She's So Over Him

Cale picked up the bottle and dumped a healthy amount of Merlot into his glass. He lifted it in a salute and a smile pulled the corners of his mouth up. ‘She won a dinner with me at a bachelor auction. Longest three hours of my life. I saw the question in your eyes.’

‘Ah.’ Maddie’s eyes laughed at him over the rim of her own glass. ‘She’s very… um… sexy.’

‘Very… except that I’m not sure how much of it is real or out of a silicone tube,’ Cale said, placing his elbows next to hers on the railing.

She could feel the heat from his body, smell his soap, citrus and Cale-scent mixing with the brine from the sea.

Cale pointed his glass at the new catamaran and whistled. ‘What a boat.’

‘It’s new. At the marina, I mean. It docked today.’

‘It’s new in every sense. Twin screws, dual engines—obviously—and its finer bows give it a nearly forty-five-foot waterline.’

If he said so, Maddie thought, not having a clue what he was talking about. ‘I have no idea what that means,’ she admitted when he looked expectantly at her.

Cale grinned. ‘It significantly improves the up-wind and overall sailing ability of the yacht.’ He sipped his wine.

‘Didn’t you sail somewhere once?’ Maddie wrinkled her nose, trying to remember.

‘When I finished my Masters, I was sick of studying, so Oliver and I sailed a cat from here to Zanzibar. It was the start of two years of travelling. I’ve never been so physically scared or thrilled before or since—and that’s saying a lot because, well, I was Oliver’s twin.’

Mad Oliver and his many crazy escapades. ‘That is saying a lot. What happened?’

‘We hit a cyclone off the Mozambique channel. Crazy winds, crazy waves…’

‘Crazy Oliver.’

‘Yeah. He whooped and hollered his way through it. We nearly capsized a dozen times, and didn’t sleep for two days straight, but it was a hell of an adrenalin rush.’

In his eyes she could see the flicker of pain edged with laughter. She knew about the devastation of loss, and instinctively knew that Cale had visited more than one level of hell since his twin’s death.

‘I really am sorry about Oliver.’ Maddie heard her breath catch in her throat. Funny, wild, crazy, impetuous Oliver.

‘Yeah. Me, too.’ Cale took a healthy sip from his glass and nudged her with his shoulder.

Maddie opened her mouth but stopped when Cale briefly placed his hand on hers.

‘It’s been a really long day. Can we not talk about him?’

Maddie nodded and stared out at the ocean.

‘Please tell me that you don’t tend bar for a living.’ Cale broke the silence.

‘No, during the day I sell crack and turn tricks.’ Maddie grinned when he sent her a look of resigned amusement. ‘After we split up I worked here weekends for the rest of my time at uni. I still help my friends out if they’re short of staff or if I’m bored. I don’t normally work this long; usually they let me go home a lot earlier.’

‘It’s very late to be driving home.’ Cale glanced towards the parking lot and she could see his protective streak rise to the surface.

‘I don’t drive. I walk.’

Cale straightened, and this time he looked genuinely horrified. ‘You what? Are you insane? Do you know what could happen?’

Maddie laughed. ‘Relax, Grandpa.’ She nodded at the three-storey block of flats just across the well-lit parking lot. ‘Third floor—my flat.’

Cale tugged on a long curl that lay on her shoulder. ‘Stop winding me up,’ he complained, without any heat.

‘But it’s so much fun!’ Maddie topped up her glass and held out the bottle to Cale, shrugging when shook his head.

‘So, apart from your less than legal pursuits, how do you pay for a flat in one of the more upmarket areas of the city?’ Cale crossed his arms and rested his glass against his bicep.

Sexy arms, Maddie thought. What would he look like with his shirt off? Images from long ago flashed in her head. A wide chest, lightly covered in crisp blond hair, strong shoulders—and did he still have that washboard stomach? Her eyes brushed over his lower mid-section and drifted across his slim hips. Oh, yes, it was still there…

Whoah, boy—chemical reaction.

Maddie hauled in her breath, shoved an agitated hand into her hair and counted to ten. Then she counted to twenty, frantically thinking that she might have to go to two thousand and sixty-two to get her heart-rate under control.

Damn him… If he ever gave up his day-job he could hire himself out as a defibrillator. Huh! That was a pretty impressive word for—she glanced at her watch—twenty to one in the morning.

‘Earth to Maddie?’

Maddie was jerked out of her thoughts by Cale tugging on the curl again before allowing it to fall off his finger.

‘You took quite a mental side trip. What were you thinking about?’

Your muscles under my hands…

‘Cardiac arrest and defibrillators.’

Cale’s eyebrows lifted in surprise and he scratched his forehead. ‘I’d forgotten about your weird thought processes.’

‘You always said that I had a mind like a grasshopper,’ Maddie agreed. ‘It drove you crazy.’

‘Newsflash: everything about you drove me crazy.’

Maddie’s glass stopped halfway to her mouth. She silently cursed when Cale turned his face away, leaving her with a very good view of his strong neck. What, for the love of all things bright and beautiful, did he mean by that? Was he joking? Being serious? Sarcastic? Unfortunately his neck and the back of his head didn’t give her a clue.

Cale didn’t give her a chance to respond. ‘How are your parents?’

‘Uh… fine.’

‘And your grandfather Red? How is he?’

How could he ask her that? Why would he ask her that? He had to have heard that Red had passed on… didn’t he?

Maddie bit her lip. ‘You don’t know?’

‘That he eventually ordered that Russian mailorder bride he wanted?’ Cale asked, his voice teasing.

Maddie stared at him. God, he really didn’t know. The mind simply boggled.