Who Do You Trust?

Matt’s face lit up and fell at the same time, giving his face a mercurial, humorous appearance. “Don’t you fly no more?”

He gave the rich chuckle that still did funny things to her insides. “Me? Not fly? Come on, Matt, can you see that?”

Luke snorted. “Yeah, right, Matt. What a geek. As if Dad could ever stop himself!” He grinned up at Mitch. “So whatcha gonna do now?”

Mitch told his sons his plans to start up a country-based air courier business, but as he did, she saw all the quick glances at her. Gauging her reaction.

Uh-huh. She might be just an ignorant country girl, but even she could read the writing on this wall—it was in dripping fluorescent letters, screaming like the neon sign over the local video arcade. Mitch had them already married in his mind—wedded to his “perfect solution” of making them one family.

One unit. A regiment like the one he’d just left. And she, no doubt, would be on permanent KP/cleaning/child-minding duty.

Sure as eggs, it wouldn’t be long before Matt and Luke started giving her the exact same glances Mitch did now. A mother struggling to make it alone; a man wanting a family; two boys needing stability, a full-time mother as well as a dad. Before a week passed the twins would cotton on to Mitch’s plan, falling over themselves trying to help. Hints and innuendoes. Getting Jenny out of the way. Plotting when and how to play Cupid.

Well, it wasn’t going to happen. No way, no how. Not now, not ever—no matter how Mitch still affected her senses or how many pretty words he used on her.

Tim had done that, too.

Words were a sweet deception, a manipulation, nothing more. She was tired of being neatly boxed into “perfect solutions” for everyone but her, sick of being used by men who wanted security, stability and a home from her, but didn’t want—

History won’t repeat—not for this little black duck!

She clapped her hands. “Right. Scoot, everyone. I need to start on dinner,” she announced.

Mitch was still watching her, unnerving her with his quiet perception. “I booked a table at Bob’s for us all.”

Before she could open her mouth, the kids started shrieking in joy. “Bob’s Pizza! Way cool!”

She met his gaze, hers challenging. “You booked it before you even got here? A table for six, was it?”

His mouth twitched; a rueful grin spread over his face. “All right, I lied—but just a little. I plan to book dinner at Bob’s. For five.” He lifted a hand as she started to speak. “It’s a celebration and a thank-you, Lissa. To celebrate being with the boys again and to thank you and Jenny for opening your home and family to my kids the past five months.”

He kept watching her. As if he knew her reluctance to go to Bob’s…or anywhere else. As if he knew the last place on earth she wanted to be was with him.

Three eager, pleading little faces turned to hers. “C’mon, Mum, please—we haven’t been to Bob’s since we first came here,” Luke begged.

“And it’s the best place,” Matt added.

Mitch grinned. “I loved the place when I was a kid,” he agreed. “I never had a better pizza since.”

“It’s still the best!” Matt and Luke yelled together.

“Please, Mummy?” Jenny’s big baby blues were full of wistful wishes. “And I’ll tell Daddy we only went with Matt and Lukey’s daddy—he isn’t gonna go kissin’ you or nothin’,” she added ingenuously with her sweet lisp. “Then Daddy won’t be sad.”

After a moment’s silence, Lissa felt Mitch’s gaze on her. On her eyes. On her mouth. Like he’d planned the exact act Jenny denied. To put his mouth on hers…his lips dancing with sensual care over her throat, her shoulders, and down…

Matt sniggered.

She felt the color rising up her throat and into her face until it scorched her from the inside.

“Jenny, you’re a loser,” Matt said, laughing, ruffling her golden curls and winking at Mitch, as if he was nineteen instead of nine. “C’mon, get into your togs, kid. I’ll play on the water slide with you.”

“Cool!” Jenny squealed, and ran to her room for her bathing suit.

“Wanna come, Dad?” Luke asked Mitch, his eyes bright. Bright with hope, and a fear that was too adult, too world-weary. Not wanting to let his dad out of his sight.

Lissa ached for the boy she loved so dearly. Luke still suffered nightmares, with both greater regularity and stronger intensity than the more resilient Matt. Most nights she’d find him sleeping with his twin or with Jenny. She had a nightmare, Mum, he’d mumble the next morning. I was looking after her.

Sweet, vulnerable, innocent Luke, with a facade of strength to hide his terrified heart. Just like his father.

