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Driving Her Crazy
Amy Andrews


Journalist Sadie Bliss is on a mission to prove herself as a world class reporter. But three things stand in her way…1.Dangerously mouth-watering photographer Kent Nelson – he’s far too brooding and arrogant.2.A road trip across the outback with above distraction – did she mention she doesn’t do sleeping under the stars?!3.An insatiable longing to throw her rule book out of the car window…Because what happens in the outback, stays in the outback.Right?







Journalist Sadie Bliss is on a mission to prove herself as a world-class reporter.

But three things stand in her way…

1. Dangerously mouthwatering photographer Kent Nelson—he’s far too brooding and arrogant.

2. A road trip across the Outback with the above distraction—did she mention she doesn’t do sleeping under the stars?

3. An insatiable longing to throw her rule book out of the car window… Because what happens in the Outback stays in the Outback. Right?


DRIVING HER CRAZY






“How are you feeling?” Kent asked as he pulled into a gas station. “Tired?”

Sadie shook her head. Strangely she wasn’t. Driving through the eerily flat landscape on a cloudless, practically moonless night had been weirdly energizing. Like she was in a spaceship, floating through the cosmos.

“You want to see if we can make the Northern territory border? It’s another couple of hours but it’ll cut the trip down tomorrow. We can pull off to the side of the road and catch a few hours’ kip before moving on?”

She pursed her lips. “Camping, huh?”

Kent shot her a derisive look. “I’d hardly call it that. But it’s something you should try at least once in your life.”

Sadie looked at him. At his mouth.

Her, him and a billion stars.

And his mouth.

“Okay.”


Driving Her Crazy

Amy Andrews




www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


ABOUT AMY ANDREWS

Amy Andrews has always loved writing, and still can’t quite believe that she gets to do it for a living. Creating wonderful heroines and gorgeous heroes and telling their stories is an amazing way to pass the day. Sometimes they don’t always act as she’d like them to—but then neither do her kids, so she’s kind of used to it. Amy lives in the very beautiful Samford Valley, with her husband and aforementioned children, along with six brown chickens and two black dogs.

She loves to hear from her readers. Drop her a line at www.amyandrews.com.au (http://www.amyandrews.com.au).

This and other titles by Amy Andrews are available in ebook format—check out www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk).


This book is for all women out there

who have ever looked in the mirror

and headed straight for the chocolate/wine/Tim Tams. And for men with rose-colored glasses.


Contents

Prologue (#ud8fa128d-bdac-5012-b5fd-9923f812bffe)

Chapter One (#ub147bfea-83f4-5bbb-9126-14962e214777)

Chapter Two (#ucf33f652-7f07-5a6c-87f5-d30f1b84e88c)

Chapter Three (#u922e5714-23e7-5c66-a151-66d735b5a5bd)

Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Excerpt (#litres_trial_promo)


PROLOGUE

Sadie Bliss’s breath caught at the emotive image. Wandering through the ritzy New York gallery surrounded by a crowd of A-listers who blinged and glittered so much it hurt her eyes, she was stopped in her tracks by its starkness.

The background murmur of voices and clinking of champagne glasses faded as the world shrank to just the photograph, the centrepiece of the exhibit.

Mortality.

She’d seen it already, of course, in Time magazine, but there was something so much more immediate about it this close. As if it had just been snapped. As if the tragedy were unfolding before her eyes.

She felt as if she were standing in the daunting arid landscape, weighed down by the heat perfectly captured as it shimmered like a mirage from the sand. Smelling the jet fuel from the twisted Black Hawk carcass that she’d seen in the other shots. Hearing the cries of the young soldier as he clutched one bloody hand to his abdomen and reached the other rosary-beaded one into the impossibly blue sky. Calling for someone. God maybe? Or his girlfriend?

Watching his tears turning the grime on his face to muddy tracks. Tasting his despair as life faded from his eyes.

The caption beneath said: Corporal Dwayne Johnson, nineteen, died from fatal wounds before help could arrive.

Goosebumps needling her skin, tears pricking at her eyes brought Sadie back to the here and now. She moved on wishing she’d never been given the coveted ticket to the much anticipated opening night of Kent Nelson’s A Decade of Division. All the pieces snapped from the award-winning photojournalist’s lens were disturbing, but this image, known throughout the world, was particularly harrowing.

A portrait of a young man facing death.

A private moment of anguish.

And although the artist in her appreciated the abstract prettiness of the rosary beads against the bright blue dome of a foreign sky, the image was too intimate—she felt as if she was intruding.

Sadie pushed through the crowd out of the gallery into the sultry June night. She needed a moment. Or two.


ONE

Four months later...

Kent Nelson stood staring across at the view of Darling Harbour, his gaze following the line of the iconic white sails of the Sydney Opera House. He stood with his back to the woman swinging idly in her chair, his good leg planted firmly in front of the other as he leaned into the hand resting high against the floor to ceiling tinted window.

‘So, let me get this straight,’ Tabitha Fox said, tapping her pen on her desk, her bangles jangling, as she too admired the view. Not the one she was used to seeing when she looked towards her windows but a mighty fine one nonetheless. ‘You want to drive several thousand kilometres to take a few photos?’

Kent turned, his ankle twinging as he rested his butt against the glass, and folded his arms across his chest. ‘Yes.’

Tabitha frowned. She’d known Kent a long time, they’d been to uni together about a thousand years ago, even shared a bed for a while, but since the accident in Afghanistan he’d been practically invisible.

Until he’d turned up today wanting to take pictures any staff photographer could take.

‘Okay...why?’

Kent returned her curious gaze with a deliberately blank one of his own. ‘I’m your freelance photographer—it’s what you pay me for.’

Tabitha suppressed a snort. His official status might be freelance photographer for the glossy weekend magazine Sunday On My Mind, but they both knew he’d ‘declined’ every job offered and, she’d bet her significant yearly salary, probably hadn’t taken a photo since the accident.

She narrowed her eyes at him as she tried to see behind the inscrutable expression on his angular face. ‘There are these things called planes. They’re big and metal and don’t ask me how but they fly in the air and get you to where you want to go very quickly.’

A nerve kicked into fibrillation along his jaw line and Kent clenched down hard. ‘I don’t fly,’ he pushed out through tight lips.

The words were quiet but Tabitha felt the full force of their icy blast. Cold enough to freeze vodka. She regarded him for a moment or two as her nimble brain tried to work the situation to her advantage. She drummed her beringed fingers against her desk.

An outback road trip. Local people. The solitude. The joys. The hardships. The copy laid out diary style.

And most importantly, breathtaking vistas capturing the beauty and the terror in full Technicolor shot by a world-renowned, award-winning photographer on his first job since returning from tragedy in Afghanistan.

For that reason alone the paper would sell like hot cakes.

‘Okay.’ Tabitha nodded, her mind made up. ‘Two for the price of one. Journey to the Red Centre stuff—the most spectacular photos you can take.’

‘As well as the Leonard Pinto feature?’

She nodded again. ‘Might as well get my money’s worth out of you. Lord knows when you’ll grant us some more of your time.’

Kent grunted. Tabitha Fox was probably the most business-savvy woman he’d ever met. She’d built Sunday On My Mind from a fluffy six-page pull-out supplement to a dynamic, gritty, feature-driven eighteen-page phenomenon in five years.

He lounged against the glass for a moment. ‘Tell me, I’m curious. How’d you get him? Pinto? He’s pretty reclusive.’

‘He came to me.’

Kent raised an eyebrow. ‘A man who shuns the media and lives in outer whoop-whoop came to you?’

Tabitha smiled. ‘Said he’d open up his life to us—nothing off limits.’

Kent fixed her with his best ‘and pigs might fly’ look. ‘What’s the catch?’

‘Kent, Kent, Kent,’ she tutted. ‘So cynical.’

He shrugged. After spending a decade in one war zone or other, cynical was his middle name. ‘The catch?’ he repeated.

‘Sadie Bliss.’

Kent frowned. The journo on the story with the most spectacular byline in the history of the world? ‘Sadie Bliss?’

