Men In Uniform: Taken By The Soldier: The Soldier's Untamed Heart / Closer... / Groom Under Fire

Romy settled both fists onto her hips. ‘Am I getting paid for this?’

It was Clint’s turn to look confused. He blinked at her.

‘If you’re about to give me some skills-development training? Is this on the clock?’

‘Romy…’

‘Don’t tell me how to raise my son!’ Her voice echoed through the little gully. Frogs and birds flew for cover in all directions.

Clint kept his cool. ‘When you say you’re not going to ask again and then you ask, Leighton wins. He’ll remember. And he’ll use it in his next combat.’

‘This is not a war. This is a family. My family.’ At least, she was working damn hard to keep it that way.

‘Sometimes there’s no difference. It’s the same psychology.’

‘I prefer a different kind of psychology. One based on love and compassion rather than threats and punishments.’

His laugh was genuine. ‘Let me know how that works out for you.’

‘He’s an eight-year-old child, Clint. Not a soldier.’ Just like she’d been.

‘Last time I checked, only one of us has been an eight-year-old boy. Trust me on what works for them.’

‘Trust me on what works for my son.’

He held her gaze, breathing in and out calmly. ‘Love and compassion has made Leighton the boy he is. He’s a great kid. But he’s going to start pushing your buttons more and more. Stretching you. Testing you. Trying to dominate you. I recognise the signs.’

She turned to follow her son up the hill. ‘That may be what you were like but it’s not Leighton.’

‘It’s all boys, Romy,’ he called after her. ‘It’s imprinted on us. We’re built to try to take charge.’

She spun around. ‘If you are so fired up about parenthood why don’t you sire a brood of your own? Go bully your own kids.’

He sprinted up the steep slope in three easy steps and swung around in front of her, halting her with a hand on her shoulder. ‘Managing your son does not make you a bully.’

She shrugged her shoulder away and glared. ‘Well, badgering me makes you one. And I think there’s a bunch of workplace laws that protect me from that.’

He dropped his hand and ran it through his thick hair. ‘Romy. I’m not trying to get under your skin—’

She stalked off, around him. ‘You do not get under my skin.’

Liar.

‘I just want to help you,’ he called after her. ‘Use some of what I’ve learned over the years.’

She turned back around and glared at him from the actual—and moral—high ground. ‘Well, Sensei, this little grasshopper is not interested in your wax-on-wax-off wisdom. Thanks all the same.’

He swore as she carried on up the gully, and then shouted an order after her. ‘We’re still on for tomorrow afternoon.’

She just held up an angry hand and scrambled, shaking, up the path to safety.

‘Ready to go?’

After a night of angry stewing and then a day of having to force her mind to stay on the job, Romy was more than ready. The faster they got started, the faster she’d be back home. She turned to where Clint stood in her doorway. ‘I’m not sure this qualifies as afternoon any more. It’s closer to evening.’

‘I thought I’d stay out of your way while you were working. You looked busy. Besides, you need to see this near dusk to appreciate it.’

He’d watched her working? How, when all her senses were finely tuned to any sign of his arrival? Then again, he was trained in stealth.

‘Do I need anything?’ She glanced around her spotless kitchen.

‘Nope. Just yourself.’

Out of habit, she grabbed her rucksack and locked the house behind them. Country or not, she would hand in her security licence before she’d leave it open to anyone passing, even with Leighton out for the night at Cameron’s. Clint waited patiently by his ute until she was done securing her home.

Her plan to remain detached and disinterested lasted about twenty-five seconds. The sight of all six foot four of him leaning casually against his vehicle waiting for her excited her pulse.

Relax, it’s only a drive. Not looking at him would make this much easier. She climbed in and fixed her focus out the front windscreen. ‘Where are we going?’

‘We’ve had reports about trafficking activity in the area. Cockatoos and reptiles. I wanted you to see WildSprings’s roosting sites so you know what to be watching for.’

‘This is about the Customs memo?’ She had received a copy as well. ‘I didn’t realise it affected us here.’

‘It might not. But it’s about cockatoo theft and we have one of the best feeding sites of red-tails in the region. And some nests. That makes us a target.’

Romy snapped straight into work mode. ‘So this is precautionary?’ She glanced at him from the passenger seat and noticed a dark bruise twisting around his throat. It looked nasty. Her muscles tensed. ‘What happened to you?’

His hand automatically rose to the mark, then waved it off. ‘Sporting injury.’

Oh, really? ‘What kind of sport does that to you?’

His attention flicked from the road to her, then back again. ‘Deep caving.’

Romy stared. Exploring the abundant natural pores of the earth in the south-west of Australia was a particularly dangerous pastime. Every now and again the caves took payment in the form of human lives. Her stomach fluttered. ‘You can’t watch the footy like the rest of Australia?’

Clint smiled. ‘I like football. But I love caving. There’s something about the silence. The darkness. Going somewhere virtually no-one else has been.’

The heart-stopping danger. ‘You can stand in the bush and get dark silence.’

‘Not quite the same.’

‘What other questionable pastimes do you have?’

‘I own a good movie collection and I’m learning to love paperback mysteries.’

‘Hmm…and when you’re not escaping into popular culture?’

He stared at the road ahead, holding out.