Claude just laughed harder.

“What’s so funny?” Honestly. Because even while it had been mortifying, it had been one of the more blatantly sensual experiences of her recent memory: the twitch of his muscles as she’d slid her foot across his flat belly, the scrape of longing she’d felt when she’d realised he was holding his breath. Talk about addled.

Claudia brought herself back under control, then shrugged. “Aside from the fact that Jonah really learned how to pull off ‘curmudgeonly’ the past few years? He’s a born and bred local, like me. You know what it’s like when you know a guy forever?”

“Sure. Pretty much everyone in my social circle will end up with someone they’ve known forever.”

Claudia’s eyes widened. “That’s...”

“Neat?”

“I was going to say ‘demoralising,’ but neat works too.”

“It’s the Park Avenue way. Dynastic. Families know one another. Finances secured. Much like if you and Luke ended up together. It would keep the resort all in the family.”

Claudia flinched, and shook her head. “No. Don’t even... But that’s my point. Anyway, I don’t want to talk about Luke. I don’t like him very much at the moment.”

“I have no idea why. He’s grown into quite the dish. And he seems perfectly nice.” There was that word again. It had sounded quite wonderful before, all poignant and time-gone-by lovely. This time it fell kind of flat. But that was just semantics. She’d find another word.

In the meanwhile Claude shot her a look that said she’d quite like to lock the man up and throw away the key, but not before she’d lathered him in pollen and set a pack of bees on him. She might look like rainbows and sunshine, but there were clever, cunning, dark places inside Claude. Places she tapped into if those she loved were under threat. While Avery had shut her touchy tendencies away in a box with a big fat lock, oh, about ten years ago, in fact.

“Well, then,” said Avery, finding her smile, “how do you feel about my getting to know him a little better while I’m here?”

“Jonah? Perfect! He used to be such a cool guy, so chilled. But he’s been so damn broody nowadays. Laughs at my jokes only three times out of ten. Go shake him up, for all our sakes.”

“Actually...” Avery said, then cleared her throat. “I meant Luke.”

Claude’s eyes snapped wide, then settled back to near normal. “Hargreaves?”

“Yes, Hargreaves.”

Claude thought about this a moment. A few moments. Long enough Avery began to wonder if Claude’s irritation with the man was the flipside of something quite the other. In which case she’d back-pedal like crazy!

Claude put her mind to rest when she said, “You do realise he has a stick up his backside? Like, permanently?”

“So says you.” Avery laughed. “I thought he seemed perfectly—”

“Nice? Okay, then. You have my blessing. Shake that tree if it floats your boat. Just don’t get hurt. By the stick. Up his—”

“Yes, thank you. I get it.”

“In fact have at them both if you so desire. Neither Jonah Broody North or Luke Bloody Hargreaves are my type, that’s for sure.”

Avery swallowed down the tangled flash of heat at thought of one and focused on the soothing warmth that settled in her belly at thought of the other. “So what is your type these days, Miss Claudia?”

Claude’s hand came to rest on her chest as she stared at the ceiling. “A man who in thirty years still looks at me the way my dad looks at my mum. Who looks at me one day and says, ‘You’ve worked hard enough, hon, let’s go buy a campervan and travel the country.’ Who looks at me like I’m his moon and stars. Hokey, right?”

Avery stared up at the ceiling too, noticing a watermark, dismissing it. “So hokey. And while you’re at it, could you find me one of those too, please?”

“We here at the Tropicana Nights always aim to please. Now,” Claude said, pulling herself to sitting and reaching for the phone, “time to tell me why you are really here. Because I know you too well to know an impromptu month off had nothing to do with it.”

Then she held up a finger as someone answered on the other end. And while Claudia ordered dinner, a massage, and a jug of something called a Flaming Flamingo, Avery wondered quite where to start.

Claude knew the background.

That after the divorce Avery rarely saw her dad. Mostly at monthly lunches she organised. And thank goodness they honestly both loved baseball, or those meetings would be quiet affairs. Go Yanks!

As for dear old Mom, she’d turned on Avery’s father with such constant and unceasing venom when he’d left it had been made pretty clear to Avery that once on her mother’s bad side there was no coming back.