Tabitha nodded. ‘He wanted her.’

Kent blinked. ‘And you agreed?’ The Tabitha he knew didn’t like being dictated to. She especially didn’t like relinquishing her editorial control.

She shrugged. ‘She’s young and green. But she can write. And, I—’ she smiled ‘—can edit.’

Kent rubbed a hand along his jaw. ‘Why? Does she know him?’

‘I’m not entirely sure. But he wanted her. So he got her. And so did you. She can...’ Tabitha waved her hand in the air, her bangles tinkling ‘...navigate.’

Kent narrowed his gaze. ‘Wait. You want her to travel with me?’ Three thousand kilometres with a woman he didn’t know in the confines of a car? He’d rather be garrotted with his own camera strap.

Not happening.

Tabitha nodded. ‘How else am I going to get my road trip story?’

Kent shook his head. ‘No.’

Tabitha folded her arms. ‘Yes.’

‘I’m not good company.’

Tabitha almost burst out laughing at the understatement. ‘In that case it’ll be good for you.’

‘I go solo. I’ve always gone solo.’

‘Fine,’ Tabitha sighed, inspecting her fingernails. ‘Sadie and her staff photographer can fly to Pinto and get the job done in a fraction of the time and at half the cost and you can go back to your man-cave and pretend you work for this magazine.’

Kent felt pressure at the angle of his jaw and realised he was grinding down hard. He’d already burned his bridges at a lot of places the last couple of years. He was lucky Tabitha was still taking his calls after the number of times she’d covered for him.

But days in a car with a woman whose name was Sadie Bliss? She sounded like a twenty year old cadet whose mother had named her after one too many fruity cocktails.

‘I do believe,’ Tabitha said, swinging in her chair as she prepared to play her ace, ‘you owe me a couple.’

Kent shut his eyes as Tabitha called in his debts. ‘Fine,’ he huffed as he opened them again because he wanted—needed—to do this. To get back into it again.

And he did owe her.

Tabitha grinned at him like the cat that got the cream. ‘Thank you.’

Kent grunted as he strode to her desk, barely noticing his limp, and sat down. ‘Do you like his nudes?’

Tabitha nodded. ‘I think he’s sublime. You?’

Kent shook his head. ‘They’re all too skinny. Androgynous or something.’

Tabitha rolled her eyes. ‘They’re ballet dancers.’

Leonard’s nude of Marianna Daly, Australian prima ballerina, had won international acclaim for his work and hung in the National Gallery in Canberra.

‘Well, they’re not Renaissance women, that’s for sure.’

Tabitha raised an elegantly plucked eyebrow. ‘You like Rubenesque?’

Kent grunted again. ‘I like curves.’

Tabitha smiled. Oh, goody. She picked up the phone her gaze not leaving his. ‘Is Sadie here yet?’ She nodded twice still spearing Kent with her Mona Lisa smile. ‘Can you send her in?’ she asked, replacing the receiver before the receptionist had a chance to respond.

Kent narrowed his gaze. ‘I don’t trust that smile.’

Tabitha laughed. ‘Suspicious as well as cynical.’

Kent had no intention of subjecting himself to her Cheshire grin. He rose from the chair and prowled to the window, resuming his perusal of the view as the door opened.

Sadie checked her wavy hair was still behaving itself constrained in its tight ponytail as she stepped into the plush corner office, determined not to be intimidated. So what if the legendary Tabitha Fox could make grown men weep? She’d given Sadie the job and, lowly cadet reporter or not, she knew her big break when she saw it.

Even if Leo’s agenda was questionable.

‘Ah Sadie, come in.’ Tabitha smiled. ‘I’d like you to meet someone.’ She nodded her head towards Kent. ‘This is your photographer, Kent Nelson.’

Sadie turned automatically, her gaze falling on broad shoulders before her brain registered the name. She blinked.

‘The Kent Nelson?’ she asked his back, the image that had affected her a few months ago revisiting.

Kent shut his eyes briefly. Great. A groupie. He turned as Tabitha said, ‘The one and only.’

Sadie was speechless. Multi-award-winning, world-acclaimed photojournalist Kent Nelson was coming with her to the back of beyond to take photos of a reclusive celebrity?

She almost asked him who he’d pissed off but checked her natural urge to be sarcastic.

Kent was pretty damn speechless himself as one look at Sadie Bliss blew his mind. And his was not a mind easily blown. Tabitha was smirking in his peripheral vision so he hoped he wasn’t staring at her like a cartoon character whose eyes had just popped out on springs because, try as he might, he was powerless to pull his gaze away from all those curves.

Curves that started at her pouty mouth and did not let up.

Sure, she’d tried to contain them in her awful pin-striped suit but they looked as if they were going to bust out at any moment. They looked as if they had a mind of their own.

Bliss? Very appropriate. A man could starve to death whilst lost in those curves and not even care.

Great. Just what he needed. Three days in a car with a rookie reporter whose curves should come with a neon warning sign.

Sadie looked at Tabitha with a scrunched brow. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand...Kent Nelson is the photographer on my story?’

‘We-e-ll-ll...’ Tabitha wheedled. ‘Plans have changed a little.’

Sadie could feel the pound of her pulse through every cell in her body as a sinking feeling settled into her bones.

They wanted to take her off the story.

Give it to someone else.

Sadie cleared her throat. ‘Changed?’

She was determined to act brisk and professional. She might not have scored this story on merit, but she intended to show everyone she had the chops for feature writing. And if Ms Tabitha bloody Fox thought she wouldn’t fight for her story, then she was mistaken.

Sunday On My Mind, the country’s top weekend magazine supplement, was exactly where she wanted to be.

And if she had to write one more best-dog-in-show story she was going to scream.

‘We want you to do two stories. The feature on Leonard. And another.’ Tabitha flicked her gaze to Kent briefly before refocusing on the busty, ambitious brunette who had been bombarding her inbox with interview requests for the last three months. ‘On an outback road trip.’

Sadie held herself tall even though inside everything was deflating at the confirmation that the story was still hers. She didn’t even allow herself the tiniest little triumphant smile as Tabitha’s words beyond ‘two stories’ sank in.

‘A road trip?’

She looked at Kent, who was watching her with an expression she couldn’t fathom. She was used to men gawking at her. Being lumbered with an E cup from the age of thirteen had broken her in to the world of male objectification early. But this wasn’t that. It was brooding. Intense.

He was intense.

She’d seen pictures of him before, of course. The night of the exhibition there’d been a framed one of him taken on location somewhere in a pair of cammo pants and a khaki T-shirt. His clothing had been by no means tight but the shirt had sat against his chest emphasising well-delineated pecs, firmly muscled biceps and a flat belly.

His light brown hair had been long and shaggy—pushed back behind his ears. His moustache and goatee straggly. He’d been laughing into the lens, his eyes scrunched against the glare, interesting indentations bracketing his mouth.

He’d held a camera with a massive lens in his hands as if it were an extension of him. As a soldier carried a gun.

The whole rugged, action-man thing had never been a turn-on for her—she preferred her men refined, arty, like Leo—but she’d sure as hell been in the female minority that night in New York.

Hell, had the man himself been there, she doubted he would have left alone.

But looking at him today she probably wouldn’t have recognised him if they’d passed in the street. Gone was the long hair and scraggy goatee that gave him a younger, more carefree look. Instead he was sporting a number-two buzz cut, which laid bare the shape of his perfectly symmetrical skull and forehead. His facial hair had also been restricted to stubble of a number-two consistency, emphasising the angularity of his cheekbones and jaw, shadowing the fullness of what she had to admit was a damn fine mouth, exposing the creases that would become indentations when he smiled.

If he smiled.

The man sure as hell wasn’t smiling now. He had his arms folded beneath her scrutiny and Sadie became aware suddenly she was watching his mouth a little too indecently. Quickly, she widened her gaze out.

Unfortunately it found a different focus. The way his folded arms tightened the fabric of his form-fitting, grey turtle-neck skivvy across the bulk of his chest. The bunch of muscles in his forearms, where the long sleeves had been pushed up to the elbows.

