Resisting temptation has never been so impossible…

Living on the edge used to make wild-card war reporter Jack Chapman feel alive. These days he needs some time-out before he burns out. So what better distraction than delectable pastry chef Ellie Evans? She’s oh-so-tempting…and sleeping right next door! Perfect for a short-term fling!

Ellie knows it would be beyond stupid to fall for a guy with ice in his veins who’s always on the move. But daredevil Jack is even more irresistible than her death-by-chocolate cake—and saying no has never been Ellie’s strongpoint!

‘Come on, you’re dead on your feet.’ Jack took her hands and hauled her up.

He’d either overestimated her weight or underestimated his strength, because she flew into his chest and her hands found themselves splayed across his pecs, warm and hard and…ooooh…her nose was pressed against his sternum. She sucked him in along with the breath she took…man-soap, man-smell…Jack.

She felt tiny next to his muscled frame as his hands held her loosely, fingers across her hip and at the top of her bottom. A lazy thumb stroked her hip bone through the chef’s jacket and Ellie felt lust skitter along her skin. She slowly lifted her head and looked at him from beneath her eyelashes. There was a half-smile on his face, and yet his eyes were dark and serious…

He lifted his hand and gently rested his fingers on her lips. She knew what he was thinking…that he wanted to kiss her. Intended to kiss her.

Ellie just looked up at him with big eyes. She felt like a deer frozen in headlights—knowing that she should pull away, unable to do so. She could feel his hard body against hers, his rising chest beneath her palms. His arms were strong, his shoulders broad. She felt feminine and dainty and…judging by his hard body…desired.

Dear Reader,

For some reason I seem to love writing about things I know less than nothing about! This book is set in a bakery, which my friends found highly amusing because I have the baking skills of a dyslexic goat. But part of the fun of writing is falling into these alternate worlds and making them come alive. I hope you enjoy Ellie’s eclectic beachfront bakery and the stunning scenery of the False Bay area of Cape Town.

I’ve wanted to write Ellie and Jack’s story for a while and am so grateful that I was given the opportunity to do so. Ellie is, perhaps, not as feisty or gung ho as some of my previous heroines, but she has inner strength and a vulnerability that appealed to me. Standing in her famous war-reporter father’s shadow, Ellie has never had his love or affection and even less of his time. Ellie thinks that she’d never fall in love with a warreporting journalist, but when her father sends her a temporary, broke, homeless and beaten-up Jack, her promise to herself is tested.

I think I am, at heart, a nomad, and I love to travel, so I really identify with Jack’s need to see new places and try new things. Emotional ties to houses, places and people all hinder his desire to keep moving, to sustain the thrill of his daredevil lifestyle. Girlfriends have come and gone because of his refusal to settle down, and I knew that Ellie had to be someone special to capture my very unique hero’s transplanted heart!

A book is not really a book until it’s in the hands of the reader. So thank you for reading mine. I hope you enjoy reading it as much I loved writing it!

With my very best wishes,

Joss

xxx

P.S. I love meeting new people, so please say hello via:

Facebook: Joss Wood

Twitter: @josswoodbooks

Josswoodbooks.wordpress.com

If You Can’t Stand the Heat…

Joss Wood

www.millsandboon.co.uk

JOSS WOOD wrote her first book at the age of eight and has never really stopped. Her passion for putting letters on a blank screen is matched only by her love of books and travelling—especially to the wild places of Southern Africa—and possibly by her hatred of ironing and making school lunches.

Fuelled by coffee, when she’s not writing or being a hands-on mum, Joss, with her background in business and marketing, works for a non-profit organisation to promote the local economic development and collective business interests of the area where she resides. Happily and chaotically surrounded by books, family and friends, she lives in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, with her husband, children and their many pets.

This and other titles by Joss Wood are available in eBook format—check out

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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For their love and support, I have so many friends to thank. Old friends, new friends, coffee friends and crying friends. Friends who know me inside out and friends I’ve just met. But, because we share a friendship based on raucous laughter, craziness, sarcasm, loyalty and love, this book is especially dedicated to Tracy, Linda and Kerry.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Epilogue

Excerpt

ONE

‘Ellie, your phone is ringing! Ellie, answer it now!’

Ellie Evans grinned at her best friend Merri’s voice emanating from her mobile in her personalised ring tone, then eagerly scooped up the phone and slapped it against her ear.

‘El?’

‘Hey, you—how’s the Princess?’ Ellie asked, sorting through the invoices on her desk, which essentially meant that she just moved them from one pile to another.

‘The Princess’ was her goddaughter, Molly Blue, a six-month-old diva who had them all wrapped around her chubby pinkie finger. Merri launched into a far too descriptive monologue about teething and nappies, interrupted sleep and baby food. Ellie—who was still having a hard time reconciling her party-lovin’, heel-kickin’, free-spirited friend with motherhood—mmm-ed in all the right places and tuned out.

‘Okay, I get the hint. I’m boring,’ Merri stated, yanking Ellie’s attention back. ‘But you normally make an effort to at least pretend to listen. So what’s up?’

Her friend since they were teenagers, Merri knew her inside out. And as she was her employee as well as her best friend she had to tell her the earth-shattering news. Sitting in her tiny office on the second floor of her bakery and delicatessen, Ellie bit her lip and stared at her messy desk. Panic, bitter and insistent, crept up her throat.

She pulled in a deep breath. ‘The Khans have sold the building.’

‘Which building?’

‘This building, Merri. We have six months before we have to move out.’

Ellie heard Merri’s swift intake of breath.

‘But why would they sell?’ she wailed.

‘They are in their seventies, and I would guess they’re tired of the hassle. They probably got a fortune for the property. We all know that it’s the best retail space for miles.’

‘Just because it sits on the corner of the two main roads into town and is directly opposite the most famous beach in False Bay it doesn’t mean it’s the best...’

‘That’s exactly what it means.’

Ellie looked out of the sash window to the beach and the lazy ocean beyond it. It had been a day since she’d been slapped with the news and she no longer had butterflies about Pari’s, the bakery that had been in her family for over forty years. They had all been eaten by the bats on some psycho-drug currently swarming in her stomach.

‘Why can’t we just rent from the new owners?’

‘I asked. They are going to do major renovations to attract corporate shops and intend on hiking the rents accordingly. We couldn’t afford it. And, more scarily, Lucy—’

‘The estate agent?’

‘Mmm. Well, she told me that retail space is at a premium in St James, and there are “few, if any” properties suitable for a bakery-slash-coffee-shop-slash-delicatessen for sale or to rent.’

After four decades of being a St James and False Bay institution Pari’s future was uncertain, and as the partner-in-residence Ellie had to deal with this life-changing situation.

She had no idea what they—she—was going to do.

‘Have you told your mum?’ Merri asked quietly.

‘I can’t get hold of her. She hasn’t made contact for ten days. I think she’s booked into an ashram...or sunning herself in Goa,’ Ellie replied, her voice weary. Where she wasn’t was in the bakery, with her partner/daughter, helping her sort out the mess they were in.

Your idea, Ellie reminded herself. You said she could go. You suggested that she take the year off, have some fun, follow her dream... What had she been thinking? In all honesty it had been a mostly symbolic offer; nobody had been more shocked—horrified!—than her when Ashnee had immediately run off to pack her bags and book her air ticket. She’d never thought Ashnee would leave the bakery, leave her...

‘El, I know that this isn’t a good time, especially in light of what you’ve just told me, but I can’t put it off any longer. I need to ask you a huge favour.’

Ellie frowned when she picked up the serious note in Merri’s voice.

‘Anything, provided that you are still coming back to work on Monday,’ Ellie quipped. Merri was a phenomenal baker and Ellie had desperately missed her talent in the bakery while she took her maternity leave.

The silence following her statement slapped her around the head. Oh, no...no, no, no! ‘Merri, I need you,’ she pleaded.

‘My baby needs me too, El.’ Merri sounded miserable. ‘And I’m not ready to come back to work just yet. I will be, but not just yet. Maybe in another month. She’s so little and I need to be with her...please? Tell me you understand, Ellie.’

