Page 112 of Guilty as Sin
She hadn’t started out living with him, of course, when he’d closed on his houseboat in record time. She’d just come for visits. Visits that had turned into “maybe one more night,” then another one, then a row of new hangers suddenly appearing like magic in Jace’s closet, not to mention a bathroom drawer that “you might as well put your things into. Neater, hey.” He was a very sneaky man, and it hadn’t been nearly as hard a decision as it might have been to let her lease go.
He’d been right about something else, too. It was a lot nicer to buy things to put into a house you were sharing with somebody you loved. Or, rather, two houses, since he’d held onto the cabin. Jace turned out to be a good online shopper, or her version of it. Which meant choosing fast and pressing the button instead of asking her to decide. Or, worse, asking her to shop.
Now, on Christmas, he looked at her, rubbed his hand slowly over her leg, and said, “What?”
“Oh, nothing,” she answered. “Just that I love you. And that I’m glad Charlotte didn’t kill any of us, because I wouldn’t be nearly as happy right now.”
“Good to know,” he said, smiling into her eyes and making her heart do that funny little flip. “This would be a good time to ask Lilyandyou if you can get a week off in, oh, call it March? My parents were pretty disappointed to miss having us for Christmas. March could be a good time, though, I’m thinking. Good for you, baby, since most people won’t be taking a holiday then, I’d think. And off-season for Lily as well.”
“You can’t want to takeme,”Lily said.
“But I do,” Jace said. “Meeting the family’s always a bit fraught. If it gets too much for Paige, she can switch with you and let you carry things for a while. I always have an ulterior motive.”
Jace had taken them first to his parents’ home in Brisbane, a compact little house on a hillside with frangipani and hibiscus blooming in the garden and a man who looked like an older, even more imposing version of Jace presiding over the dinner table. Sergeant Major Colin Blackstone, to be exact, a man who looked like he’d been forged from iron and hardened in the fire. Paige was used to tough men, but all the same, she’d been glad to have Lily with her until she’d gotten to know him a little better.
Jace hadn’t made her sit around and be uncomfortable, though. He’d taken her and Lily to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary on the first day, where he’d watched a sheepdog show with them, then queued patiently so they could snuggle a koala. The look on Lily’s face when she’d done it had been well worth the wait.
Jace had said quietly to Paige, “She looks like that’s her baby doll.”
“Yeah,” Paige had answered. “Lily’s always wanted to be a mom.”
“But not you?”
“You pick your moments for the good questions, don’t you?”
“Could be. Put it that I’m interested.”
Her heart had started to beat much too hard for a woman looking at sleepy marsupial cuteness. “I don’t know,” she’d answered honestly. “It always seemed like if I did it, I’d be doing it alone. I don’t want to do it alone.”
“Mm,” he’d said. But the attendant had been gently prising the snoozing koala off Lily’s shirt, and the moment had been over.
He kept doing things like that, too. Two days ago, he’d taken Paige on a long morning run along the winding horseshoe bends of the Brisbane River, under cliffs and through the bougainvillea walk of South Bank, then across the bridge into the Queen Street Mall and out for a coffee in the turn-of-the-century opulence of the Brisbane Arcade. Afterwards, they’d wandered the elegant stone corridors under the stained-glass panels and window-shopped. “The only kind of shopping,” Paige had tried to joke, “that I can actually stand. We’re not exactly dressed for it, though.”
“No worries,” Jace had said. “We won’t go in. We’ll just have a wander round. I need to get an idea somehow. Your birthday’s barely a month away, and I’d never get you someplace like this if we weren’t on holiday. I’m seizing my moment.”
She might have gotten a little breathless again, but he’d been nothing but casual, pointing out diamond earrings and opal pendants. Definitely not dragging her into stores to try on rings. She’d shoved down the stupid, sneaky edge of disappointment that had risen unbidden, as if she’d expected a romantic proposal in their running shorts from a man she’d known less than a year. Even if hewasthe most wonderful man in the world.
She’d relaxed, eventually, and enjoyed the moment. Holding Jace’s arm, because being up close to that muscle was one of her favorite places wherever they were, and saying, “The opals are really pretty.”
“But?” he’d prompted, moving her along to the next store. Half of this building seemed to be jewelers, each more exquisite than the last. It was a heady spot.
She’d stopped, and he’d said, “Yes?”
“I hate to admit it,” she’d said, “but I love those pink stones. Ishouldlike opals best. Opals are Australian, and they’re more my thing, right? All of them so different, and different shapes, too. But that is just sopretty.Way prettier than a diamond, don’t you think?”
“Pink sapphire,” Jace had said. “No worries. You have good taste, is all. Especially against the diamonds, wouldn’t you say? No reason you can’t like something just because it’s pretty and feminine. You get to have that if you want. We don’t need no stinkin’ rules.”
She’d laughed and said, “Nope. We sure don’t,” and had felt so light, she could float away. Exercise endorphins. Really good coffee. Beautiful jewelry. Vacation. And Jace. That was all.
Five minutes later, he’d asked, “Had enough?” And they’d left. No champagne. No earrings. Which she didn’t need. He was right. Looking was fun. And her birthdaywasonly a little more than a month away. She might even get a pink sapphire pendant. Maybe that one with the carved rose-gold setting, even. Maybe so. She’d be willing to dress up for that.
Yesterday, they’d all flown up to the tiny Whitsunday Airport. The two of them, Lily, and Jace’s parents. A helicopter had met them there and flown them over sugar-cane fields and palms, the noise of the machine’s flight sending kangaroos and wallabies bounding away beneath them like some kind of ad for Australia, delighting Lily—and Paige, she had to admit—beyond measure. The pilot had taken them over a winding coastline, past endless white-sand beaches and over the paler spots in the turquoise water that were coral reefs, and when they’d reached the house called Heaven’s Gate? Jace’s brother Rafe and his cousin Willow had already arrived.
Paige had met Rafe before. Lily hadn’t. Maybe that was why Lily had been extra-quiet since. Which Paige had to admit she didn’t understand.
This morning, she’d gone into Lily’s bedroom, which featured the same ocean view as all the others. A half-dozen sulphur-crested cockatoos were raising a ruckus outside, perched in a tree, and as they watched, a brightly-colored parrot swooped down into a date palm, followed by another.
Lily said, “So what do you do if he fails the test?”
