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mention kids.”

      Kids? It took a second for his meaning to gel. The swing, the sandpit, the discarded toy dump truck. “Oh, no, I don’t have children. These are for Joshua, for when he stays.”

      “Joshua?”

      “Mitch and Annabel’s son.”

      “They farm him out, too?”

      He might not have been passing judgement—neither his casual tone nor his closed expression gave anything away—yet Julia’s protective instincts shot to full alert. “It’s only occasionally that they’re both away at the same time, and I don’t mind having him.”

      In fact, she loved having Joshua stay, loved indulging him with the simple things he missed out on, such as homemade swings and sandpits, and playing with a dog. Staying here was good for him. It wasn’t farming out.

      Feeling unduly aggrieved, she put her whole shoulder behind the next throw, then watched Mac disappear around the side of the house in frantic pursuit.

      “Where is he getting out? Your fences look good.”

      “Around the front. It’s simply not high enough.”

      With one of those noncommittal grunts peculiar to men, he ambled over to the side fence, studied it this way and that, then started pacing the distance between fence and house.

      “It’s three point six meters each side,” she said, way too snappily. “And I know that by fencing it off I can enclose the backyard to keep him in. I’m saving to do it.”

      “What about the dog’s owner? Shouldn’t he be the one saving?”

      “I don’t think that’s any concern of yours.”

      “You’re right.” He gave her a hard, sidelong look. “And it shouldn’t be any concern of yours, either.”

      “It’s my fence and my house, so that makes it my concern.”

      End of debate. End of yard tour. End of short nerve-racking interlude with Zane O’Sullivan.

      She whistled to Mac, then started for the front yard.

      “Hang on a second.”

      He put out his arm, presumably to prevent her passing, and she walked right into it, waist height. For the life of her, she couldn’t back away. She couldn’t move. All she could think was His arm, hard against my body.

      The thought caused her mouth to turn dry. Or perhaps that was because he was standing so close and making no attempt to increase the distance. Her senses were flooded with his proximity, with the absolute stillness of their bodies. It seemed as if neither of them had taken a breath in a very long while.

      Then, just when she thought she might explode from the pressure, the expectancy, the not knowing what would come next or what she wanted to come next, he moved his arm…not abruptly, but in a long, slow, brushing caress across her abdomen.

      She knew the instant he detected the belly button ring. She could tell by the jerk of his head, by his swift intake of breath, by the sudden tension that stiffened his whole body.

      And by the look of astonishment on his face.

      In another place and time that look might have been comical, but not here and now. For he still stood way too close—so close she could feel the heat emanating from his big body, and where he had touched her, oh, there was more than heat.

      There was fire.

      She closed her eyes, imagined his broad, long-fingered hand spread across the bare skin of her belly, swore she could feel the touch of his thumb as it circled the delicate piece of jewelry, as it slid slowly lower. A responsive flush seemed to light her skin from the inside out.

      “You have a piercing?”

      Julia blinked her way out of the sensual heat haze and felt his gaze skim in a quicksilver motion from her face to her belly. She swallowed, moistened her arid mouth, although she hadn’t a clue what to say other than a simple, “Yes.”

      Should she explain how she’d felt the day after she’d signed her divorce papers? Could she explain the surge of restlessness, of recklessness, of unreality? How she had decided that was the day to do something un-Julia-like, something to mark the start of her new life. Something like getting a tattoo.

      Except once she walked through the door of Skin Pix, the old Julia wouldn’t stay silent. She didn’t want the statement of a multihued butterfly stamped into her skin. She wanted something a little less obvious.

      And so she had walked out the door with a silver ring in her navel.

      Of course the new Julia wasn’t any different to the old one. She could never bring herself to wear clothes that bared her midriff and showed off the adornment, just as she could never explain to anyone else why she’d had it done, or why she kept wearing the unseen ring.

      “It’s just something I did on a whim.” She shrugged self-consciously. “I had better get moving. Make yourself at home—Kree shouldn’t be long.”

      “I’m not here to see Kree.”

      He was still standing too close, still blocking her path, still making her feel incredibly hot and bothered. Seeking relief, she looked down…just as he slid a hand into the front pocket of his jeans. Oh, dear Lord, she should not be looking there.

      “I brought your car.”

      Her gaze sped guiltily back to where a set of car keys now dangled from his fingers. That was what she should have been noticing in the front of his jeans, instead of other, um, things.

      “I guess that means I owe you two drinks,” she said.

      His pause was infinitesimal, just long enough for Julia to notice how the levity in her tone had done nothing to ease the heavily charged atmosphere. Then, in a slow, measured tone, he said, “I thought we agreed that wasn’t a good idea.”

      “You said it wasn’t a good idea.”

      “You had a man waiting at your gate.”

      “I didn’t invite him.” Her gaze held his without wavering—an amazing feat, considering the anticipatory quiver running from her toes to the tips of her ears. “And when he rang today and asked me out to dinner, I declined.”

      “So?”

      Julia moistened her mouth, felt the lick of his gaze follow the movement. “So what if I want to buy you those drinks?”

      “You know where to find me.”

      “The Lion?”

      “Back bar.” One corner of his mouth quirked. “But we both know Julia Goodwin wouldn’t be seen dead in a dive like that.”

      And before she could even think of a reply, let alone voice it, he pressed the car keys into her hand and sauntered off.

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