I understand that I haven’t filled your position because I was holding it open for you—because you asked me to. I understand that I’m running myself ragged, that the clients miss you...

‘Another month?’ Merri coaxed. ‘Pretty please?’

Ellie rubbed her forehead. What could she say? Merri didn’t need to work, thanks to her very generous father, so if she forced her to choose between the bakery and Molly Blue the bakery would lose. She would lose...

Ellie swallowed, told herself that if she pushed Merri to come back and she didn’t then it was her decision...but she felt the flames of panic lick her throat. They were big girls, and their friendship was more than the job they shared—it would survive her leaving the bakery—but she didn’t want to take the chance. Her head knew that she was overreacting but her heart didn’t care.

She had too much at stake as it was. She couldn’t risk losing her in any way. She’d coped for over six months; she’d manage another month. Somehow.

Ellie bit her top lip. ‘Sure, Merri.’

‘You’re the best—but I’ve got to dash. The Princess is bellowing.’ Now Ellie could hear Molly’s insistent wail. ‘I’ll try to get to the bakery later this week and we can talk about what we’re going to do. Byeee! Love you.’

‘Love you...’ Ellie heard the beep-beep that told her the call had been dropped and tossed her mobile on the desk in front of her.

‘El, there’s someone to see you out front.’

Ellie glanced from the merry face of Samantha, one of her servers, peeking around her door to the old-fashioned clock above her head, and frowned. The bakery and coffee shop had closed ten minutes ago, so who could it be?

‘Who is it?’

Samantha shrugged. ‘Dunno. He just said to tell you that your father sent him. He’s alone out front...we’re all heading home.’

‘Thanks, Sammy.’ Ellie frowned and swivelled around to look at the screens on the desk behind her. There were cameras in the front of the shop, in the bakery and in the storeroom, and they fed live footage into the monitors.

Ellie’s brows rose as she spotted him, standing off to the side of a long display of glass-fronted fridges, a rucksack hanging off his very broad shoulders. Week-long stubble covered his jaw and his auburn hair was tousled from finger raking.

Jack Chapman. Okay, she was officially surprised. Any woman who watched any one of the premier news channels would recognise that strong face under the shaggy hair. Ellie wasn’t sure whether he was more famous for his superlative and insightful war reporting or for being the definition of eye candy.

Grubby low-slung jeans and even grubbier boots. A dark untucked T-shirt. He ran a hand through his hair and, seeing a clasp undone on the side pocket of his rucksack, bent down to fix it. Ellie watched the long muscles bunching under his thin shirt, the curve of a very nice butt, the strength of his brown neck.

Oh, yum—oh, stop it now! Get a grip! The important questions were: why was he here, what did he want and what on earth was her father thinking?

Ellie lifted her head as Samantha tapped on the doorframe again and stood there, shuffling on her feet and biting her lip. She recognised that look. ‘What’s up, Sammy?’

Samantha looked at her with big brown eyes. ‘I know that I promised to work for you tomorrow night to help with the petits fours for that fashion show—’

‘But?’

‘But I’ve been offered a ticket to see Linkin Park and they are my favourite band...it’s a free ticket and you know how much I love them.’

Ellie considered giving her a lecture on responsibility and keeping your word, on how promises shouldn’t be broken, but the kid was nineteen and it was Linkin Park. She remembered being that age and the thrill of a kick-ass concert.

And Samantha, battling to put herself through university, couldn’t afford to pay for a ticket herself. She’d remember it for for ever...so what if it meant that Ellie had to work a couple of hours longer? It wasn’t as if she had a life or anything.

‘Okay, I’ll let you off the hook.’ Ellie winced at Samantha’s high-pitched squeal. ‘This time. Now, get out of here.’

Ellie grinned as she heard her whooping down the stairs, but the grin faded when she glanced at the monitor again. Scowling, she reached for her mobile, hastily scrolling through her address book before pushing the green button.

‘Ellie—hello.’ Her father’s deep voice crooned across the miles.

‘Dad, why is Jack Chapman in my bakery?’

Ellie heard her father’s sharp intake of breath. ‘He’s there already? Good. I was worried.’

Of course you were, Ellie silently agreed. For the past ten years, since her eighteenth birthday, she’d listened to her father rumble on and on about Jack Chapman—the son he’d always wanted and never got. ‘He’s the poster-boy for a new generation of war correspondents,’ he’d said. ‘Unbiased, tough. Willing to dive into a story without thinking about his safety, looking for the story behind the story, yet able to push aside emotion to look for the truth...’ Yada, yada, yada...

‘So, again, why is he here?’ Ellie asked.

And, by the way, why do you only call when you want something from me? Oh, wait, you didn’t call. I did! You just sent your boy along, expecting me to accommodate your every whim.

Some things never changed.

‘He was doing an interview with a Somalian warlord who flipped. He was stripped of his cash and credit cards, delivered at gunpoint to a United Nations aid plane leaving for Cape Town and bundled onto it,’ Mitchell Evans said in a clipped voice. ‘I need you to give him a bed.’

Jeez, Dad, do I have a B&B sign tattooed on my forehead?

Ellie, desperate to move beyond her default habit of trying to please her father, tried to say no, but a totally different set of words came out of her mouth. ‘For how long?’

God, she was such a wimp.

‘Well, here’s the thing, sugar-pie...’

Oh, good grief. Her father had a thing. A lifetime with her father had taught her that a thing never worked out in her favour. ‘Jack is helping me write a book on the intimate lives of war reporters—mine included.’

Interesting—but she had no idea what any of this had to do with her. But Mitchell didn’t like being interrupted, so Ellie waited for him to finish.

‘He needs to talk to my family members. I thought he could stay a little while, talk to you about life with me...’

Sorry...life with him? What life with him? During her parents’ on-off marriage their home had been a place for her mum to do his laundry rather than to live. He’d lived his life in all the countries people were trying to get out of: Iraq, Gaza, Bosnia. Home was a place he’d dropped in and out of. Work had always been his passion, his muse, his lifelong love affair.

Resentment nibbled at the wall of her stomach. Depending on what story had been consuming him at the time, Mitchell had missed every single important event of her childhood. Christmas concerts and ballet recitals, swimming galas and father-daughter days. How could he be expected to be involved in his daughter’s life when there were bigger issues in the world to write about, analyse, study?

What he’d never realised was that he was her biggest issue...the creator of her angst, the source of her abandonment issues, the spring that fed the fountain of her self-doubt.

Ellie winced at her melodramatic thoughts. Her childhood with Mitchell had been fraught with drama but it was over. However, in situations like these, old resentments bubbled up and over.

Her father had been yakking on for a while and Ellie refocused on what he was saying.

‘The editors and I want Jack to include his story—he is the brightest of today’s bunch—but getting Jack to talk about himself is like trying to find water in the Gobi Desert. He’s not interested. He’s as much an enigma to me as he was when we first met. So will you talk to him?’ Mitchell asked. ‘About me?’

Oh, good grief. Did she have to? Really?

‘Maybe.’ Which they both knew meant that she would. ‘But, Dad, seriously? You can’t just dump your waifs and strays on me.’ He could—of course he could. He was Mitchell Evans and she was a push-over.

‘Waif and stray? Jack is anything but!’

Ellie rubbed her temple. Could this day throw anything else at her head? The bottom line was that another of Mitchell’s colleagues was on her doorstep and she could either take him in or turn him away. Which she wouldn’t do...because then her father wouldn’t be pleased and he’d sulk, and in twenty years’ time he’d remind her that she’d let him down. Really, it was just easier to give the guy a bed for the night and bask in Mitchell’s approval for twenty seconds. If that.

If only they were normal people, Ellie thought. The last colleague of her father’s she’d had to stay—again at Mitchell’s request—had got hammered on her wine and tried to paw her before passing out on her Persian carpet. And every cameraman, producer and correspondent she’d ever met—including her father—was crazy, weird, strange or odd. She figured that it was a necessary requirement if you wanted to chase down and report on human conflicts and disasters.

