The Maverick Millionaire

She looked up as he walked towards her with the wood. He saw the way her eyes widened with shock.

‘You’re limping.’ Her tone was accusing. ‘You’re hurt. And I let you carry me all that way. Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I’m not hurt.’ He dumped the wood on the floor beside her. His old injury was hardly a state secret, but it wasn’t something he mentioned if he could avoid it.

‘I’m a paramedic, Jake. I’ve got eyes. I can see—’

‘Drop it,’ he growled. ‘I told you. I haven’t been injured. Not in the last ten years anyway.’

‘Oh...’ She caught her bottom lip between her teeth. Maybe she was attempting a smile. ‘Old war wound, huh?’

He glared at her. ‘First time anyone’s found it funny.’

Her face changed. Was she embarrassed? Not that she was about to apologise. There was an awkward silence as she turned her attention back to the fire and then she must have decided that it was best ignored.

* * *

‘Some rats or mice had shredded the paper for me,’ Ellie said. ‘Good thing, too, because my fingers are still too cold to work properly.’ Her tone was deliberately lighter. Impersonal, even. ‘Don’t think we’ll use the beds, but the blankets might be okay.’

The wood sizzled a little, but the flame was still growing. The glow caught Ellie’s face as she leaned in to blow gently on the fire. Water dripped from her long braid to add to the puddle at her feet. Smoke puffed out and made her cough.

‘There could well be a bird’s nest or two in the chimney, but they should burn away soon. We’ll get the potbelly going, too, if we can, and that should get things toasty in no time.’

Jake had to forgive the dismissal of his old injury as some kind of joke. She didn’t know the truth and, if he wasn’t prepared to enlighten her, it would be unfair to hold a grudge. And he had to admire her. She was capable, this Eleanor Sutton, but that was hardly surprising given what she did for a job. Jake was given the task of feeding larger sticks into the fire as it grew while Ellie limped over to the kitchen to get the stove going. His hands began aching unbearably as heat finally penetrated the frozen layer of skin and, when he looked up, he saw Ellie’s pained expression as she shook her hands.

‘Hurts, doesn’t it?’

‘It’s good. Means there’s some circulation happening and nerves are waking up.’ She nodded in satisfaction at the fire Jake was tending. ‘I’ll see if I can find us some dry clothes. My dad kept a trunk of stuff under the bed and it’s a tin trunk so it should have kept the rats out.’

‘Do you get snakes, too?’

‘No snakes in New Zealand. Have you never been here before?’

‘No.’

‘I guess you were just passing by with the yacht race. Wasn’t there a stop planned in Auckland?’

‘Yeah. I was getting off then. I’m here for a job. That was why I talked Ben into giving me a lift on his yacht.’

‘Ben? That’s your friend who was on the life raft with you?’

‘He’s my brother. Twin brother.’

‘Oh...’

The enormity of having to leave Ben behind and not trying to go back and get him was clearly registering.

‘I...I’m sorry, Jake.’

‘Yeah... Me, too.’

‘It was a good life raft. There’s still hope that he’ll make it.’

Jake found himself staring at Ellie. It felt very odd—his gaze clinging to hers like this. As if he was pleading...

Desperately wanting to believe.

Begging her to prove herself trustworthy?

She was in the business of rescuing people who found themselves in dire situations so she should know what she was talking about.

‘We weren’t the only rescue team out there,’ she told him quietly. ‘There were other choppers. Planes. And there’s other boats. Container ships as well as the coastguard. There’s plenty of daylight left and...’

There was such compassion in her eyes and her body language. The way she was leaning towards him. Holding out one hand. If she’d been close enough, she’d be touching him right now.

He wished she was that close.

‘And there are literally hundreds of islands on this part of the coastline. All it needs is for a current to get him close to land and he’ll be able to find shelter until the worst of the storm is over.’

Maybe it was the compassion he could see that did it. Or the comfort of the reassurance she was offering. Or maybe it was because of that longing that she had been close enough to underpin her words with human touch.

Whatever it was, Jake could pull back. Yes, she was offering him what he wanted more than anything in this moment. And the invitation to believe her was so sincere, but they were all like that, weren’t they? Especially women.

He knew better than to trust.