‘Yes,’ Kent said smoothly, interrupting her inspection. ‘A road trip.’

He watched as Sadie took that on board with eyes as remarkable as the rest of her. Finally he understood what people meant when they talked about doe-eyed. They were huge, an intense dark grey, framed with long lashes. They didn’t need artfully applied shadow or dark kohl to draw attention—they just did.

His gaze drifted to the creamy pallet of her throat, also bare of any adornment. In fact, running his gaze over her, he realised Sadie Bliss was a bling-free zone. No earrings, no necklaces, no rings.

In stark contrast to Tabitha there was nothing on Sadie’s person that sparkled or drew the eye.

Not an ounce of make-up.

Not a whiff of perfume.

Even her mouth, all red and lush, appeared to be that way all on its own merit.

Sadie cleared her throat as his gaze unnerved her. An odd little pull deep down inside did funny things to her pulse and she glanced at Tabitha to relieve it.

‘From Darwin to Borroloola? That’s like...a thousand kilometres.’

Sadie did not travel well in cars.

Tabitha shook her head but it was Kent who let loose the next bombshell. ‘Actually, it’s Sydney to Borroloola. You can fly from Borroloola to Darwin and then back to Sydney once the interview is done.’

Sadie forgot all about the funny pull, Kent’s celebrity status and the good impression she was trying to make with Tabitha. ‘Are you nuts?’ she said, turning to face him. ‘That would have to be at least...’ she did a quick mental calculation ‘...three times the distance!’

Kent remained impassive at her outburst although it was refreshing to hear a knee-jerk, unfiltered opinion for once instead of one couched in the usual kiss-arse afforded to his level of celebrity. Tarnished as it was.

Did she honestly think he wanted to spend three days in a car with her? But he knew Tabitha well enough to know that she was an immovable force when her mind was made up.

‘Three thousand, three hundred and thirteen kilometres to be precise.’

Sadie felt nauseated at the mere thought. ‘And we’re not flying because...?’

Kent didn’t blink. ‘I don’t fly.’

‘It’ll be great,’ Tabitha enthused, jumping in as Kent’s voice became arctic again. ‘You and Kent. A car. A travel diary. The Red Centre. The true outback. Journalism at its most organic.’

Sadie gave Tabitha a look that suggested she was probably also certifiable. ‘But that will take days!’

‘Let me guess,’ Kent drawled, amused by her horrified demeanour. ‘City girl, right?’

Sadie looked back at him. ‘No,’ she denied, despite the fact that she was an urban creature to her core. Fast lane, city lights, cocktail bars and foreign film festivals.

‘I just get really, really car sick.’ It sounded so lame when she said it out loud but she doubted the great Kent Nelson would tolerate stopping every two minutes so she could hurl up her stomach contents.

Kent’s jaw tightened again. Great. Three days in a car with a city chick and her weak constitution.

It just kept getting better.

‘I guess that’s why they invented motion sickness medication,’ he said woodenly.

Sadie shook her head vigorously. ‘Oh, trust me, you do not want to be around me when I’m on that. I get totally trippy. It is not pretty.’

Kent raised an eyebrow. Vomiting or tripping. Sounded like a trip forged in hell.

Maybe another place, another time in his life he would have been more than happy to see Little-Miss-Curvy getting trippy. But now just the thought was plain annoying.

‘Thanks for the heads up,’ he said.

‘This could be a great opportunity for you, Sadie,’ Tabitha interjected. ‘Two feature stories for the price of one. Of course, if you don’t think you’re up to it we can always find someone else...’

Sadie wanted to stamp her foot at the not-so-subtle ultimatum. But she didn’t. Tabitha was right. It was a gift. How was her boss to know about Sadie’s nervousness at facing her ex-lover again? Or that when she did, she wanted to look a million dollars, not like a wrung-out dish mop?

At least a gruelling car journey would help the crash diet she’d put herself on since finding out about this opportunity two days ago. The last time she’d seen Leo, she’d been thin, her curves straitjacketed by a strict eating regime.

Not naturally svelte, she had taken a while to slim down when they’d first started their relationship. But Leo’s love and encouragement had been a fantastic incentive. Every time he’d raved about the symmetry of her prominent collar, wrist and hipbones, or the way the milkiness of her skin stretched sparingly over the hard surfaces beneath, she’d felt accomplished.

He used to stroke her hair as it fell in between the angles of her bony scapulas and tell her it looked like rippling satin flowing between a sculpted valley. That her creamy skin was the perfect foil.

The only thing curvy about her then had been her breasts. And, no matter how much Leo had lamented them, not even rigid dieting had had an effect on their size. He’d offered to pay for a reduction and she’d been thrilled at the suggestion. Thrilled that the brilliant artist had seen something special in her body. Seen it as a work of art, an empty canvas.

Thrilled that she’d become his muse, revelling in his almost obsessive need to paint her.

She was excruciatingly aware now she was not the woman he had sent away. That he had loved.

And she had a lot to prove.

So there was one upside to this proposed nightmare road trip. Between starvation and puking up constantly she could lose a stone or two before seeing him again.

‘No. It’s fine,’ she said, briskly pulling herself out of the food-obsessing habits of a past life. ‘I can do it. I just can’t promise the upholstery of the hire car will ever be the same again.’

‘No hire car,’ Kent said. ‘We’ll be using my all-terrain vehicle.’

Sadie nodded at him. Of course. An all-terrain vehicle. Mr Intense-and-rugged probably also had the Batmobile tucked away somewhere.

‘When do we leave?’ She sighed.

‘I’ll pick you up in the morning. Pack light. No places serving drinks with umbrellas where we’re going.’

‘Gee,’ she said sweetly, ‘imagine my surprise.’

Sadie’s fallback position had always been sarcasm—a defence mechanism against a world that constantly misjudged her because of the size of her chest. As an adult she tried her best to contain it but, sadly, it was too ingrained in her nature to be completely stifled.

And if Kent Nelson insisted on this ridiculous road trip, on spending days in a car alone together, then he could consider this a heads up.

Tabitha might have forced her hand, but she didn’t have to like it.



Sadie was ready when Kent rang the doorbell the next morning. She was wearing loose denim cut-offs and a modest polo shirt, her hair fell freely around her shoulders and a pair of ballet flats completed the ensemble. Her medium-sized backpack and a small insulated bag were waiting at the door.

Kent blinked at the transformation from serious city career girl in a power suit to girl-next-door. Again, her clothes did nothing to emphasise the curves—if anything they were on the baggy side.

It was just that Sadie’s curves were uncontainable.

Dressed like this, still absent of any bling, it was easy to believe she was only the twenty-four years Tabitha had informed him of yesterday.

Which made her precisely twelve years younger than him.

She was a baby, for crying out loud.

‘What’s in here?’ Kent asked as he grabbed the fridge bag off her and lifted her pack. An hour ago he’d been whistling as he’d loaded the vehicle for the trip, a buzz he hadn’t felt in a long time coursing through his veins.

The buzz was still there.

He just wasn’t sure, in the presence of Sadie, if it was one hundred per cent related to the drive any more.

‘Ginger ale,’ she said, watching how the muscles in his tanned forearms bunched.

Before yesterday she would have admired the delineation, the symmetry, the beauty of the fluid movement. Today they just made her insides feel funny.

And that was the last thing she needed.

Her insides would feel funny enough the minute they hit the first bend in the road.

‘I don’t expect you to carry my stuff,’ she said testily.

She wasn’t some delicate elfin thing that would shatter if she picked up anything heavier than her handbag. One look would have told him that. But he was already striding away despite a rather intriguing limp.

From the crash, she assumed.

She followed at a more sedate pace, glancing at the sturdy-looking Land Rover parked on the road with trepidation. With its functional metal cab, sturdily constructed roof railings and massive bull bar it looked like something the Australian army had engineered for land and amphibious combat. And had been test driven in a pigsty if the sludge-and-muck-encrusted paint job was any indication.

Staring at the tank on wheels, Sadie absently wondered whether Kent Nelson was compensating for something.