Lissa watched in hidden hunger as Mitch, his face filled with tender understanding, held his son close. “I’m not going anywhere, mate. Promise. I’m here for good.”

“You swear?” Luke whispered.

Mitch crouched down before his son. “Have I ever lied to you, Luke?” Eyes enormous, Luke slowly shook his head. “I promise I’ll stay right here. I’ll talk to Mum for a little while, and book a table at Bob’s. Then I’ll jump in the pool with you, all right?”

Even behind closed eyes, the vision remained to haunt her mind. A half-naked Mitch, strong, dark and muscular, playing in the cool, slippery blue depths of her pool…

Just like we used to.

Memories flooded her: the sweetest taboo, the forbidden too enticing to deny. Mitch would sneak out the window on hot summer nights, and she’d be waiting for him. And they’d swim and play in scared silence, in the exhilaration of a shared secret. Knowing that if her parents or Old Man Taggart saw them, they’d put a far less innocent connotation on their water frolics.

But it had all been innocent—just as she’d been back then, when she’d believed in love and happy-ever-after with a boy, a man who’d love her and her alone. Forever.

The dream of forever love had stumbled when Mitch left her, then died during her marriage to Tim.

“Yes, Dad,” Luke said softly.

Lissa’s eyes snapped open to see Mitch mock-slap Luke’s bottom. “Then off you go, matey, and have fun. Mum will make sure I don’t leave—won’t you, Mum?”

Neatly boxed into a corner, she could only nod; but she couldn’t hold on to the anger when she saw the soft light filling Luke’s dark eyes. The first sign of healing, with the security he so desperately needed. Someone to call his own. A family.

Like father like son.

Within a minute all three kids dashed past on their way to the pool. “Take clean towels,” she yelled, knowing that, as usual, she’d have to bring them out later.

Mitch stood watching her in silence.

She turned and washed the coffee cups, wishing Mitch’s plan wasn’t so damned perfect for everyone except her—or Jenny, who still dreamed of her daddy coming back to live with them forever.

Another dream she could never make come true.

You’re so perfect I feel like slime for even thinking about leaving you, Lissa, but I have to get away…

Would she always make everyone she cared for so unhappy? No matter how hard she tried, it wasn’t enough. She wasn’t enough—except for housecleaning or minding kids, that is.

Melissa the perfect daughter, giving up dreams of university to help her parents run the farm when her sister Alice took off for Sydney with Brad. Melissa the picture-perfect wife, allowing Tim to open his gym while she worked at the local store to pay the bills. Melissa the wonderful mother. Melissa, the woman everyone in town loved and admired, so loving and giving. Hiding secrets beneath. Pushing the darkness down deep inside.

Melissa the dream slayer.

“It’s all right, Lissa. I’m not going to jump on you.”

Startled, she whirled around to find Mitch watching her, his face shuttered and cold. “Wh-what?”

“You’re right. Changes happen, even in Breckerville.” He shrugged as if he didn’t care, but the twist to his lips and flatness in his eyes told her he cared like hell. “You’re not the girl I knew if you get so damn angry about a stupid pizza or that I wanted a family celebration to let the kids know I’m thrilled to be back with them. If your eyes turn to ice because I ask you to reassure my scared and damaged kid I’ll still be around in half an hour. God, Lissa, do you think I’m so bloody desperate to have you I’d blackmail you into marrying me through the kids?”

She felt a rising wave of color slap into her face. “Not me. I don’t flatter myself that it’s me you want. Just the family you always dreamed of. Good old reliable Lissa will take my kids—and me. It’s not like she’s got anyone else who wants her!” Then she gasped when she realized what she’d said. Darn it, did she always have to make an idiot of herself with men? Her runaway mouth, saying things she shouldn’t think or feel—

Then Mitch riled her with his quiet “Is that what you think? Is that what you believe, Lissa? That I don’t want you?”

On the defensive, it was her turn to shrug. “Oh, sure. For cooking. For cleaning. To be there for your kids. Sure you want me. I get the picture.”

She nearly fell over when he burst into huge gusts of hard-edged laughter. “That’s so bloody funny,” he gasped. “Uh-huh. I don’t want you. I don’t want you!”

He almost doubled over he was laughing so hard.

Tears sprang to her eyes. She turned away, determined not to dash at her face until she was alone. “I said I get the picture. You don’t have to laugh at the idea of wanting me! Is it so hard to believe any man could look at me?”

