Coleen Kwan

In her living room he steered her to the couch, where she sank down, the fight suddenly out of her. The bottle slipped from her hands and rolled over the carpet. On the coffee table sat an empty wine bottle and a used wineglass, smudged around the rim. Using his toe, he nudged the fallen bottle under the couch before sitting down beside her.

“How much have you had already?” He touched her shoulder tentatively.

“Just a couple. Honest.” She blinked up at him, her eyes huge and hollow in her pallid face. She screwed up her forehead. “Don’t look at me like that,” she muttered.

“Like what?”

“Like I’m some wino you stumbled across.” She pulled herself forward, resting her elbows on the knees of her jeans so she could press her forehead into her hands. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

“I was just out for a late-night meal.”

“Huh. Don’t let me stop you.”

He shook his head. “I’m not leaving until you tell me why you feel the need to get drunk on your own.”

“Has anyone ever told you how pushy you are?”

“All the time.” He tried to keep his voice light and level. “So why are you feeling so down? Is it because of my buying this building? You should know I’ve got no intention of changing anything. You can carry on renting—”

Stiffening, she lifted her head to glare at him. “I’m good for the rent,” she told him coldly. “I’m making big changes to the store. You’ll see; I’ll pay Mr. Cummings every last cent I owe him. And I’ll pay your rent on time, every month.”

He nodded placatingly. “Okay, so—”

“Did Seth ask you to keep me sweet?” Her eyes grew even harder, her mouth compressing to a thin line. “Is that why you’ve come snooping round here? He didn’t believe me when I said I wouldn’t blab to his fiancée?”

“Seth’s been to see you?” He felt his eyebrows draw together into a tight knot.

“Oh, yes. This afternoon. Didn’t he tell you? He dropped in just to say hello and, oh, by the way, would I mind not saying a word about us to Paige because the poor woman doesn’t know a thing about it.”

Nate clenched his hand on his knee. “I didn’t realize he was down here this weekend.”

She peered closer at him. “Interesting. So you already know that Paige is blissfully unaware of me and the past engagement.”

“Yeah.” He rubbed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’ve tried to convince him it’s best he tell her before she finds out from someone else, but he won’t listen to me.” Damn Seth! How deluded and insensitive could the guy get? He had half a mind to tell Paige himself but knew he wouldn’t. He’d interfered in Seth’s love life once; he wasn’t prepared to do it again. He studied Ally’s smudged face and his heart dipped. Had she been crying over Seth? Why did that bother him so much?

I don’t want to go home because I want to spend more time with Nate. The brain flash curdled her stomach. She didn’t get along with Nate, but there was something about him that triggered…a spark. A spark, just like Nate had mentioned. The spark that had been completely missing with Paul, but with Nate it was there all the time, simmering just beneath the surface, threatening to flare up, and it was exciting, stimulating. Yeah, like a roller coaster, a voice at the back of her mind jeered. And we all know what happens to you after a roller-coaster ride. You wobble all over the place, and then you throw up.

Ally shook her head, trying to dislodge the disturbing thought.

“You look different tonight,” Nate said. “I’ve never seen you so glammed up, with the makeup and heels and that dress.” His quick glance rippled over her, lingering on her bare knees.

Suddenly self-conscious, she tried to stretch the hem of her dress over her knees. What madness had induced her to borrow one of Tyler’s dresses and let her friend doll her up for the evening? “Yeah, I look ridiculous. If you must know, tonight I wanted to look different, act different, but it’s not so easy to change who you are on the inside.”

“I didn’t say you looked ridiculous,” he swiftly replied. “Far from it. Even without the dress and the heels and the makeup, you look terrific.”

“Oh, yeah?” She arched a skeptical brow. “Bet you hardly noticed I had legs before I put on this dress.”

He grinned. “Maybe, but now I can’t get them out of my head.”

“You don’t believe in proper, committed relationships, do you?”

He threw her a look as arid as the desert. “If people want to delude themselves, then that’s their problem.”

“And what about Seth and Paige’s wedding? Are you going to try and stop that one, too?”

He clamped his jaw. “No.”

“I see.” Her throat closed up. “I wasn’t good enough for Seth but Paige is.”

