TRISTAN was in turmoil. He didn’t know what to think. Damn sure he didn’t know what to say to the woman who’d just destroyed him with her kisses and then blocked his retreat with nothing more than clever words and a warm smile. He was used to keeping people out. Never revealing too much, never caring too much, always staying in control. His work demanded it, and when it came to his private life he demanded it.
He never lost control when he was with a woman. Not ever. He certainly didn’t ravage them beneath a blood red sky with no thought of tenderness or care. No thought at all, truth be told, beyond sheer animal need.
He didn’t want it. Didn’t want Erin Sinclair filling needs he’d never known he had and leaving memories that would haunt him for the rest of his life. Erin in his arms, lost to everything but sensation, and the only thing that saved him from complete self-loathing was the knowledge that she’d been as much at the mercy of their love-making as he had. That she’d wanted him as mindlessly as he’d wanted her.
She just handled the afterwards a hell of a lot better.
So he would follow her lead and be an adult in the aftermath of near catastrophe. Nothing he didn’t want to give, but he could show her some tenderness, he could do that. He could be civil and buy her a meal and act the gentleman.
It was the least she deserved.
He bought beer on the way back to the motel, and Chinese take-away to go with it, and she didn’t object to him paying, not by so much as a glance. She hadn’t objected to him doing the driving either. She was reading him, he thought grimly. Reading his need for some small measure of control with disturbing accuracy.
They ate back at the motel, in the little kitchenette, and he worked hard to make the evening almost normal and the conversation almost easy. It was the little things that tripped him up. Her delight at the spicy heat of the Mongolian lamb, never mind that her eyes were watering. Her unabashed appreciation for a cold beer straight from the bottle. The way she moved, the way she smiled. She was sensualist; he’d known that from the start. From the moment he’d kissed her in the driveway outside her mother’s house, and vowed to stay away from her.
‘So where to next?’ he asked when they’d eaten their fill and cleared away the plates, and even that small domesticity carried with it an intimacy he didn’t want. ‘Inverell for sapphires?’
‘In the morning.’ She regarded him steadily. ‘You don’t have to come with me, you know. You could head back to Sydney tomorrow if you’d prefer.’ Her lips curved into a slight smile. ‘You could drive your ute home. You’d cut quite the dashing picture. Very James Dean.’
‘James Dean drove a nineteen-fifty-five silver Porsche Spyder. I’m not quite seeing a connection between him in that and me heading down the highway in Frank’s old Ford.’
‘You’d probably have to be female to see that particular connection,’ she said dryly. ‘You men are far too literal. My point is that there are plenty of ways to get back to Sydney from here if you have a mind to.’
She was giving him an out, but damned if he was going to take it. Damned if he’d let her see how much she affected him. ‘You still need sapphires for your competition pieces, don’t you?’
‘Yes, but if you’re not comfortable—
‘Don’t,’ he said curtly. ‘Just…don’t.’
She nodded once and looked away. ‘Two more days ought to do it.’
And two more nights. He didn’t know what to do with himself, with all this time between now and morning. There was too much Erin in it.
‘I thought I might work on some designs,’ she said as she hung the tea towel to dry. ‘Now that I have the opals.’
‘I might take a walk into town.’ She was the one who’d taken a walk last night. It seemed only fair that he be the one to do the walking tonight. ‘I could be a while.’ He might find a game of eight ball somewhere, or better still a rumble. Pity Luke wasn’t here. Luke was always on for an argument involving fists. Or Pete. Two against one. Just enough to take the edge off his hunger for Erin, and if that didn’t work there was always Jake.
Nobody messed with Jake.
He was halfway to town when he took it in his head to call his oldest brother. In Singapore.
‘You in trouble?’ said Jake, the minute he’d said hello.
‘No.’ Yes. ‘I’m in Lightning Ridge.’ Playing bodyguard to three opals and a beautiful woman whose body he wanted with a ferocity that left him aching.
‘And?’ said Jake.
‘And what?’
‘Ask me how I am and I’m likely to strangle you.’
‘There’s a woman.’
Dead silence at that, and then, ‘Is she a criminal?’
‘No.’
‘Psychopath?’
‘No.’
‘Married but nonetheless pregnant with your child?’
‘No.’
‘I’m not seeing a downside here. You’re going to have to help me out. Have you slept with her yet?’ ‘No.’
More silence. A long, long silence, after which Jake sighed heavily. ‘Dammit, Tris. Please tell me you’re not calling for advice about women. Call Pete. He’s always in love.’
And never in love. ‘She’s in my head.’
‘This is bad,’ said Jake. ‘You need to get her out of there immediately. You need to head butt something.’
Typical martial arts solution. ‘There’s the telegraph pole.’
‘Perfect. You’ll feel much better afterwards. Call me from the hospital.’
‘I was wondering,’ he said doggedly, ‘if you ever managed to get Jianna out of your head.’ They’d never talked about Jake’s ill-fated marriage, not once. He’d never known how.
‘You want my advice? All right, then, you’ve got it. Walk away. Stay away.’
‘You haven’t answered my question.’
‘You don’t want to hear my answer to that question.’
‘I think I do,’ he said quietly.
He didn’t think his brother was going to answer. He’d pushed too far. And then Jake spoke.
‘You want to know if I still bleed? If I still think of Ji every day and dream of her at night? The answer’s no.’ And with a dark and biting humour, ‘Sometimes I go days without thinking of her at all.’
Tristan was dreaming of the dockyards of Prague and a decision he’d taken too long to make. Again.
