Oh, for Pete"s sake, would somebody put her out of her misery? She licked suddenly dry lips.
"But getting involved with you wouldn"t work out well. Neither of us needs that kind of drama."
"You think?" He shifted closer, the rough denim of his jeans nudging her bare knee.
She should pull away. Should do anything other than stare at the chiseled line of his jaw, the thick column of his throat, and think...It is such a bad idea, but just one more kiss?
So why had her muscles frozen in place?
Because Nate Fraser had slipped under her guard and weaseled from her a grudging trust. Sure, his plans risked exposing her and Drew to media scrutiny, and if she dared dream of something other than a brief affair he"d trample her heart underfoot en route to the nearest airport.
Still, as he leaned forward and brushed a soft kiss on her temple, disappointment hollowed her stomach.
"Maybe you"re right." He stood and stepped past her trembling legs, pausing at the back door. "Goodnight."
That, more than anything, stiffened her resolve. Nate Fraser wasn"t a permanent fixture in her life. He was here for one reason only, and once the reason to stay disappeared, so would he.
"Five sleeps until Christmas and we"re getting our tree today," Drew said over his bowl of two wheat biscuits.
"Oh. Nice." Nate scooped up another spoonful of cereal. How fast could he gulp back the coffee without burning the roof of his mouth?
He"d planned to skip breakfast this morning after the intense conversation with Lauren the night before, but Drew had been on the deck and busted Nate as he"d walked from the garage to his Range Rover.
"You can"t go without breakfast," Drew hollered. "Mummy says it"s the most "portant meal of the day."
Okay, running for his car with a candy bar in his pocket could be considered cowardly. The alternative of facing Lauren, when against all good sense he wanted to kiss the heck out of her and be d.a.m.ned, made him edgy. But then the kid peeked through the deck railing with his big, sad eyes.
Such a sucker, Nate.
Lauren said nothing as he kicked off his work boots and stepped into her kitchen, just smiled her mysterious, feminine smile and placed a mug of coffee on the counter.
Drew"s slippered feet b.u.mping rhythmically on the legs of his chair jerked him back to the here and now. "You wanna come?"
"I, ah-" He scrambled for an excuse.
"The tree"s too heavy for me and Mummy to carry by ourselves." The boy kept his eyes downcast as he swung his feet.
"Drew." Lauren hurried over, an apologetic expression on her face. "Nate"s got a lot of work to do, and we"ll take the car. We"ll manage fine."
Drew snuck him a glance. "Last year, we only had a fake tree. It didn"t smell like Christmas."
Nate"s mind flicked back to the token, foot-high fake Christmas tree with a red metal stand his parents carted from village to village, country to country until he"d reached age eight or nine and they had decided he was too old for such things. Those stiff, tinsel-wrapped-around-wire branches hadn"t smelled much like Christmas either.
Ah, h.e.l.l. He sighed. "I can spare you an hour. It"s only neighborly, right?"
And that"s how, thirty minutes later, he found himself following Drew and Lauren up an overgrown bush path at the back of Todd"s property, lugging the chainsaw and trying desperately to keep his gaze away from the woman"s curvy, denim-clad a.s.s.
Java padded at his side, chuffing out a deep bark as Nate stumbled over a snarled root.
"A warning to watch my step or to keep my eyes to myself?" he muttered.
The dog plopped down to scratch his ear, his black eyes never leaving Nate"s face.
"Yeah, thought so."
The path opened up ahead into a field that had been cleared for Kathy"s fruit trees and a smattering of head-high pruned pines. Sweet, tangy, Christmas scent wafted over him. Drew darted between pine trees, running from one to another.
"This one, no-this one, this one!" Drew hopped from foot to foot. "C"mon guys, hurry up!"
It struck him then, as Lauren"s laughter spilled into the breeze, that a real family would do this kind of thing. Hike out to a field together a few days before Christmas, the dad carrying the chainsaw, the dog peeing on every other clump of gra.s.s, the kid vibrating with excitement, and the mum so d.a.m.n s.e.xy in her blue jeans and Jingle-Bell-Rocker tee shirt that the dad thought all his Christmas wishes had been granted already.