Mitchell’s voice, now that he’d got his own way, sounded jaunty again. ‘Jack’s a good man. He’s probably not slept for days, hasn’t eaten properly for more than a week. A bed, a meal, a bath. It’s not that much to ask because you’re a good person, my sweet, sweet girl.’

My sweet, sweet girl? Tuh!

Sweet, sweet sucker, more like.

Ellie sneaked another look at Mr-Hot-Enough-to-Melt-Heavy-Metal. He did have a body to die for, she thought.

‘Have you met Jack before?’ Mitchell asked.

‘Briefly. At your wedding to Steph.’ Wife number three, who’d stuck around for six months. Ellie had been eighteen, chronically shy, and Jack had barely noticed her.

‘Oh, yeah—Steph. I liked her...I still don’t know why she left,’ Mitchell said, sounding plausibly bemused.

Gee, Dad, here’s a clue. Maybe, like me, she hated the idea of the man she adored being away for five of those six months, plunging into the situation in Afghanistan and only popping up occasionally on TV. Hated not knowing whether you were alive or dead. It’s no picnic loving someone who doesn’t love you a fraction as much as you love your job.

She, her mother and Mitchell’s two subsequent wives had come second-best time after time...decade after decade. And she’d repeated the whole stupid cycle by getting engaged to Darryl.

She’d vowed she’d never fall in love with a journalist and she hadn’t. But life had bust a gut laughing when she’d become engaged to a man she’d thought was the exact opposite of her father, only to realise that he spent even less time at home than her father had. That was quite an accomplishment, since he’d never, as far as she knew, left London itself.

She’d been such a sucker, Ellie thought. Still was...

Maybe one of these days she’d find her spine.

Ellie looked down at her mobile, realised that her father hadn’t said goodbye before disconnecting and shrugged. Situation normal. She glanced at the monitor again and saw the impatience on Jack’s face, caught his tapping foot. The muscles in his arms bulged as he folded them across his chest. Although the feed was in black and white she knew that his eyes were hazel...sometimes brown, sometimes green, gold, always compelling. Right now they were blazing with a combination of frustration, exhaustion and a very healthy dose of annoyance.

He was different from the twenty-four-year-old she’d met a decade ago. Older, harder, a bit damaged. Ellie felt an unfamiliar buzz in her womb and cocked her head as attraction skittered through her veins and caused her heartbeat to fuzz...

She tossed her mobile onto her desk and pushed her chair back as she stood up and blew out a breath.

It didn’t matter that he was tall, built and had a sexy face that could stop traffic, she lectured herself. Crazy came in all packages.

* * *

‘Jack?’

Jack Chapman, standing in the front section of the bakery—aqua stripes on the walls, black checked floors, white cabinets, a sunshine-yellow surfboard—whirled around at the low, melodious voice and blinked. Then blinked again. He knew he was tired, but this was ridiculous...

He’d been expecting the awkward, overweight, shy girl from Mitch’s wedding not this...babe! This tropical, colourful, radiant, riveting, dazzling babe. With a capital B. In bold and italics.

Waist-length black hair streaked with purple and green stripes, milk-saturated coffee skin, vivid blue eyes and her father’s pugnacious chin.

And slim, curvy legs that went up to her ears.

‘Hi, I’m Ellie. Mitchell has asked me to put you up for the night.’

His pulse kicked up as he struggled to find his words. He eventually managed to spit a couple out. ‘I’m grateful. Thank you.’

Whoa! Jack dropped his pack to the floor and resisted the impulse to put his hand on his heart to check if it was okay. With his history...

You are not having a heart attack, you moron! Major overreaction here, dude, cool your jets!

So she wasn’t who he’d been expecting? In his line of work little was as expected, so why was his heart jumping and his mouth dry?

Jack rocked on his heels, looked around and tried not to act like a gauche teenager. ‘This is a really nice place. Do you own it?’

Ellie looked around and the corners of her mouth tipped up. ‘Yep. My mum and I are partners.’

‘Ah...’ He looked at the empty display fridges. ‘Where’s the food? Shouldn’t there be food?’

Her smile was a fist to his sternum.

‘Most of the baked goods are sold out and we put the deli meats away every night.’ She fiddled with the strap of her huge leather tote bag. ‘So, how was your flight?’ she asked politely.

Sitting on the floor of a cargo plane in turbulence, with bruised ribs and a pounding headache? Just peachy. ‘Fine, thanks.’

The reality was that he was exhausted, achingly stiff and sore, and his side felt as if he had a red-hot poker lodged inside it. He wanted a shower and to sleep for a week. His glance slid to a fridge filled with soft drinks. And he’d kill someone for a Coke.

Ellie caught his look and waved to the fridge. ‘Help yourself.’

Jack grimaced. ‘I can’t pay for it.’

‘Pari’s can afford to give you a can on the house,’ Ellie said wryly.

The words were barely out of her mouth and he was opening the fridge, yanking out a red can and popping the tab. The tart, sugary liquid slid down his throat and he sighed, knowing the sugar and caffeine would give him another hour or two of energy. Maybe...

He swore under his breath as once again he realised that he was stuck halfway across the world. He couldn’t even pay for a damn soft drink. He silently cursed again. He needed to borrow cash and a bed from Ellie until his replacement bank cards were delivered. He grimaced at the sour taste now in his mouth. Having to ask for help made him feel...out of control, helpless. Powerless.

He hated to feel beholden, but he reminded himself it would only be for a night—two, maximum.

Jack finished his drink and looked around for a bin.

Ellie took the can from him, walked behind the counter and tossed it away. ‘Help yourself to another, if you like.’

‘I’m okay. Thanks.’

Ellie’s eyebrows lifted and their eyes caught and held. Jack thought that she was an amazing combination of east and west: skin from her Goan-born grandparents, and blue eyes and that chin from her Irish father. Her body was all her own and should come with a ‘Danger’ warning. Long legs, tiny waist, incredible breasts...

Because he was very, very good at reading body language, he saw wariness in her face, a lot of shyness and a hint of resignation. Could he blame her? He was a stranger, about to move into her house.

‘Funky décor,’ he said, trying to put her at ease. Hanging off the wall next to the front door was a fire-red canoe; its seating area sprouting gushing bunches of multi-coloured daisy-like flowers. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen surfboards and canoes used to decorate before. Or filled with flowers.’

Ellie laughed. ‘I know; they are completely over the top, but such fun!’

‘Those daisy things look real,’ Jack commented.

‘Gerbera daisies—and I don’t think there’s a point to flower arrangements if they aren’t real,’ Ellie replied.

He’d never thought about flowers that way. Actually, he’d never thought about flowers at all. ‘What’s with the signatures on the canoe?’

Ellie shrugged. ‘I have no idea. I bought it like that.’

Jack shoved his hand into the pocket of his jeans and winced when the taxi driver leaned on his horn. Dammit, he’d forgotten about him. He felt humiliation tighten his throat. Now came the hard part, he thought, cursing under his breath. A soft drink was one thing...

‘Look, I’m really sorry, but I’ve got myself into a bit of a sticky situation... Is there any chance you could pay the taxi fare for me? I’m good for it, I promise.’

‘Sure.’ Ellie reached into her bag, pulled out her purse and handed him a couple of bills.

Jack felt the tips of his fingers brush hers and winced at the familiar flame that licked its way up his arm. His body had decided that it was seriously attracted to her and there was nothing he could do about it.

Damn, Jack thought, as he stomped out through the door to pay his taxi fare. He really didn’t feel comfortable being attracted to a woman he was beholden to, who was his mentor’s beloved daughter and with whom he’d spend only two days before blowing out of her life.

Just ignore it, Jack told himself. You’re a grown man, firmly in control of your libido.

He blew air into his cheeks as he handed the money over to the taxi driver and rubbed his hand over his face. The door behind him opened and he turned away from the road to see Ellie lugging his heavy rucksack through the door. Ignoring his burning side, he broke into a jog, quickly reached her and took his pack from her. The gangster bastards had taken his iPad, his satellite and mobile phones, his cash and credit cards, but had left him his dirty, disgusting clothes.

