Page 7 of Stolen Kiss

It left Jason with no choice but to look at Heidi.

“Hey,” he said, dropping his chin to look at her. She was a tall woman, but still six inches shorter than him.

“Hi, I heard you were back,” she said, barely meeting his eyes.

“Yeah.”

“You here to watch the gig race?”

“My brother insisted.”

“So he should. Every resident who can walk should be here,” she said.

Her feelings hadn’t changed since the last time they huddled with the masses of Copper Island to cheer on the island’s team.

“We can’t get a good vantage point. We’ve been pushing our way through. I swear Freya nearly pushed a toddler into the water.”

A grin split his face. Heidi was talking to him like they’d never stopped dating, but then he remembered.

“It’s been a while,” he said quietly.

“Yeah, it has. I heard you’ve given up the rigs, all of you.”

“Yeah.”

He didn’t know how to answer that. His dad died and then their lives turned to shit when they closed the oil rig. Then their aunt gave them a business, knowing it wasn’t up and running. Now he had to prepare a banquet for top-notch Hollywood and all he wanted to do was get out onto the water with his surfboard.

“You want a lift up?” he asked.

The words were out of his mouth before he realised what he was saying.

Heidi nodded, wide eyed.

Jason stalked the three feet between them and she backed up and until she hit the wall. He took his time to curl his hands around her waist and then grabbed on tight as he lifted her high. Heidi’s mouth was millimetres away from his just for a second, and then he placed her on the wall. Jason looked up at her and it transported back to years ago when they did this, before he left, and she never spoke to him again. Breaking eye contact, he turned around and leant against the wall. Jason took one leg and circled his fingers around her slim ankle and then the other, pulling them over his shoulder to rest there. He held on tight because the other side of the slim wall Heidi Shaw was sitting on was a hundred feet drop into the dry dock.

Jason wasn’t about to let her go.

Chapter Four

Heidi

Heidi could barely keep her breathing even. She had walking boots half way up her leg to her shin and she could still feel the heat of his hands on her ankles. The tingles she felt when he grabbed hold of her waist were another memory revived from long ago.

She still didn’t know why he wanted nothing to do with her. And why he told her brother and not her directly? Was it so bad between them he wasn’t willing to have a long distance relationship?

“Are you comfy up there?”

Heidi looked down at her Freya and grinned. “Why don’t you come up?”

“Not a chance in hell, babe. I do not want to fall to my death. I’ve never wanted to sit on that wall. Not even when Luke would promise not to let me go.”

Heidi knew in her gut that there were two meanings to what Luke said, but she kept her mouth shut. Freya was clearly in thefriend zone with the other Turner brother and there was nothing Heidi could say to dissuade her.

“Can you see them at the starting line?” Freya asked.

“Yeah, there all lined up. It’s a bit choppy out there.”

Jason hugged both her legs to his chest by banding an arm around her ankles. He slipped his free hand into his pocket and brought the square hip flask to his lips. Flipping the lid back down, he had almost slipped it back into his pocket when she tapped him on his head. The temptation to thread her fingers through his messy blond hair was so great she had to scrunch up her fingers. He lifted the flask above his head and she took a swig and then passed it back.

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