Except Nate wasn"t the dad in this cozy family outing; he was just some guy. The neighbor.
So get it together, man. Because that"s how he wanted it. That"s how it had to be.
Lauren pointed at the chainsaw and tipped her chin at the tree Drew finally selected. "Knock yourself out."
Her brown hair blew across her face, and she brushed the strands aside with a grin. "I figure a baby pine shouldn"t tax you too much."
Handling the chainsaw was harder than it looked when the woman"s shapely behind and endlessly long legs kept distracting him. But he sawed through the tree trunk without evisceration, so bonus points for him.
The pine conquered, Drew and Java raced back along the path.
"Front or back?" Lauren said as he slipped the chainsaw guard on.
Like he"d let her carry the heaviest part of the tree while he took the spindly top. "Back."
She shrugged. "I can carry the chainsaw then."
Snorting out a laugh, he picked up the chainsaw and wrapped the fingers of his other hand around the tree trunk.
"Do I look like a ninety-pound weakling?"
Nate glanced up, and her cheeks were stained pink, almost as if she"d been staring at his a.s.s as he"d bent over. Well, h.e.l.l. Maybe she had been.
"Suit yourself." She stalked over to the other end of the pine and tugged it up, shooting him an arched look over her shoulder.
He grinned, and her flush deepened. Being at the back would certainly afford him an entertaining view.
"Lead the way."
Whistling as they trudged across the gra.s.s, Nate admired the graceful sway of her hips, the long stride that kept in perfect synchronization with his. Easy on the eyes, that was for sure.
"What will you do once Mac"s property is done? Another coffee-table book?" she asked as they hit the start of the downward trail.
"That"s the plan. After the sale, I"ll finally be in a position to quit the twenty-four-seven life of a photojournalist."
"Won"t you find it hard to give up the constant adrenaline rush?"
Nate chuckled. "It"s not a glamorous job. There"re long hours of boredom waiting around for something to happen-tolerable at twenty-something, but not so much now. I like the idea of being a free man and traveling the globe."
"Being a nomad makes you happy?"
"I"ve never known anything different or found anywhere I wanted to stay for more than a few weeks at a time."
Until now, a little voice whispered in his ear. He squashed it, ignoring the tightness in his gut.
Any man with his lifestyle and a conscience knew family wasn"t an option. He"d never drag a kid from country to country, or leave the child at home with its mother for long stretches of time.
His response must"ve given Lauren pause, because she stayed quiet for a few minutes. Then she said, "I guess your Christmases as a kid were very different from mine?"
A probable understatement. "Christmas wasn"t welcome in some of the places we lived, so the day went on pretty much as normal."
She paused, turning to look at him. "It must"ve been hard-being on the move. Didn"t you mind?"
"When I was little, I thought everybody did what my parents did, but yeah, I didn"t like it much. I was always the new boy in the village schools and likely the only white, English-speaking kid around. I"d no sooner make friends than we"d be off to another village or another country."
"I"m sorry."
He shot her a wry grin. "Don"t be. I had a better childhood than many others."
Lauren faced forward, and they continued to walk. "Did you come back to New Zealand often?"
He shook his head, not that she could see the gesture. "No, only occasionally while I was a kid. We stayed with family-uncles, grandparents, etcetera-because we didn"t have anywhere to come back to. My parents sold our family home before we left for the mission field."
"And Christmas this year? You"ll go to your parents" place-did they buy another house in the city?"
"They did, but I"ll stay here and work. I don"t do the whole silly season stuff."
Nate inhaled a deep breath of pine-scented air. Stuff that would involve getting involved.
"But what about your family?"
"I don"t do family stuff, either-only child, remember? Besides, Mum and Dad have their own Christmas Day routine. They help out at a nearby soup kitchen, and I"ve done it with them enough times over the last five years not to have a guilt trip about giving it a miss."
"Well, I guess that makes it okay then." Sarcasm dripped from her voice like acid, her backbone as straight as a four-by-six length of timber.