He would’ve left them too...

‘Here—let me take that.’ Jack took his rucksack from her.

‘I just need to lock up and we can go,’ Ellie said, before disappearing back inside the building.

Jack waited in the late-afternoon sun on the corner, his rucksack resting against an aqua pot planted with hot-pink flowers. He was beginning to suspect—from her multi-coloured hair and her bright bakery with its pink and purple exterior—that Ellie liked colour. Lots of it.

Mitchell had mentioned that Ellie was a baker and he’d expected her to be frumpy and housewifey, rotund and rosy—not slim, sexy and arty. Even her jewellery was creative: multi-length strands of beads in different shades of blue. He could say something about lucky beads to be against that chest, but decided that even the thought was pathetic...

He heard the door open behind him and she reappeared. She pulled the wooden and glass door shut, then yanked down the security grate and bolted and locked it.

Jack looked from the old-style bakery to the wide beach across the road and felt a smile form. It was nearly half-past six, a warm evening in summer, and the beach and boardwalk hummed with people.

‘What time does the sun set?’ he asked.

‘Late. Eight-thirty-ish,’ Ellie answered. She gestured to the road behind them. ‘I live so close to work that I don’t drive...um...my house is up that hill.’

Jack looked up the steep road to the mountain behind it and sighed. That was all he needed—a hike up a hill with a heavy pack. What else was this day going to throw at him?

He sighed again. ‘Lead on.’

Ellie pulled a pair of over-large sunglasses from her bag and put them on, and they started to walk. They passed an antique store, a bookstore and an old-fashioned-looking pharmacy—he needed to stock up on some supplies there, but that would raise some awkward questions. He waited for Ellie to initiate the conversation. She did, moments later, good manners overcoming her increasingly obvious shyness.

‘So, what happened to you?’

‘Didn’t your father tell you?’

‘Only that you got jumped by a couple of thugs and were kicked out of Somalia. You need a place to stay because you’re broke.’

‘Temporarily broke,’ Jack corrected her. Mitchell hadn’t given her the whole story, thankfully. It was simple enough. He’d asked a question about the hijackings of passing ships which had pushed the warlord’s ‘detonate’ button. He’d gone psycho and ordered his henchman to beat the crap out of him. He’d tried to resist, but six against one...bad odds.

Very bad odds. Jack shook off a shudder.

‘So, is there anything else I can do for you apart from giving you a bed?’

Her question jerked him back to the present and his instinctive answer was, A night with you in bed would be great.

Seriously? That was what he was thinking?

Jack shook his head and ordered himself to get with the programme. ‘Um...I just need to spend a night, maybe two. Borrow a mobile phone, a computer to send some e-mails, have an address to have my replacement bank cards delivered to...’ Jack replied.

‘I have a spare mobile, and you can use my old laptop. I’ll write my address down for you. Are you on a deadline?’

‘Not too bad. This is a print story for a political magazine.’

Ellie lifted her eyebrows. ‘I thought you only did TV work?’

‘I get the occasional assignment from newspapers and magazines. I freelance, so I write articles in between reporting for the news channels,’ Jack replied.

Ellie shoved her sunglasses up into her hair and rubbed her eyes. ‘So how are you going to write these articles? I presume your notes were taken.’

‘I backed up my notes and documents onto a flash drive just before the interview. I slipped it into my shoe.’ It was one of the many precautionary measures he took when operating in Third World countries.

‘They let you keep your passport?’

Jack shrugged. ‘They wanted me to leave and not having a passport would have hindered that.’

Ellie shook her head. ‘You have a crazy job.’

He did, and he loved it. Jack shrugged. ‘I operate best in a war zone, under pressure.’ He loved having a rucksack on his back, dodging bullets and bombs to get the stories few other journalists found.

‘Mitchell always said that it’s a powerful experience to be holed up in a hotel in Mogadishu or Sarajevo with no water, electricity or food, playing poker with local contacts to the background music of bombs and automatic gunfire. I never understood that.’

Jack frowned at the note of bitterness in her voice and, quickly realising that there was a subtext beneath her words that he didn’t understand, chose his next words carefully. ‘Most people would consider it their worst nightmare—and to the people living and working in that war zone it is—but it is exciting, and documenting history is important.’

And the possibility of imminent death didn’t frighten him at all. After all, he’d faced death before...

No, what would kill him would be being into a nine-to-five job, living in one city, doing the same thing day in and day out. He’d cheated death and received a second swipe at life...and the promise he’d made so long ago, to live life hard and fast and big, still fuelled him on a daily basis.

Jack felt a hard knot in his throat and tried to swallow it down. He was alive because someone else hadn’t received the same second swipe...

‘We’re here.’

Ellie’s statement interrupted his spiralling thoughts and Jack hid his sigh of relief as she turned up a driveway and approached a wrought-iron gate. Thank God. He wasn’t sure if he could go much further.

Ellie looked at the remote in her hand, took a breath and briefly closed her eyes. He saw the tension in her shoulders and the rigid muscle in her jaw. She wasn’t comfortable... Jack cursed. If he had been operating on more than twelve hours’ sleep in four days he would have picked up that the shyness was actually tension a lot earlier. And it had increased the closer they came to her home.

‘Look, you’re obviously not happy about having me here,’ Jack said, dropping his pack to the ground. ‘Sorry. I didn’t realise. I’ll head back to the bakery—hitch a lift to the airport.’

Ellie jammed her hands into the pockets of her cut-offs. ‘No—really, Jack...I told my father I’d help you.’

‘I don’t need your charity,’ Jack said, pushing the words out between his clenched teeth.

‘It’s not charity.’ Ellie lifted up a hand and rubbed her eyes with her thumb and index finger. ‘It’s just been a long day and I’m tired.’

That wasn’t it. She was strung tighter than a guitar string. His voice softened. ‘Ellie, I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable in your own home. I told Mitch that I was happy to wait at the airport. It’s not a big deal.’

Ellie straightened and looked him in the eye. ‘I’m sorry. I’m the one who is making this difficult. Your arrival just pulled up some old memories. The last time I took in one of my father’s workmates I was chased around my house by a drunken, horny cameraman.’

He sent her his I’m-a-good-guy grin. ‘Typical. Those damn cameramen—you can’t send them anywhere.’

Ellie smiled, as he’d intended her to. He could see some of her tension dissolve at his stab at humour.

‘Sorry, I know I sound ridiculous. And I’m not crazy about talking about my relationship with Mitchell for this book you’re helping him write—’

‘I’m helping him write? Is that what he said?’ Jack shook his head. Mitchell was living in Never-Never Land. It was his book, and he was writing the damn thing. Yes, Mitchell Evans’s and Ken Baines’s names would be on the cover, but there would be no doubt about who was the author. The sizeable advance in his bank account was a freaking big clue.

‘Your father...I like him...but, jeez, he can be a pain in the ass,’ Jack said.

‘So does that mean you don’t want to talk to me about him?’ Ellie asked, sounding hopeful and a great deal less nervous.

Jack half smiled as he shook his head. ‘Sorry...I do need to talk to you about him.’

He raked his hair off his face, thinking about the book. Ken’s fascinating story was all but finished; Mitch’s was progressing. Thank God he’d resisted all the collective pressure to get him to write his. Frankly, it would be like having his chest cracked open without anaesthetic.

He was such a hypocrite. He had no problems digging around other people’s psyches but was more than happy to leave his own alone.

Jack looked at Ellie, saw her still uncertain expression and was reminded that she was wary of having a strange man in her house. He couldn’t blame her.

‘And as for chasing you around your house? Apart from the fact that I am so whipped I couldn’t make a move on a corpse, it really isn’t my style.’

Ellie looked at him for a long moment and then her smile blossomed. It was the nicest punch to the heart he’d ever received.

TWO

Jack looked up a lavender-lined driveway to the house beyond it. It was a modest two-storey with Old World charm, wooden bay windows and a deep veranda, nestled in a wild garden surrounded by a high brick wall. The driveway led up to a two-door garage. He didn’t do charming houses—hell, he didn’t do houses. He had a flat that he barely saw, boxes that were still unpacked, a fridge that was never stocked. In many ways his flat was just another hotel room: as impersonal, as bland. He wasn’t attached to any of his material possessions and he liked it that way.