‘I didn’t know you could get mud masks for cars,’ she murmured as she joined him at the open back doors.

Kent grunted as he rearranged the supplies to accommodate her backpack. ‘She’s not young, she’s not very pretty but she’ll do the job.’

Sadie preferred pretty.

And men who didn’t talk about cars as if they were female. Especially this car. This car was one hundred per cent male.

‘Does she have air conditioning?’

Kent nodded. He held up the cool bag. ‘You want this up front?’ he asked.

‘Thanks.’

She took it from him as he shut the doors and noticed a muddy sticker supporting a Sydney football team near the handle and another for an Australian brewery. He looked like a man who knew his way around a ball. And a beer.

Leo had drunk gin.

Kent looked down on her. The morning sun fell on the pale skin of her throat and he noticed the pulse beating there. ‘Got your pills?’ he asked gruffly.

She patted her bag. ‘At the ready.’

‘Should you take one now? I’m not going to stop every two minutes for you to throw up.’

Sadie ignored his warning. Stopping every two minutes didn’t exactly sound like a picnic to her either. ‘I’ll wait till we get out of the city. Save my performance for the windy bits.’

Kent narrowed his eyes as he took the opportunity to study her face some more. She had dark rings surrounding the deep grey of her irises, which seemed to lure him in even further. ‘Just how trippy is trippy?’

Sadie realised his mouth was quite near and she had to wonder what it would look like kicked up a little, those creases becoming deep grooves, because it looked pretty damn perfect as it was. As if some old master with an eye for masculine perfection had sculpted it just for him, and the artist in her, never far from the surface, appreciated its flawlessness.

The woman, on the other hand, was just plain jealous.

Her own ridiculously plump mouth, devoid of collagen despite what every catty woman she’d ever met had implied, seemed garish by comparison. It was why she rarely wore lipstick or gloss.

Her mouth did not need any more attention.

Kent felt her gaze on his mouth and the pull of those incredible eyes as she studied him. ‘Sadie?’ he prompted.

Sadie blinked as she realised he was frowning and she was staring. Not only that, but she’d lost her place in the conversation. Her brain scrambled to catch up. She took a step back from him. What had they been talking about?

Pills. Right. ‘I sing,’ she said. ‘Loudly. And not very well.’

Kent grimaced. Great. Stuck in a car with karaoke Barbie. ‘Try to refrain.’ He looked at his watch and said, ‘Let’s go.’

Sadie took a deep breath as she headed to the passenger seat. Her heart thudded in her chest on a surge of adrenaline. The call of the wild? The excitement of a new adventure? The beginnings of an illustrious career?

She hoped so because the alternatives weren’t palatable. Dread at the oncoming nausea. Or, worse, being alone in a confined space with an unimpressed man whose mouth had her wishing she’d paid more attention in sculpting classes.

She’d climbed up into the high-clearance, all-wheel drive. At five eight, she wasn’t exactly short, but Sadie still felt as if pole-vaulting lessons would have been handy. The sturdy cab felt like a cocoon of armour around her, even if the ground seemed a long way down.

As soon as she buckled up Kent thrust a folded up map at her. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘I’ve marked the journey in red.’

Sadie looked at him as the mere thought of having to read and travel made her feel ill. ‘You don’t have a GPS?’

Kent shot her an impatient look. ‘We’re doing this the old-fashioned way,’ he said and started the engine.

Fabulous. ‘And what happens if we lose the map?’ she enquired sweetly. ‘Do we use the stars?’

Kent suppressed a smile at her derision. He held her gaze. ‘Unfortunately I didn’t bring my sextant.’

That look—intense, focused—fanned over her like a sticky web, doing strange things to her pulse and causing heat to bloom in her belly and other places further south.

Oh, he’d brought his sextant all right...


TWO

Even though she was looking out of the window, Sadie didn’t notice the city streets of Sydney giving way to the red rooves of suburbia or to the greenery of semi-rural market gardens. She was too busy puzzling over her reaction to the man sitting an arm’s length away.

On the surface, he was everything she didn’t usually go for. Physically impressive. Outdoorsy. A beer and football kind of a guy.

But then there was his age.

Through some online investigation last night she’d discovered he was thirty-six and she did have a track record with older men.

Leo had been twenty years her senior.

She supposed a psychologist would say she had a Daddy Complex. Her father had left when she was twelve and got himself a new family, including a set of twins who’d turned into sports-mad little boys.

She’d always felt the fact that she was a girl and had been more arty than sporty had been a huge let-down for her father. And after years of trying to win his attention and affection she’d finally conceded defeat as she’d headed off to college.

So, maybe his abandonment had spread invisible tentacles into her life.

Whatever.

It didn’t change the facts. Nothing else about Kent Nelson should have appealed.

Yet somehow it did.

She studied his profile as he drove, his eyes fixed on the road. His buzz cut melded into the stubble of his sideburns, which flowed into that covering his jaw, hugging the spare planes of his face, emphasising cheekbones that stood out like railings. It made him look...severe. A far cry from the bearded guy who had been laughing at the camera in the snap from the gallery.

It made him look intense.

Guarded.

It made him look haunted.

As a journalist, and a huge fan of his work, it was exceedingly intriguing.

As a woman—it scared the hell out of her.

Kent gripped the steering wheel as Sadie’s speculative gaze seemed to burn a hole at the angle of his jaw. After almost eighteen months in and out of hospitals and another six months of physical therapy, it had been a while since he’d had any kind of constant company—female or otherwise—and her concentration was unnerving.

He turned to look at her and almost rolled his eyes as she quickly pretended she hadn’t been staring at him by feigning interest in the scenery outside her window.

Very mature.

His gaze fell to her legs, the denim riding well and truly up above her knees and pulling taut across thighs as lush and round as the rest of her. Rubenesque slipped into his brain and he flicked his gaze back to the road.

‘I hope you brought something warmer—it’s going to get cold out at night.’

Sadie blinked. They’d been in the car for over an hour and this was the first thing he said to her? She really, really hoped he wasn’t one of those men who thought there was a direct correlation between her cup size and her IQ.

She slapped her forehead theatrically. ‘And I only packed bikinis and a frilly negligee.’

Kent gripped the steering wheel as images of her in a bikini screwed with his concentration. ‘A lot of people think of the outback as hot,’ he quantified, still not looking at her. ‘But it cools down really quickly at night.’

Sadie shot him an impatient look. ‘Thank you. But how about we assume from now on I’m a reasonably intelligent person who wouldn’t go on any trip without having thoroughly researched it first?’

Kent turned his head at the note in her voice. It was more than sarcasm. It was...touchy. As if she’d had to prove her intelligence one too many times. He guessed with her assets people didn’t often see beyond them.

He looked back at the road. ‘Fair enough.’

Sadie groaned as they passed a sign indicating their ascent through the Blue Mountains was about to begin. It came with a warning of sharp corners and hairpin bends.

The nausea kicked in at the thought of what lay ahead. ‘Fabulous,’ she muttered as she searched through her bag for her pills. ‘Dangerous curves.’

Kent wished there were a pill he could take for the ones inside the car, but her look of abject misery kept his brain off her treacherous curves. He could practically hear her teeth grinding as she pawed through the contents of a handbag big enough to fit an entire pharmacy full of motion sickness tablets.

For crying out loud! ‘Do you get sick if you’re the driver?’ he asked.

Sadie shook her head absently, missing the exasperation in his tone as she read the back of the medication box. It was a new brand to her, one supposedly with reduced side effects. ‘Nope.’

‘Well, that’s easy, then, isn’t it?’ he said as he indicated and pulled the car into one of the regular truck laybys that lined the route.

‘What are you doing?’ Sadie frowned as he unbuckled.

‘Letting you drive.’

Sadie didn’t move for a moment. ‘You want me to drive your car?’

He nodded. ‘You do have a licence, right?’

Sadie looked around at the behemoth in which she was sitting. She drove a second-hand Prius. ‘Not a tank licence.’

