Page 38 of Kiwi Gold
He slapped a hand over his chest and fell back against the door. “Another one straight to the heart. Could you let me imagine, just for tonight, that you did it for me, before you crush my dreams? No, wait. That’s already happened.”
I was laughing again, too. Maybe because it had felt too bad, before, when I’d thought he was already begging off. My emotions were all over the shop, and I hadn’t evenmetmy dad yet for … whatever. For whatever would take a Muslim man to a brewpub.
Bound to be interesting, though. Possibly another conversational topic.
17
A WEE COMPLICATION
Lachlan
We took my car. Five minutes to Speight’s, during which Laila said nothing at all. I could feel her tension, but I could also smell her scent all the way across the car. It smelled like … like a woman baking cookies.
In a flower-filled kitchen.
In an apron.
And nothing else.
Which was a pretty good encapsulation of how all of her hit me.
I was meant to be honest here. Straightforward, like Lexi had said. But she smelled like that, and I could see through her dress. How honest could I possibly be without scaring her off?
The dress … it was made of some gauzy stuff, so light it was barely there, with a wrap front, fluttery sleeves, a pleated skirt, one of those hemlines that went up and down in zigzags from the calf to the knee, and a print of purple flowers on white. All of it delicate and ladylike, like her.
Except not, because it was sheer. Underneath it, she was wearing one of those form-fitting dresses, or maybe it was a liner. Whatever it was, it was sleeveless, and it stopped not very far at all down her thighs. Also, the dress had that wrap front, letting me see that all of her was indeed built on those fine lines.
To put the icing on the cake, she was wearing sandals with heels that made her totter a little and have to take my arm.
Bloody, bloodyhell.She hadn’t asked for slow-kissing lessons, or let-me-take-off-your-clothes-one-piece-at-a-time lessons, or lay-you-down-gently-and-kiss-you-everywhere-until-your-hand’s-in-my-hair-and-you’re-sighing lessons, much less keep-those-shoes-on-for-me-and-get-up-on-that-bed lessons. She’d asked fordatinglessons, and I was just going to have to control myself. She wanted to go out to dinner and chat, and maybe to have the car door held for her, because she’d looked so surprised when I’d done it, and so pleased, too. She’d taken my hand for the step up into the cab of the ute, and I’d got the kind of thrill some bloke in the 1800s would have done, handing a woman up into a carriage. She’d tucked her floaty skirt around herself just like that, too, before I’d slammed her door.
She was dressed for handing into a rowboat, maybe, for trailing her fingers in the water and watching me row her across a lake, letting me know she saw my muscles working, and letting me know she liked watching it. And I was taking her to a noisy Friday-night brewpub to meet my four sisters. And my mum. And have drama.
No help for it. I found a carpark as close to the place as I could manage, because I’d forgotten one important detail—that you couldn’t valet park at a brewpub—went around to her side, and helped her down in the same way I’d helped her up. The gauzy skirt rode far up over her thighs as she descended, she tugged it down, and I said, “Not too far to walk, I hope.”
“No,” she said. “I’m fine.” Sounding nothing but composed, her hair in its usual knot, low at the nape of her neck and completely under control. It had been a warm day, and it was a warm evening, too. The height of summer, and for once, five thousand kilometers south of the equator, this summer felt like it.
“You can hold my arm again,” I said, “if you like. For balance. Also nice, date-wise.”
“Nice for you,” she asked, “or for me?” Getting her confidence back, it seemed.
“For me, definitely,” I said. “My sister told me tonight that I was ‘disgustingly retro.’ Could be true.”
“Older brother,” she said. “Four little sisters. You can’t help but be protective, maybe.” Shedidtake my arm, her hand a light touch there, barely resting on my bicep. The rest of her wasn’t touching me, but I could still smell her scent, and I could look down at that shining dark head, too.
“Also,” I said, because we were nearly at the brewpub, and there was no time to lead up to it, “you’re about to meet those sisters. And my mum. I should’ve said, but it was … awkward. I need to tell you that my sisters are—”
I broke off, because there was a bloke waiting outside the pub’s front door that I didn’t want to see. Big and broad, with his ginger hair still shining like fire in the evening sun even though he had to be sixty now. I could practically see the jut of his bearded jaw.
My sisters, I could deal with. My sisters plus Mum plus Laila, too. Just. Torsten Drake looking like he wanted to get stuck in, before I even got inside, about that Papua New Guinea contract I’d grabbed from under his nose? That would be a bridge too far. No woman would hang about for all of that, especially when she’d taken so much care with her clothes and makeup, when her golden eyes were lined with smudgy dark brown, her lashes were longer and thicker than ever, her mouth was a petal-soft pink, and I could finally see the wings of her collarbones, as delicate as I’d ever imagined. She’d expect a man to be focusing on her, and I wanted to do it.
We got closer, and Drake came forward as if he’d been waiting for me.
Not good.
I said, keeping my voice low, “This could be a bit unpleasant. Unfortunately, I can’t hit this one in the neck. Sixty seconds, though, and it’s done.”
It was as if she hadn’t heard me. She stopped where she was, and she stopped holding my arm, too. She was practically backing up, and Drake was advancing.