Attachment was not an emotion he felt he needed to become better acquainted with...either to possessions or partners.

‘Nice place,’ Jack said as he walked up the stairs onto a covered veranda. Ellie took a set of keys from the back pocket of those tight shorts. It was nice—not for him, but nice—a charming house with loads of character.

‘The house was my grandmother’s. I inherited it from her.’

Jack glanced idly over his shoulder and his breath caught in his throat. God, what a view!

‘Oh, that is just amazing,’ he said, curling his fingers around the wooden beam that supported the veranda’s roof. Looking out over the houses below, he could see a sweeping stretch of endless beach that showed the curve of the bay and the sleepy blue and green ocean.

‘Where are we, exactly?’ he asked.

Ellie moved to stand next to him. ‘On the False Bay coast. We’re about twenty minutes from the CBD of Cape Town, to the south. That bay is False Bay and you can see about thirty kilometres of beach from here. Kalk Bay is that way—’ she pointed ‘—and Muizenberg is up the coast.’

‘What are those brightly coloured boxes on the beach?’

‘Changing booths. Aren’t they fun? The beach is hugely popular, and if you look just north of the booths, at the tables and chairs under the black and white striped awning, that’s where we were—at Pari’s.’

‘It’s incredible.’

‘Your room looks out onto the beach and the bathroom has a view of the Muizenberg Mountain behind us. There are some great walks and biking trails in the nature reserve behind us.’

Ellie nudged one of two almost identical blond Labradors aside in an attempt to get close enough to the front door and shove her key in the lock. Pushing open the wooden door with its stained glass window insert, she gestured for Jack to come into the hall as she automatically hung her bag onto a decorative hook.

‘The bedrooms are upstairs. I presume that you’d like a shower? Something to eat? Drink?’

He probably reeked like an abandoned rubbish dump. ‘I’d kill for a shower.’

Jack had an impression of more bright colours and eclectic art as he followed Ellie up the wooden staircase. There was a short passage and then she opened the door to a guest bedroom: white and lavender linen on a double bed, pale walls and a ginger cat curled up on the royal purple throw.

‘Meet Chaos. The en-suite bathroom is through that door.’

Ellie picked up Chaos and cradled the cat like a baby. Jack scratched the cat behind its ears and Chaos blinked sleepily.

Jack thankfully dropped his backpack onto the wooden floor and sat down on the purple throw at the end of the bed while he waited for the dots behind his eyes to recede. Ellie walked to the window, pulled the curtain back and lifted the wooden sash to let some fresh air into the room.

He dimly heard Ellie ask again if he wanted something to drink and struggled to respond normally. He was enormously grateful when she left the room and he could shove his head between his knees and pull himself back from the brink of fainting.

Because obviously he’d prefer not to take the concept of falling at Ellie’s feet too literally.

* * *

Ellie skipped down the stairs, belted into the kitchen and yanked her mobile from her pocket.

Merri answered on the first ring. ‘I know that you’re upset with me about extending my maternity leave...’

‘Shut up! This is more important!’ Ellie hissed, keeping her voice low. ‘Mitchell sent me a man!’

Merri waited a beat before responding. ‘Your father is procuring men for you now? Are you that desperate? Oh, wait...yes, you are!’

‘You are so funny...not.’ Ellie shook her head. ‘No, you twit, I’m acting as a Cape Town B&B for his stray colleagues again, but this time he sent me Jack Chapman!’

‘The hottie war reporter?’ Merri replied, after taking a moment to make the connection. She sounded awed and—gratifyingly—a smidgeon jealous. ‘Well?’

‘Well, what?’

‘What’s he like?’ Merri demanded.

‘He’s reluctantly, cynically charming. Fascinating. And he has the envious ability to put people at ease. No wonder he’s an ace reporter.’ When low-key charm and fascination came wrapped up in such a pretty package it was doubly, mind-alteringly disarming.

‘Well, well, well...’ Merri drawled. ‘It sounds like he has made quite an impression! You sound...breathy.’

Breathy? No, she did not!

But why did she feel excited, shy, nervous and—dammit—scared all at the same time? Oh, she wasn’t scared of him—she knew instinctively, absolutely, that Jack was a gentleman down to his toes—but she was on a scalpel-edge because he was the first man in ages who had her nerve-endings humming and her sexual radar beeping. And if she told Merri that...

‘You’re attracted to him,’ Merri stated.

She hated it when Merri read her mind. ‘I’m not...it’s just a surprise. And even if I was...’

‘You are.’

‘He’s too sexy, too charming, has a crazy job that I loathe, and he’ll be gone in a day or two.’

‘Mmm, but he’s seriously hot. Check him out on the internet.’

‘Is that what you’re doing? Stop it and concentrate!’ She gave Merri—and herself—a mental slap. ‘I have more than enough to deal with without adding the complication of even thinking about attraction and sex and a good-looking face topping a sexy body! Besides, I’m not good at relationships and men.’

‘Because you’re still scared to risk giving your heart away and having to take it back, battered and bruised, when they ride off into the sunset?’

Merri tossed her own words back at her and Ellie grimaced.

‘Exactly! And a pretty face won’t change anything. My father and my ex put me through an emotional grinder and Jack Chapman has the potential to do the same...’

‘Well, that’s jumping the gun, since you’ve just met him, but I’ll bite. Why?’

‘Purely because I’m attracted to him!’ Ellie responded in a heated voice. ‘It’s an unwritten rule of my life that the men I find fascinating have an ability to wreak havoc in my life!’

They dropped in, kicked her heart around, ultimately decided that she wasn’t worth sticking around for and left.

Merri remained silent and after a while Ellie spoke again. ‘You agree with me, don’t you?’

‘No, don’t take my silence for agreement; I’m just in awe of your crazy.’ Merri sighed. ‘So, to sum up your rant: you are such a bum magnet when it comes to men that your rule of thumb is that if you find one attractive then you should run like hell? Avoid at all costs?’

‘You’ve nailed it,’ Ellie said glumly.

‘I want to see how you manage to do this when the man in question has moved his very hot self into your rather small house.’

Ellie disconnected her mobile on Merri’s hooting laughter. Really, with friends like her...

Returning to the spare bedroom with towels for his bathroom and a cold beer in her hands, Ellie heard a low groan and peeked through the crack in the door to look at Jack, still sitting on the edge of the bed, his hands gripping the bottom of his shirt, pale and sweating.

Hurrying into the room, she dumped the towels on the bed, handed him the beer and frowned. ‘Are you all right?’

Jack took a long, long drink from the bottle and rested the cold glass against his cheek. ‘Sure. Why?’

‘I noticed that you winced when you picked up your backpack. You took your time walking up the stairs, and now you’re as white as a sheet and your hands are shaking!’

Jack rubbed the back of his neck. ‘I’m a bit dinged up,’ he eventually admitted.

‘Uh-huh? How dinged up?’

‘Just a bit. I’ll survive.’ Jack put the almost empty beer bottle on the floor and gripped the edge of his shirt again.

Ellie watched him struggle to pull it up and shook her head at his white-rimmed mouth.

‘Can I help?’ she asked eventually.

‘I’ll get there,’ Jack muttered.

He couldn’t, and with a slight shake of her head she stepped closer to the bed, grabbed the edges of his T-shirt and helped him pull it over his head. A beautiful body was there—somewhere underneath the blue-black plate-sized bruises that looked like angry thunderclouds. He had a wicked vertical scar bisecting his chest that suggested a major operation at one time, and Ellie bit her lip when she walked around his knees to look at his back. She couldn’t stifle her horrified gasp. The damage on his back was even worse, and on his tanned skin she could see clear imprints of a heel here and the toe of a boot there.

‘What does the other guy look like?’ she asked, trying to be casual.

‘Guys. Not as bad as me, unfortunately.’ Jack balled his T-shirt in his hand and tossed it towards his rucksack. ‘The Somalians decided to give me something to remember them by.’

