Australian Escape: Her Hottest Summer Yet / The Heat of the Night

But they did exist. And had taught him valuable life lessons. That things like this always ended. That advance bruise he felt behind his ribs was a good thing. Because this time he knew what was coming. This time it was in his control.

“Hull?” Avery said.

Yanked from his trance by the hitch in Avery’s voice, Jonah looked past her to find Hull, not at the Jeep, but at the edge of the river, pacing back and forth so close to the edge his paws kept slipping into the water.

“Hey, boy,” he called out. “No panic. We’re back safe and sound.” But Hull’s whimpers only increased.

Jonah leapt off the boat the second he had it tied off. But instead of coming to sniff his hand Hull bolted to the Jeep, big paws clawing at the doors.

Flummoxed, Jonah looked to Avery, who hopped off the boat behind him and shrugged. He didn’t know anything about dogs. He’d never had one as a kid—his father had never been home enough for it to be possible.

Jonah eased up to the dog, asked him to sit, which he did, which crazily made his heart squeeze. Then he ran gentle hands down Hull’s legs, over his flanks, under his belly, checking to see if he might be hurt. Red-bellied black snakes liked water. Hull was tough. He’d survived being dumped. Survived where his brothers and sisters hadn’t. He’d be fine.

“He doesn’t look hurt to me,” said Avery behind him. “He looks like he’s pining.”

“What?”

Avery’s mouth twisted, then her eyes brightened. “Do you think he’s found a lady friend?”

Jonah spun on his haunches, ready to shoot her theory down in flames. “He’s three. A little over.”

“That’s twenty-one in dog years.”

Jonah thought of himself at twenty-one and rocked back on his heels. “Aww hell.”

“Unless of course he’s neutered.”

Jonah winced. “Hell, no!”

“Well, then, if your dog has knocked up some poor poodle, it’s as much your responsibility as it is theirs.”

“He’s not my dog.” But even as he said it he remembered the way he’d run after Hull into the forest the night before, panic like a fox trap around his chest. Thoughts catching on the burr of how blank his life would be without Hull in it. “You really think that’s all it is?”

Avery snorted. “When the impulse can no longer be denied...”

Jonah’s eyes swung back to the woman behind him. Her eyes liquid from the bright sun. Her clothes askew. Her skin pink from his stubble rash. Living proof of impulse no longer denied.

He looked back to his furry friend. “Hull.” The dog looked up as he heard his name; all gentle eyes, wolfish profile, wildly speckled fur. “You missing your girl? Is that the problem?”

Hull licked his lips, panted, and Jonah swore beneath his breath. “What am I going to do with you, mate?”

Avery made snipping sounds that had Jonah clenching his man bits for all his might.

He whipped open the car door, and with a growl said, “Get in.”

Hull leapt first, Avery followed.

Jonah took the keys back to the operator waiting in the hut, gave him Tim’s card, and explained his man would get the lawyers together, then jogged back to the Jeep where a hot blonde and a hot-to-trot canine awaited him.

And he wondered at what point his well-managed life had gone to the dogs.

NINE (#ulink_a8ac206b-fe4a-5723-82ec-ad4239fb33bb)

Halfway through an early morning run up the beach path, Hull at his ankles, Jonah pulled up to jog on the spot. In the far distance he spied the ice-cream van that lived permanently on blocks in front of one of the dilapidated old beachfront homes that housed a half a dozen happy surfers.

Not that he felt like a half-melted ice cream. It was the blonde leaning into the thing that pulled him up short. Long lean legs, one bent so that her backside kicked out behind her, fair skin that had taken on the palest golden glow, long beach-waved hair trailing down her back.

Gone were the huge hat and fancy shoes that had been Avery’s hallmark when she’d first arrived. In their place she wore the odd little fisherman’s hat she’d picked up on Green Island and rubber thongs the local chemist sold for two bucks a pair. But the wild swimwear was all her—this one was strapless, the top a marvel of modern engineering, the bottom barely anything but a saucy frill that bounced as she lifted onto her toes to talk to the ice-cream guy who was now leaning out of the window, grinning through his dreadlocks.

And there but for the grace of God went he. Once upon a time he’d been one of those surfers who sat on that same porch, doing not much at all. It sounded nice in theory. Truth was it had been nice, and for a good while. Until it hadn’t been enough.

Now he tried to carve an hour out of his work day every few weeks for a paddle, the way this kid no doubt carved an hour out of his surf time to put in an appearance at the dole office. The same kid who had all the time in the world to chat to a pretty tourist. And for the first time in years Jonah wondered who really had the better life.

Avery’s laughter tinkled down the beach, and adrenalin poured through Jonah as he took off at a run.

She’d been in his bed near every day for the past week. Staying over more nights than not. And even while it was just a fling, Dreadlocks over there needed to know he wasn’t in with a hope in hell. It was only neighbourly.

In fact “just a fling” had become somewhat of a mantra around his place, during those moments he found himself wondering when next he’d find her sitting at his kitchen table, draped in one of his shirts, one foot hooked up on a chair, hair a mussed mess as she smiled serenely out of the window at the forest-impeded ocean views beyond.

Unlike Rach, who’d set her treadmill up in his office, a small TV hooked to the front of it so she could watch the Kardashians, Avery soaked every moment in. Whether it was sitting on the jetty at Charter North watching him tinker with a dicky engine or on a bed of sketchy beach grass on Crescent Cove beach throwing a stick to Hull. She’d immersed herself in Crescent Cove.

Watching the cove through her eyes reminded him why he’d worked so hard to work himself back into the fabric of the place. And how little time he spent savouring it. What was the point of living in the most beautiful place on earth if you never even noticed?