‘Yeah...right...’ He wrenched his gaze free, turning back towards the fire and using a stick to poke at it. He didn’t want to talk about Ben. He didn’t want to show this stranger how he was really feeling. How afraid he was. Who knew what contacts she might have? What could turn up as a headline on some celebrity website?

* * *

The warmth Ellie had been getting from the stove seemed to have been shut off and the cold in her gut turned into a lead weight.

No wonder they’d been arguing about who got to be rescued first. Or that Jake had said he would have stayed if he’d been given the choice. She didn’t even have a sibling and these men were twin brothers. She could imagine how close they were. As close as she’d dreamed of being with another living soul. Loving—and being loved—enough for one’s own safety to not be the priority.

She would have gone back for Ben if it had been possible, but it hadn’t been. At least she’d brought Jake to safety, but maybe, in the end, he wouldn’t thank her for that. He obviously didn’t want to talk about it. He was hunched over in front of the fire, looking very grim as he poked at the burning sticks, sending sparks flying and creating a new cloud of smoke. Fiercely shutting her out.

Was it the smoke in his eyes that made him rub at them with the heel of his hand? Even hunched up, she was aware again of what a big man he was. Intimidatingly big. She knew that trying to offer any further comfort would be unwelcome. She’d probably put her foot in it, too, the way she had when she’d tried to make some kind of joke about his obvious limp.

It had been the way Grandpa had brushed off any concern about his physical wellbeing.

It’s nothing, chicken. Just the old war wound playing up.

But Jake was an American. Had she made a joke about some horrible injury he’d suffered in somewhere like Afghanistan? She’d been too flustered to think of a way to apologise without it seeming insincere. Or prying. There was something about this man that suggested he valued his privacy a lot more than most people.

So, once again, she simply avoided anything personal.

‘I’ll go and see if I can find us those dry clothes.’

* * *

By the time Ellie returned with an armload of clothes from the old tin trunk, the living area of the small house was already feeling a lot warmer.

‘The trousers are pretty horrible, but we’ve scored with a couple of Swanndris.’

Jake looked up from where he was still crouched in front of the fire. He was shivering uncontrollably despite being so close to the heat. ‘S-swan—what?’

‘They’re shirts. I’m wearing one.’ Ellie dumped the pile she was holding onto the sofa, extracting a black-and-red-checked garment to hold out to Jake. ‘New Zealand icon. A hundred percent wool. Farmers have relied on them for decades over here and they’re the best thing for warmth. Even better, these ones are huge. Should fit you a treat.’

Neither her father or grandfather had been small men by any means. The shirt Ellie was wearing came well down over the baggy track pants she’d struggled into in the bedroom, but it was just as well they were so loose because they’d gone right over the sodden boots that had laces she couldn’t manage to undo yet. And maybe it was better to leave them on. At least her ankle was splinted by the heavy leather and padding of her socks.

He took the shirt and nodded. ‘Thanks.’

‘Don’t just stare at it. Put it on. No, hang on...’ Ellie dived back into the pile. ‘Here’s a singlet that can go on first so it’s not itchy.’

Getting changed into dry clothes was easier said than done. Ellie had found it enough of a struggle getting out of her wet clothes in the bedroom and she’d been wearing state-of-the-art gloves to protect her hands up until now. Jake’s hands had been bare ever since he’d been plucked from the life raft and were still so cold there was no way he could manage the zipper of the heavy anorak he was wearing.

He fumbled several times, cursed softly and then stopped trying. Ellie dragged her gaze up from his fingers to his face and, for a long moment, they simply stared at each other.

The fire was crackling with some enthusiasm now. Adding enough light to the dark, stormy afternoon for her to get a good look at this man. He was big, broad shouldered and...and wild looking, with that long hair and the beard. His face was fierce looking anyway, with a nose that commanded attention and accentuated the shadowed eyes that had an almost hawk-like intensity.

The pull of something—an awareness that was deep enough to be disturbing—made Ellie’s mouth go dry. She tore her gaze away from those compelling eyes. They both knew she had no choice here.

‘I’ll help you,’ she said.

Her voice sounded weird so she pressed her lips together and said nothing else as she started to help him undress. The scrape of the metal zip sounded curiously loud. He had layers underneath. A sodden woollen pullover and thermal gear beneath that.

And then there was skin. Rather a lot of skin covering the kind of torso that spoke of a great deal of physical effort.

Ripped. That was the only word for it.

