Falling for Mr. Mysterious

He should deny it now. Tell her the truth. Hell, just looking at her in her simple jeans and Alex’s striped apron, Jude was fighting off desire so strong that it startled him. He was surprised that Emily could stand there in the same room and not be aware of his screaming lust.

Thing was, it should have been dead easy to set her straight. How hard was it to make a simple statement? By the way, Emily, I’m not gay.

All things being equal, he would have told her. Immediately. No problem.

Except … there were other factors at play here. Emily was enjoying a kind of immunity in this apartment, but if she knew the truth about him, she was likely to pick up on the attraction he felt. For all kinds of reasons, that was a bad idea.

Her trust in men had taken a severe hammering and she’d come here seeking sanctuary. Feeling safe was very important to her right now, and Jude didn’t want to upset that. This apartment offered her time-out. From men. Time to pick up the pieces after her recent relationship disaster. The last thing she needed was an awareness of a new guy with the hots for her.

Just as importantly, Jude knew he was totally crazy to entertain randy thoughts when he’d come to the city to find out what the hell was wrong with him. He needed a medical diagnosis, not a romantic entanglement with the first gorgeous girl who walked through the door.

All things considered, it was much easier and safer to simply let Emily assume that he was gay. After all, she wouldn’t be here for long, and he—

Hell. He had his life on hold until he knew what the future had in store for him.

When Emily woke the next morning she felt marginally happier. She’d slept quite well during the night, no doubt because she’d gone to bed feeling thoroughly relaxed after a pleasant evening at home with Jude.

They’d enjoyed a leisurely meal, which Jude had complimented lavishly, and then they’d sunk into comfy armchairs and read novels in the pleasantly heated lounge room while CDs played softly in the background. It had been rather cosy and undemanding, the kind of evening she’d often spent with Alex.

Now, having dressed in jeans and a sweater because she didn’t want another comment about angels and nightgowns, she wandered into the kitchen at almost nine o’clock. It was the longest sleep she’d had in ages. No wonder she felt better.

To her surprise, there were no signs that Jude was up. The kettle was cold, which meant he’d either made his cuppa long ago, or he hadn’t bothered.

She made coffee and blueberry pancakes and assembled a breakfast tray, as she had on the previous day, then knocked softly on Jude’s door. After all, bringing him breakfast was the least she could do when he was hard at work and generously sharing his living space with her.

He didn’t answer to her knock, which was another surprise. She wondered if he was in some kind of artistic frenzy, typing madly as the clever words flowed straight from his imagination through his fingertips and onto the keyboard. He might be very angry if she interrupted.

Then again … he’d welcomed the breakfast she’d prepared yesterday. She knocked again, less cautiously this time.

There was a muffled growl from inside.

‘Jude, would you like coffee and pancakes?’

At first he didn’t answer, but then the door opened slowly and Jude leant a bulky shoulder against the door frame. He was wearing black boxer shorts and a holey grey T-shirt that hugged his muscly arms and chest. His eyes were squinted as if the muted light in the hallway was too bright.

His dark hair was tousled into rough spikes, his jaw covered in a thin layer of dark stubble, but it was the glassy strain in his eyes that told Emily he was in pain.

‘I won’t bother with breakfast this morning,’ he said dully. Then, added as an afterthought, ‘Thanks, those pancakes look great, but I’m not hungry.’

‘Are you unwell?’

‘Headache.’

‘Oh, gosh, I’m sorry. Is there anything I can get you? Do you need aspirin? Camomile tea?’

A ghost of a smile flitted over his face and he started to shake his head, then grimaced, as if the movement was too painful. ‘I have medication. Don’t worry, I’m used to this. I’ll hit the sack for an hour or so and then I should be fine.’

Clearly, Jude didn’t want to be bothered by any more questions, so Emily tiptoed away, leaving him to rest, but she felt disturbed and worried. She’d experienced guys with hangovers, but Jude hadn’t been drinking, and he’d said he was used to these headaches. How awful for him.

