Men In Uniform: Taken By The Soldier: The Soldier's Untamed Heart / Closer... / Groom Under Fire

‘You haven’t been very honest today,’ he said.

‘Neither have you.’

Clint sat back. She had a point. ‘So what aren’t you good at? What are your weaknesses?’ Anxiety flared and faded in those grey eyes in a heartbeat. But not so fast he didn’t see it.

‘I’m not brilliant at adhering to routine. It isn’t in my nature. I realise that might be a sticking point given your…’ She faltered. ‘Given where you’re from.’

Mental sirens started wailing. She’d looked into his past? His voice was dangerously cool as he asked her, ‘And where’s that?’

She cleared her throat. ‘Your military background.’

Only a dozen civilians knew he was a Taipan. Every hair on his body stood erect. He leaned forwards, his voice subzero. ‘What military background?’

She stared him down. ‘Every inch of you is military. Special Forces, I’m guessing, by the way you like to intimidate people. I understand if you prefer not to discuss it but please do me the courtesy of not treating me like an idiot.’

He reined in his heartbeat and sheer willpower forced the tension out of his body. ‘You don’t look intimidated.’

She straightened until he thought she might snap. ‘I grew out of the habit. It takes a lot more than arrogance to get under my skin these days, Mr McLeish.’

Thoughts tumbled through his mind in quick succession. First, that he’d really like to discover what did get under her skin. Second, it had to be her ex who’d been in the military; he’d never got a clearer anti-forces vibe from anyone. Third, she was the first person to call him arrogant to his face without even blinking. And, most pressing, that he really wanted to hear his name on her lips.

Justin was going to be so pissed.

‘Call me Clint, Ms Carvell. Since we’re going to be working together.’

She watched him, warily. ‘You’re hiring me?’

The harder she tried to mask her excitement the more colour stained her cheeks. He wondered if she’d intentionally hit every one of his weak points. The kid. The eyes. The virginal blush.

‘It takes guts to pull off what you did today, and also a keen understanding of operational vulnerabilities. That tells me you know your stuff and you’re prepared to take risks.’

Her body language changed in a flash and the colour drained out of her. ‘I can’t afford to take risks, Mr McLeish. I have a son to think about. If this job represents any kind of danger, then I’ll have to pass.’

‘Clint. And there is no danger—it was a figure of speech. But young boys will always find trouble if they’re looking for it. We have electric fences, deep stretches of bush between our luxury chalets.’ He paused and swallowed hard. ‘Dams. A wilderness property still has plenty of potential danger.’

She watched him warily. ‘No more than the city, I imagine. But it offers one thing the city can’t for an eight-year-old nature freak. Wildlife. Leighton will die when he hears we get to stay.’

She’s doing this for her son. The realisation hit him like a mortar. For all her extremely convincing claims to be seeking challenge, a role to get her teeth into, she was really looking for a safe place to bring up her son.

A sanctuary.

He was hardly in a position to judge since he’d come to WildSprings for precisely the same reason…

‘Are you aware accommodation is part of the deal?’ he asked. If young Leighton wanted wildlife he wouldn’t be disappointed. The mile between his house and theirs was packed with all manner of creatures. One mile. The closest anyone had come to being a neighbour in…forever. Three years at WildSprings and eleven years in the Defence Force before that. No fixed address. What the hell was he going to do with a neighbour? Apart from the obvious…

Avoid them.

‘I wasn’t, no. But it makes sense to have security on-site this far from town.’

‘Can’t imagine yourself in all this tranquillity?’

‘On the contrary.’ Her stare bored into him. ‘I look forward to the solitary existence very much.’

He straightened. Message sent and received.

Well, that was fine with him. He had no interest in playing happy neighbours no matter who her son reminded him of. The more space Romy Carvell gave him, the happier he’d be regardless of whatever this was arcing between them. There was no chance she’d let him close enough to form any kind of friendship and he had no interest in one.

Plus, he was now her boss, which put a really fat bullet in any possible chance of anything ever starting up between them. Not that she’d be seeing him again; in precisely twelve minutes he’d be returning to the privacy of his forest cabin, his massive DVD collection, his rapidly expanding library and his blessed MIA status.