Jack sat on the edge of the bed, bent over and, using one hand and taking short breaths, undid the laces of his scuffed trainers. When they were loose enough, he toed them off.

Jack sent her a crooked grin that didn’t fool her for a second. ‘As you can see, all in working order.’

‘Anything broken?’

Jack shook his head. ‘I think they bruised a rib or two. I’ll live. I’ve had worse.’

Ellie shook her head. ‘Worse than this?’

‘A bullet does more damage,’ Jack said, standing up and slowly walking to the en-suite bathroom.

Ellie gasped. ‘You’ve been shot?’

‘Twice. Hurts like a bitch.’

Hearing water running in the basin, Ellie abruptly sat down. She was instantly catapulted back in time to when she’d spent a holiday with Mitchell and his mother—her grandmother Ginger—in London when she was fourteen. He’d run to Bosnia to do a ‘quick report’ and come back in an ambulance plane, shot in the thigh. He’d lost a lot of blood and spent a couple of days in the ICU.

It wasn’t her favourite holiday memory.

Jack didn’t seem to be particularly fazed about his injuries; like Mitchell he probably fed on danger and adrenalin...it made no sense to her.

‘You do realise that you could’ve died?’ Ellie said, wondering why she even bothered.

Jack walked back into the room, dried his face on a towel he’d picked up from the bed and shrugged. ‘Nah. They were lousy shots.’

Ellie sighed. She couldn’t understand why getting hurt, shot or putting yourself in danger wasn’t a bigger deterrent. She knew that Jack, like her father, preferred to work solo, shunning the protection of the army or the police, wanting to get the mood on the streets, the story from the locals. Such independence ratcheted up the danger quotient to the nth degree.

There was a reason why war reporting was rated as one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. Were they dedicated to the job or just plain stupid? Right now, seeing those bruises, she couldn’t help but choose stupid.

‘So, before I go...do you want something to eat?’

Jack shook his head. ‘The pilot stood me a couple of burgers at the airport. Thanks, though.’

‘Okay, well, I’ll be downstairs if you need anything...’ Ellie couldn’t resist dropping her eyes to sneak a peek at his stomach. As she’d suspected, he had a gorgeous six-pack—but her attention was immediately diverted by a mucky, bloody sanitary pad held in place by the waistband of his jeans.

She pursed her lips. ‘And that?’

Jack glanced down and winced. With an enviable lack of modesty he flipped open the top two buttons of his jeans, pulled down the side of his boxer shorts and pulled off the pad. Ellie winced at the seeping, bloody, six-inch slash that bisected the artistic knife and broken heart tattoo on his hip.

‘Not too bad,’ Jack said, after prodding the wound with a blunt-edged finger.

‘What is that? A knife wound?’

‘Mmm. Psycho bastards.’

‘You sound so calm,’ Ellie said, her eyes wide.

‘I am calm. I’m always calm.’

Too calm, she thought. ‘Jack, it needs stitches.’

‘This is minor, Ellie.’ Jack looked mutinous. ‘I’m going to give it a good scrub, slather it in the antiseptic I always carry with me and slap another pad on it.’

‘Who uses sanitary pads for this?’

‘It’s an army thing and it serves the purpose. I’m an old hand at doctoring myself.’

Ellie sighed when Jack turned away to rummage in his rucksack. He pulled out another sanitary pad, stripped the plastic away and slapped the clean pad onto his still bleeding wound. She saw his stubborn look and knew that he’d made up his mind. If she couldn’t get Jack to a hospital—he was six-two and built; how could she force him?—she’d have to trust him when he said that he was an old hand at patching himself up.

‘When my bank cards arrive I’ll go down to the pharmacy and get some proper supplies,’ Jack told her.

Ellie sucked in a frustrated sigh. ‘Give me a list of what you need and I’ll run down and get it. I’ll be back before you’re finished showering.’ She held up her hand. ‘And, yes, you can pay me back.’

Jack looked hesitant and Ellie resisted the impulse to smack the back of his head. ‘Jack, you need some decent medical supplies.’

Jack glared at the floor. She saw his broad shoulders dip in defeat before hearing his reluctant agreement. Within a minute he’d located a notebook from the side pocket of his rucksack and a pen, and he wrote in a strong, clear hand exactly what he wanted. He handed her the list and Ellie knew, by his miserable eyes, that he was embarrassed that he had to ask for her help. Again.

Men. Really...

The mobile in her pocket jangled and Ellie pulled it out, frowning at the unfamiliar number. Answering, she heard a low, distinctively feminine voice asking for Jack. Ellie’s brows pulled together... How on earth could anyone know that Jack was with her? She had hardly completed that thought before realising that the jungle drums must be working well in the war journalists’ world. Her father was spreading the news...

Ellie handed her mobile to Jack and couldn’t help wondering who the owner of the low, subtly sexy voice was. Lover? Colleague? Friend?

‘Hi, Ma.’

Or his mother. Horribly uncomfortable with the level of relief she felt on hearing that he was talking to his mother, Ellie scuttled from the room.

* * *

Jack lifted the mobile to his ear on an internal groan. He just wanted to go and lie down on that bed and sleep. Was that too much to ask? Really?

‘I haven’t been able to reach you for a week!’ said his mother Rae in a semi-hysterical voice.

‘Mum, we had an agreement. You only get to worry about me after you haven’t spoken to me for three weeks.’ Jack rubbed his forehead, actively trying to be patient. He understood her worry—after all that he’d put her and his father through how could he not?—but her over-protectiveness got very old, very quickly.

‘Are you hurt?’ his mother demanded curtly.

He wished he’d learnt to lie to her. ‘Let me talk to Dad, Mum.’

‘That means you’re hurt. Derek! Jack’s hurt!’

Jack heard her sob and she dropped the phone. His father’s voice—an oasis of calm—crossed the miles.

‘Are you hurt?’

‘Mmm.’

‘Where?’

Everywhere. There was no point whining about it. ‘Couple of dents. Nothing major. Tell Mum to calm down to a mild panic.’ Jack heard his mum gabbling in the background, listened through his father’s reassurances and waited until his father spoke again.

‘You mother says to please remind you to visit Dr Jance. Does she need to make an appointment for you?’

He’d forgotten that a check-up was due and he felt his insides contract. He did his best to forget what he’d gone through as a teenager, and these bi-yearly check-ups were reminders of those dreadful four years he’d spent as a slave to his failing heart. He tipped his head back in frustration when he heard Rae demand to talk to him again.

‘Jack, the Sandersons contacted us last week,’ she said in a rush.

Jack felt his heart contract and tasted guilt in the back of his throat. Abruptly he sat down on the edge of the bed. Brent Sanderson. He was alive because Brent had died. How could he not feel guilty? It was a constant—along with the feeling that he owed it to Brent to live life to the full, that living that way was the only way he could honour his brief life, the gift he’d been given...

‘In six weeks it will be seventeen years since the op, and Brent was seventeen when he died,’ Rae said with a quaver in her voice.

She didn’t need to tell him that. He knew exactly how long it had been. They’d both been seventeen when they’d swapped hearts.

‘They want to hold a memorial service for him and have invited us...and you. We’ve said we’ll go and I said that I’d talk to you.’

Jack stretched out, tucked a pillow behind his head and blew out a long stream of air. He tried not to dwell on Brent and his past—he preferred the it happened; let’s move on approach—and he really, really didn’t want to go. ‘It’s a gracious invitation but I’m pretty sure that they’d be happy if I didn’t pitch up.’

‘How can you say that?’

‘Because it would be supremely difficult for them to see me walking around, fit and healthy, knowing that their son is six feet under, Mum!’

They’d given him the gift of their son’s heart. He’d do anything to spare them further pain. And that included keeping his distance...

‘They aren’t like that and they want to meet you. You’ve avoided meeting them for years!’

‘I haven’t avoided them. It just never worked out.’

‘I’ll pretend to believe that lie if you consider coming to Brent’s service,’ Rae retorted.