In order to retain any semblance of the family she had left, what could Avery do but become the perfect Park Avenue daughter?

Until the moment her mother had announced her grand plans for her Divorced a Decade party. And Avery—being such a great party planner—of course was to be in charge of the entire thing! After a decade of smiling and achieving and navigating the balance between her less-than-accommodating parents, Miss Park Avenue Perfect had finally snapped.

“You snapped?” Claude asked as Avery hit that point of the story, her voice a reverent hush. “What did Caroline say when you told her no?”

Okay, so this was where it kind of got messy. Where Avery’s memory of the event was skewed. By how hard she’d worked to retain a relationship with her distant dad. And how readily her mother had expected she’d be delighted to help out.

“I didn’t exactly say...that. Not in so many words.”

“Avery,” Claude growled.

Avery scrunched her eyes shut tight and admitted, “I told her I couldn’t help her because I was taking a sabbatical.”

“A sabbatical. And she believed you?”

“When she saw the mock-up I quickly slapped together of my flight details she did. Then I just had to go ahead and call you and actually book the flights. And let all my clients know I was on extended leave from work and couldn’t take any new jobs. And close up my apartment and turn off my electric and water and have my mail diverted for a couple months. And voilà!”

“Voilà!” Claude repeated. “Good God, hon! One of these days you’re going to have to learn to say the word no!”

Avery pish-poshed, even though she and Claude had had the same argument a dozen times over the years.

“Starting now,” said Claude. “Repeat after me—No.”

“No,” Avery shot back.

“Good girl. Now practise. Ten times in the morning. Ten times before bed.”

Avery nodded, promised and wondered why she hadn’t brought up the fact that she hadn’t had a problem saying “no” to Jonah North. And that saying “no” to him had felt good. Really good. So she had the ability. Buried somewhere deep down inside perhaps, but the instinct was there when she really meant it.

But Claude was right. She should have told her mother “no.” Well, considering there were more venomous snakes in the world’s top ten here than any other place on earth, if she was ever going to toughen up, this was the place.

* * *

The Charter North Reef Cruiser was on its way to Green Island. In the engine room everything looked shipshape, so Jonah headed up the companionway to the top deck.

The crew ought to have been used to him turning up on a skip unannounced; he did it all the time. There was no point having a fleet of boats with his name on them if they weren’t up to his standards. Besides, his father had been a boatman before him and he knew an extra pair of hands was always welcome.

But the moment he entered the air-conditioned salon, the staff scattered. He caught the eye of one—a new girl, by the starched collar of her Charter North polo shirt, who wasn’t as quick off the mark as the others. With a belated squeak she leapt into action, polishing the silver handrails with the edge of her sand-coloured shorts. Odd. But industrious.

So he walked the aisles. The passenger list was pretty much as per usual—marine biologists researching the reef, Green Island staffers, a group of girls who looked as if they’d closed one of the resort bars the night before, a toddler with a brown paper bag under his chin.

His gaze caught on a crew of skinny brown boys, skateboards tucked on their laps, eyes looking out of the window as if urging the island nearer. Part of the Dreadlock Army who lived in these parts, kids who survived on sea water and fresh air. A lifetime ago he’d been one of them.

Fast forward and this day he’d been awake since five. Gone for a five-kilometre run. Driven the half-hour to Charter North HQ in Port Douglas. Checked emails, read the new safety procedures manual he’d paid a small fortune to set up, negotiated the purchase of a new pleasure cruiser he had his eye on in Florida. No time for sticking a toe in the ocean, much less taking it on.

As the captain began his spiel over the speaker system about the adventures available once they hit the island, Jonah slid his sunglasses in place and headed aft.

A few customers had staked out prime positions in the open air, laughing as they were hit with ocean spray. He didn’t blame them. It was a hell of a day to be outside.

When they said Queensland was beautiful one day and perfect the next, they were talking about Crescent Cove. The Coral Sea was invariably warm, a slight southerly bringing about a gentle swell. The sky was a dome of blinding blue with only a smattering of soft white streaks far away on the horizon. And soon they’d hit the edge of the Great Barrier Reef, one of the natural wonders of the world.

