Some Kind of Wonderful (Puffin Island 2)
Page 67
He glanced up and saw Brittany leaning against the door frame watching him.
Given that he’d spent a good ten minutes watching her earlier that morning he wasn’t in a position to complain but this time he kept the eye contact brief. It was a bad idea to use a tool that could remove his fingers and look at Brittany at the same time.
“Something I can do for you?”
“Yes.” She eased away from the door and strolled towards him. “I wanted to talk to you about Travis.”
“Can’t help you with that.” He measured the wood and marked it. “You need to speak to Philip.”
“I intend to.” She helped him steady the plank. “I remember the summer I made a canoe. It used to be one of my favorite activities until it came to put it on the water. I was always terrified it would sink. He reminds me of you, by the way.”
“Philip?”
“Travis. He sits on the edge, as if that’s the only place he feels safe. He doesn’t trust anyone. You were the same.”
He could feel her looking at him as he positioned the plank carefully. “I thought we weren’t talking about the past?”
“I’m interested in what makes people behave the way they do.”
“Maybe you should have done psychology not archaeology.”
“There’s some overlap. It’s my job to ask questions.”
“But not personal questions.”
“No, not personal questions.” She ran her finger along the grain of the wood. “Do you ever think about it? About what happened between us?”
“We both know what happened. You felt sorry for me so you paid me attention.” He lined up the wood and picked up the saw. “You were hot, so I screwed you. I wanted to carry on screwing you so I went along with the whole marriage thing without thinking it through. End of story.” His summary was crude, brutal and fundamentally inaccurate but he was going for effect rather than accuracy.
“You think I felt sorry for you?”
“Didn’t you?”
“No! I mean—” she frowned and searched for the right words “—I was sorry that you’d had a difficult life, but that had nothing to do with what happened between us.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Yes.” Exasperation crept into her voice. “Is that really what you think it was? Everything we shared—everything we had—you think that was pity?”
“I never knew what it was.”
“Why did you think I was interested in you, Zach?”
“Because you wanted to know about sex and you’re the sort who always turns to an expert when they want to learn something. It’s the way your brain works.” It was the reason that made the most sense to him. That and her teenage urge to rebel against everyone’s expectations.
She gave a soft laugh. “The sex was part of it, I’m not denying that.”
“Only part of it?”
“Hey, you’re good but not that good.”
He flicked her a glance and she blushed.
“Okay, maybe you are that good, but for the record arrogance isn’t attractive so your sex appeal has just diminished considerably.”
He didn’t want to think about sex, not right now when she was standing right in front of him with that silky dark hair caught in a careless braid that hung down her back. She was casually dressed, but she’d never looked sexier. He wanted to strip her naked in two moves and drive himself into that lithe softness.
He kept his hands on the saw. “It’s not arrogance, it’s about knowing yourself. Sex and screwing up. You said it yourself. The two things I was good at.”