He twisted his fingers until they were held together by the lightest touch, so that he could navigate an easy way for the two of them through the wide, empty aisles between sporadic tables.
He looked over his shoulder at one stage, caught her eye and smiled again. Trapped by the genuine pleasure in his gaze, Siena couldn’t help but smile back, her cheeks growing pink and warm like a school girl with her first crush.
Once they hit sunshine he put her big hat back on her head and tucked her hand through his elbow once more, drawing her against his warm body, and this time he left his hand curled over hers. His strong, callused, sublimely warm hand.
I am leaving tomorrow! she screamed inside her head when he turned back to face the front. That was all she had to say. Saturday afternoon I will be on a flight to Melbourne and I have no immediate plans to return soon, if ever. But somehow she couldn’t get the words to form on her tongue.
Because she’d had a nice time. A really, genuine, honest-to-goodness nice time. Talking, connecting, debating, retreating, learning interesting snippets about another person, a person who kept her on her toes and made her feel all warm and yummy and interesting and good, and encroaching on issues one would never usually get to on such a short acquaintance.
But maybe it was the fact that she would be leaving the next day that made it all happen so fast. They didn’t have time to ski
rt any issues.
And for all her friends the world over, the casual gentlemen with whom she wined and dined and talked superficial gossip, from elegant Gage to cheeky Raoul, the sky girls who could go days without sleep so they could get the most out of a New York layover, she felt as though if she added every fabulous outing together it would never add up to as much warm satisfaction as she had taken out of this irregular little lunch.
In the future, if she was in need of a happy place to go to in order to settle her nerves when frustration kicked in, this would be it—palm trees, colourful shops, blue skies and a warm arm to hang on to.
By the time they reached the Kuranda Skyrail station, she had almost convinced herself that maybe James could be her Cairns friend. If she came back here every now and again, maybe they could make it a habit of going out for coffee in weird and wonderful local haunts. It would be fun! More than fun; it would be lovely.
But then snippets of his blog came swimming back to her like pieces of her own conscience.
There are days when the thought of going outside the front door leaves me in a cold sweat.
A guy who had got himself all dressed up to take her out for a cup of coffee wasn’t looking for fun, even if he had convinced himself otherwise. He wasn’t even anywhere close to looking for lovely. Whatever he was looking for, she didn’t have the capacity to give it to him.
After a quiet, reflective trip back down the mountain to Cairns they again reached the pile of tyres at the front of Rick’s Body Shop.
Siena pulled James to a halt. There was no way she wanted him taking her inside under the beady eyes of her brother. ‘Okay, so this is me.’
James nodded, his eyes unreadable as he looked over every inch of her face. ‘Good luck with your interview,’ he said. ‘I hope the news is good.’
But she knew from the glimmer in his eyes that his idea of good was pretty much the opposite of hers.
‘Thanks,’ she said. Her natural restlessness tickled at her toes. The fact that this was goodbye made her even more fidgety than usual as she bounced on the balls of her feet.
A slight smile warmed James’s serious face, then, without warning, he leant into her. Pure instinct took over as Siena stopped all semblance of bouncing and her eyes closed as she sank into the sensation of his warm smooth cheek against hers. His hand curled around her waist for balance. Hers fluttered to rest against his solid chest.
‘Thanks for coffee, Siena. I’ll see you again soon,’ he murmured, his deep voice humming against her ear, causing skitters of sensation down her whole right side.
His lips pressed against her cheek, burning an imprint she feared no amount of scrubbing would make disappear, and then he pulled back.
After one last keen look, as though he was committing her face to memory, he turned and walked away, leaving Siena feeling as if she wasn’t quite sure if she could remember how to put one foot in front of the other to get where she needed to go.
CHAPTER SIX
‘SO HOW was your big date?’ Matt asked, through the flywire screen he was busy cleaning, as James came through the front door of his Apple Tree Drive home.
James all but jumped out of his skin. ‘Don’t do that, mate! Seriously!’
He threw his keys on to the hall table and continued through to the kitchen, where he buried his head in the fridge though he wasn’t quite sure what he hoped to find in there other than a place to hide from Matt.
But, alas, that wasn’t to be. Matt’s head appeared over the top of the fridge. ‘Don’t leave me hanging.’
‘It wasn’t a date, Matt,’ James said, reaching for an apple he didn’t really want. ‘I just met her for coffee to thank her for patching Kane up yesterday.’
‘You could have fooled me, Jimbo. What with the jacket and all, if I didn’t know you were meeting with her, I would have thought you were off to a day with the investors.’
James looked down at his outfit. ‘You’re imagining things.’