LITMIR.BIZ

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she stared down into his broad shoulders until the silence grew tangible. He sighed and twisted up to her. ‘I was an operative with Strike Force Taipan. Tactical Assault and Extraction.’ His voice turned from grudging to irritated. ‘Why are you smiling?’

      Taipans. It fit. She could see him slipping over the edge of a Zodiac all camouflaged at midnight. ‘Just revelling in the momentary pleasure of knowing everything. It happens very rarely.’

      ‘Is that right?’

      ‘I have an eight-year-old particularly gifted at pointing out when I’m wrong.’ He took after his grandfather.

      He chuckled again, only this time she watched the grin spread over his face. It really transformed him, as if he wasn’t striking enough already.

      In a kill-you-with-a-well-placed-thumb kind of way.

      ‘All done.’ He pulled off the gloves and wiped his hands on his jeans, then returned to his usual position, towering over her. Romy realised how accustomed she’d become to gazing up at him. Despite always being short, it was possibly the only time she’d felt…fragile. The thought had her scrambling away from him, her voice breathy.

      ‘Okay. Well, thanks. I guess I should be grateful nature endowed one of us with muscles.’

      That smile again. ‘There’s more to life than brute strength. Besides, you virtually repaired this single-handed. I just got to swan in at the end and be the hero.’

      At his own words, the light dimmed from his eyes. They clouded with something dark. He glanced towards his vehicle and then busied himself collecting the tools scattered across the ground. She joined him. When her toolkit was packed and there was no good reason to linger, she pulled her hat off and ran her fingers through sweat-dampened hair.

      He hadn’t met her eyes for minutes now. ‘I guess I should get going. Thanks for the help…’

      ‘You’re welcome.’ Still no eye contact but critically polite. He collected up the broken strainer and turned towards his ute at the foot of the hill. Romy frowned. What had she said? Why did she even care? This man was nothing to her, only her employer.

      But she did.

      She sighed and turned away from him.

      Clint felt the loss of her grey, almond-shaped eyes. It hadn’t been hurt simmering away in those smoky depths; she was too protected for that. It was caution. Confusion. And something else, something older that didn’t belong to him. But he felt like a heel, anyway.

      ‘I’m sorry, Romy. I’m not angry at you.’

      ‘Who are you angry at?’ Her whispered reply drifted to him on the warm breeze. Anxious. The playful spark in her expression completely absent. Yet another thing he’d killed in this world. It was a reasonable question but impossible to answer. Hadn’t he tried all these years to figure it out? Lord knows he’d had plenty of time. Somewhere along the line it got easier not to think about it any more.

      He stared long and hard at her. ‘Do you swim?’

      Her confusion doubled. ‘Why?’

      ‘If you swim, don’t do it in the dams around the cottage. Come here. This is the best for swimming.’

      ‘I’d already gathered that.’

      ‘Swim here.’ Why was he obsessing on this?

      She straightened. ‘That sounds vaguely like an order.’

      ‘Will that have more impact?’

      ‘I’d prefer you to ask me.’

      He shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his board shorts. ‘Ah, sorry. Occupational hazard.’

      ‘You can take the man out of the corps…’

      ‘What do you know about the corps?’

      ‘Unit. Corps. God. Country,’ she said. ‘Doesn’t leave much room for being human.’

      He squinted. ‘You know the code?’

      ‘I lived with the code.’

      Her simple grimace was telling. He knew only too well the personal price soldiers paid for honouring that ideal. Family came in a poor fifth right behind your unit. The men who kept you alive, who had your back.

      Or were supposed to.

      For all those big, beautiful eyes seemed to know about loss, he doubted they knew squat about betrayal. The things he’d seen, things he’d done. The things others had done that he’d never been able to reconcile. She didn’t have a clue. Romy Carvell was like a fresh set of combat camos: unsullied, crisp at the seams. The sort of thing you could slip into and feel clean, just for a moment until the sand leached in.

      ‘I’m asking you, Romy. If you or Leighton swim, please make it here. Okay?’

      She considered him long and hard. Then she shrugged. ‘It’s your property.’

      Something deep inside him staggered with relief. ‘What are you doing this evening?’

      She blinked at his rapid change of direction. ‘Uh…Helping Leighton with a science project.’

      ‘Friday, then. There’s something I’d like to show you on the estate.’ And there was. But mostly it was an excuse to spend some more time with her, to sit close to those crisp, new khakis and think about how good it would feel to be clean again. ‘Can you meet me in the afternoon?’

      ‘Where?’

      ‘I’ll find you.’

      She nodded and he turned down the hill, towards the twinkling green water he swam in daily, trying to baptise himself for a new beginning.

       Chapter Four

       I’ll find you.

      The words kept pinging around in Romy’s head. It was only her favourite quote in her favourite movie of all time. Except now, whenever she heard it, she’d think of a jade-eyed, square-jawed giant instead of Daniel Day-Lewis in a loincloth.

      Okay, so not the worst trade-off…

      She tipped her head back and let the cool water from the showerhead tumble over her.

      I’ll find you. When a man like Clint McLeish promised that, you knew he wasn’t kidding. He would find a polar bear in a blizzard in the Arctic Circle. He was just that kind of…doer.

      Nothing quite as sexy as a capable man.

      She twisted the cold-water tap off hard, warning herself away from those thoughts. There was a very hazy line between capable and overbearing and she’d lived half her life with the latter.

      She glanced at her watch and gasped. Leighton’s school bus would be dropping him at the gates to WildSprings in about four minutes. If his day was anything like hers, he’d be hot, bothered and ready for the air conditioning.

      It took her two minutes to throw on some clothes and get to the car. As she reached for the doorhandle, a growing plume of dust through the trees caught her eye. A blue Nissan cruised into her drive and pulled up nearby. A rosy-cheeked, blonde gnome popped her head out of the driver’s side window and then pushed the door open.

      ‘Hi! You must be Leighton’s mum? I’m Carolyn Lawson, Cameron’s mum.’

      Cameron? Romy bent to glance in the rear of the Nissan. Her son seemed absorbed in discussion with a blond boy about the same age. A ratty blue heeler with a lolling tongue was squished in there with them. Carolyn Lawson was five foot nothing and nearly as round as she was tall. But her smile was instant and her confidence infectious. Romy’s people metre blinked happily in the green. She held out her hand and accepted Carolyn’s firm shake.

      ‘I hope you don’t

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