He was a lucky man to have been born here. Luckier still to remain. He breathed deep of the sky and salt and sun. He didn’t need surf. All he needed was never to take the place for granted again.

He nodded to the staff keeping watch on deck and made to head back inside when someone caught his eye. Not just any someone, it was his waterlogged mermaid herself.

She lifted a hand to shield her eyes and turned her gaze to Crescent Cove. She had nice hands. Fine. Her nails were the colour of her dress—a long flame-orange thing flapping against her legs—and her hair was twisted up into a complicated series of knots atop her head making her look as if she were about to step out onto the French Riviera not a small island on the edge of the Pacific.

Jonah glanced at his own hands knowing they’d be less than fine. Burly brown with many a war wound, and motor oil under his chipped nails. He rubbed his fingers across his rough chin. How long since he’d shaved? Three days? Four?

He shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his long shorts, his forehead pinching. What did he care about all that?

Unfortunately, in the time he’d spent caring, she’d turned to face him, all elegant stance and plaintive eyes.

Caught out, his breath found itself caught somewhere in the region of his gut.And then her eyes narrowed. As if he’d done anything to her other than save her ass.

Then the boat hit a swell, the bow lifting and crashing to the water with a thud.

Squeals of excitement ricocheted through the cabin. But, facing him, his mermaid had no purchase. She lost balance, 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.

THREE

Jonah wasn’t looking for Avery, not entirely.

He found her anyway, on the beach. Her big hat, so wet it flopped onto her shoulders. Half in, half out of a wetsuit that flapped dejectedly against her legs as she jumped around slapping at her skin as if fighting off a swarm of bees.

Jonah picked up his pace to a jog.

“Avery,” he called when near enough, “what the hell’s wrong now?”

She didn’t even look up, just kept on wriggling, giving him flashes of bare stomach through a silver one-piece with great swathes of Lycra cut away leaving the edges to caress a hip, to brush the underside of a breast, keeping Jonah locked into a loop of double takes.

“I’m stung!” she cried, jogging him out of his daze. “Something got me. A box jellyfish. Or a blue bottle. Or a stone fish. I read about them on the flight over. One of them got me. I sting. Everywhere.”

“Bottles don’t come this far north, the suit protects from jellies, and the flippers from stone fish.”

Avery jumped from flippered foot to flippered foot as if something terrible was about to explode from out of the sand at her feet. “Then what’s wrong with me?”

Jonah made a mental note to have a talk with Claudia. She always had some crazy theme going on at her resort, with games and the like—surely she could keep the woman indoors and out of his sight.

But until then he had to make sure she wasn’t actually hurt. Meaning he had to run hands down her arms, ignoring as best he could the new tension knotting hard and fast inside him.

He spun her around to check behind, wrapping the fall of hair about his hand to lift it off her neck, doing his all to avoid the mental images that brought forth. He swept his gaze over the skin the swimsuit revealed round back. Then grabbed her by the chin and tilted so he could see her face under the ridiculous hat. Her very pink face.

“Hell, woman,” he growled, snapping his hand away. “You’re sunburnt.”

Her mismatched eyes widened. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

He took off the hat to make sure, and with a squeak her hand swept to her hair. Jonah rolled his eyes and slapped the hat back on her head. “Did you bring anything for sunburn?” Sunscreen perhaps?

He glanced at her silver bag to find its contents already upended and covered in a million grains of white sand. Clearly she’d been looking in the hopes of a remedy herself. A remedy for stone fish, he reminded himself, biting back a smile.

“Don’t you dare laugh at me!”

Only made him smile all the more. “Don’t tell me you were All Conference in Sun Protection at Brown Mare too?”

“Bryn Mawr,” she bit out. And, whoa, was that a flicker of a smile from her? The one that lit her up brighter than the sun?

Jonah looked away, tilting his chin towards the jetty. “There’s aloe vera on the boat. It’ll soothe it at the very least. At least until the great peel sets in.”

“I don’t peel.”

“You will peel, princess. Great ugly strips of dead skin sloughing away.”

Muttering under her breath, she shoved all her bits and pieces back into her bag—including, he noted, a dog-eared novel, a bottle of fancy sparkling water, and, yep, sunscreen.

He plucked the sunscreen from her fingers and read the label. “American,” he muttered under his breath.