Little Miss Snarky was now officially his brother’s problem. He looked at all five foot three of bristling hostility putting her coat on and grinned.

Oh, Justin was going to be so pissed.

Chapter Two

‘LOST something?’

Romy popped her head from behind the latest box to see Clint McLeish filling her new doorway. She winced, knowing how filthy she was. She’d peeled off her cotton shirt hours ago as the afternoon had warmed, and her tank top, shorts and tennis shoes were all smudged with a day full of house moving. Her hair sprang wildly about her face, what strands of it weren’t stuck to the sweat on her forehead.

Great.

Still, he was her boss. It was a good thing if he saw she was a hard worker. She glanced around. ‘Nope, just unpacking. I haven’t had a chance to lose anything yet.’

‘I meant this.’ He stood aside and Leighton squeezed past him into the house.

‘Hey, Mum,’ her boy chirped like a magpie as he disappeared up the stairs to his bedroom, dumping his backpack along the way. ‘Clint is our neighbour!’

Romy closed her eyes and groaned inwardly. Letting her minidynamo out to expend all his boyish excitement outdoors had not included popping around to visit the neighbours. She held the screen door open for Clint to enter. ‘Please tell me he didn’t turn up at your house?’

‘Not quite, but he was close.’

‘I asked him to stay on the track.’ She hated the defensive tone in her voice but knew she’d let more time pass than she realised. Great first impression. Security coordinator loses own son.

His smile was thin. ‘He did, but not on your track.’

She suddenly realised where the fork about half a mile back must lead. Her mumbled apology was entirely inadequate. The man reeked of solitude and her eight-year-old cyclone had just barged into his serenity.

‘Can I offer you something to drink? Beer?’

‘Thanks, no,’ he said coldly. ‘I don’t mean to intrude. I wanted to get your boy back to you safely. You must have been worried.’

‘Yes…’ If I wasn’t the worst mother in the world. Courtesy demanded she should persist. ‘I’m dying for a break myself. Coffee, then?’

His lips pressed together. ‘Sure, thank you.’ He glanced around cautiously and cleared a stray box from the dining table so he could sit. ‘I saw the moving van leave just after breakfast. You’ve done all this today?’

He didn’t look all that pleased to be staying, it had to be said. Romy set the kettle on to boil and followed his gaze into the living area where most of the boxes were now folded flat and stacked for storage by the stairs. A few pictures lined the walls and her lavender throws draped casually on the sofas.

‘I specialise in unpacking.’

His eyes narrowed to slits. ‘You move around a lot?’

Romy swallowed, cursing herself for opening that particular door. ‘Not any more. I wanted to get us settled in so Leighton can wake up to a fully furnished house.’ She’d have to work late into the night to pull it off, but since her dance card was conveniently blank…

Moving house at all went against everything she’d ever wanted for her child. Uprooting him from school, dragging him three hundred kilometres away into the forest. But the chance to get him away from the rotten neighbourhood they lived in—and his grandfather—had been too good to resist. Even if it brought back uncomfortable memories of being dragged from base to base.

‘Did you find the air con?’ Clint’s sceptical glance at her appearance made the question redundant.

They had air conditioning? That would have been good to know two hours ago. Romy stretched her sweaty back and ran a self-conscious hand through the damp thickness of her hair. ‘I wasn’t really warm enough to go looking.’ Liar. ‘Where’s the controller?’

He pulled his considerable bulk out of her dining chair and crossed to a small door beneath the stairs, the storage area she’d earmarked for all her packing boxes. He opened it and bent to reach inside, then emerged with a cream remote in his hand.

‘I installed it in here to keep it out of sight.’

‘You put the air-con system in?’ He didn’t strike her as the handy sort.

Most likely to survive on a deserted island with three beans and a paperclip…Without doubt.

He pointed the remote at a tiny red LED in the ceiling that Romy thought was a fire sensor and pressed it. Magically, a gentle hum resonated through the entire house and icy air wafted out of subtle vents to cool her damp skin.

‘Awesome! Air con!’ Leighton’s delighted cry drifted down from upstairs.