A pool of morning sunlight on the balcony beckoned, so, feeling unaccountably subdued, she ate her breakfast at a little wrought-iron-and-glass table, with Thorn in the Flesh propped against a pot plant. She finished the last two chapters while she ate.

Jude’s story was wonderful. Not only was there a fabulously thrilling chase at the end to catch the bad guys, but there was also a lovely and poignant romantic finale for the deserving hero and heroine. She marvelled that a gay man could portray the male-female emotions so perfectly.

There was only one problem. When Emily put the book down, she came back to earth with an abrupt and unhappy thud. Her own romances had never finished happily. Every one of them had ended suddenly and miserably, leaving her to feel like The World’s Greatest Romantic Loser.

She couldn’t help wondering if there was something crucially wrong with her personality. Some genetic defect that caused her to always fall for the wrong man.

All she wanted, really, was to be like her parents, to find one person to love, one relationship to feel safe inside. She’d grown up watching their warmth and affection and she’d listened many times to their story of how they’d met at a country dance and married young, never regretting their decision.

Even her brother Jack had been lucky in love. He’d married his high school sweetheart, Kelly, a girl from a nearby farm. There’d only ever been one girl for Jack, and now he and Kelly were ridiculously happy.

Emily’s family made finding love look easy, and yet she’d tried so many times and failed. Now, she punished herself with memories, starting with Dimitri, the dark and ruggedly handsome Russian choreographer at the ballet school in Melbourne.

Having taken advantage of her youth and naivety, Dimitri had promptly dropped her overnight when he took up with one of the stars of the Australian Ballet. Emily had taken almost a year to recover from that heartbreak.

Back home in the Wandabilla district, she’d met Dave, a nice, safe farmer, and this time she was sure she’d struck gold. She would marry and live on a farm near her family, and she could envision her happy future so easily.

Dave had been as different from Dimitri as possible—practical and rough around the edges, and not the slightest bit interested in ‘culture’. She’d been happy to swap satin pointe shoes and the barre for tractors and cow manure.

But Dave’s first love was rodeos and, eventually, he’d taken off on the competition circuit, travelling to all the outback events. He’d expected Emily to throw up her job and follow him, but she wasn’t prepared to do that, she’d realised, much to her own surprise.

In western New South Wales, Dave had discovered Annie, a camp-drafting champion who shared his passion, and his phone calls to Emily had stopped.

After that, Emily had thrown herself into her work. She’d attended workshops on customer relations and marketing, and any other professional development programmes that could boost her up the corporate ladder.

When she’d dived into the dating pool—unsurprisingly, it was rather shallow in Wandabilla—she’d set herself strict rules. No longer would she be so trusting and open, and she wouldn’t allow herself to fall in love again until she met a man who ticked all the right boxes. Following her new plan, she’d never gone out with any one fellow more than a few times, and she was determined from then on that she would be the one who ended her relationships.

She had been feeling quite confident again. Before Michael had arrived in town.

Conservatively good-looking, intelligent and charming, Michael had been perfect. Emily had learned from her mistakes, however, and she’d resisted his attention at first. Michael had chased her with flattering persistence and, in the end, she’d decided he was genuine in his admiration.

And surely he was safe? He wasn’t a foreign artist or an outback drifter. He wasn’t even a local. He was a geologist from South Australia, prospecting in the Wandabilla district for a mining company.

Admittedly, Michael was only in her district for six weeks at a time, but he flew back regularly, and he always wrote to her or phoned her while he was away.

In time she was confident that he was The One.

After all, weren’t geologists clever and educated, and as solid and dependable as the rocks they studied?

What a joke.

Emily let out a long groan of frustration. And pain.

Losing Michael hurt. So much. Her pain went way beyond disappointment. She felt betrayed, used and foolish, as if she hadn’t gained one single jot of wisdom since Dimitri. And, even though she was the innocent party, she felt guilty that she’d slept with someone else’s husband and father.

She could too easily imagine how deeply Michael—no, Mark’s—wife loved him, could imagine how hurt the other woman would be if she ever found out.

Emily’s sense of gloom dived even deeper when she returned to the kitchen and saw the blinking light on her mobile phone.