He woke in a lather of sweat and a tangle of sheets, with his heart thudding in his chest and his soul full of bile. He shoved the sheet aside, flicked the bedside lamp on, and sat there on the side of the bed, breathing hard. When was he ever going to make peace with these memories? How was he ever going to shake them loose?
They’d said it wasn’t his fault. That he’d played it by the book, and that much was true. He’d played it straight down the line, both the undercover work and the takedown. He hadn’t known what was in that container, he couldn’t have known. And still the nightmares came.
A shower would help, he thought wearily, and with his next breath wondered if taking a shower at this time of the morning would wake Erin. No. The shower was adjacent to his room, not hers. He would be quiet. He would sluice away the sweat and the memories and by the time he was clean he’d have thought of something else to do with the rest of this night.
The water was hot but the spray was weak and he stood there beneath it, wishing it were fiercer while his heartbeat steadied and he shoved those memories back in their box. By the time he’d tugged on a pair of track pants and padded downstairs he was almost back in control. He headed towards the kitchen for something to eat, belatedly wondering why the light was on. He’d been the last to bed and he’d turned that light off; he could have sworn he’d turned it off.
He had. Someone else had turned it back on.
‘Morning,’ said Erin, abandoning her latest design in favour of taking a good long look at Tristan. He looked tired, she thought. Defeated. His demons were riding him hard.
‘What are you doing here?’ he said abruptly.
Not exactly the warmest of greetings, but then, she hadn’t expected one. ‘I had some designs I wanted to get down on paper,’ she said by way of explanation, and it was true to a point. She had been working on her designs. But she’d been waiting for Tristan.
He looked at the drawings, looked at her. ‘At four-thirty a.m.?’
She shrugged. ‘Why not? I was awake.’
‘I’m sorry if I woke you,’ he said awkwardly, and she bled for him even as she cursed his reticence.
‘Kettle’s boiled,’ she said, indicating the cup of hot tea in front of her. ‘And last night’s leftovers are in the oven.’
‘You’re feeding me?’
‘Not at all.’
‘Are you sure?’ he muttered. ‘It feels like you’re feeding me.’
‘I didn’t cook it so it doesn’t count.’ Tristan’s hair was tousled, he was shirtless again, and she tried to ignore the quickening of her blood and the warmth that blossomed low in her belly when she looked at him. She knew the feel of him now, knew it and craved it, but she wasn’t out to seduce him. She wanted to help him. ‘Do you have them every night?’
‘Showers?’
‘Nightmares.’
His silence spoke volumes.
‘You want to talk about it?’
‘No.’
‘Ever heard the one about problems shared?’
‘I’ve heard it,’ he said. ‘I just don’t hold to it.’
Erin smiled ruefully. ‘Yeah, well, maybe that’s your problem.’ She’d been expecting him to shut her out. She was used to it and not just from him. From her father. From Rory…Talking through their troubles wasn’t an option and it wasn’t just a gender thing. It was a warrior thing. ‘Tough guy.’
‘Not even close.’
So vulnerable, she thought with a catch in her throat. So heartbreakingly defiant as he stood there like some dark angel and dared her to breach his defences. His demons were his own; he would not share them. And still she tried to reach him. She was a warrior’s daughter; she could do nothing less. ‘Any ideas on how to make those nightmares go away?’
He reached for a glass, filled it with tap water and drank deeply. Stonewalling her deliberately, she thought with a sigh.
‘I’m thinking of handing in my resignation,’ he said gruffly. ‘Finding another job.’
Erin blinked and leaned back in her chair. Not what she’d expected to hear. And not what she thought would help him, for all that the notion appealed mightily to her. ‘Do you really think that’s going to help?’
Tristan shrugged. ‘Maybe.’
‘What would you do?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘What about internal transfer options?’
‘Desk jobs,’ he muttered.
‘No one works on the frontline for ever,’ she said carefully. ‘How long have you been there?’
Silence.
Too long, she thought as she stood and headed towards the oven, hoping that the aroma pervading the room meant that the food was hot enough to serve because it was either feed him or take him in her arms and soothe his hurt in a different way. ‘I think it’s ready,’ she said as she took the dishes from the oven.
‘Are you sure you’re not feeding me?’
‘Don’t dwell on it.’
‘What if I put the food on the plates?’ he said. ‘That might help.’
Only to make her want him more. But she let him do it anyway, careful to keep some distance between them as she picked up her loaded plate and took it to the table. Food was good. Food occupied hands that could otherwise be engaged in touching and caressing. ‘Are you planning on getting any more sleep tonight?’ she asked him between mouthfuls of lukewarm fried rice.
‘No.’
‘And we’re done talking about work options?’
‘If there’s a God.’
She ignored his fervour and concentrated on the big picture. Eating would take all of ten minutes. After that it’d be her, Tristan, a motel suite, and three empty beds. ‘The thing is, I’m experiencing a powerful need to help you take your mind off your troubles,’ she confessed. ‘I have a couple of options I think you might be interested in.’
‘I’m listening,’ he said.
‘We pack up and drive. Move on. Men like running from their problems.’
Tristan ignored the jibe. His thoughts had taken a sensual turn as he imagined another way in which Erin might think of to ease his troubled mind. A timeless, instinctive way. ‘What’s the second option?’
‘Of course, we’d have to backtrack a bit.’
He was already there. Back at the hot pool, right where they’d left off. With Erin in his arms and a fire in his blood.
‘I don’t suppose you’d like to go rock climbing?’