‘Thank you. I have a feeling that’s going to save us when summer fully hits.’ She took the remote he passed her and returned it to its hiding place under the stairs, bending forwards into the cupboard and peering around in the dim light for the cradle.

‘It’s on the facing wall.’ Deep male tones suddenly sounded right over her shoulder.

Romy backed out to look at the panel mounted by the door and accidentally knocked against a pair of tree trunks. Clint’s legs. His hands caught her hips to stop her reversing any further into him and a live current gnawed along her skin from where his warm hands rested. She choked an apology and then studied the air-con controls intently to give her scorching cheeks time to settle.

Another great moment in first impressions. Backing, butt-first, into your boss’s thighs.

She didn’t need sexual experience to know how bad it must have looked from his perspective. There was a new shadow in his expression. Her stomach dropped. Maybe he’d seen her tattoo…She tugged her tank top down and swallowed hard against her gut reaction to his unspoken criticism.

The kettle singing out gave her the perfect escape. She crossed into the kitchen and poured them both a coffee, her mind racing for something diverting to say. Inspiration completely failed her.

Clint finally ended the silence himself. ‘Do you need a hand shifting anything? Mattresses? Large furniture?’ The offer seemed genuine but he sounded annoyed that he was making it. Like his lips were working against his will.

Romy glanced around the remaining boxes and her search fell on Leighton’s three vivariums. His posse of pet tree frogs currently hung out in a temporary transport tank but she knew he’d love to get them into their regular accommodations. Seeing the five frogs settled was the fastest way to get Leighton settled, and hefting sixty kilos of glass up two flights of stairs single-handed was not high on her list of activities to look forward to.

Practicality won out over pride. ‘If you could help me upstairs with L’s frog tanks I’d really appreciate it.’

‘He keeps frogs?’ Clint took a big swallow of coffee, then moved towards the tanks to check them out.

‘Since he was about six.’ She still got the feeling he was helping her out against his better judgement. If they weren’t so awkward and the stairs not so steep she would have told him not to bother.

Bulging biceps or not.

‘That’s pretty specialist. For a kid,’ he said.

‘He’s pretty special…for a kid.’ She wiped her damp hands on her shorts. The air con was doing its job but having Clint in her house was making her plain nervous. This stilted conversation wasn’t helping any.

They bumped and heaved and lurched the first tank up the stairs like poorly partnered dancers until, finally, they crossed the threshold into Leighton’s A-frame attic bedroom. They placed the tank down gently.

The room was ideal for a young boy with a wild imagination. A single large window looked out over a tree-packed gully behind the house like a living landscape painting, and there was plenty of ceiling space between the rafters for posters and an entire wall free for the vivariums to hold Leighton’s five best friends in the world.

Lucky Leighton wasn’t quite tall enough yet to bang his head on the low end of the A-frame rafters. Romy vaguely recalled the man who’d fathered him was of average height himself—average in every way, in fact—which was why she couldn’t remember much about him nine years after the solitary night that had changed her life forever. If he’d been a behemoth like Clint McLeish, chances were Leighton would be rubbing a bump on his forehead right now.

She hauled in a breath.

His eyes flicked over the sci-fi models, reptile posters and mountain of books waiting for a yet-to-be-assembled bookshelf and turned to her. ‘You’ve done well in here. It looks…’

Again with the reluctance? If he didn’t want to speak to her why did he keep starting conversations?

‘…different to when it was my room.’

Leighton’s bright face snapped to his. ‘This was your room? Cool!’

He dropped to his haunches. ‘I grew up in this attic. Then I lived in the cottage for the past two years while I built my house on the other side of the valley. After I got back from the—’ he seemed to catch himself ‘—overseas. I always preferred the view from this room.’

The enticing flash of Clint stretched out under the A-frame roof on a hot summer’s evening draped in nothing but moonlight immediately put Romy in a bad mood. And he’d built his own house, too…

How very GI Joe.

‘Sorry?’ The glint in his eyes told her maybe she’d said it aloud.

She squared her shoulders. ‘We should get the next tank in.’

