Anything But Vanilla

‘Fine, I’ll have a ludicrously oversized black coffee and an ice cream then,’ Kara replied without giving the board much more than a glance.

‘Flavour?’

‘Anything but vanilla.’ She was already regretting the notion of something quite so sweet for breakfast, but she had no idea how far it was to the nearest supermarket, and her stomach absolutely couldn’t wait.

‘My kind of girl.’

Kara jerked her chin upwards, half expecting to find Ric, hands in pockets and sporting an enormous grin. Instead a man with much shorter brown hair stood looking at her. It was the guy from the night before last. ‘Jack?’ She furrowed her brow straining to remember.

‘Zach,’ he corrected

‘Zach, right.’ What the hell was he doing here? When she’d left Zach on the quayside, she hadn’t expected to cross his path again. Doing so made things awkward. It placed certain expectations on them that she hadn’t sought. ‘What are you doing here?’

Zach mussed the long top strands of his hair so that they fell over his brows in a messy tumble. ‘I was going to ask you the same thing.’

Gah! Talk about awkward. Now he probably thought she’d pursued him here and was looking for a repeat performance. Not that he was a bad choice if she was going to contemplate such actions. His appearance certainly lived up to her memory of him, all big-boned and yet oddly wiry. Zach seemed to have been put together by someone who liked strong features, but had no idea about what they actually wanted to achieve. His brows and especially his mouth seemed over-generous for his narrow features, while his nose seemed almost petite. Nevertheless, the result was certainly arresting.

‘Um, my brother just bought Beachcomber’s Barn.’ The actual house name had been handily carved into the front-door lintel.

‘You’re the new occupant?’ His brown eyes widened a fraction, and a ripple of tension seemed to stiffen his limbs. ‘No, I mean that’s great. How are you settling in?’

Kara fluttered her fingers at him in response. ‘No supplies. I thought I’d be able to get some things here, but I guess not unless I want a new wind-chime.’

‘Flavour?’ The girl in the van prompted, thrusting the ice-cream scoop towards Kara. ‘Sorry to hurry you, but there’s a queue. We have cherry, chocolate, mint choc chip, rum and raisin, pistachio, rhubarb, lemon sorbet, toffee or vanilla.’

‘She already said she doesn’t do vanilla, and I can vouch for that.’ Zach flashed Kara a cheeky grin before looking up at the girl. There was an obvious family resemblance. ‘I’m guessing rum and raisin.’

‘Lemon,’ Kara said decisively. She needed something sharp and palette-clearing at the moment.

‘Tart,’ Zach remarked.

The serving girl took no notice, but made an efficient job of doling out the ice cream on to a cone, which she handed over along with the coffee. ‘That’s £4.85.’

‘I’ve got it. It’s on the house.’ Zach settled a hand upon Kara’s arm as she made to delve into her purse, which earned him a look of exasperation from his employee. ‘Whatever,’ the girl mumbled. She turned to the next customer and began talking over Kara’s head.

Kara turned away from the serving window. ‘Your van?’ she asked Zach.

‘Yeah. This and the Bunker.’

She really hadn’t pegged him as the owner of a tat cave, or an ice-cream vendor. He wasn’t dressed in oversized sweat pants and a three-quid T-shirt, for starters. No, he had on a shirt and a pair of beautifully clingy moleskins that made magic out of his thighs and would no doubt set his butt off to perfection. In short, he looked every bit as scrumptious as he’d been the night before last when she’d wanted to lash him to the canal railings and take lewd snapshots of him. The thought of draping him over a rock instead and taking said pictures briefly entertained her, but Kara pushed it aside for the moment. Her muscles still ached from the workout Ric had given her.

A sudden thought briefly entertained her. Maybe she could persuade Ric to give her photography lessons, or take her on as an apprentice, and she could start a new career as … as what – a pornographer? Actually, sticking to happy snaps might be a better idea.

Zach offered her a tight smile, so Kara raised the oversized paper cup in a gesture of acknowledgement. ‘Well, thanks for this.’ She headed to her car in order to eat, feeling just a teeny bit guilty at dismissing him.

Just moments after she’d settled into the front seat with the radio on low, Zach rapped upon her window. Kara wound it down, squirming a little in her seat, then fixed on a smile and endeavoured to be nice. It wasn’t as if she’d say no to a repeat performance with the guy. He was smoking hot. It was just a tad awkward, seeing as she’d fucked someone else in between.

‘Have you met Ric yet?’ he asked, much to her astonishment. Kara gaped at him, knowing it to be a loaded question. Hell, she could see it in Zach’s eyes, and the way he scanned her face searching for an answer.

‘Last night.’

‘Yeah?’ His mouth broadened into a slightly uncomfortable grin. ‘And how did that go?’

Kara spluttered coffee over the dashboard. What sort of question was that? Did he expect her to relate every sordid detail and then cry on his shoulder about the horrible nasty man? ‘It was interesting,’ she replied, once she’d wiped the droplets away with her hand.

‘Yeah, I’ll bet it was.’ Explicit knowledge glittered in Zach eyes, which suggested he knew all of Ric’s quirks and exactly how x-rated her introduction to island life had been. Evidently, her supposition that Ric Liddell tried it on with all the island’s newcomers was right on the mark. Yet, she didn’t detect any sort of censure from Zach. In fact, he continued to smile in a genuine way.

‘Word of advice, not that I especially think you need it, but just so that you’re straight. He’s not for keeps. As long as you realise that, I’m sure you’ll have a great time living here.’

