In the Boss's Arms. Barbara Hannay
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I frowning?’ Alice deliberately relaxed her face. ‘I was thinking about us,’ she admitted.
‘And that makes you frown?’
‘Not really. I was just wondering—’
‘If we should have sex again now or after our coffee?’ Liam supplied with a grin.
Smiling, Alice shook her head. ‘Actually, I was wondering if we’re better at physical intimacy than we are at every-day conversation.’
Liam grinned again. ‘We haven’t had much chance for every-day conversation.’
‘No, we’ve gone about this backwards.’
‘You think so?’
‘Well, normally when a man meets a woman…’ She hesitated. ‘Mind you, I’m out of touch when it comes to dating. Maybe it was only in the Dark Ages that people went out for some time and got to know each other before they—’
‘Leapt into bed?’
‘Yes.’
Liam set his mug back on the little table beside the bed. Her foot was near his knee and he casually wrapped his hand around it. ‘We can always back up a step or two and try the getting-to-know-you part. Although I already know a lot of important things about you.’
‘You think so?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘What kinds of things?’
His long brown fingers played with her big toe. ‘You like green.’
Alice rolled her eyes. ‘And how relevant is that to a relationship?’
‘It’s vital. I might hate green.’
‘But you don’t, do you?’ She regretted the hopeful note that crept into her voice.
‘Green’s fine with me, but that’s only because I have a very liberal attitude to colour.’
‘Does this liberal attitude allow you to have a favourite colour?’
He thought about this and smiled. ‘I’m quite partial to white.’
‘White?’ She grinned. ‘Is that because you’re a Virgo?’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps…’
She was about to tease him, but changed her mind when she realised that his smile had turned cheeky and he was paying rather obvious attention to her white top and white silk and lace pants.
‘Now,’ said Liam, playing with her next toe, creating ripples of warmth that swam up her leg. ‘I know you’re only recently divorced.’
‘Yes…well…that’s not my favourite topic. If you like we can skip over that one.’
Liam watched her thoughtfully for a moment.
She didn’t want to think about Todd now, when she’d been feeling so peaceful and happy.
‘You started this, remember?’
‘You’re worlds apart from him, Liam. In every way. In all the best ways.’
He accepted this without comment, although she was sure she saw his neck redden. He moved on to her next toe, circling the ball of it with his finger tip. ‘You spend far too much time reading in bed.’
‘You know that because you saw the pile of books in my bedroom. Not fair. You have an advantage; you’ve been to my house.’
She wriggled her foot in his hand and he tightened his grasp. ‘I didn’t realise this was a competition.’
‘It’s not a competition. It’s just that…’ She sat up, chewing her bottom lip as she struggled to find the right words for the niggle of disquiet inside her.
‘I still feel as if there’s too much I don’t know about you.’
‘Ask away. What do you want to know? You want me to start with my blood group?’
Letting out a noisy sigh, she slumped back on the pile of pillows. ‘Don’t make a joke of this, please.’
He let her foot go. ‘OK. I can see there’s something bothering you, so why don’t you get it off your chest?’
The cabin and the surrounding bush seemed incredibly quiet as he waited for her.
‘Can I trust you?’ she asked.
She could see immediately that her question upset him.
‘I would hope so, Alice. What makes you doubt it?’
‘Well…’
There seemed to be a shadow in Liam’s past that bothered her, but the feeling was so tenuous she couldn’t be sure and it would be nosy to push him when they’d only just met, so she took a more obvious route. ‘There’s the business about Shana.’
His mouth pulled into a guilty grimace and then he reached for her foot again and with his thumb he rubbed her instep. ‘OK, confession time.’ He stroked her skin ever so slowly.
Did he have any idea what that did to her?
‘You’re dead right. I wasn’t completely honest. But you see, when I first asked Shana to come on this trip and she said she couldn’t I was really pleased. It meant I had a genuine excuse to ask you.’ He lifted her foot and dropped a warm kiss in the curve of her arch. ‘You were the right person for the job.’
There was a sound of knocking on the cabin next door, the cabin assigned to Alice. She stiffened and tried to pull her foot from his grasp. Was someone looking for her?
Liam ignored the knock. ‘All along it was you I really wanted,’ he said.
‘I—I see.’ She supposed she should still be angry with him. Problem was, she knew now that she liked being wanted by Liam Conway. She liked it very much, thank you.
There was another knock, on Liam’s door this time.
‘Coming,’ he called, and he dropped one last kiss on her foot before crossing the room to answer it.
He didn’t open the door very wide, but Alice caught a quick glimpse of Noreen King holding a cane hamper.
‘I’ve brought your meals,’ she said.
‘Oh. Wonderful. Thanks very much.’
‘I knocked on Alice’s door, but there didn’t seem to be anyone around, so is it all right if I leave her meal here with you?’ There was no mistaking the curiosity in her voice.
‘Yes,’ said Liam. ‘Yes, that’s fine. I’ll pass it on to her.’ Then he remembered to ask, ‘Do you have any news from the flying doctor?’
‘Oh, yes. They said Joe’s making a good recovery. And he’s been singing your praises to anyone who’ll listen.’
‘He should be singing Alice’s praises. She’s the one who attended to him.’
After Liam had thanked her again for the food, he closed the door and came back into the room. ‘I’d say we’ve been sprung.’ His tell-tale smile suggested that he didn’t mind at all. ‘Now, let’s see what we have to eat. I’m starving.’
Alice wanted to keep their conversation going. Liam had only just started to open up. She wanted to know so much more about him. And at some point she knew she should probably tell him about her problems with infertility.
But Liam was already opening the hamper and she realised that she was hungry.
‘Smells fantastic,’ she said.
They fell on the hamper with the eagerness of children scrambling for cookies after a long day at school. They found a bottle of red wine, a selection of cheeses, freshly baked bread rolls, a crisp green salad and a wonderfully aromatic