Kent’s mouth pressed into an impatient line. ‘You’ll be fine.’ He stepped out and strode around to her side.

Sadie had the ridiculous urge to lock her door before he reached her, but then it was open and he was filling the space along with the whoosh of traffic and the acrid aroma of exhaust fumes.

She looked at Kent, surprised at her elevated height to find she was looking him straight in the eye. They were brown, she noticed, now she was focused on something other than his mouth. She was close enough to see flecks of copper and amber shimmering there too, throwing a hue into the darker brown. They reminded her of something—a memory—she couldn’t quite recall.

Kent watched her watching him as if she was trying to figure something out. ‘Don’t they say an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure?’ he prompted.

Sadie suddenly remembered. The tiger-eye marble she’d had in her collection as a kid. One of her father’s many attempts to get her interested in something other than reading and drawing.

‘Are you sure?’ she asked, looking around the vehicle again, absently pulling her bottom lip between her teeth. If it had been a hire car she wouldn’t have hesitated. ‘I’ve never driven anything quite so...big. I’d hate to crash it.’

Kent did not drop his gaze to her mouth. The fact that he even noticed her lip being ravished by her teeth was irritating enough. He raised an eyebrow. ‘Do you make a habit of crashing cars?’

She shook her head, releasing her lip. ‘No, never.’ She looked back at him and frowned. She’d have thought a he-man like Kent would never have relinquished the wheel.

‘What?’ he asked warily.

Sadie shook her head. ‘I’ve never met a man yet who’d give up the driver’s seat for a woman.’ Her father had never let her mother drive when they were in the car together. ‘Doesn’t it emasculate you or something?’

Kent blinked. That hadn’t been a question he’d expected. What kind of Neanderthals did she hang out with? ‘I think I’m secure enough in my masculinity to not be threatened by a woman in the driver’s seat.’

Sadie’s gaze dropped from the spiky stubble of his angular jaw to the breadth of his shoulders. She had to admit if this man’s masculinity could be threatened then no man’s was safe!

‘Look,’ he said impatiently as she continued to sit. ‘It’s win-win. You don’t get to throw up every two minutes and I get to spot photo opps. I also don’t get to see you all trippy, which, given that we hardly know each other, is a good thing.’

Sadie couldn’t dispute his logic. The last thing she needed was to lose her inhibitions around a man who looked as if he kept his well and truly in check.

If he had any.

‘Fine.’

Sadie undid her belt and twisted in her seat to get out. She glanced at him, waiting for him to shift, her gaze snagging on his mouth. He didn’t for a moment and there was a split second when neither of them moved. When his beautiful mouth filled her entire vision and she found herself wishing he would say something just so she could admire how it moved. Then he stepped back and she half slid, half jumped to the ground on legs that seemed suddenly wobbly.



After giving Sadie a quick tutorial on the various idiosyncrasies of his vehicle, Kent left her to it, making no comment as she lurched it out onto the highway. Her grip on the steering wheel was turning her knuckles white and he was afraid she might split all the skin there if she didn’t ease up.

‘Relax,’ he ordered. ‘You’re doing fine.’

Strangely his command did not help Sadie relax. Her gaze flicked between the rear view and side mirrors as her heartbeat pelted along in time to the engine. She wasn’t sure if it was from nervousness about driving a strange car/tank that belonged to someone else or the weird moment she and Kent had shared as she’d exited the vehicle.

‘Relax,’ he said again.

‘Believe it or not,’ Sadie said, gritting her teeth as she eyeballed the road, ‘you telling me to relax is not helping.’

Kent held up his hands in surrender. ‘Okay.’

‘I just need to get used it,’ she quantified. ‘It’s not normal to be so high up. I feel like I’m driving a truck.’

Kent grimaced. It was hardly a semi-trailer. ‘I said okay.’

He turned then and dragged his camera case out of the back passenger floor well. Sadie was obviously stressed about driving the big, bad vehicle and he had little patience with princesses. Best to keep himself occupied and his lip zipped. And one more equipment check before they got too far away from civilisation wouldn’t go astray.

About ten minutes later he noticed her grip slacken and her shoulders relax back into the seat. Ten minutes after that she even started multitasking.

‘So. What’s the plan?’ Sadie asked, more comfortable now with how the car handled. ‘Where are our scheduled stops?’

Kent looked up from his disassembled camera. ‘Scheduled stops?’

Sadie nodded. ‘You know? Of a night time? When we’re tired?’

‘I hadn’t scheduled any stops. We’re driving all the way through.’

Sadie looked briefly away from the road to blast him with a you-have-to-be-kidding me look. A non-stop journey would probably take two full days.

Without a single break?

‘Don’t we have to sleep some time?’

He speared her with a direct look. ‘Do you really want to make this journey any longer than it has to be? We can pull over and catch some kip along the way. Either in the car or I have a couple of swags.’

Sadie supressed a shudder. Oh, goody. Maybe they’d find a jolly jumbuck to stuff inside. She flicked a quick glance towards him. ‘I don’t camp.’

Kent blinked at the way she said camp—as if she’d said prison. ‘What do you mean, you don’t camp?’

‘It’s simple,’ she said, returning her eyes to the road. ‘You don’t fly. I don’t camp.’

Great. Car sick. Didn’t camp. Sadie Bliss was stacking up the black marks against her name and truly pushing his patience. ‘What on earth have you got against sleeping under the stars?’

‘Nothing,’ Sadie assured him. ‘Give me five of them and I’m happy as a pig in mud.’

Kent shook his head. ‘You haven’t lived, city girl.’

‘I guess we’re just going to have to agree to disagree on that one,’ she said sweetly.

Kent’s mouth took on a grim line. ‘I have a feeling there may be a bit of that this trip.’

Sadie did too. ‘So? Where should we stop tonight, do you think?’ she prompted.

Kent pulled the map out of the glovebox, where Sadie had thrown it in disgust earlier, and did some calculations. ‘It’s about another ten hours to Cunnamulla,’ he said, looking at the digital clock display on the dash. It was just gone nine-thirty. ‘That’ll put us there after seven tonight. It’ll also put us over the Queensland border.’

‘Okay.’ Sadie nodded.

‘Doubt there’s any five-star accommodation there though,’ he mused. ‘We could go another couple hours on to Charleville. It’s twice the size. Still don’t think they run to five star.’

Sadie shot him a sarcastic smile. ‘Thanks, I’ll settle for a shower, a flushing toilet and a bed.’

‘Cunnamulla it is.’

With that sorted, silence reigned as they wended their way through the beautiful Blue Mountains, and down the other side of the Great Dividing Range. Kent went back to his camera bag, soothed by the familiarity of the routine. It had been a while since he’d lugged this stuff around, lived with it every day, and it was comforting to know it still felt good.

He occasionally shot a glance Sadie’s way. He had to admit, after her initial misgivings she was handling the vehicle with great competence. He’d been afraid she was going to whine about the heavy steering or the engine noise or the lack of a stereo system all the way to Borroloola, but she’d got on with the job with no complaints.

No chatter whatsoever.

His kind of travelling companion.

Until it all went to hell two minutes later.

‘So are we going to sit in silence or are we going to get to know each other?’ she asked.

Now she was out of the worst of the windy roads Sadie was free to concentrate on other things. And it had occurred to her that she was sitting next to a man who was pretty hot property, especially since he’d gone underground. How far would a feature on the Kent Nelson get her career? If she had to spend days on end in a car with his particular brand of he-man, she might as well get something for it.

And truly, the way he kept breaking down that camera and reassembling it, as if it were a gun, was slightly unnerving.

Kent sighed. He should have known it was too good to be true. ‘Silence is golden.’

Sadie quirked an eyebrow at his terse reply. ‘Silence is loud.’

He clicked a lens in place, then looked at her. ‘Listen to me, Sadie Bliss. Let’s not pretend that either of us is too thrilled by being stuck in this car together. I know women feel the need to chat and fill up all the empty spaces, but I’m okay with the empty spaces.’ It sure as hell beat the crowding in his head. ‘I like the empty spaces.’