Somewhat embarrassed, Kara grinned her way through another slurp of coffee. ‘Oh, that’s subtle,’ she muttered against the paper lip. She hadn’t particularly intended Zach to hear the remark, but he shook his head slightly, betraying the fact that he had.

‘Believe me. Nothing about Ric Liddell is subtle. He’s sexy as hell, but if you’re after an emotional connection look elsewhere. The guy’s heart is at zero Kelvin. You’ll get more affection out of a barnacle.’ Zach began walking back towards his van.

‘Hey, what about you?’ She couldn’t figure him out. Had that been intended as friendly advice, to warn her off, or to set himself up as a better option? Zach swung around to look at her. ‘Me? I go with the flow, Kara. Best way when your life’s dictated by the tide.’ He jerked a thumb towards the causeway. ‘Catch you later.’

‘Wait up.’ Kara hung out of the car window. ‘How did you know? Did Ric do you your first night here?’

Zach’s lips split into a brilliant smile, which he backed up with a chuckle. ‘I don’t live here.’

‘Oh!’ Now she felt like a fool, and the excitement that had started brewing in her stomach transformed into an odd sort of disappointment. She lowered her gaze to the cobblestones beneath Zach’s baseball boots – an odd choice to go with his clothes – only to find him moving towards her again. He bent down once he drew close. ‘Round the back of the Bunker in five minutes and I’ll show you what he did to me. But only come if you’re game. Otherwise –’ he tapped the side of her head with his index finger ‘– I guess you’ll just have to imagine the scene. You know, two hot blokes, getting a little bit intimate with one another.’ He straightened up, and then shoved both palms into his pockets in order to mooch off back to his business.

Kara watched him go while finishing off her ice cream. What the devil did he intend to show her? All right, fair dos to him, she was intrigued.

* * *

Kara North … Kara North. Zach shook his head. No way was she here. After she’d left him on the quayside with his fly undone he’d hoped they might run into one another again. Actually, he’d fantasised about it. But he hadn’t expected it to happen, especially not here and not after Ric had given her the serfdom speech. OK, so it wasn’t all that much of a speech. Ric tended to go for the more hands-on approach, not that he couldn’t sweet-talk the panties off any bugger he wanted if he set his mind to it. And who could blame him wanting a piece of the delicious morsel that was Kara North, with her pretty blue eyes, quirky smile and absolutely straightforward attitude. Her never-ending legs that disappeared into that tiny skirt didn’t hurt either.

The only galling bit was knowing that Ric had had his hands all over her. Sure, they had an open relationship, sure, he’d had Kara too – first in fact – but it still hurt to put a face to one of Ric’s passing flings.

Zach had been angry last night when Ric had admitted to shagging someone else; now his vexation was doubled on learning it was Kara. Somehow, even when he tried to tug away from Ric, things ended up turning back in that direction. Why her out of countless women? The one woman he’d like to know better and Ric just happened to have shagged her too. He ought to walk away from both of them and find someone altogether less capricious to pin his dreams on.

That probably made what he was about to do doubly stupid, but he was sick of giving in to Ric. If he couldn’t have Ric, then Zach was definitely going to have Kara.

He kept his pace relaxed as he headed back to the Bunker, not wishing to give off any revealing vibes to his blessed pain in the arse of a sister whom he’d been blackmailed into giving a job. Heather worked all right, the problem was that it left him with time on his hands, as there simply wasn’t space inside the van for two servers, and crap-all ever happened inside the Bunker. Sure, people came in and had a quick nosey about and picked up bits and bobs, but he did all the sales from out of the ice-cream van. The upside, he supposed, was that no one would bat an eyelid at him taking a mid-morning stroll. ‘Going off for a bit,’ he called to his sister, before ducking inside the Bunker and going into the storeroom for the necessary supplies.

The wind had dropped over the last hour, and it was gearing up to be a bright, sunny day. Zach followed the rocky coastline that the tide exposed when it went out, and then took a sharp left in order to weave back inland so that he’d end up behind the Bunker. The tourists stuck to the obvious paths and picnic spots, so he could guarantee seclusion back here. In essence the spot was little more than a blanket of ferns wedged between two ravines, but the sun normally managed to find it, whereas the wind didn’t.

Zach settled his back against one of the rock faces and rolled up his shirt cuffs. One thing he had learned from Ric was to always be properly prepared, that way you weren’t left cleaning up a mess when you ought to be enjoying a nice post-coital flush.

Mere moments later, Kara followed him into the dell. She glanced around, and then came forward with her hands raised, a position he rather liked as it caused her top to ride up and reveal a sliver of her midriff. Zach never quibbled over a show of skin. He wasn’t fussy over which bit, just as long as some was showing. He did like women’s ankles though, something about their shape, particularly in high heels.

Kara wasn’t wearing heels today, just a modest pair of deck shoes. They were the most sensible item on her. God, she was so wonderfully curvy and so totally inappropriately dressed it made him want to weep with joy. He didn’t think it had even crossed her mind that a short skirt and a titchy top weren’t exactly the best combo for stumbling about a rock in the English Channel.

‘OK, tell me. What did Ric Liddell do to you the first time you met?’

He loved that she was all business. It saved on the small talk. Zach pasted on his best butter-wouldn’t-melt expression and made an act of coyly nibbling one fingernail. ‘Let’s see. He cooked me dinner, and got me a wee bit tipsy on his excellent malt whisky.’

‘Yeah, and then,’ she prompted, edging a little closer to him, not so that they were touching, but close enough to scream intimacy to a casual observer, ‘I got my own whisky T-shirt.’