“Excuse me!” she shot back, no muttering there.

“Your SPF levels are not the same as ours. With your skin you can’t get away with this rubbish.”

“What’s wrong with my skin?” she asked, arms wide, giving him prime view of her perfectly lovely skin. And neat straight shoulders, lean waist, hips that flared just right. As for her backside, he remembered with great clarity as she bent over on his board...

Jonah closed his eyes a moment and sent out a blanket curse to whatever he’d done to piss off karma enough to send him Avery Shaw.

“I’m well aware I’m not all golden bronzed like the likes of you,” she said, “which is why I bought a bottle from home. Ours are stronger.”

“Wrong way around, sweetheart,” Jonah drawled. “Aussies do it better.”

She coughed and spluttered. That was better than having her eyes rove over his golden-bronzed self while standing there all pink, and pretty, and half-naked.

Then, feeling more than a little sorry for herself, she slowly went back to refilling her bag, now with far less gusto. Her drooping hat dripped ocean water down her pink skin, she had a scratch on her arm that could do with some antiseptic and a couple of toes had clearly come out badly in a fight with some coral before she’d remembered her flippers.

Suddenly she threw the bag on the sand, slammed her hands onto her hips and looked him right in the eye. “In New York we have cab drivers who don’t know the meaning of the words health code. Rats the size of opossums. Steam that oozes from the subways that could knock you out with its stench. I live in a place it takes street smarts to survive. But this place? Holy Jeter!”

After a sob, she began to laugh. And laugh and laugh. It hit the edge of hysteria, but thankfully it never slipped quite that far.

Jonah ran a hand up the back of his neck and looked out at the edge of the jetty visible around the corner of the beach where his boat and the bright blue sea awaited. Basic, elemental pleasures. Enduring... Then glanced back at the tourist whose safety had clearly, for whatever reason, been placed in his hands.

Whatever problems he had with her kind, there was no denying the woman was trying. Enough that something slipped inside him, just a fraction, just enough to give her a break.

“Come on, princess,” he said, holding out a hand. “Let’s get you a drink.”

She glanced at his sand-covered hand and her nose crinkled. “I don’t need a drink.”

Knowing it was only a matter of time before he regretted it, Jonah took a moment to brush the sand from his hand before holding it out again. It looked so dark near her skin. Big and rough near all that softness. “Well, I do,” he said, his voice gruff. “And I’m not about to resort to drinking alone.”

Avery watched him from beneath her lashes. Then, taking her bag in one hand and the arms of her wetsuit in the other, she flapped her way back up the beach, leaving him to catch up. “So long as drink doesn’t mean beer. Because I don’t do beer.”

Jonah watched her walk away, flinching every third step in fear of having unearthed some other Great Australian Wildlife intent on taking her down. Shaking his head, he dug his hands into the pockets of his shorts and did what he’d promised himself he’d never do again—follow a city girl anywhere. “Pity, princess, you really are missing out on one of the great experiences of an Australian summer.”

She cut him a look—straight, sure, street smart indeed—and said, “I’ll live.”

And for the first time since he’d met the woman Jonah believed she just might.

* * *

When her straw slurped against the bottom of the coconut shell, dragging in the last drops of rum, coconut milk, and something she couldn’t put her finger on, Avery pushed the thing away and looked up with a blissful sigh to find that the fabulous outdoor bar that Jonah had escorted her to some time earlier was empty.

Jonah North of Charter North. About halfway through the cocktail she’d put two and two together and figured the boat was his. She was clever that way, she thought, fluffing up her nearly dry hair, the happy waves in her head making it feel nice. She liked feeling nice.

Now what about Jonah? Big, gruff, handsome, bossy Jonah. Oh, yeah, he’d left her a few minutes ago to go and do...something. She looked around, shielding her eyes against the streak of bright orange cloud lighting up the dark blue horizon. Oops. Since when had the sun begun to set?

She found her phone in her bag and checked the time. Holy Jeter, she’d missed the boat! With a groan she let her head fall into her hands.

She knew the guy had only taken her for a drink because he’d got it into his thick He-Man head that she’d perish without supervision, but now the cad had damn well left her on an island in the middle of the Pacific, with night falling, and nowhere—

“Everything okay?” a familiar deep voice asked.