‘I don’t feel the need,’ she dismissed irritably. ‘It’s just, you know...conversational. Polite.’

Kent shoved the camera back in its soft-sided bag. ‘I can handle rude.’

That she could believe. But she doubted she could. ‘So...we’re just going to...not talk? For three thousand kilometres?’

‘Well, I’m sure we’ll need to say the odd word or two. Like, “We need petrol,” and, “How about here for lunch?” But let’s try and keep it to a minimum, huh?’

Sadie blinked at his hard profile. His arrogance that she’d just fall in with his imperious command irked. He might be used to women falling over themselves to do as he said, but she just wasn’t built that way.

And his insistence on silence only piqued her curiosity. The shadows in his eyes told her there was stuff he didn’t want to talk about. And she was pretty sure his refusal to fly was just scratching the surface. Just looking at his guarded exterior made her want to know more.

She wanted to ask about the picture. She wanted to know about that day.

Probably best not to start there though...

She waited a few minutes to lull him into a false sense of security. They were heading for Mudgee on a relatively straight stretch of highway, the scenery fairly standard Australian bush fare. Lots of gums and low, scrubby vegetation.

Fairly uninspiring really.

Especially compared to the story she knew he must be harbouring deep down where the shadows lived.

He’d just opened the map when she said, ‘It could be fun.’ She waited a beat. ‘Getting to know each other.’

Kent didn’t look up from the map. ‘I doubt it.’

He already knew too much about her. Curves that wouldn’t quit. A mouth that was made to be kissed. A weak constitution and a penchant for five-star living.

Trouble.

A real pain in his butt.

Sadie took his blunt rejection on the chin and was pleased she didn’t insult easily. Nor did she dissuade. ‘Oh, come on,’ Sadie goaded. ‘It’s really easy when you try. See, I ask something about you. We discuss it. Then you ask something about me.’

He kept his nose in the map and Sadie felt a peculiar desperation. Why, she wasn’t sure.

‘Easy,’ she added as the silence built.

It built some more.

‘Oh, come on, there must be something you want to know about me.’

Kent looked up at her, regarding her steadily. She’d obviously been to the terrier school of journalism.

Excellent. Chatty and dogged.

Two more black marks.

He suddenly remembered wondering yesterday why Leonard Pinto had requested a rookie journo for his feature.

‘Why did Leonard Pinto want you?’

Sadie almost choked on her own spit as the question caught her unawares. She certainly hadn’t been prepared for his first question to skip so much of the preliminary stuff that was the norm in these situations. Where were you born? How old are you? Where’d you go to school?

Or even the ruder ones that people tended to just come straight out and ask her no matter how inappropriate.

Is that your real name?

Are those your real boobs?

Do you have silicone in those lips?

‘Jeez,’ she said lightly, letting her sarcastic nature run free. ‘Cutting straight to the chase. No name, rank and serial number? No opening pleasantries? I hope you’re more subtle than this on dates.’

Kent raised his eyebrows at her deliberate sidestep, but he hadn’t missed the whitening of her knuckles on the steering wheel.

‘I’m rusty.’

Sadie snorted. The man looked utterly well oiled. In one hundred per cent working order. Even his limp didn’t seem to impede him. ‘You don’t say?’

Kent watched her for a moment or two as she kept her gaze firmly on the road ahead. Her profile was as striking as the rest of her, from her wavy hair to her pouty lips to the thrust of her breasts.

And he really, really didn’t want to be noticing her breasts. ‘Why does Pinto want you?’ he repeated.

Sadie flicked a quick glance his way. ‘Why don’t you fly?’

Kent blinked. He hadn’t expected her to push back so quickly. Or for her salvo to hit its target quite so effectively. ‘Is he a relative?’ he persisted.

Sadie didn’t even let a beat go by. ‘Is it because of the chopper accident?’ she replied.

Kent narrowed his gaze as he looked at her and she turned and shot him a two-can-play-at-this-game look before returning her attention to the road. ‘Or maybe he saw your picture on the magazine website and just wants to get into your pants?’ he parried.

It might only be a head shot, but a man who painted nudes for a living had to appreciate the perfect pout of that mouth.

The air in Sadie’s lungs stuttered to a halt as she forgot to breathe in for a few seconds. Her fingers tightened on the steering wheel. She wasn’t about to tell him that Leonard Pinto had been in her pants plenty.

And that there was no way he’d want to go there again. Not with her carrying so much weight.

‘You’re right,’ she said, slamming the car into a lower gear as she slowed for some roadworks. ‘Silence is golden.’

Kent shot her a sardonic smile. ‘I knew you’d see it my way.’



Half an hour later Sadie was pretty bored with the scenery. Kent had the buds of his MP3 player in his ears and was intermittently flipping through a travel book or gazing out at the scenery flashing by. Occasionally she could see those fascinating lips moving—presumably to the music she couldn’t hear.

Or he hadn’t taken his meds today.

He sure hadn’t taken his chatty pill.

He seemed to be having a little party for one in his seat—perfectly content—and it irritated her. If he seriously thought he could ignore her for three thousand kilometres, then he truly did need those meds.

It should have been refreshing to be ignored by a man for a change. But it was strangely off-putting. Attention she could deal with. She could deflect. But inattention, lack of interest even, that wasn’t in her repertoire.

She was going to get him talking if it killed her.

She reached across and yanked on the closest ear bud. ‘How about a game, instead?’ she suggested as he fixed her with a steady glare.

Kent waited a beat of two before replying. She wanted to play games? He notched up another black mark as he held out his hand for the bud. ‘No.’

‘Come on,’ she cajoled undeterred. ‘This is supposed to be a road trip, right? You play games on road trips. It’s in all the movies.’

Kent refused to think about the kind of games he could play with Sadie Bliss. He was not going to think about strip anything. He wasn’t going there. ‘I don’t do games,’ he said bluntly as he relieved her of his ear bud.

She quirked an eyebrow. ‘What, not even I Spy?’

Kent regarded her for a moment, all perky and pushy. He needed to nip that in the bud or this trip was going to be interminable. ‘How about truth or dare?’

Sadie’s pulse spiked at the silky note in his voice and the way his gaze seemed to flick, ever so briefly, to her mouth. It was tempting but she doubted he’d go for truth. And she was damned if she was going to dare this man to do anything.

‘Maybe once we’ve got to know each other a little better?’ she retreated.

Kent pulled his gaze away from her, startled at the thought. He didn’t want to know Sadie Bliss. A sign flashed by and he grabbed a mental hold. ‘I spy with my little eye,’ he said, ‘something beginning with petrol station.’

Sadie kept her eyes firmly on the indicated services ahead. She scrunched her brow. ‘You know you’re only supposed to say the first letter, right?’

He ignored her sarcasm. ‘Pull in, I’m starving. Breakfast seems a very long time ago.’

Sadie had been starving for the last three days. ‘We’ve only been in the car for three hours,’ she pointed out.

‘I need snacks,’ he said. ‘And you can use the facilities.’

‘Gee, thanks,’ Sadie said rolling her eyes as she indicated left. ‘But my days of enforced toileting ended a long, long time ago. You may have women in your life with weak bladders but, I can assure you, mine is made of cast iron.’

‘So it’s just your stomach that’s weak?’ he enquired drily.

Sadie shot him a look as she prepared to park. ‘Really? You want to annoy me now? As I’m parking your tank in this itty-bitty car space?’

Kent assessed the one remaining, very narrow car space. She made a good point. ‘Nope.’

Sadie turned back to the job at hand as she nervously pulled the car into the middle of three parking bays. The heavy steering was fine for wide open spaces but it felt as if she was trying to grapple a huge metallic beast into a matchbox as she centred the vehicle.

It was gratifying to get a grunt of respect from Kent.

He flung his door open as soon as she killed the engine. ‘You coming?’

Sadie shook her head. ‘I’m good.’

‘You want something?’

She shook it again. ‘I brought some snacks with me.’

