Falling for the Rebel Heir

‘Kendall,’ a dismembered voice said from somewhere to her right. She walked gently so that her clodhopper boots didn’t echo through the lofty entrance.

She soon found Hud in a large room, backlit by bolts of light angling through several arched windows with their gold velvet curtains drawn back. Thankfully he’d added a clean T-shirt to his ensemble. If she’d had to sit there with him shirtless she wasn’t quite sure she’d get through the morning without bursting a blood vessel or two.

She spied her hemp laptop bag at Hud’s feet just before he blocked her view by whipping a large white sheet from a piece of furniture between them. Great swathes of dust came away with the fabric, bathing him in a hazy golden light, haloing his dark curls.

‘No need for all this fanfare,’ she said, then cleared her throat when her voice came out a tad ragged, which had nothing to do with the dust. ‘I’m used to much more simple conditions. I usually work at a second-hand Formica desk beside the kitchen. Or, if Taffy kicks me off the big computer, then with my laptop on my lap in front of the TV.’

Hud curled the sheet into a ball and placed it beside a couch that looked as if it had only just been brought back out into the sunlight for the first time in years itself.

‘That table is second-hand too, you know,’ he said, turning suddenly to face her and catching her staring.

Kendall quickly dragged her eyes away from his and to the table to which he was referring. Bevelled edges, Queen Anne legs, antique as all get out. She looked back at him with a raised eyebrow. ‘I’d hazard a guess my Formica number was never named after, and certainly never owned by, royalty.’

‘You probably have me there.’ He watched her for a further few seconds, a gentle smile warming his face. She gave into a sudden need to breathe deep.

Then, easy as you please, he turned away and she rocked back on to her heels as though he’d had his finger curled into the front of her tank-top and had finally let her go.

Kendall plonked on to the velvet-backed chair behind the makeshift desk, knees together, back ramrod straight, still holding on to her swimming bag, not quite sure what she was expected to do while he set to, pulling more sheets off all the furniture in the room. It did look more welcoming when he was done, and made her feel less like they were little kids trespassing. One less tension to worry about.

Eventually Hud stood surveying the room, hands on hips, chest pushed forward, dark eyes flickering over every detail like a soldier casing an enemy camp. ‘So, this Taffy…’ he said, catching her unawares. ‘That can’t be little Taffy Henderson, can it?’

She blinked and let her pool bag drop to the polished wood floor at her feet with a swoosh. ‘Ah, yeah. Though she’s not so little any more.’

He shook his head. ‘I was sure she would have been living in New York by now, treading the Broadway stage. She was always a little drama queen.’

Kendall laughed out loud despite herself. ‘Ah, no. She is the receptionist for the local accountants.’ After a pause she added, ‘She saves the drama queen antics for when she’s at home.’

His gaze swung sideways to engage hers. A matching smile lit his eyes. Her stomach lurched, skidded and fell over backwards with a splat she felt reverberate through her whole body.

‘Lucky you,’ he said.

‘You have no idea.’

‘So she’s your…’ He let the thought carry on the air between them.

‘Friend. I rent a room in her house. We’ve known one another since we were in high school together. She was a couple of years above me. The rest is a long story.’

‘I have nothing but time,’ he said, ambling towards her.

Her head tilted higher the nearer he came. He was backlit, the hard planes of his face in shadow. And once again she felt a warning thump in the back of her head. Only now she knew it had nothing to do with the fear that came from being alone with a stranger in a secluded place. It came from finding herself alone with him.

‘I used to date her cousin,’ she said, so distracted she didn’t even feel the words until they spilled from her mouth.

Hud’s brow furrowed. ‘Another local? Would I know him?’

‘No,’ Kendall said, running a hand up the back of her neck to negate the sudden tightness constricting her muscles. ‘We all went to school in Melbourne. Taffy stayed with George’s family during the week and his family lived near mine. Anyway, I have about half a dozen articles due back at the paper by three, and a swim to fit in between, so…’

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Sorry. I’d completely forgotten that’s the reason you’re here.’

She slid her battered old laptop from its case and with it her ubiquitous red notebook. She turned on her laptop, balanced her fingers over the keys, half the letters long since worn away, and purposely didn’t look at Hud any more.

But, after several drawn-out moments, she couldn’t help herself. Something about this place seemed to have her checking her will-power at the border of the pine forest.