Dark discs of nipples hardened by the cold decorated an almost hairless chest that seemed at odds with the amount of hair Jake favoured on his head and face.

And...dear Lord, there was a tattoo in the strangest place. A line of what looked like Chinese characters ran from his armpit to disappear into the waistband of his jeans.

It was discreet body art and it must have significance, but Ellie wasn’t about to ask. She shouldn’t even be looking. Just as well it got covered up as Jake pulled on the black singlet and then the thick woollen shirt. He managed to pop the button on his jeans but, again, the zipper was beyond the motor skills that had returned to his hands so far.

Ellie had undressed countless patients in her career. She’d cut through and removed clothing and exposed every inch of skin of people without the slightest personal reaction. Why did it have to be now that she was so aware of touching someone in such an intimate area? Why did she feel so uncomfortable she had to swallow hard and actually close her eyes for a heartbeat?

Like remembering her past when it should have been totally obliterated by the adrenaline of being in real danger, maybe this was a sign that she was no longer fit for active service as a paramedic. Something like grief washed through Ellie at the thought and it was easy to turn that into a kind of anger. Impatience, anyway, to get the job over with.

‘I’ll do the zip,’ she snapped. ‘You should be able to manage the rest.’

She tried not to think of what her fingers were brushing. The zipper got stuck halfway down and she had to pull it back up and try again. A warmth that had nothing to do with the fire crept into her cheeks. As soon as she got the zipper down past where it had stuck, she dropped her hands as though the metal was red hot and she turned away as Jake hooked his thumbs into the waistband and started peeling the wet fabric from his skin.

She’d seen enough.

Too much.

* * *

Nobody had undressed Jake Logan without his invitation since he’d been about two years old and had kicked his nanny to demonstrate his desire for independence.

Except for when he’d been in the care of the army medics, of course, and then of the nurses in the military hospital back home. He’d flirted wickedly with those nurses, making a joke of the humiliation of being helpless.

He couldn’t have flirted to save his life when Ellie had been struggling with that zipper. He’d been looking down at her bent head. The rope of black hair was still dripping wet, but the fronds that the wind had whipped free were starting to dry and they were softening the outlines of her face. Or they would have been if it wasn’t set in such grim lines of determination.

She really didn’t want to be touching him, did she? This was an ordeal she was forcing herself to get through because she had no choice.

Like being unrecognised, this was an alien experience for a man almost bored by the way women threw themselves at him. Not a pleasant experience either, but it wasn’t humiliation or even embarrassment that was so overwhelming. He couldn’t begin to identify what it was he was feeling. He just knew that it was powerful enough to be disturbing.

Very disturbing.

The choice of trousers was embarrassing with the only pair he had any hope of fitting being shapeless track pants that didn’t cover his ankles. At least the socks looked long and he could be grateful there were no paparazzi around.

‘What will we do with the wet gear?’

Ellie had taken the lamp down from the hook on the ceiling and was pouring something from a plastic bottle into its base.

‘We’ll hang them over the chairs. They might be dry enough to get back into by the time we get rescued from here.’

‘How long do you reckon that’ll be?’

Ellie had the glass cover off the lamp now. She struck a match and held it to a wick. ‘We had a lot of info coming in about the cyclone while we were in the air. The worst of it won’t hit until early tomorrow, but it should blow through within about twelve hours.’

The flame caught and Ellie eased the glass cover back into place. She fiddled with an attachment to the base, pumping it gently, and suddenly the light increased to a glow that seemed like a spotlight focused on her. As she looked up and caught his gaze, a hint of a smile made her lips curve. ‘It’s going to get worse before it gets better, I’m afraid.’

Jake’s mouth felt suddenly dry.

Even the hint of a smile transformed Ellie’s face. Made it come alive.

She was an extraordinarily beautiful woman. He could actually feel something slamming shut in his chest. Or his head maybe.

Don’t go there. Don’t get sucked in. Even if she doesn’t know who you are, it’s not worth the risk.

Remember what happened last time.

But Ellie stretched to hang the lamp from its hook and the unbuttoned sleeves of her oversize shirt fell back to expose slim, olive-brown arms. Long, clever fingers made another adjustment to the base of the lamp.

Jake couldn’t drag his gaze free.

Yeah...it probably was going to get worse before it got better.

But he could deal with it.

He had to.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.