His mother wasn’t a fool. ‘Mum, I’ll see. I’ve got to go. I’ll visit when I’m back in the UK.’

‘You’re not in the UK? Where are you?’ Rae squawked.

Jack gritted his teeth. ‘You’re mollycoddling me, and you know it drives me nuts!’

‘Well, your career drives me nuts! How can you, after fighting so hard for life, routinely put yourself in danger? It’s—’

‘Crazy and disrespectful to take such risks when I’ve been given another chance at life. I’m playing Russian Roulette with my life and you wish I’d settle down and meet a nice girl and give you grandchildren. Have I left anything out?’

‘No,’ Rae muttered. ‘But I put it more eloquently.’

‘Eloquent nagging is still nagging. But I do love you, you old bat. Sometimes.’

‘Revolting child.’

‘Bye, Ma,’ Jack said, and disconnected the call.

He banged the mobile against his forehead. His parents thought that guilt and fear fuelled his daredevil lifestyle. It did—of course it did—but did that have to be a bad thing? They didn’t understand—probably because he could never explain it—but playing it safe, sitting behind a desk in a humdrum job was, for him, a slow way to die. At fourteen he’d gone from being a healthy, rambunctious, sporty kid to a waif and a ghost, his time spent either in hospital rooms or at his childhood home. He’d just existed for more years than he cared to remember, and he’d vowed that when he had the chance of an active life he’d live it. Hard and fast. He wanted to do it all and see it all—to chase the thrills. For himself and for Brent. Being confined to one house, person or city would be his version of hell. His parents wanted him to settle down, but they didn’t understand that he wouldn’t settle down for anything or anyone. He had to keep moving—and working to feel alive.

Jack switched off the bedside light and stared up at the shadows on the ceiling, actively trying not to think about his past. As per normal, his job had thrown him a curveball and he’d landed up in a strange bed in a strange town. But, he thought as his eyes closed, he was very good at curveballs and strange situations, and meeting Mitch’s dazzling daughter again was very much worth the detour.

* * *

On his second night in Ellie’s spare room, Jack put aside the magazine he’d been reading, rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling above his bed. The air-conditioning unit hummed softly and he could hear the croaky song of frogs in the garden, the occasional whistle of a cricket. It wasn’t that late and his side throbbed.

Knowing that he wouldn’t be able to sleep yet, he flipped back the sheet and stood up. After yanking on a pair of jeans he quietly opened the door and walked to the stairs. Navigating his way through the dark house, he walked into the front lounge, with its two big bay windows, leaned against the side wall and looked through the darkness towards the sea. Through the open windows he could hear the thud of waves hitting the beach and smell the brine-tinged air.

Ellie’s distinctively feminine voice drifted through the bay window, so he pulled back the curtain. He looked out and watched her walk up the stairs to the veranda, mobile to her ear and one arm full of papers and files. She looked exhausted and he could see flour streaks on her open navy chef’s jacket. Jack glanced at the luminous dial of his watch...ten-thirty at night was a hell of a time to be coming home from work.

‘Ginger, my life is a horror movie at the moment.’

Ginger? Wasn’t that Mitchell’s mother? Ellie’s Irish grandmother?

‘Essentially I need Mum to come back but it’s not fair to ask her. I’m chasing my tail on a daily basis, it’s nearly month-end, I have payroll and I need to pay VAT this month. And I need to move the bakery but there’s nowhere to move it to! And, to top it all, your wretched son has sent me a house guest!’

So she wasn’t as sanguine about having him as a guest as she pretended to be. Jack watched as she balanced the stack of papers and two files on the arm of the Morris chair.

‘No, he’s okay,’ Ellie continued. ‘I’ve had worse.’

Only okay? He was going to have to work on that.

Ellie used her free hand to dig into her bag for her house keys and half turned, knocking the unstable pile with her hip. The files tipped and the papers caught in the mild evening wind and drifted away.

‘Dammit! Ginger—sorry, I have to go. I’ve just knocked something over.’

Ellie threw her mobile onto the seat of the Morris chair, then started to curse in Arabic. His mouth fell open. His eyes widened as the curses became quite creative, muddled and downright vulgar.

Jack thought that she could do with some help so he stepped over the sill of the low window directly onto the veranda and started to collect the bits of paper that were scattered all over the floor.

‘Do you actually know what you’re saying?’ he demanded, when she stopped for ten seconds to take a breath.

Ellie sent him a puzzled look. ‘Daughter of a donkey, son of a donkey, your mother is ugly, et cetera.’

Uh, no. Not even close. ‘Do me a favour? Don’t ever repeat any of those anywhere near an Arab, okay?’

Ellie slowly stood up and narrowed her eyes. ‘They are rude, aren’t they?’

He didn’t need to respond because she’d already connected the dots.

‘Mitchell! He taught me those when I was a kid.’ It was so typical of Mitch’s twisted sense of humour to teach his innocent daughter foul curse words in Arabic. ‘I’m going to kill him! I take it you speak Arabic?’

‘Mmm.’ He’d discovered that he had a gift for languages while he was a teenager, when he’d been unable to do anything more energetic than read.

Ellie sent him a direct look. ‘So, do you speak any other languages?’

Jack shrugged. ‘Enough Mandarin to make myself understood. Some Japanese. I’m learning Russian. And Dari...’

‘What’s that?’

‘Also known as Farsi, or Afghan Persian. Helpful, obviously, in Afghanistan.’

Ellie stared at him, seemingly impressed. ‘That’s incredible.’

Jack shrugged, uncomfortable with her praise. ‘Lots of people speak second or third languages.’

‘But not Farsi, Russian or Mandarin,’ Ellie countered. ‘I’m useless. I can barely spell in English.’

‘I don’t believe that.’

‘You can ask Mitchell if you like. Nothing made him angrier than seeing my spelling test results,’ Ellie quipped. ‘Besides, English is a stupid language...their and there, which and witch, write, right, rite.’

‘And another wright,’ Jack added.

‘You’re just making that up,’ she grumbled.

‘I’m not. It’s one of the few four-word homophones.’ Jack’s grin flashed. ‘W.R.I.G.H.T. Someone who constructs or repairs things—as in a millwright.’

‘Homophones? Huh.’ Ellie heaved an exaggerated, forlorn sigh. ‘Good grief, I’m sharing my house with a swot. What did I do to deserve that?’

Jack laughed, delighted. ‘Life does throw challenges at one.’

After they’d finished collecting the papers Ellie sat down on the couch, rolling her head on her shoulders.

Jack sat on the low stone wall in front of her. ‘Tough day?’ he asked, conversationally.

Ellie slumped in the chair. ‘Very. How can you tell?’

Jack lifted his hands. ‘I heard you talking to your grandmother.’

‘And how much did you hear?’

‘You’re pissed, you’re stressed, something about having to move the bakery. You’ve had worse house guests than me.’

Even in the dim light he could see Ellie flush. ‘Sorry. Mitchell tends to use me as his own personal B&B... I didn’t mean to make you feel unwelcome.’

‘Am I?’

Ellie threw her hands up and sent him a miserable look. ‘You’re not. I’m more frustrated at Mitchell’s high-handedness than at the actual reality of a house guest, if that makes sense.’

Jack nodded, hearing the truth in her statement, and relaxed. ‘Mitch does have a very nebulous concept of the word no,’ he stated calmly.

‘And he’s had twenty-eight years to perfect the art of manipulating me,’ Ellie muttered. ‘Again, that’s not directed at you personally.’

Jack laughed. ‘I get it, Ellie. Relax. Talking about relaxing...’ Jack walked back into the house, found a wine rack and remembered that he’d seen a corkscrew in the middle drawer when he was looking for a bread knife earlier. He took the wine and two glasses back to the veranda. ‘If I ever saw a girl in need of the stress-relieving qualities of alcohol, it’s you.’

‘If I have any of that I’ll fall over,’ Ellie told him, covering a yawn with her hand.

‘A glass or two won’t hurt.’ Jack yanked the cork out, poured the Merlot and handed her a glass.

Ellie took the glass from him and took the first delicious sip. ‘Yum. I could drink this all night.’