“What?” He slowed the car sharply, his face all cut angles in the dimness. “Is that what you think?”

“You can’t deny you tried to break up Seth and me.”

He squeezed the steering wheel. “Okay, I don’t deny that,” he said slowly through gritted teeth. “I thought Seth was crazy to tie himself down to one girl—”

“Oh, how—”

“But I never said you weren’t good enough for him. I told him he was way too young, that he should live a little before—”

“Shackling himself for life?”

He glowered at her, but he didn’t refute her words. “That was then. Seth is a grown man now. He’s old enough to know his own mind and to live by his decisions.”

Her windpipe ached as anger boiled up. “And six years ago you knew enough to make up Seth’s mind for him? Your arrogance is breathtaking. You think you know what’s best for everyone, but you don’t. It may come as a big surprise to you, Nate, but not everyone wants to be like you.”

She halted, breath heaving, appalled at her outburst. Where had all that come from? Nate pulled the car hard onto the shoulder of the road, gravel spitting as he braked. He turned to her, harsh and flinty eyed.

“Is that how you see me?” he snapped.

The confines of the cabin pressed down on them, a cage of glass and steel. Her heart skipped several beats. Why had she gotten so mad at him? Not because of Seth. No, more because of Nate’s opinion of her. She hauled in a breath, appalled by the realization. But it was true—she cared what he thought of her.

The shop door jingled. “Good afternoon, ladies.” Mr. Cummings’s florid voice floated over the top of Ally’s head.

“Hi, Mr. Cummings,” Ally said, still on all fours as she reached for a bar of soap lodged beneath a postcard stand. “I’ll be with you in a moment.”

“I’ve brought someone to meet you, Ally.”

As Ally struggled with the caught piece of soap, a pair of men’s shoes appeared in front of her. Crocodile, hand tooled, expensive. Definitely not Mr. Cummings’s shoes. They were attached to trousers—finest wool, elegantly tailored, citified. Still on her knees, Ally straightened her back and found herself eye level with a slim pair of hips and a thin leather belt cinched around a taut waistline. Her gaze flew upward, past the crisp cotton shirt, silk tie, flawless jacket, and finally clashed with a pair of simmering brandy eyes. Eyes she could never forget.

Nate Hardy. In Burronga. In her shop.

And here she was kneeling in front of him like a penitent, her face practically in his crotch.

“You’ll only be dealing with one tenant,” Mr. Cummings said to Nate. “She rents the store and the apartment above it. Lovely girl. Took over the gift shop after her grandmother couldn’t continue. They’ve been my tenants for ages, and the girl works so hard. Terribly hard. It’s not her fault she’s behind on the rent.”

Nate slowed down. “Excuse me? She owes you money?”

Mr. Cummings started to blush. “Oh, not very much, and she’s good for it, I’m sure. Not that any of this will affect you,” he hurried to assure Nate. “I’ll take care of it with her directly.”

Yeah, but that still meant she was a lousy tenant. Damn. He didn’t want to make a fresh start in Burronga by evicting longstanding renters. Everyone would just shake their heads and say, Well, what can you expect from Nate Hardy? He wasn’t going to fall into that trap, but neither could he support a charity case. If the store owner couldn’t pay her expenses, then she had no right to be in business.

“I’m sure we can work something out,” Nate said smoothly.

“Capital!” Mr. Cummings beamed at him again like Father Christmas.

Nate studied the front of the shop. He’d passed it a thousand times before but had never gone in. THE GIFTORIUM, it said in delicate gold script across the glass. The store window held a tasteful arrangement of the kind of stuff he’d never think of buying. Wind chimes, leaded glass lampshades, embroidered cushions, painted pottery. Clutter, that was all he saw. Dust-collecting clutter.

“So who is she?” Nate moved toward the glass-paned front door. “My new tenant?”

“Ally Griffin.”

Nate’s feet stuck to the pavement. A cold shock ran through him. “Ally Griffin?”

Mr. Cummings gave him a puzzled little frown. “You know her, then?”

“Y-yes,” he managed to choke out.

Ally Griffin. The last time he’d seen her was on her wedding day, when he’d had to tell her there wasn’t going to be a wedding after all. And now she was his new tenant? Oh, shit.