But at her dramatic intensity, he only laughed harder. “Hard to believe—oh sheesh, this is a farce!” Then as she tried to stalk past him he reached out, grabbing her, halting her stormy exit. “Oh, no, you don’t, Miller. You’re not cheating me of the chance to—”

She struggled against him, terrified of making a complete twit of herself by breaking down. “To what? Humiliate me some more? News flash, McCluskey—I don’t do humiliation. I don’t go in for the masochistic side of S&M. Go find another sucker, you—you loser!” she yelled, coining Matt’s favorite expression, trying to pull herself free from his hand.

“News flash, Miller—I might be a loser, but the only sadism—no, masochism—I’ve indulged in in the past seventeen years has been staying away from you!” But far from angry, his eyes were bright with fun—the sweet cascade of happiness only Mitch showed so simply and clearly. She hadn’t seen it in so long she ached just watching him. Wishing she could feel what she saw in his eyes. He was having a great ol’ time, teasing her, riling her.

But she wasn’t in the mood for games; his light, mocking attitude sparked a fury inside she hadn’t known she was capable of. “So why did you do it? Why did you stay away from me so long?” she shouted, driven past endurance.

“Damned if I know.” He grinned wider and pulled her against him, close, so close she could feel— “So come here and end my misery, will ya?”

She gasped and wiggled, shocked and scared and thrilled by the discovery she’d made: a hard bulge nudging her through his jeans. Was that really—? Could he be—? “Don’t order me around, McCluskey,” she said, but it was little more than a breathless rush of sound. “I’ll be damned if I—”

“Lissa, honey, I’ve waited for this moment for seventeen years. Can we fight later? For now, just shut up and kiss me.”

She stared up at him, her lips parted in numb surprise. He sighed again, but it was a soft, sexy sound; the whispering sound lovers make in the night. “Okay, I’ll forgive you, but just this once.” He bent to her, touching her mouth with his tongue.

Then he groaned with that first touch—with the gentle moan, the shudder of need Lissa could no longer help or hide. She wanted him so badly, oh, how she needed this to be real….

And then he shuddered. “Lissa, oh, Lissa, I can’t wait anymore.”

And finally, at long last, her sweetest girlhood fantasy came to life: Mitch McCluskey, her first and secret love, the man whose shadowy form still came to her bed in the darkness of her dreams, held her in his arms, not as a friend, but a lover. Caressing her skin. Touching her hair. Lifting her face—

And he kissed her.

“I’m in.” The tired man hunched over the computer tapped the keys one final time, and, like magic, the database opened to his bleary eyes. After a few more minutes of searching, he spoke to the other man, young and intense, standing in the shadows of deep night behind him. “Yeah, Damon, you were right. It’s your boy.”

“You’re sure?” The young man’s eyes blazed, as bright as the other’s were weary; but then, he’d woken the former data operator at 2:00 am. Lucky he had a liking for money and a grudge against the Air Force for dishonorable dismissal. “Confirm it’s Squadron Leader Mitchell McCluskey of the Royal Australian Air Force?”

The long-haired hacker, as slovenly and unkempt now as he’d once been clean-cut and meticulous, punched more keys. “Here’s the list of his career. It’s Ex-Squadron Leader McCluskey now. He quit a couple of years ago.”

The younger man started. “What? He left the force two years ago?” He frowned and paced the room. “Then why the hell was he in Tumah-ra on recon? Why would the brass let a civilian check out a war zone? Something’s not right—something stinks in all this.” He chewed the inside of his lip, looking thoughtful. “Or was he there without orders—without official orders?”

The hacker shrugged. “Final mission or something? A Joan Sutherland command performance for the brass? I dunno. I’m just a computer geek. Anyway, it’s the guy you’re after. He brought the kid in illegally all right. Here’s the printout from DIMA. Careful with them. It’s classified.” He tossed the sheets over.

The man known to the backstreet hacker as Damon caught the printed sheets from the Department of Immigration, and slowly read them through. “The department wanted to keep the kid in some refugee facility until they sorted out what to do with her, but McCluskey got clearance to take her to a Tumah-ran family living in Darwin. God knows how he managed that—this kind of clearance could only come from the top brass. What the hell’s he up to?”

“I don’t know, man. I did my job.” The hacker held out his hand expectantly for the envelope Damon held in his fist.