Avery peeled one eye open and looked through the gaps between her fingers to find Jonah standing by the table, his hands in the pockets of his khaki shorts, his white Charter North shirt flapping against the rises and falls of his chest in the evening breeze, the sunlight pouring over his deeply browned skin.

The guy might be wholly annoying in an I Told You So kind of way, but there was no denying he was Gorgeous—capital G intended. What with that handsome brown face all covered in stubble. And those shoulders—so big, so broad. Those tight dark curls that made a girl want to reach out and touch. And the chest she’d had her hands all over when he’d pulled her out of the ocean, all muscle and golden skin and more dark curling hair. In fact there was plenty about him that made a girl want to touch...

But not her, she reminded herself, sinking her hands down onto the chair so that she could sit on them before they did anything stupid.

If anybody was going to get the benefit of her touch on this trip, it would be that unsuspecting cabana boy—and, boy, did that sound seedy all of a sudden. So maybe not. Maybe, ah, Luke! Yes, dashing, debonair, dishy Luke Hargreaves. There you go, that was way better than nice—

“You okay there, Avery?”

“Hmm? Sorry? What?”

Jonah’s laugh was a deep low huh-huh-huh that she felt in the backs of her knees.

“How many of those have you had?” he asked.

“Just one, thank you very much.” A big one. “I’m fine.”

“You say that a lot. That you’re fine.”

She did? Funny, she could hear it too, like an eerie echo inside her head. I’m fine! All good! Don’t worry about me! Now what can I do to make you feel better? Cheer-cheer, rah-rah-rah!

“I say it because I am.” Mostly. “And I am. Fine. Just too much sun. And those cocktails have quite a kick, don’t they? And—” she pointed one way, and then turned and pointed the other, not quite sure which direction was which “—I do believe I’m meant to be on a boat heading back to the mainland right about now.”

Jonah pulled out a chair and straddled the thing, like he needed extra room between his legs to accommodate...you know. Avery blinked fast at the direction of her thoughts, before lifting her eyes quick smart to his, only to connect with all that quicksilver. Cool and hot all at once. As if he knew exactly where her eyes and thoughts had just been.

She swallowed. Hard. Tasted rum and coconut and...whatever the other thing was. The deadly wicked other thing that seemed to have made her rather tipsy.

“Avery.”

“Yes, Jonah.”

The quicksilver shifted, glints lighting the depths. “Our boat left about the time you started filling me in on why you came to the cove.”

Avery swallowed, wondering just how much rum she’d imbibed. She’d told him? What exactly? How she’d been a big chicken and fled New York so as to avoid her mother’s mortifying divorce anniversary party?

“To catch up with Claudia,” Jonah reminded her when she’d looked at him blankly for quite some time.

“Right! Of course. For Claude. We’re friends, you know? Have been a lo-o-ong time.”

No laugh this time, but a smile. An honest-to-goodness smile that made his eyes glow and his eye crinkles deepen. Sheesh; the man didn’t need to have a sexy smile to go along with the sexy laugh and all the other sexy bits. But there it was. Talk about a potent cocktail.

“I’ve secured a room at a local resort, the Tea Tree—”

“Wow. It was decent of you to buy me a drink—” a kicker of a cocktail “—in order to ease the sunburn—” embarrassment “—and all, but a room’s rather presumptuous, don’t you think?”

A few more glints joined the rest and his next smile came with a flash of white teeth. The rare and beautiful sight made her girl parts uncurl like a cat in the sun.

“Avery,” he said, and she kind of wished he’d called her princess, or honey, because her name in that drawl from that mouth was as good as ten minutes of concentrated foreplay. “The room is for you. Just you. Alone.”

“Oh,” she said. Then several moments too late, “Of course. I knew that. I just— How do you even know that I could pay? I might be broke. Or tight with the purse strings. Or—”

“We’re more than a tourist town. The cove is a real community. All I had to do was drop Claude’s name and it was comped.”

“Really?” Oh, how lovely! They loved Claude enough to look after her? Oh, she loved this resort already. Belatedly she wondered why they wouldn’t simply comp it for him. Probably because Jonah North was a big scary bear. Or maybe he wasn’t big on favours. She certainly owed him a few.

