Happy Mother's Day!

‘What was that all about?’ he asked, walking her to his car as she hadn’t been able to convince him he had no need to drive her home. ‘Waking up every day?’

She leant against the passenger door of his dark sedan and crossed her arms. ‘Nothing important,’ she said, more than glad he hadn’t come looking for them any earlier than he had.

He sauntered over and leant against the car beside her, mirroring her stance, folding his arms and half-smiling back.

‘So?’ he said.

‘So,’ she repeated, willing herself not to blush beneath the warmth of his gaze, ‘this afternoon has been … educational.’

James watched her but she had no idea what he was thinking. She had barely known him long enough to be able to read his verbal language much less his body language. Though, for some reason, all through the sausages and bread he’d been acting like the cat who’d caught the canary.

It had left her feathers feeling ruffled. That decisiveness, that straight stare, the constant half-smile—she found that side of him utterly sexy. Strong. Masculine. And attractive as hell. And she too hadn’t been able to keep her own smile off her face all afternoon.

Though she thought that the conversation with Kane had had as much to do with her unbelievably high spirits as anything else.

There she had been, in her father’s old room, the place in which the hardest memories of her short life had taken place, and she had been stronger than she had ever thought herself able to be. She’d had to be, for there had been someone else in that room who had needed her to be.

‘You could stay,’ James said, and Siena was torn from her heroic daydreams.

She waited for him to finish his sentence and, in the silent moment that stretched on, she thought perhaps that was all he was planning to say and her heart swelled. Literally. She could feel it filling her chest until she could barely breathe.

But, after a pause, he added, ‘For dinner.’ And her expectant heart deflated back to its regular below average size.

‘Nah,’ she said. ‘I don’t think so. It’s my last night here and I really ought to spend some time with Rick’s family. Especially since I don’t know when I’ll be back again. If I do take the Rome gig it might be a while. A really long while.’

Not in the least put off by her assertion, a flicker of warmth lit his eyes and then he reached out and tucked a stray curl behind her ear. Siena could not stop the ragged sigh from escaping her lips.

‘So why not stay?’ he repeated, his deep voice gentle and personal and completely distracting. And this time Siena was in no doubt there would be no qualifier to his statement.

He was suggesting she stay, stay. In Cairns. For him.

Siena felt breathless and full of oxygen all at once. But, before she had the chance to frame a thought, much less a response, James leaned across and kissed her.

In the split second before their lips met, Siena half-expected James’s kiss to be timid and wary. Sheepish, even. So far as she knew, she was the first woman he had kissed since meeting his wife several years before.

But when their lips at long last touched, his were warm, determined and sure. He knew exactly what he was doing. And Siena ended up the one who felt nothing but shaky.

Her body wilted against the hot car.

Her eyes drifted closed.

Pretty soon she felt more than just shaky. Pretty soon, as his kiss deepened, as she realised that there was nothing in the least bit carefree and unprompted about it, she felt tender, fluttery, adored and cherished and as though a fire had been lit beneath her toes.

She felt more alive and more scared than ever before. She felt as if she had stepped into a lift shaft to find the lift was in fact not there. She was in free fall, but she knew that James would be there to catch her in the end with his strong, creative hands.

Though neither of them moved from their position side by side, their arms crossed, a foot between her warm melting body and his, Siena had never felt more intimate with a man.

James was communicating so much tenderness and hope and effortless sensuality to her that every last concern she had about him, about home, about family, about love, melted away. She wished with all her might that those creative hands were on her. Touching her. Teaching her. Holding her.

Nothing mattered in that moment but James. James’s lips. James’s warmth. James’s strength compared with her own mounting weakness. James’s desire for her to stay—despite her inexperienced heart and despite what she had thought had been an all-consuming love for his son.

As though he had heard the thought echoing in her cotton wool filled mind, James pulled away.

Siena leant towards him, continuing the kiss as long as possible.

She sighed in disappointment as his lips finally left hers. Her unusually heavy eyes flickered open, expecting to see some semblance of guilt or surprise in James’s eyes.

But he was simply smiling. Really smiling. His grey-blue eyes were jewel-bright. His mouth kicked open to show a set of neat white teeth which would do just fine in any toothpaste commercial. And the crease in his right cheek that had threatened to show itself again and again now came out in full force. It was as though he finally had something private and wonderful in his life worth smiling about.