His glare almost certainly matched her own as they trundled downstairs for the second trip. There was no doubt she’d ticked him off by pointing out all the security failings in his expensive wilderness retreat, but fortunately he seemed to have put the needs of his business ahead of his colossal personal ego in agreeing to hire her. Another military flow-on, she’d bet. Corps before self, every time.

In fact, it was corps before pretty much everything, including family. Wives, girlfriends…and sad, lonely little daughters.

In the living room, he waved her help away, lifted the second tank solo and mastered it up the staircase with a great deal more ease than when the two of them had failed to coordinate their efforts. Romy followed with an aluminium tank stand in each hand, doing her best to ignore the way his muscles shifted under his T-shirt and the power in the arms that spanned the metre-long tank.

Eventually all three tanks were in place and even GI Joe was puffing slightly from the effort. She tried to visualise how she might have accomplished the same on her own. It would have involved hours of straining and a good deal of swearing. Clint did it in less than five minutes. The affront to her feminine pride and the way her traitorous body was responding to the pheromones he was pumping out in his sweat only dirtied her mood further. She plucked her tank top away from her damp skin and forced the tingles to heel.

‘Thank you for your assistance,’ she said as soon as they returned downstairs. ‘I shouldn’t keep you any longer. I’m sure you had things to do today.’ She swung the screen door wide.

Not subtle.

Clint’s regard was steady and he settled comfortably against the doorframe. ‘Nothing I can’t do tomorrow.’

Ten minutes ago he didn’t want to be here. Now he wanted to move in. Romy took a deep breath and brought out the big guns. ‘I’ve nearly finished in the living room. My bedroom’s next. Unless you were really eager to unpack boxes of lingerie…?’

He didn’t exactly bolt out of the door but her words had the desired effect. He peeled himself slowly off the doorframe and dug long fingers into his front pocket to retrieve his car keys. She glanced out of the window and saw a beat-up old utility sitting way back in her driveway. As if he’d tried not to disturb her by parking any closer.

He didn’t need a vehicle to be disturbing. Just having him in the house had thrown her composure. She hadn’t wanted to taint another household with military presence.

Too late.

She looked up at him. ‘I want to say, “See you at work,” but somehow I don’t think I will.’

He shook his head. ‘I usually don’t get overly involved in the operations of WildSprings. I have staff for that.’

The less-than-subtle reminder she was one of his staff didn’t escape her. Romy straightened on the verandah of the house and stood back, her voice cool. ‘Thanks for your help today, Mr McLeish. I appreciate it.’

At the foot of the stairs, Clint watched her brows come together in a delicate frown. So, they were back to Mr McLeish and Ms Carvell. She was yet to say his name. He turned towards his ute.

It was probably his fault. He was uncomfortable entering her house to start with, but when his hands rested on her hips as she reversed out of the stair cupboard into him, they’d been almost exactly the same span as the wings of the raptor tattooed over her spine. Two sides of him had slammed together like Norse gods—the damaged, suspicious part that took it as some kind of cosmic reminder not to get too close, and the ravenous, ex-soldier part that thought the ink art was just about the sexiest thing he’d seen in three years and wanted to feel where it branded her skin. By the time he’d marshalled his emotions she was shooting daggers at him with those extraordinary eyes.

The woman might be surveillance professional but she was lousy at hiding her thoughts. He was trained to read people—his life had depended on it for years—but Romy Carvell was a particularly open book.

And right now the book had fallen open on page ‘get the hell out of here.’

Seeing young Leighton jogging along his track had been a kick in the guts, reminding him too much of another running boy, another time, and his protective instincts had come roaring to the fore. It was an elusive taste of something he’d accepted he was never going to experience. But dropping him home had been about more than taking a rare opportunity to feel like a father for five seconds. It was a chance to see Romy Carvell in her natural habitat.

He started the ute. Out of nowhere, he got the urge not to retreat to his treetop hideaway, where his books, his music, his forest awaited. He hadn’t so much as looked in on park operations in ten months and he hated the thought that Romy would be judging him by the standards she found there when she started work first thing Monday morning.

He opened his window when he was side on to her, and raised his hand in a reluctant farewell. ‘See you Monday, Romy.’

She plastered her hands to her hips and called after him. ‘I thought you didn’t get involved in operations?’