Sadie watched him stride to the sliding doors of the service station, pleased to be released from his company for a few minutes. His jeans gently hugged his bottom and the backs of his thighs without being skin tight. His T-shirt was loose enough for the breeze to blow it against the broad contours of his back. And his limp, barely discernible, added an extra edge to his rugged appeal.

A blonde woman with a baby on her hip coming out of the sliding door as Kent went in actually stood for a moment admiring the view. She seemed perplexed for a second after the closing glass doors snatched him away. As if she couldn’t remember why she was standing in the car park gawping at a closed door.

I hear ya, honey.

He was back in a few minutes loaded down with enough carbohydrates to exceed his recommended daily intake from now until the end of his days. She felt hyperglycaemic just looking at them.

‘Here,’ he said as he passed her a packet of Twisties. ‘I got one for you, too.’

Twisties? Dear God, he was going to eat Twisties—her one weakness—right in front of her. She passed them back.

‘Thanks, I’ve got these,’ she said, waving a celery stick at him.

Kent grimaced as he opened his packet. ‘You’re going to eat celery? On a road trip.’

He had a way of emphasising celery as if it were suet or tripe. ‘It’s healthy,’ she said defensively, and was about to launch into a spiel about the amazing properties of the wonder food when the aroma of carbohydrates wafted out to greet her like an old friend and she momentarily lost her train of thought.

How could that special blend of additives and preservatives smell so damn good? Her stomach growled.

Loudly.

Kent raised an eyebrow. ‘I think your stomach wants a say.’

Sadie stuffed the celery into her mouth and started the car to stop her from reaching over and lifting a lurid orange piece out and devouring it like the Cookie Monster. ‘It’s because I listen to my stomach too damn often that I’m as big as I am,’ she muttered testily as she reversed.

Kent eyed her critically as he buckled up, thinking she looked pretty damn good to him. He shook his head. Women in the western world amazed him. Their lives were so privileged they had nothing but trivialities to worry about. He really didn’t have the patience for it.

‘Please tell me you’re not going to eat celery for three days.’

Sadie gave him an exasperated glare. ‘What’s it matter to you?’

He bugged his eyes at her. To think less than two years ago he had been in the thick of a combat zone and now he was talking to a madwoman with a weak constitution but an apparently strong bladder about celery of all things.

‘I think it’s making you cranky.’

Sadie flicked her gaze to the road, then back at him. He had orange Twistie dust on the tips of his fingers and his lips, which just went to show perfection could be improved upon. She wondered what he’d taste like beneath the flavours of salt and cheese.

Her stomach growled again and she started to salivate.

And not for celery.

Maybe not even for Twisties.

‘No,’ she denied, looking back to the road. ‘You and your damn Twisties are making me cranky.’

‘I guess that means you won’t want any M&M’s either?’ he enquired.

Sadie almost groaned out loud. How on earth did he keep in such magnificent shape? She could feel the fat cells on her butt multiplying just by looking at the familiar chocolate snacks.

‘Thank you,’ she denied primly. ‘I’ll stick with my celery.’

Kent shrugged. ‘Suit yourself,’ he said as he threw a Twistie into the air near his face and caught it in his mouth.

The crunch thankfully drowned out another resounding growl from her belly.



By the time they’d crossed the state border and arrived in Cunnamulla, Sadie was definitely ready to call it a day. She was tired and over her strong, silent travelling companion, who had snacked all day, read, slept, listened to music and devoured two pies and a large carton of iced-coffee for lunch, whilst disparaging her pumpkin and feta salad with a Diet Coke.

All with only the barest minimum of conversation.

She wanted a shower. Then a bed.

The welcome glow of a vacancy sign cheered her enormously. ‘This okay?’ she asked him.

Kent nodded. ‘As good as any, I guess.’

Sadie parked the car in front of the reception and she and Kent went inside, the night air already starting to cool.

‘Two rooms, please,’ Sadie said to the middle-aged woman behind the desk.

‘I’m sorry, we only have one left,’ she apologised.

‘Oh,’ Sadie murmured, her shoulders sagging.

The woman looked from Sadie to Kent, then back to Sadie, and brightened. ‘It has two doubles, though?’

Kent opened his mouth to tell the woman they’d go elsewhere but Sadie, standing tall again, butted in. ‘We’ll take it.’

He blinked at her. ‘I’m sure there are other hotels here that will have two separate rooms,’ he said to her.

‘I’m sure there are,’ Sadie agreed wearily. ‘And if you want to go and track them down I’ll wish you luck. But I’m exhausted. My butt is numb. The thought of getting back in the car again makes me want to cry. So I’m going to stay right here, if it’s all the same to you.’

Kent looked down at her doe eyes, the lashes fluttering against her cheek. She did look pretty done in and she had driven all day without complaint.

‘Fine. I can sleep in the car.’

Sadie cocked an eyebrow. She doubted the confines of his back car seat would be very accommodating for a man of his proportions. ‘I’m an adult. You’re an adult. There are two beds. I promise not to wake up in the middle of the night and try to seduce you.’

Kent gave her a grudging smile. His first for the day. ‘Well, now you’ve just taken all the fun out of it. And you, going to the trouble of bringing your frilly negligee.’

Sadie blinked, surprised to discover that beneath all that guarded silence, a sense of humour lurked. ‘Well, will you look at that,’ she murmured. ‘He does know how to smile.’

Kent suppressed another smile. ‘Don’t get used to it.’

Sadie absently massaged her neck, too tired for this conversation. ‘Fine, tough guy, sleep in the car. Just don’t moan tomorrow when you have a crick in your neck.’

He shrugged. ‘I’ve slept far rougher.’ Being embedded with active forces in the Middle East on several occasions had been far from luxurious.

Not that he’d slept much then.

Or now, for that matter.

Sadie sighed. ‘Well, bully for you, He-man.’

Kent was so surprised by the nickname he actually laughed this time. He’d never been called that before, at least not to his face, and it was bemusing. ‘Did you just call me a he-man?’

Sadie felt his laughter undulate through every muscle in her body right down to her toes. It might have taken her all day but it had been worth the wait. ‘I call it as I see it.’

Kent opened his mouth to deny it but Sadie was looking up at him with long, sleepy blinks and he had the wildest urge to see what she’d look like between motel sheets.

He turned to the woman behind the desk, who’d been watching their exchange like an engrossed spectator at a tennis match. ‘Where do I sign?’ he asked.


THREE

The room was clean but basic. A bar fridge, a television, a bathroom. And two very hard-looking double beds. Still, they beckoned, more inviting than a Bedouin tent, and right now Sadie wouldn’t have swapped it for the Waldorf Astoria.

‘I bags the shower,’ she said as she threw her backpack on the bed closest to the bathroom and delved through it for some clean clothes.

‘Do you want something to eat?’ Kent asked plonking himself on the other bed and flipping through the information folder placed next to the fluffy towel folded into a fan with a wrapped bar of soap strategically placed in the centre. ‘They serve bar meals until eight.’

Sadie was starving. But not as much as she was sleepy. She was used to denying herself food. Sleep not so much. Sleep was as vital to her as air.

And woe betide anyone who deprived her.

‘Nope,’ she said, picking up her towel.

‘Celery again?’ Kent asked.

He wasn’t sure how much she’d brought in that fridge bag but there seemed to be an endless supply of it today. Every time he opened a packet of something or rustled a wrapper more appeared.

Sadie was too exhausted to make a pithy comeback. ‘Too tired. Need to sleep,’ she muttered, closing the bathroom door even before the last word was out of her mouth.

Kent heard the shower turn on and fell back against the bed. It felt like a rock and he literally bounced a little. The back seat of his vehicle would have been softer. But then it wouldn’t have had a hot, busty, naked woman just three metres and a wall away.

Getting wet. Getting soapy.

He felt heat bloom in his loins and placed the open information folder over his face.

Sadie Bliss was a bad idea. No matter what her body, her delectable smart mouth, her quick wit or her name might suggest.

He didn’t need a psych consult to know he was still pretty messed up. He’d had nearly two years of being held ransom by his body and the surgeons and physios had pronounced him cured—or as cured as he was going to get. But it was pretty dark inside his head still. He’d put off tackling the psychological fallout from the accident, thinking and hoping that time would heal as it had his physical ailments.