‘Then it would definitely hurt when you wake up.’ After a moment’s silence, he succumbed to his curiosity. ‘Tell me what that conversation was about.’

Ellie cradled the glass in her hand and eyed Jack across the rim. Shirtless, and with bare feet, he was a delectable sight for sore eyes at the end of a hectic day. ‘You’re very nosy.’

‘I’m a journalist. It’s a job requirement. Talk.’

She wanted to object, to tell him he was bossy—which he was—but she didn’t. Couldn’t. She needed someone to offload on and maybe it would be easier to talk to a stranger who was leaving... When was he leaving? She asked him.

Jack grinned. ‘Not sure yet. Is it a problem if I stay for another night or two? I like your house,’ he added, and Ellie’s glass stopped halfway to her mouth.

‘You want to stay because you like my house? Uh...why?’

‘Well, apart from the fact that we haven’t yet talked about Mitch, it’s...restful.’ Jack lifted a bare muscled shoulder. ‘It shouldn’t be with such bright colours but it is. I like hearing the sea, the wind coming off the mountain. I like it.’

‘Thanks.’ Ellie took a sip of wine. It would be nice to know if he liked her as much as he liked her house, but since she’d only spent a couple of hours with him what could she expect? Ellie couldn’t believe she was even thinking about him like that. It was so high school—and she had bigger problems than thinking about boys and their nice bodies and whether they liked her back.

Jack topped up her wine glass and then his. He squinted at the label on the bottle. ‘This is a nice wine. Maybe I should go on a wine-tasting tour of the vineyards.’

‘That’s a St Sylve Merlot. My friend Luke owns the winery and his fiancée Jess does the advertising for the bakery.’

‘And we’re back full circle to your bakery. Talk.’ Jack boosted himself up so that he sat cross-legged on the stone wall, his back to a wooden beam.

His eyes rested on her face and they encouraged her to trust him, to let it out, to talk to him...

Damn, he was good at this.

Ellie’s smile was small and held a hint of pride. ‘Pari’s Perfect Cakes—’

‘Who was Pari, by the way?’ Jack interrupted her.

‘My grandmother. It was her bakery originally. It means “fairy” in India.’ Pain flashed in her eyes. ‘As you saw, Pari’s is a retail bakery and delicatessen, with a small coffee shop.’

‘It doesn’t look like a small operation. How do you manage it all?’

‘Well, that’s one of my problems. We have two shifts of bakers who make the bread and the high turnover items, and Merri, my best friend, used to do the specialised pastries. I do special function cakes. My mum did the books, stock and payroll and chivvied us along. It all worked brilliantly until recently.’

Jack held up his hand. ‘Wait—back up. Special function cakes? Like wedding cakes?’

‘Sure—but any type of cakes.’ Ellie picked up her mobile and quickly pressed some buttons. ‘Look.’

Jack put his glass of wine next to him on the wall and leaned forward to take the device. He flipped through the screens, looking at her designs.

‘These are amazing, Ellie.’

‘Thank you.’

He looked down at her mobile again. ‘I can’t believe that you made a cake that looks exactly like a crocodile leather shoe.’

‘Not any shoe—a Christian Louboutin shoe.’

Jack looked puzzled. ‘A what?’

‘Great designer of shoes?’ Ellie shook her head.

‘Sorry, I’m more of a trainers and boots kind of guy.’ Jack handed the mobile back to her. ‘So, what went wrong at the bakery?’

‘Not wrong, exactly. Merri had a baby and started her maternity leave. She told me yesterday that she’s extending it.’

‘She told you?’

Ellie heard the disbelief in Jack’s voice and quickly responded, ‘She asked...suggested...kind of.’

Jack frowned. ‘And you said yes?’

‘I didn’t have much of a choice. She doesn’t need to work and I didn’t want to push her into a corner and...’

‘And you couldn’t say no,’ Jack stated with a slight shake of his head.

‘And I suppose you’ve never said yes when you wanted to say no?’ Ellie demanded.

‘I can’t say that I’ve never done that. I generally say what I mean and I never let anyone push me around...’

‘She didn’t...’ Ellie started to protest but fell silent when she saw the challenging expression on Jack’s face. This wasn’t an argument she would win because—well, she did get pushed around. Sometimes. Would he understand if she told him that, as grown-up and confident as she now was, she still had intense periods of self-doubt? Would he think her an absolute drip because her habit reaction was to make sure everyone around her was happy? And if they were they would love her more?

‘What else?’ Jack asked, after taking a sip of wine.

Ellie swirled the wine in her glass. ‘My mother has taken a year’s sabbatical. She always had this dream to travel, so for her fiftieth birthday I gave her a year off. A grand gesture that I am deeply regretting now. But she’s in seventh heaven. She’s got a tattoo, has had at least one affair and has put dreadlocks in her hair.’

‘You sound more upset about the dreadlocks than the affair.’

Ellie shrugged. ‘I just want her home—back in the bakery. She managed the place, did the paperwork and the accounts, the payroll and just made the place run smoothly.’

And while I say that I want everyone to be happy I frequently resent the fact that she left, that Merri left—okay, temporarily—and I have to carry on, pick up the pieces. When do I get to step away?

‘So, you’re stressed out and doing the work of two other people?’

‘And none of it well,’ Ellie added, her tone sulky.

Jack smiled. ‘Now, tell me about having to move.’

Ellie gave him the rundown and cradled her glass of wine in her hands. She felt lighter for telling him, grateful to hand over the problem just for a minute. She didn’t expect him to solve the problem, but just being able to verbalise her emotions was liberating.

And, amazingly, Jack just listened—without offering a solution, a way to fix it. If he wasn’t ripped and didn’t have a stubble-covered jaw and a very masculine package she could almost pretend he was a girlfriend. He listened like one. Keep dreaming, she thought. Not in a million years could she pretend that Jack was anything but a hard-ass—literally and metaphorically—one hundred per cent male.

Ellie yawned, curled her legs up and felt her eyes closing. She felt Jack take the glass from her hand and forced her eyes open.

‘Come on. You’re dead on your feet.’ Jack took her hands and hauled her up.

He’d either overestimated her weight or underestimated his strength because she flew into his chest and her hands found themselves splayed across his pecs, warm and hard and...ooooh... Her nose was pressed against his sternum. She sucked him in along with the breath she took...man-soap, man-smell...Jack.

She felt tiny next to his muscled frame as his hands loosely held her hips, fingers on the top of her bottom. A lazy thumb stroked her hipbone through the chef’s jacket and Ellie felt lust skitter along her skin. She slowly lifted her head and looked at him from beneath her eyelashes. There was half a smile on his face, yet his eyes were dark and serious...

He lifted his hand and gently rested his fingers on her lips. She knew what he was thinking...that he wanted to kiss her. Intended to kiss her.

Ellie just looked up at him with big eyes. She felt like a deer frozen in the headlights, knowing that she should pull away, unable to do so. She could feel his hard body against hers, his rising chest beneath her palms. His arms were strong, his shoulders broad. She felt feminine and dainty and...judging by the amount of action in his pants...desired.

He stepped back at the same time as she pushed him away. She shoved her hands into her hair, squinting at him in the moonlight. This was crazy... She was adult enough to recognise passion that could be perilous—wild, erratic and swamping. But lust, as she’d learnt, clouded her thinking and stripped away her practicality. Lust, teamed with the brief emotional connection she’d felt earlier, when she’d opened up a little to him, had her running scared.

Bum magnet.

Jack cocked his head. ‘So, not a good idea, huh?’

Ellie bit her lip. ‘Really not.’

Jack lifted a shoulder and sent her a rueful smile. ‘Okay. But you’re a very tempting sight in the moonlight so maybe we should go in before I try to change your mind.’

When she didn’t move, Jack reached out and ran a thumb over her bottom lip.

‘You can’t just stand there looking up at me with those incredible eyes, Ellie. Go now, before I forget that I am, actually, a good guy. Because we both know that I could persuade you to stay.’

Ellie erred on the side of caution and fled inside.

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