He wondered if she knew how sexy she looked standing slung like that on the verandah of his old family home. Possibly not or she wouldn’t be wasting it on him. She’d made it perfectly clear how little she thought of the military and, by association, him. It wasn’t really too different to how he felt. He pushed his sunglasses onto the bridge of his nose and looked back out at her.

‘Usually,’ he called out, and then accelerated out the driveway.

She shrank in his rear-vision mirror until he turned the bend. When he hit the branch-off for home he kept driving. He had the rest of Saturday night and all of Sunday to play catch-up on what had been happening at WildSprings while he was AWOL from the business side of things.

Come Monday morning he wanted to have a full handle on his business.

It was probably overdue and only had a bit to do with the auburn-haired beauty now living in his parents’ cottage.

Probably.

Chapter Three

THE gift shop wasn’t the only part of the wilderness retreat in Romy’s sights during her first week. People were obliging on her first days since a pretty young thing from the city was novelty enough without her walking around with an impressive high-tech satellite phone/GPS combo, a dark blue uniform reminiscent of the police force and taking notes wherever she went.

By day four, her new colleagues were wearying of her tight focus on their operations and her recommendations for change to improve security, but they found it easier simply to comply.

It wasn’t all wins. Justin refused point-blank to consider CCTV equipment for the admissions area, arguing that some of their guests appreciated the low-key and confidential approach WildSprings offered. And the local farmer Romy busted helping himself to avocados from one of the park’s many orchards voiced his outrage all round the district of having to supplement his pigs’ expensive tastes out of his own pocket. It was hardly drug busts and high-tech stakeouts but it was enormously satisfying nonetheless, because it was hers.

New job, new home, new start.

Today’s drama wasn’t too difficult. One of her random perimeter-fence checks had turned up a breach right at the back of the park near a series of deep, crystalline dams. No doubt locals sneaking in to snare the succulent crustaceans living on the dam floor, or kids cooling off in the cold, clean depths. Except kids wouldn’t have vehicles and there were definite tyre tracks coming in off a disused access road.

‘Hey, Simone,’ Romy greeted the admin assistant as she walked into Justin’s office a few doors down from the broom closet she called her own. ‘I’m heading out to do fence repair and I’ll be taking the last roll of straining wire. Would you mind restocking from Garretson’s?’

Simone glared up from her to-do pile and mumbled, ‘Sure. What’s one more boss giving me tasks?’

She kept her voice even. ‘Everything okay, Simone?’

‘No.’ The redhead glared at her, then puffed air through her cheeks, sighing. ‘It’s not your fault. I know you have a job to do. It’s just that my workload has trebled this week what with yourself starting and Mr McLeish suddenly reappearing.’ She gestured to the work stacked on her desk.

Ah. Territory issues. ‘You look like a woman who could use a coffee break.’ She smiled. ‘Come on. I’ll fix you one.’

Simone grumbled as she emerged from behind the stack of files but followed willingly enough to the kitchenette. ‘I kid you not, Romy. I hadn’t seen Mr McLeish for a year before the day you came in for your interview. Then Monday morning I come in to a two-page to-do list.’

Romy poured two coffees. ‘A year? Seriously?’

Simone scooted up onto the kitchenette benchtop. ‘You wouldn’t know, because you’re new,’ she started in a conspiratorial tone, ‘but Clint McLeish is kind of a mystery man around here. No-one but Justin sees much of him at all.’

The last part she could believe. The man’s manner practically screamed, Leave me alone.

‘So now I have Justin and you giving me work and Mr McLeish lurking around in the shadows by day and riffling through the office overnight. It’s unsettling.’

Romy’s spider senses started tingling. He was working alone at night? What on?

‘I get that you’re new and all,’ the redhead grizzled onwards, taking a healthy swallow of instant coffee, ‘but we all have a first week and why he feels it’s necessary to pave your way particularly, I don’t know.’

Pave her way?

Simone moaned. ‘Sorry. That sounds bitchy. This isn’t really about you. I just wish if he was going to get so involved in someone’s workload he might spare a thought for mine.’ She took another swallow of coffee. ‘This is like therapy—I feel heaps better for venting.’