“I also let Claudia know I’d make sure you got home safe and sound tomorrow.”

Avery’s eyes shot back to his. A drink. A room. A ride. Maybe he wasn’t such a jackass after all. Huh. Did that mean she had to try harder to be nice to him now too? Saying “no” had actually been fun, like being outside her own skin rather than curled up tight inside...

He pushed back his chair and held out his hand to her, and not for the first time. And not for the first time, she baulked.

She glanced up into his eyes to find him watching her, impatience edging at the corner of his mouth. Not wanting to start an international incident, she placed her hand in his to find it warm—as she’d expected—and strong—as she’d imagined—and roughly calloused—which sent a sharp shot of awareness right down her arm.

“Sorry,” she said in a rush of breath as he tugged her to her feet, “my manners seem to fly right out the window where you’re concerned. I can’t seem to figure out why.”

His pale grey eyes now shadows in the falling light, he said, “Can’t you?”

Avery’s belly clenched at the intensity of his gaze, and her heart beat so hard she could hear it behind her ears.

Such a simple question, with such a simple answer: she could.

She was obnoxious when he was around because he flummoxed her. He made her feel as if she had to keep her emotional dukes up, permanently, lest he find a way in and knock her out.

And if the past few days far away from the drama of her real life had told her anything, it was that she sorely needed a break. A return to simpler times. Like the summer when the most important thing that had ever happened to her had been a smile from the dreamy brown-eyed boy across the other side of the beach bonfire.

“The thing is,” she said, regretting opening her mouth even as the words poured out, “I’m currently...thinking about...seeing someone.”

“Someone?” he asked, everything in him suddenly seeming very still.

“Well, a man, to be more specific.”

Jonah looked about the bar where an islander was putting chairs onto the tables so he could sweep the floor. He hooked a thumb in the guy’s direction.

“No!” said Avery, grabbing his thumb and pulling it down by his side. It brought her within inches of his chest, so that she could feel the steady rise and fall of his breaths, the heat of his skin, could count his individual eyelashes, all one million of the gorgeous things. She let go. Backed away. Breathed. “Someone else. Someone I met here years ago. Someone I’m hoping to...reconnect with.”

“So then you’re not here to help out Claudia.” His words were tinged with such depths of boredom she wondered how she’d even come to think it was any of his business in the first place.

“Of course I am.” Avery lifted her chin. And she was. Or at least she would be. But since their big girlie talk, she hadn’t been able to pin her friend down long enough for a coffee, much less a conversation. Go play tourist! Claude would say on the fly. Swim, drink cocktails, take a boat to Green Island. Look how that turned out.

“You city girls,” said Jonah, his voice dropping into a by now familiar growl. “Can’t relax. Can’t do one thing at a time. Can’t settle your damn selves for love or money.”

“That’s a pretty broad brush.”

“Am I wrong?”

Well...no. Back home “busy-busy” or “can’t seem to get anything done” was akin to “fine, thanks.”

“Yeah,” he said, ducking his head as he ran a hand up the back of his neck and through those glorious curls. “That’s what I thought. Come on, princess, let’s get you checked in.”

He jerked his chin in the direction of the exit, and this time he didn’t hold out a hand.

Feeling strangely bereft, Avery collected her sandy, sodden gear and followed in her wet clothes and bare feet as at some point she’d lost her shoes. Beneath the shadows of the palm trees that grew everywhere in this part of the world, up the neat paths nearly empty of tourists now most had headed off the island.

And her mind whirled back to how that mortifying conversation had begun.

Can’t you? he’d asked, when she’d admitted not knowing why she pushed his buttons. But then why did he insist on pushing hers? Maybe, just maybe, she rubbed him the wrong way too. That very particular kind of wrong way that felt so right.

At that moment Jonah looked back, and she offered up her most innocuous smile.

“All okay?”

“Fine, thanks. You?”

The edge of his mouth twitched, but there was no smile. No evidence he thought she was hot stuff too. He merely lifted a big arm towards a small building with a thatched roof—the Tea Tree Resort and Spa—and they headed inside into blissful air-zconditioned luxury.