Rescued By A Millionaire

Back in the water, Jenna watched him. Waiting.

There was no help for it. A man had to do what a man had to do.

‘You realise we’re playing with fire,’ he told her.

‘We’re in water. We can put any fire out.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘No,’ she admitted. ‘I’m not sure of anything. All I know is that I want you.’

‘You…’

‘Shut up, Riley,’ she said softly. ‘Just shut up and kiss me.’

So he did. Finally, tenderly, inevitably, Riley did what he had to do. He bent his face and kissed her.

He’d never known such sweetness. Never. Jenna’s lips welcomed him with joy. Her tongue came out and tasted, piercing him with a desire that filled his entire body. Her hands held, clung-wanted and wanted…

He’d tugged her out of deep water now, so they were able to stand. Their feet were sinking into mud but it left them free to concentrate on each other rather than staying afloat.

Still they kissed. There were no barriers between them now. The barricades they’d built around themselves seemed to have dissipated in the hot night air, disappearing as if they’d never been. It was as if there’d been some silent exchange of vows.

For this moment, we’re one. Pain and separation and the extensions of bleak lives are for tomorrow. For now there’s only joy, and that joy has to be taken and grasped with both hands.

Would that this moment could last for ever, Riley thought, dazed beyond belief. This perfection.

He pulled back and found Jenna watching him, her eyes still wet with tears. Was this woman weeping for him?

‘Jenna, I don’t want to hurt you.’

‘Oh, Riley.’ Jenna ran her hands through his hair and she leaned forward and kissed him again, lightly and with infinite tenderness. ‘Riley, how could you ever hurt me? I love you.’

There. It was out. He gazed at her and saw that she was expecting him to recoil. As he should recoil. But how could he?

‘I could love you, too,’ he murmured.

I could love you.

It was a possibility. That was all.

Yet still, for now it was enough. Jenna’s hands ran through his hair again and again, and she knew there was some deep hurt here. Some hurt that would have to be healed before he could trust.

And if that didn’t happen? If she didn’t have time? If she and Karli had to board a plane to England in a couple of days and never see this man again?

What then?

Then this would have been worth it, she told herself. She loved him and she’d fight with everything she had. She’d fought for what she needed all her life. This might be the biggest fight of all.

‘You are so beautiful,’ he whispered. ‘To make love to you…’

‘Is impossible,’ she whispered back and she made no effort to hide her regret. ‘Not with my little sister in full view. We’ve probably shocked her socks off as it is.’

‘I don’t see any socks-and kangaroos are much more interesting than we are.’ Riley glanced across at Karli and his mouth twisted into a smile. ‘Though that’s not saying we don’t have a very interested audience.’

Jenna blinked and checked for herself. He was right. The cows were lined up on the bank, peering down at them with astonishment. Behind them, the kangaroos had grown in number to about thirty. They’d come to the waterhole for their evening drink, but every kangaroo in the mob was staring straight at Jenna and Riley.

‘We’ve shocked the socks off the animal kingdom,’ Riley told her, chuckling into her hair. He lowered his mouth so he was kissing the nape of her neck. Sensations of pure light were filtering up from Jenna’s toes and flicking back down again, through and through.

She belonged right here, Jenna thought dreamily. In this man’s arms. Wherever Riley was, that was where Jenna belonged.

‘Why are you kissing Jenna?’ It seemed Karli had finally noticed.

Riley pulled away, and with infinite regret Jenna let herself be put at arm’s length

‘Jenna’s worth kissing,’ Riley told Karli. ‘Don’t you think so?’

‘Yeah, but that was a really long, slurpy kiss,’ Karli told them. ‘Do you see the kangaroos, Jenna?’

‘Y…yes,’ said Jenna.

‘Do you want to help me make mud pies?’

‘Maybe we should,’ Riley said, and Jenna could have screamed.

‘In a bit, Karli,’ she told her. ‘When we finish kissing.’

‘The kids at school say you get boy germs if you kiss,’ Karli told them. ‘And babies.’

‘How horrible.’ Jenna laughed, but it was a pretty shaky laugh.

‘And we wouldn’t want boy germs or babies, now, would we?’ Riley said and she winced. There was suddenly distance in his voice. As if he’d remembered something important.

‘Um…no.’

‘Maybe we’d better go,’ Riley said.

‘You mean stop kissing?’ Jenna asked.

‘I think…maybe we’re not being wise.’

‘Are you afraid of how I make you feel?’ she asked-and the whole world held its breath while she waited for the answer.

‘I don’t do emotion,’ he said at last.

‘Why not?’ This was a crazy time and a crazy place for such a conversation, she thought. They were neck-deep in muddy water. Karli had returned to her pie-making, and all around them were cows and kangaroos having their evening drink.

Surely this conversation shouldn’t be so intense?

But it was and they had to see it out.

Riley’s defences were back in place, Jenna thought bleakly. What was going on? What was in this man’s past to make him react like this?

‘You say you love me,’ he said, and his voice was suddenly mocking.

‘I think…I think that I do.’

‘Then you need to do some fast learning.’

‘To learn what?’ Her eyes weren’t leaving his face, and what she saw there made her cringe. She’d fought but she’d lost. His defences were up again and his eyes were bleak and hard.

‘Love’s only another name for present need,’ he told her. ‘It assuages loneliness, and that’s all it does. It doesn’t lock one person to another for ever. Nothing does that.’

How could he say that? That nothing tied one person to another? When she was so tightly bound she felt she’d be ripped apart if she were to leave him.

‘How did you learn that?’ she whispered.

He shrugged, moving back a step in the water. Extending the distance between them. ‘I was a fool. I got married.’

‘Oh.’

He looked down at her then, and his face suddenly relaxed into humour. ‘There’s no need to look like that,’ he told her. ‘I told you. It’s long over. You’re not having an illicit embrace with a man with a wife, six kids and a mother-in-law. Lisa left me years ago.’

Jenna swallowed. ‘Wh…why?’ It was none of her business, but she knew the answer was desperately important.

‘People do. They walk away and others hurt. Like us. If we took this anywhere and then broke up, it’d tear Karli apart.’

She stared up in confusion. He’d moved beyond her. ‘How could that happen?’

‘Everyone leaves this place. No woman can handle the life out here.’

Jenna looked about her-cautiously. ‘If you brought your wife here, then maybe you couldn’t blame her for