Damon handed the envelope to the other man, with a slow grin, and walked to the door. “This was a transnational crime. No matter how he got the clearance or who got him into Tumah-ra, he broke the law—and someone in high places is covering up for him. It seems Ex-Squadron Leader McCluskey’s sins are finally about to catch up with him. One way or another.”

The hacker turned back to the computer, placing the envelope beside him, and Damon clicked the silencer on in time to the clacking keyboard. Then, with consummate casualness, he turned and shot the hacker through the head.

The next five shots took out his hard drive.

Within seconds Damon walked out, carrying the hacker’s every disk, as well as the envelope containing both his money and the only trace of his fingerprints in this cheap backyard office. He changed his shoes in the yard, and gave the previously unused runners to a grateful drunk in the alley behind the house.

All bases covered—for now.

Chapter 3

Mitch was finally kissing her….

And oh, how he kissed her.

In dreams her gentle hero, her wandering prince, kissed her in exquisite tenderness and dainty persuasion, showing her how precious she was to him. Then he’d hold her and tell her he loved her and ask her to marry him. Then he’d sweep her up in his arms and carry her to the bedroom…and the loving would be as sweet and tender as the kiss.

Welcome to the real world, Lissa….

Either the sun had shifted a million miles closer or Mitch’s kiss was hot enough to burn her alive. She was plastered against him from breast to thigh. His kiss ravaged her with a hunger bordering on desperation. He plundered her mouth with lips and teeth and tongue, intense, overwhelming, insatiable. His hands glided, cupped, caressed every inch of exposed flesh, exposing what wasn’t open to his search with low impatient growls every time he found a barrier, pushing aside what he could, tearing what he could not. As if he had to know every secret inside her, right here, right now.

This fevered need to devour her—all of her—did not just come from temporary male deprivation. She knew it, could feel it: the fever, the need, was all for her. He kissed her as if he couldn’t get enough of her…and she moaned, matching kiss for kiss, touch for touch, meeting his need with her own, because she couldn’t get enough, either. He was melting her from the inside out. Every flimsy barrier she’d erected against his potent magic puddled like heated rain at her feet. Her body was on fire, her breathing ragged, her breasts swollen, nipples hard. Her belly was a rippling lava pool of heat. She wanted to eat him alive, drink him inside her, suck him in through her very pores….

Drag him to bed and love him all day and night.

“Can you feel me?” he growled too soon, moving his arousal against her without shame or compromise. “I’ve been this hard all day, knowing I was finally going to see you again. I’ve been in pain since I saw you in the garden—and right now I’m ready to explode at one more touch—just one. So don’t push me, Miller, or I’ll show you here and now, where our kids could come in any moment, how much I don’t want you!”

She staggered back, groping for support. Her body was flushed with heat, her lips swollen, throbbing with a pleasure bordering on pain—the sweetness of pure feminine sexuality she’d never known. She couldn’t speak; she could only watch him, her eyes wide, her pulse pounding. Waiting for the rest of what this new, totally foreign, frighteningly male Mitch had to say.

He followed her like a stalking panther in the jungle grass, moving with sinuous grace and pulsing heat until he stood before her. Breathing. Just breathing. Hot and hard and ready to mate.

Her knees almost collapsed beneath her.

He only touched her chin, yet she felt trapped, helpless, made weak by her own wanting and the once-sure knowledge, untested until now, that Mitch, her Mitch, would never hurt her in a physical way. “So let’s get this straight,” he said softly, his heated breath caressing her face. “No woman would make my boys a better mother than you. I’m not ashamed to admit that—but I want you as my lover, no matter who else benefits from it or how much I need you for the kids. I want you. I want you in my bed as well as in my life. I want you for me. You’re like a foreign fever inside me there’s no shot for. I always did and I always will want you. Totally. Constantly. Always.”

Shooting straight from the hip. No sweet words. No half promises. No winning smile. Just Mitch.

I can’t speak pretty words. I only speak what I know.

She groped for a chair and sat before she fell down. As soon as she could stop shaking, she whispered, “If…if that’s true, why haven’t you ever told me?”

He crouched before her; she could see him trying to gauge her reaction. “When you were fourteen, your parents would have stopped our friendship, or Old Man Taggart would have sent me back to the orphanage. Then, when you were sixteen, I was going to tell you, but you started dating Tim first. Then you were engaged—then married.”

She felt tears well up. Tears for all the years lost, all the innocence forsaken. The belief in herself she’d never gotten back since she married Tim Carroll, the childhood friend she never should have married at all. “It’s too late, Mitch.” She choked on the words so badly they came out as a whisper.