She looked up to find Hud standing in the middle of the room, one hand on his hip, the other running up the back of his neck in a mirror image of her recent action, as though something heavy was bothering him too. His bicep strained against the cotton of his T-shirt, pale denim hung just so off lean hips, and he looked at her. Worse, he looked into her.

As though the well-built, well-tended, protective walls that normally kept her safe from a return of any kind of emotional disorder into her life were to him as transparent as cellophane. As though he knew the half a dozen articles she had due back to The Northern News weren’t the reason why she wanted to get on with their deal and quick.

She was here because she was drawn to him. But whether it was to his sad eyes or his beautiful face she had no idea. Either ought to have kept her strapped to her desk at home instead of sitting here becoming more and more familiar with every tempting facet, for both were so enticing she wasn’t sure quite how to escape their pull.

She let her wrists slump against the table and the breath she let go was juddery and hot, as if it had been pent up inside her for an eternity. Her skin began to itch as if a rash were crawling up her arm, as she waited for him to say something, to tell her what he saw. And her head spun as she tried to think of ways to not answer him.

‘So,’ he said, his hand dropping until his long arm rested at his side, ‘if you’re comfortable there, I’m happier to walk as I talk. Okay with you?’

Kendall licked her dry lips. She would have been more comfy on the couch by far, feet on the coffee table, laptop warming her thighs, but that would have put her nearer Hud and his sandalwood scent and that would have been tantamount to giving the guy the sledgehammer to knock down her walls for good.

‘Fine with me,’ she said.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Then let’s go ahead and get this thing done.’

This thing, Hud repeated in his head. As if getting the story of the last two months of his life out of his head and down on paper was some kind of distraction getting in the way of other things the two of them could be doing together.

But this thing was the reason he was here. While she was the distraction. No doubt about it. All that dewy skin and those great big eyes and complex personality were enough to keep a guy like him—a guy with an infamously short attention span—interested.

Over the years he’d found women the world over who were happy to be distractions to a man who wore his inherent resistance to settling in one place like a second skin. Somehow, more often than not, they sought him out rather than the other way around. As though a friendly ear and a warm pair of arms could get many an aimless soul through the night.

But he knew instinctively that this woman was not like the others. She wouldn’t take being a distraction lightly. Giving into such urges would only be taking advantage. Which he had to tell himself over and over again while she sat there, looking up at him expectantly, eyes dark against her pale skin, believing she was part of something bigger than just the slaying of the monsters inside of his head.

He began to pace. Trying to find a beginning point, a way in. For now he actually had to say the words out loud to begin to get this thing—this great, dark, hulking shadow hovering over his future like a storm cloud waiting to burst—out of him and through her. Not his most brilliant scheme ever, though when an excess of hormones became involved most men could be said to be less than at their prime.

Kendall slowly sucked her lips between her teeth and her hands fell to cradle the edges of her laptop. ‘Once upon a time is a tad clichеd,’ she said. ‘I was born has already been taken. But anything else would suffice.’

‘Thanks,’ he said, shooting her a wry smile. And deciding that perhaps the walking thing wasn’t helping. He sat on the couch, grabbed a velvet throw pillow, punched it a few times and tucked it into a corner of the couch before lying down and using it as a pillow. But then he felt far too much like he was on a psychiatrist’s couch.

He sat up, clasped his hands so tight around his kneecaps his knuckles turned white and figured he may as well start the day it happened.

‘Colombia,’ he said, the word shooting from his lungs as though it had to pass through an obstacle course. He closed his eyes and breathed through it, doing his all to control the images already starting to crowd in on him.

Bad idea. Bad idea, his subconscious chanted. Then, Just be a man, and do it.

He looked across and noticed that, while Kendall’s right leg was stretched out comfortably in front of her, she was kneading her left thigh. Her expression was absent-minded, her brow furrowed.

‘You okay?’ he asked, happy for the interruption.

She looked up. He motioned to her leg.

And then, quick as a flash, she straightened her skirt, a twin to the one from the day before, only this one was the colour of caramel, then folded both legs back beneath her. ‘All good,’ she said with an easy smile. ‘Keep going. So far it’s riveting. I can only hope the rest can live up to the promise so far.’

‘Smart alec,’ he said, but what he thought was, Be careful what you wish for…