found himself as irritated as he was grateful for the fact. He was honest enough to admit to himself that had Joanna been a few years older his vow to avoid women would have been postponed.
‘Meaghan, if you want to cancel our driving lesson to spend time with your brother, I’ll understand. You must have a lot to catch up on. And—’
‘Don’t be silly! We’ve loads of time. But c’mon through to the kitchen; I could use a cup of coffee before we go.’
His sister was already on her way from the room when she tossed over her shoulder, ‘I’d help you bring your luggage in, Brett, but I’m too old. But my darling Karessa will gladly help her equally decrepit old uncle.’
Though she tossed a teasing smirk at her daughter as she guided Joanna from the foyer, Brett wryly acknowledged the remark was designed to further reinforce the age difference between him and Joanna. Geez, with a sister like Meaghan around a guy could actually end up believing he was a sleaze!
‘C’mon,’ Karessa tugged his arm. ‘Let’s get the stuff in before they scoff down all the cake Mum bought’
Brett laughed. ‘Cute ploy, sweetheart, but I can read you like a book.’ Smiling, he fished a small package out of his pocket, tossed it to her, then staggered as she threw her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek.
The wrapping was dispensed with in the same excited haste and enthusiasm Karessa always showed for the gifts he brought her whenever he returned from long trips. And, as always, Brett marvelled that her eyes could still light up with the same genuine wonder and delight they’d had when she’d been a toddler.
‘Oh, Brett, I love it!’ She pushed the beaten silver bangle onto her left wrist and waved her arm around, admiring it. ‘It’s almost exactly like yours!’
The moment he saw the stones set in the silver, he suddenly had a colour for those eyes: turquoise. Joanna Ford’s big, beautiful eyes were the purest of turquoise.
‘Oh, thank you so much!’ Karessa almost choked him with gratitude. ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you!’
He laughed. ‘You’re welcome. You’re welcome. You’re welcome!’
‘Oh, Brett, I’ve just gotta go show Mum and Joanna now. Then I’ll come right out and help with the luggage, okay?’
‘Don’t bother; I can handle it,’ he told her already departing form. ‘Er, by the way, Karessa...is Meaghan really giving her driving lessons?’
‘Mmm. Scary thought, huh?’
‘You’re not wrong, kiddo,’ he murmured, although the idea of Joanna Ford’s unique beauty being put at even the slightest risk struck him as more criminal than scary.
It took Brett the better part of three days to shake off his jet lag, during which time he saw Joanna a corresponding number of occasions. Once when he’d been crossing the foyer, en route to the living area of the house from his bedroom, and she’d barrelled into him at around a hundred ‘k’s an hour.
Automatically his hands had gone to her shoulders to steady her, and in the ensuing few seconds she’d simply stood there looking slightly dazed as she stared up at him. Again, on the surface she’d been glamour personified, but in the depths of her turquoise eyes—oh, yeah, turquoise was their precise colour—he’d seen an ocean of uncertainty. In the next instant she’d pushed him away and started muttering an embarrassed apology, explaining she was hurrying to catch the bus to the North Sydney office.
‘Hey, if you wait till I pull on a shirt I’ll drive you down to the bus stop.’ His offer had met momentary wide-eyed confusion, a blush, then a vigorously shaking dark head and a hasty, ‘No, er, thanks. I’m fine. I...I’m in a hurry. Bye!’
She’d been out of the front door and had it closed behind her before her perfume could catch up with her. He’d liked her perfume... However, on the second occasion he’d seen her he’d been too far away to smell it.
He’d been on his way out for an evening run just as she’d been climbing into a five-year-old Porsche. Having spent all afternoon in his mother’s study, reviewing various job offers, Brett hadn’t heard her come in from work and had assumed that, it being Friday night, she’d be late home. People who lived on the upper end of the northern Sydney peninsula didn’t usually come all the way home from the city to get changed before going out. Brett had figured the male driver was merely a friend, because if he was a date he’d surely have got out of the car to open the door for her! Plus, she’d been wearing snug-fitting jeans and a bomber jacket, which also pretty much ruled out a romantic dinner at a restaurant.
The third time his and Joanna’s paths crossed had been some five hours later, just ten minutes ago, when he’d gone out to check what was causing the security sensor light in the front yard to turn on and off every few minutes. He’d expected to find a neighbour’s dog had got out, instead he’d found her, bent over in drizzling rain and heaving her heart out in his mother’s azalea bed.
She was a wet, tearful and woebegone sight, and he couldn’t do much besides offering her physical support by way of an arm across her shoulders, and emotional support that amounted to verbal assurances that she would live and that everything was going to be all right. Which was pretty much what he’d told Meaghan the first time she’d written herself off—and what old Mr Parsons who’d used to live next door had told him when as a seventeen-year-old he’d been in exactly the same position Joanna was now. No doubt about it, over the years this particular plant had received a more bizarre fertilising compound than any of the others in the McAlpine family garden.
He didn’t know what events had led up to Joanna being in this less than sparkling state of health; there was no sign of her Porsche-driving escort and she wasn’t making much sense.
‘I...I’s not dunk,’ she continued insisting as he carried her into the house. ‘Don’t dink. S’never dink.’
‘Well, then, princess, I guess you must be having an allergic reaction to that Jack Daniel’s you wear as perfume, ’cause it’s sure as hell making my eyes water.’
She frowned up at him. ‘Jack? Hoosh Jack?’
‘Someone you weren’t ready to take on, that’s for sure.’
Despite the limpness of her body she was light as a feather, and for an instant Brett considered carrying her down the hall to the bathroom and shoving her under a shower fully clothed. It wasn’t as if she wasn’t already half drenched and in need of warming up, but she was snuggled against him in such a damn trusting way he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Instead, he stopped at the bedroom door and bent his knees so he could open the door without dropping her in the process; the handle, though, gave a useless half-turn, indicating it was locked.
‘Hell.’ He sighed heavily and felt the echo of a softer one as the body in his arms nestled closer. Even smelling like a brewery, with her long black hair a damp tangle and black tear-tracks streaking her face, she possessed an ethereal beauty that inspired protective instincts only Karessa had previously managed to provoke. If he could get her into her room and convince her to get out of her wet clothes and have a shower, she’d be in good enough shape for him to leave her and let her sleep it off.
‘Joanna... Joanna, I’m going to put you down and—’
Her arms tightened around his neck. ‘No. Shleep...I’m ashleep.’
‘No, you’re not, honey,’ he said, fighting laughter and the stranglehold she had on him. ‘You’re what’s commonly known as tanked to the gills.’
‘Fank oooo,’ she mumbled. ‘You...nice.’
Shaking his head at her inebriated agreeability, he used his left arm to haul her tighter against his chest for stability while his right forearm supported her lower body in such a way that his hand was free to blindly grab the door handle. His height, the bundle in his arms and the low position of the handle made it something of