But it hadn’t.

So, he really didn’t need a fling with Sadie Bliss. Or, more importantly, she didn’t need a fling with him.

He wasn’t in a good headspace.

And she was too chatty, too pushy.

Too young.

He didn’t have a right to screw with that.

What he needed to do was get back to what he was good at—taking pictures. Use his art as therapy. As a way back to the rest of his life. Then he could worry about the Sadie Blisses of the world.

He heard the taps shut off.

Pictured her reaching for her towel...

He sat up and pulled his shirt off. The room was stuffy and he suddenly felt very hot. He wondered over to the air-con panel and flicked it on. Then he picked up the phone on his bedside table and placed an order with the woman at the desk. He prowled to the bar fridge, pulled out a bottle of beer, parked his butt against the cabinet, cracked the lid and took a fortifying gulp.

The harsh metallic rattle from the shower curtain being pulled back rang like chimes of doom around the room.

Lord. Just how thin were these walls?

And then came a blood-curdling scream.



Sadie had never seen a spider so huge in all her life. She saw the odd tiny creature scurrying around her flat but she was pretty adept at wielding a can of insect spray, and it seemed the local population of creepy crawlies had put the word out to avoid Sadie’s abode at all costs.

But this thing, hanging on the back of the door as if it were the mother ship, was a monster. It was big, and hairy and very, very ugly.

There was a belting on the door followed by, ‘Sadie!’

The spider didn’t even move at the noise so near its epicentre—yes, it was big enough to have an epicentre—and nor did Sadie. ‘Kent!’

‘Are you okay?’ he demanded through the door.

‘Big, big, big spider,’ she called.

Kent looked at the door in disbelief. A spider? Her horror-flick scream had scared ten years off his life. Did she have a clue how very trivial a spider was in the grand scheme of things?

Now, some of the things he’d seen—they were worth screaming about.

‘Bloody hell Sadie, I thought you were being murdered.’

‘If this thing gets hold of me, I’m sure it’ll have a good go,’ she yelled.

‘It can’t be that big.’

‘It is,’ she said, anchoring the towel more securely under her arm.

And it was between her and her clothes.

She eyed her pyjamas hanging on the back of the door. Had the spider crawled over them? She shuddered at the thought.

Just how long had it been in here watching her?

‘I think it’s one of those bird eating suckers,’ she announced.

‘The ones that are only found in South America?’

Sadie shook her head. ‘Not any more.’

‘Sadie...’

‘Okay, I know, I’m sorry. I’m a horrible girly, city-chick cliché. But truly it’s huge and spiders just plain creep me out.’

Kent leaned his forehead against the door. He’d been landed with a car-sick, celery-eating, arachnophobe.

Who’d have thought that would come in such a fine package?

‘What do you want me to do?’

Even through the door Sadie could hear his exasperation. Could sense his impatience with her girly theatrics. But it was easy to judge when you were on the other side of the door—the safe side. ‘I want you to come in here and kill it!’

Kent sighed. The fact that she was being held captive in the bathroom by a spider didn’t bother him a bit—eventually she’d have to figure it out herself. And if he only had faith she’d do it silently he’d leave her to it.

But a day in a car with Sadie Bliss had told him she didn’t really do quiet contemplation. ‘Are you decent?’

Sadie rolled her eyes. ‘Why? Do you think the spider cares?’ she yelled.

He took a breath. ‘I’m coming in.’

‘Easy, very easy,’ Sadie ordered. ‘It’s on the back of the door and I do not want to see how far that thing can jump.’

Kent opened the door slowly whilst Sadie watched his progress, her eyes peeking out over the edge of the shower curtain she’d pulled around herself for extra protection as if it were an invisibility cloak.

Kent glanced her way, two doe eyes and the top of her head the only things visible as she eyeballed the back of the door. ‘You know it’s more scared of you than you are of it, right?’ he murmured as he slowly opened the door further.

Sadie didn’t take her eyes off the terrifying arachnid. ‘I doubt it.’ It looked like something from an ancient Roman arena.

Once the door was almost all the way open and Sadie could no longer see the hairy critter she relaxed slightly. She looked at Kent, realising for the first time he was shirtless. His broad chest and flat abdomen, complete with a light smattering of hair that arrowed down behind the band of his low-slung jeans, filled her vision.

It was truly a sight to behold.

Why was it again she’d never been into buff men?

For a moment she almost forgot she was being terrorised by a mutant spider.

Almost.

‘Right,’ she whispered, dragging her gaze off his chest to the other terrifying object in the room. ‘I’m going to climb out of the bath and walk very slowly towards you. Once I’m safely out of the room you can do your he-man thing.’

Kent wasn’t entirely sure he was ready for Sadie to come out from behind the curtain. But he sure as hell wanted to see the creature that had Little-Miss-Curves all het up.

‘Okay,’ he whispered dramatically back, her dirty look bouncing easily off his shoulders.

Sadie quietly pushed back the curtain and gingerly stepped out of the bath. She could feel Kent’s gaze on her and couldn’t figure out which animal to keep her eye on the most.

She gripped the towel more firmly to her body.

Slowly she sidled along the wall furthest from the door, edged around the vanity basin where her toiletry bag sat. When she drew level with Kent she realised they were just one hotel towel and a pair of Levi’s from being naked. His bare, broad shoulders and his spare stubbled face filled her vision. He smelled of Twisties and beer.

Who’d have ever thought that could be such a potent combination?

‘Thank you,’ she murmured as he fell back against the front of the door to allow her to squeeze past.

And it was a squeeze. Her body brushed his as she slipped from the room and Kent felt the caress of towelling against his chest all the way down to his groin. For a moment he stood still and did nothing; the impact of her eyes, her mouth, her bare creamy shoulders and the damp tendrils of hair framing it all was temporarily paralysing.

But he was aware of her watching him, her hands fidgeting while she waited for his he-man move, and his brain came back online.

He strode into the bathroom and slowly shut the door. Her clothes were hanging on the back. And, yes, he had to admit, it was one of the larger Huntsman spiders he’d seen. He shook his head and grabbed her clothes. The spider scuttled to the top of the door, then onto the ceiling. He walked over to the bath/shower unit, stepped into the tub to open the window on the wall opposite the shower head so the poor creature could make its escape.

He turned to step out, his gaze falling on a scrap of material hanging on the shower-curtain rail. A silky-looking pink thong with a little diamanté twinkling at the front.

For a heartbeat there was nothing in his head but elevator music. Then there was a whole lot more.

None of it conducive to his sanity.

None of it conducive to going out there and facing her again.

‘Is it gone?’

Her voice sliced like a machete through the inappropriate images in his head and Kent dragged his transfixed gaze off Sadie’s underwear to the back of the door. He stepped out of the tub and had the door open in two strides.

‘Not yet,’ he said, thrusting her clothes at her and shutting the door behind him. ‘I opened the window. It’ll crawl out soon enough.’

Sadie blinked. ‘You did what?’ She clutched her clothes to her chest. ‘Are you nuts? You opened the window? So all his mates could join him?’ She took a step back. ‘What if it doesn’t go?’

It was the second time she’d questioned his mental faculties and, even if they weren’t already a little on the dicey side, her silky pink thong probably hadn’t helped. He wished she’d get dressed already. Damp strands of dark hair brushed creamy shoulders offsetting the natural rouge of her mouth and, frankly, insane had never looked so damn good.

Kent smiled patiently. ‘We’ll keep the door shut.’

‘What if it crawls back in here, under the door? What if it runs over my face in the middle of the night?’ She shuddered. ‘You do know human beings are supposed to swallow eight spiders in their lifetime, right?’

He clamped down on the urge to tell her there was no way she’d choke that sucker down and instead rolled his eyes. ‘I’m sure it’s looking for the fastest exit it can make, Sadie. It’s probably just trying to recover from the stroke it suffered when you screamed fit to wake the dead. I’m surprised the cops haven’t been called to investigate.’




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