"Well, I guess it does." He hefted the chainsaw higher, refusing to be sucked into her cozy-little-family-vortex.
Drew ran back toward them, Java at his heels barking as if he"d treed a possum. Too much cozy-little-family stuff was bad for the digestion. Especially since a tiny part of him had begun to stretch, yawn and wake up.
A tiny part that thought being part of a family might not be so bad after all.
Two days before Christmas, Bounty Bay would be chaos, but Lauren had to risk it. Drew was too d.a.m.n sneaky, great at sniffing out Christmas presents, so this year she"d gotten sneaky in return. His gifts waited in Bounty Bay"s one and only department store on layaway, so Master Sneaky Pants wouldn"t find them.
Today she"d pick them up, while Louisa and her tribe of kids-who"d arrived yesterday for the holidays-kept Drew entertained. A quick trip to town, in and out of the store, nothing too stressful.
Lauren tried to start the station wagon and discovered she had a stuffed alternator-which meant driving herself to Bounty Bay was out of the question.
The best laid plans and all that c.r.a.p.
In the distance sounded the steady bang-bang-bang of a hammer. Nate, working on his house...Of course he was, the Grinch.
She slammed the hood down and s.n.a.t.c.hed her handbag and floppy sunhat from the pa.s.senger seat. Nothing else to do but hike to Mac"s house and see if Nate felt neighborly enough to let her borrow his vehicle.
Fifteen minutes later, with the sun beating down on her, Lauren completed her trudge up Nate"s driveway. Small mercies, at least-the man had a shirt on today.
Nate didn"t hear her approach or her forced cheery greeting. Wire cords dangled from his ears, and she figured scaring the h.e.l.l out of him was fair turnaround.
She dumped her bag and hat on the ground then strolled up behind him. A fizzle of pure, feminine appreciation filled her at the flex of his triceps each time he swung the hammer. The curve of his b.u.t.t pressed against his cargo shorts, and a tan leather belt rode low on his hips...Good grief. She"d certainly developed some weird fetish for men in tool-belts.
She waited until he paused and took a step back to admire his building prowess.
"Like a boss, Nate," he said-too loud since he obviously couldn"t hear the sound of his own voice. "Like a boss."
Lauren bit back a snicker and tapped him on the shoulder. "Hi, neigh-"
Three things happened almost simultaneously.
Nate dropped the hammer.
Nate whirled.
Nate backed her up against his freshly nailed in wall, using his big, hard body to keep her in place, before she could utter more than a panicked, "Eeep!"
Pressed together as they were-chest-to-chest, belly-to-belly, groin to tool belt, she gasped, the strength leaving her bones like a giant straw had sucked out the marrow. Tinny music blasted from his ear buds as she stared opened mouthed, losing the will to struggle when it was so much sweeter, so much more electrifying just to swim in the depths of his eyes. Eyes that creased cutely, and then-dammit-moved away as he let go and stepped to the side.
"Sorry about that." He pulled out the ear-buds. "Old reflexes die hard."
"My bad," she wheezed, attempting to prevent her eyes from rolling back in bliss and her legs from spilling her to the ground. "A little revenge mission gone wrong."
He laughed and ran a hand through his hair. His s.e.xily mussed hair.
Losing it, big time, Lauren.
"Thought you were heading to town?" Nate bent down and retrieved his hammer, giving her another heart-palpitating view of his rear end.
"The station wagon"s alternator is stuffed, so it"s not going anywhere. Can I borrow your car, please?" She smoothed down her shorts and straightened her tee shirt, which had rucked up around her waist in the whole smooshed-up-against-her-hot-neighbor incident. "I need to order a new part in town; plus, I"ve got some Christmas shopping to do for Drew."
Nate unbuckled his tool belt and tossed it against the base of the wall. "Can"t let you take the Range Rover, but I can give you a lift-I"ve got some stuff I need to do in town, too."
Oh. Well, she could hardly say no. She stretched on a Christmas-spirit-soused smile. "Thanks. I"ll go wait by your car."
Years of making small talk at charity galas and black-tie events served Lauren well as Nate drove them to Bounty Bay.