“Why?” he asked, just as quiet.

How could she explain? There were only bald words—words she couldn’t utter. She swiped at her tears, wishing he’d turn away so she wouldn’t humiliate herself by having him watch her crying.

He brushed at her face, more of a caress than a wipe of her tears. “What did he do to you, Lissa-My-Lissa?”

With the nickname he used to give her in private—coined from one of her beloved Anne of Green Gables books—he melted her. She bit her lip. “Please, let’s not talk about it now,” she murmured, soft and husky. “It’s not worth it.” I just want to forget.

“It’s worth talking about if it’s stopping you from taking another chance on life,” Mitch argued quietly. “It affects my life, too. And the boys’ lives, as well.”

He had a point; but she’d kept silent so long about her marriage, she didn’t know how to speak. “Not yet.” She twisted her hands in her lap. “Please. I’m thinking about it. You shocked me, saying it like that so fast, but—I’m not saying a final no. I realize how much is at stake for the boys. And…and for you.”

He pulled her hands into his, kissing each abused finger, slowly and tenderly. She trembled, watching the intimate, sensual act, as if they were already lovers. “I’ve waited this long. I can wait a little longer. Take your time. I know it’s hard for you to trust me. I’ve been away too long. I’ll go play with the kids.” He smiled at her in strong, masculine sensuality. “But you will be mine,” he said softly, getting to his feet. “And when you are, there’ll be no divorce. It’s forever this time.”

Her gaze lifted in teary challenge. “And will you be mine, or is this marriage-and-forever proposal only a one-way contract? You know, like—you owner, me slave?”

Almost at the door he wheeled back, frowning, searching into her gaze with disturbing depth. But whatever he sought, he obviously didn’t find it. “If you honestly don’t know the answer to that question, you never knew me at all.”

She gave a shuddering sigh. “Maybe I didn’t,” she conceded, hating the sharp dagger thrust of pain the admission cost her. “And that’s no basis for marriage, is it?”

In three strides he was before her, lifting her to her feet, looking into her eyes again. This time she felt as if he read past her words and straight into her soul. “Where’s my brave Lissa gone, who took on all comers that hurt me? Liss, maybe it’s yourself you don’t know. It’s what’s inside you—all the fears, all your anger—you’re afraid to let out. You’re so scared of life, even healing from whatever Tim did to you terrifies you.” He touched his lips gently to her cheek, and she felt her whole face flame—from both the kiss, and his perception. How did he know so much about her most secret self, when he’d been everywhere around the world but near her in twelve long years?

Mitch sighed at the implicit rejection, but in sadness, not impatience. “Oh, baby, whatever it was he did to destroy your self-confidence, I can fix it if you’ll only let me.”

Again she wanted to cry. After six years she thought she’d become an expert at shutting off all feeling except with the kids. Yet she’d been with Mitch less than two hours and she’d fallen apart, not once, but twice. He’d done it again, he’d woven the Merlin wand over her soul, making her think, feel, want….

She couldn’t afford to want—not Mitch. He’d only walk out again. Sooner or later everyone walked out on her.

She lowered her gaze before he could see the hunger growing, screaming inside her like a living thing, I want, I want, I want. “It wasn’t Tim’s fault.” She balled her hands into fists to stop the nervous twisting. “He didn’t want to hurt me.”

“Yeah, right. That’s what they all say. I thought you were too intelligent to fall for such a pitiful line.” His tender understanding vanished like a shimmering water hole in the desert. “‘Sorry, I couldn’t help myself—I fell in love,’” he mimicked, a painful if unconsciously perfect parody of Tim’s words to her the night he walked out. He gripped her arms, his gaze burning into hers with frightening intensity. “Grow up, Lissa. Wake up! Men have been saying that crap since the dawn of time, making the same lame excuses for their behavior, and women swallow it, forgive them and let them home when they’re tired of that little piece of variety. All his life Tim’s done whatever the hell he liked, and let others pay the price for his selfishness. And if I knew where he lived I’d go and shove his damn line down his lying throat!” She was stunned, unable to speak, as he stared hard at her. “I thought you were smart.” His voice lashed at her like a low predatory snarl of a panther on the hunt. “The guy left you. He’s been gone six years. He slimed on you and screwed around on you and left when you were pregnant with his own kid. Why the hell are you still loyal to him?”